Expanded support for "radio mixes" within collection and better support for commands

We (here) have all grown to heavily love the ability to say “Alexa, tell Plex to play [Artist Name] Radio” to pull a random mix of artist and like-artist music from the collection. This feature is so incredibly useful and threatens the likes of Pandora and other services we find ourselves using less, in preference of using Plex instead.

  1. I know Google Assistant support is a lost cause until Google opens up the support to allow Plex to bring access to the platform. This is unfortunate, but it doesn’t mean the ability can’t expand in other ways.
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    It would be nice to be able to trigger “radio” mixes from content within the Plex library from Plex itself. Say, you have a laptop or a phone hooked up somewhere for the purpose of playing music (or, especially, an Android phone hooked up via BT in the car). It would be amazing to somehow access this ability through means other than just Alexa. I know, I myself, would be using the feature constantly if I could use it everywhere. Maybe building it into the playlist section so that you can create a playlist that triggers a random radio mix of a specific artist each time the specific playlist is accessed.

  2. It would be nice to see better support for commands. Or at least more accurate commands. For the moment, you seem to only be able to trigger radio mixes within your collection by specifying artists with very decipherable names (like Pink Floyd, Linkin Park, Black Eyed Peas, etc). However, simple band names like “Rush” and “Yes”, as well as some odd ones like “Eminem”, don’t result in success. Alexa will just get confused and say she didn’t understand the command.
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    We think that digging into to really take advantage of this feature across multiple platforms and scenarios, and with greater success with various band names, it would really send some of these other platforms running with their tail between their legs. Or, at least give them a reason to start fearing Plex as a self-hosted competitor.

According to the related support article you should already be able to trigger a “radio”. Have you tried any of these commands?

Yes, but might not have read the text. I am referring to 1) Expanding outside of Alexa with the radio mix support and 2) enhancing the support for what’s there as many bands won’t work for whatever reasons.

So your 1st point is for a dedicated voice command solution built right into Plex (w/o using Alexa, Siri or the likes)?

Not necessarily. I left it quite open. It could be as easy as building the feature into playlist management that supports “radio” mixes of a specific artist vs manually building a list one by one. Building Plex its own built-in voice assistant/command feature would be overkill. Plex just needs a way of triggering/pulling radio mixes from the various apps or web-player. Save voice commands for digital assistants like Alexa.

(I updated the OP to include this as an example to hopefully make the thought more clear) :sunglasses: