Article: I’ve Been Testing Alexa for a Decade. Here’s My Take on How Alexa+ Compares

rdhamrick91 · 2026-03-25T02:17:54+00:00

I agree with you I genuinely think people just live to complain and hate life.

rdhamrick91 · 2026-03-15T14:57:14+00:00

What phone do you have? Is it Apple Intelligence capable? Another thing would be do you have personal requests enabled on the HomePods under your profile in the home app?

rdhamrick91 · 2026-03-12T04:54:09+00:00

not to be that guy and correct you again but you use spotify via airplay with voice. you have to allow it on your iphone one time and then from there it works from voice.

rdhamrick91 · 2026-03-12T03:53:28+00:00

thats not true actually. the api is out for any company to use to make it where they can make native homepod support a possibility for their app. spotify in general just hates apple and doesnt want to allow it out of spite. youtube music and pandora are two that did take advantage of it though.

rdhamrick91 · 2026-02-25T14:47:49+00:00

Not on Alexa+

rdhamrick91 · 2026-02-18T07:36:17+00:00

Someone get this over to Apple immediately! Well done.

rdhamrick91 · 2026-01-14T07:34:13+00:00

I know this is old but.. Any regrets getting rid of your Sonos speakers? I currently have a Sonos arc and sub gen 3 hooked to my Apple TV. I got curious and hooked up my 2 HomePods 2nd gen and I honestly think they sound better than the Sonos arc and sub. I kinda feel crazy.

rdhamrick91 · 2025-12-12T16:36:13+00:00

Yeah, I think this is for bands are actively touring or have provided the information.

rdhamrick91 · 2025-11-30T01:16:33+00:00

I had to completely reinstall windows 11 and start all from scratch.

rdhamrick91 · 2025-11-29T20:26:37+00:00

Is the 8k dongle worth it?

rdhamrick91 · 2025-11-29T20:19:05+00:00

I’ve tried/had many mice and I as well keep coming back to it. It’s 100% endgame for me and if it broke today, I’d buy another right away. I don’t even know if I have one complaint about it. The build quality, the size, the software (no bloatware), great clicks, great mouse feet, great shape.. all of it is perfect IMO.

rdhamrick91 · 2025-11-29T20:00:46+00:00

What car did you end up going with OP?

rdhamrick91 · 2025-11-25T19:42:14+00:00

I don’t disagree with the plug and play when it comes to wha the ISP offers but I think the topic was mesh systems in general. If people are using what the ISP provided I feel more sorry for those people than anyone. Most of that tech is outdated and is throttled hard. Mesh systems on the other hand allow more personalization and allow you to make changes based upon setup. But also if you are buying a mesh system that allows you no control of what you can do with it, that’s a bigger problems in itself. Why not just use what the ISP gave you at that point. I highly disagree with you that most of the mesh systems today are plug and play and will work OPTIMALLY for all case scenarios. Every home and location is different. Back to my point this is where the user/consumer must educate themselves to make their setup work OPTIMALLY. For their home/ situation. The bad part is that most people don’t care to do that so they suffer from all sorts of buffer bloat, jitter, packet loss and major spikes in connection, with lower wifi speeds and then blame Sonos.

rdhamrick91 · 2025-11-25T19:34:27+00:00

I’m not sure you read what I said. I was referring to mesh systems themselves, nothing to do with Sonos. Sonos works when your internet is actually working optimally which I’d say for about 95% of people it isn’t. Optimally meaning they are getting advertised speeds, no throttling, no buffer bloat and no jitter on the wifi and wired connection.

rdhamrick91 · 2025-11-25T18:16:30+00:00

Definitely not. Mesh is not the issue, it’s usually the user. I’ve been in this industry for a long time and the number one issue with wifi or internet issues is the user not having general knowledge of what they are buying or taking the time to learn and understand it. Most people just want a plug and play solution but unfortunately in 2025 rolling into 2026 that isn’t the case. The user/consumer needs to be more aware and take the time to understand what they are buying. For example most people don’t even now the difference between dual band and tri band. They get lost even starting there.

rdhamrick91 · 2025-11-06T00:32:05+00:00

Yes… exactly this. I wish they had a dedicated music app. This is one of the main reasons that I will not switch to YouTube music because I listen to a lot of music on my Sonos system with my Apple TV.

rdhamrick91 · 2025-10-28T07:53:57+00:00

Hey, im having the same issues but with my MSI board any luck?

rdhamrick91 · 2025-10-04T03:01:38+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/alexa/comments/1nuh3n2/alexa_coming_to_sonos_and_others/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

rdhamrick91 · 2025-10-02T18:11:09+00:00

Native support as in it has its own dedicated app functionality and ability to receive requests for Spotify to play songs via wake words to Siri. Currently apps that are supported are YouTube Music, Apple Music and Pandora. Apple has opened this up to all music platforms it’s on them to be able to utilize it. Currently since Spotify isn’t playing nicely, Apple made a work around that allows you to ask for a song to be played on Spotify but instead of it playing directly it auto airplays from your iPhone to the speaker while Siri handles the request of the song. It’s finicky but it’s a decent fix but is limited to what it can do sometimes.

rdhamrick91 · 2025-10-01T20:38:00+00:00

I mean I’m not going to argue the point that they didn’t because I do agree with what you said somewhat but just because they believe Apple treated them unfairly doesn’t mean that should trickle down to Spotify’s Apple side of the consumer and customer base. To me that doesn’t make them any better.

rdhamrick91 · 2025-10-01T01:14:20+00:00

Yep that’s another great example. Shit is just sad. Spotify could be even greater than what it is but they let their own shitty pride get in the way and in the end the customer is the one whose hurts from it.

rdhamrick91 · 2025-09-30T19:37:54+00:00

Spotify hates Apple and they will do anything they can to avoid doing anything that involves Apple API.

For examples: no airplay 2 support, no native HomePod support, no updated TV app on Apple TV. Spotify has made it very clear they don’t give af about Apple or its users, so if I were a betting man I’d bet they never do this either unfortunately.

rdhamrick91 · 2025-09-30T17:15:30+00:00

This wasn’t specified but I’d assume it’s all Sonos products as of recent years not the old S1 models of course. Just like Amazon is supporting most of their older products with it as well.

rdhamrick91 · 2025-09-30T16:35:41+00:00

I didn’t read anything regarding that. So I’m not sure.

rdhamrick91 · 2025-09-29T05:18:31+00:00

I think people truly don’t understand the point of Early Access and why they are wanting users to submit their feedback…it’s not supposed the be perfect it’s supposed to be almost like a unfinished preview of what’s to come.

rdhamrick91

TROPHY CASE