Problems with audiobook voice control interoperability on smart speakers

Telling your smart speaker to play one of your audiobooks seems like an obvious use case.

And indeed it is supported.  But with vendor-specific lockin only.  Each vendor will only let you voice control audiobooks from their own store.

I'd like to see the library tech community do an interoperability lab test for voice control of audiobooks on smart speakers.

UPDATE 2024-01-12: See updated post Audiobooks on Smart Speakers in 2024.  END UPDATE

Amazon smart speakers

The Amazon voice assistant Alexa can control audiobooks on Amazon smart speakers (e.g. Amazon Echo), but for Amazon Audible only (Amazon owns Audible).

See Audible (an Amazon Company) - Voice Commands for Listening on Alexa Devices.

Google smart speakers

Google's voice control is called Google Assistant, and it can control audiobooks on your Google smart speakers (e.g. Google Nest or Google Home), but for Google Play audiobooks only.

See e.g. Listen to audiobooks on your Google Nest speaker or display and Google Assistant Help - Listen to audiobooks.

Apple HomePod smart speakers

Information below for iOS 17 / iPadOS 17 / HomePod 17.

UPDATE 2023-10-25: Siri on HomePod does support playing audiobooks from Apple Books, if you have Personal Requests enabled.

See blog post Using Siri to Play Audiobooks on HomePod using Personal Requests.

END UPDATE

The situation with the Apple HomePod is even stranger, as it does not currently have any built-in Siri support for playing audiobooks from Apple Books.

It currently only HomePod also supports voice control of Apple Music and Apple Podcasts.

Oddly, you can use Siri to CarPlay audiobooks in your car no problem though.  See Play audiobooks with CarPlay.

Sonos smart speakers

Sonos supports three voice assistants: Sonos Voice Control, Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant.  This would seem like an awesome way to have multiple services available together, just distinguished by saying Hey Sonos, Hey Alexa, or Hey Google.  But that's not how it works, you have to pick one assistant and that's the only one that will be active (I can't see any technical reason why this should be the case, but it is).

However, on Sonos the voice assistants can't control audiobooks.  So you can connect your Sonos to your Amazon Audible account, but you can't use Amazon Alexa to control the audiobooks (again, there is no technical reason why this should be the case).

See How can I listen to Audible using the Sonos app?

Audible with Alexa integration is not currently compatible with Sonos devices.

Similarly, you can't use Google Assistant to control audiobooks on Sonos either.

A nonsensical mess

This is a nonsensical mess.  These services should all just interoperate.

Libby, Spotify and Audiobooks.com

There are other major sources of audiobooks, including OverDrive Libby used by most libraries, Spotify audiobooks, and Audiobooks.com (I think Audiobooks.com is owned by Storytel, it has had a chain of corporate owners).

SIDEBAR: If this looks like a diverse market, the underlying source for most audiobooks is Amazon Audible.  END SIDEBAR

As far as I can tell, there is no support for voice control of Libby or Spotify audioboks.

Audiobooks.com does have an Alexa skill with a long but reasonable command string e.g. "Alexa, ask Audiobooks dot com to play my book" but I assume this only works on Amazon smart speakers.

UPDATE 2023-10-03: TuneIn Premium also has audiobooks.  END UPDATE

September 2023 - Apple HomePod 17 "Third-Party Music Services"

Apple has just, as in just this month in HomePod software version 17, released support for Siri integration with "third-party music services", by which it means anything other than Apple.  This is basically a standard way for Siri to start and control an AirPlay session from an iPhone or an iPad (I don't know if it would work from an Apple TV or a Mac).  It requires iOS 17 / iPadOS 17.  In essence Siri gains the capability to run what are currently manual steps of launching an app on a device, then selecting the content you want to play, and then selecting AirPlay to your HomePod.

Technical Details - SiriKit Media Intents

Apple puts the onus on the apps for "third-party services" such as Audible, Google Play, Libby, Spotify and Audiobooks.com to code support for Siri audiobook control.  This is done using Siri Media Intents.  I found it was clearly explained in the Apple WWDC2023 session Integrate your media app with HomePod (video).  There is specific support for podcasts and audiobooks.

This is actually a good standardized API to make a universal experience across different services.  One can hope that the other services will add this support. 

Technical Details - Personal Voice Recognition

Unfortunately, depending on AirPlaying from a device means that Apple has to be able to tell which device, and to know that you're authorized to play content from that device.  This means that you have to enable what Apple calls Personal Requests for HomePod, a service that requires Recognize My Voice to be enabled.

This means e.g. you won't be able to ask HomePod to play content for someone else, I don't think there is a concept of other authorized users.  If I understand how this works, if your grandfather wants to play audiobooks from his iPad, only he can request it from HomePod (which is also going to make setup and testing more challenging).

HomePod 17 - Whither Apple Books?

It seems like Siri should be able to play Apple Books directly on-device without the elaborate hoop-jumping of AirPlay to an iPhone or an iPad, but at a minimum one would expect Apple Books to be a demonstration of support for the SiriKit Media Intents needed to play audiobooks. 

UPDATE 2023-10-25: Apple Books will indeed AirPlay audiobooks now.  See my blog post Using Siri to Play Audiobooks on HomePod using Personal Requests.  END UPDATE

Prior to HomePod 17, the only option was to use Apple Books with the Shortcuts app.  For authenticated users, Siri will play shortcuts on the iPhone or iPad by exact name match, and shortcut matches have first priority (over-riding even built-in Siri commands).  See iOS 17 - Use Siri to run shortcuts with your voice.

---

Crossposted to Science Library Pad.