Alexa, Sonos, and the Next

It seems that Sonos might be gearing up soon to release An Alexa powered speaker, at least according to Forbes. This seems like it will be a similar direction by all high end audio speaker makers over the coming years.

Beyond listening to loud music in a listening room or having a record release listening party (yes, I know this doesn’t happen any more), being able to instantly request and listen to music satisfies an itch even more quickly than humming a tune.

How might it be possible to make that experience even better?

At least two ideas come to mind:

1) Shorten the song. I admit that around minute five into Hotel California, I get bored — especially if I’m doing work to music. If there were an ability to sense when when I was getting tired of a song and just skip to the next one, that could enhance focus.

2) Pick the next song for me. Weight the order of my playlist based on my likelihood to not manually press next. Maybe this is in accordance with my mood or some other inputs.

Adding visuals or configuring lighting based on the song might also be helpful or increase audio listening pleasure.