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Google Assistant/Alexa sonos one pair left and right


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I have both Alexa and google assistant integrated into my house. I’m disappointed that there doesn’t seem to be a way to set up a stereo pair of Ones with one speaker doing Alexa and the other doing google assistant. It fits with what was described as one assistant per speaker. This would also solve the problem of both speakers in one room going off at the “Alexa” or “hey google” wake work. I currently mute one of the two mics because of this repeatedly happening. Would be nice to be able to use the other speaker with the mic muted for google assistant. Am I missing something?
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Best answer by Airgetlam 15 May 2019, 00:21

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They're a stereo pair, i.e. one "room". You can have one assistant per "room".
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I unfortunately found out it is one per “room”. But that’s not what all the press and even Sonos has said. I could list more but here are several examples including the sonos press release.

Sonos press release
“The Google Assistant is Sonos’ second built-in voice assistant. Customers on Sonos will have the ability to choose an assistant for each individual speaker, with multiple voice assistants on a single system.”

CNN
“Each Sonos speaker can only have one assistant active at any given time, but owners will have the option to set up their devices with the assistant of their choosing.”

The Verge
“You can choose either Alexa or Google Assistant for each individual Sonos One or Beam in your system.”

Gizmodo
“Again, you can’t use both Alexa and Assistant on the same speaker at the same time, but you can assign different Sonos smart speakers to work with different voice assistants.”

Words mean things. The Sonos press release does not say each individual “room.” It says each individual “speaker.” So do all the other press releases.
I'm sorry that you feel you've been cheated. I wasn't trusting press, or marketing, I was trusting logic, and what was released today.

Logically, a Sonos "room" is a single signal, with the left speaker getting the information, and passing it on to the right as necessary. It doesn't make any sense to me to have two separate streams of commands/connections going on.

Obviously, you disagree. I can respect that you feel misled. I can't change the way the system works for you.
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I unfortunately found out it is one per “room”. But that’s not what all the press and even Sonos has said. I could list more but here are several examples including the sonos press release.

Sonos press release
“The Google Assistant is Sonos’ second built-in voice assistant. Customers on Sonos will have the ability to choose an assistant for each individual speaker, with multiple voice assistants on a single system.”

CNN“Each Sonos speaker can only have one assistant active at any given time, but owners will have the option to set up their devices with the assistant of their choosing.”

The Verge
“You can choose either Alexa or Google Assistant for each individual Sonos One or Beam in your system.”

Gizmodo
“Again, you can’t use both Alexa and Assistant on the same speaker at the same time, but you can assign different Sonos smart speakers to work with different voice assistants.”

Words mean things. The Sonos press release does not say each individual “room.” It says each individual “speaker.” So do all the other press releases.


I was on my way here with the same complaint. The press release definitely lead me to beleive I'd be able to run both Google and alexa on my livingroom Surround setup that included two sonos ones.

One article (although I can't find it now) that was written after the CES demo actually went as far as specifically saying you could run each speaker with a diffrent assistant in a stereo pair.

I notice that when I switched my livingroom setup to google assistant just now it only added the assistant to my left surround and disabled the mic on the right. I see no reason I shouldn't be able to run alexa on that other speaker.
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Sounds like this is something Sonos wants to fix but hasn't come up with a solution for.
It's odd that Google Assistant only works with one speaker. In the "Help & Tips" section in the Sonos app it says that Google Assistant only works with one of the two speakers in a stereo pair. Would be nice to use Alexa on the other.
Also would be nice if Sonos were clear in their own press release that you could only have one "Voice Service" per room, not per speaker as they say.

And to Bruce, I don't feel like I've been cheated. You're never cheated when you get new features for free. It's just disappointing that you can't use both in a room with separate speakers. And it's more disappointing that Sonos can't be clear/accurate about it in their own press release. Their own press release being wrong leads to the multiple tech articles being wrong as well.
Understood. Hopefully someone from Sonos will pick up on your thoughts as expressed in this thread, and make the appropriate corrections to their own literature. I'll have to admit, from my experience with the press, I have very little hope that their own reporting will be corrected.

Personally, I wouldn't hold out a lot of hope to have both assistants on a stereo pair, but my understanding of the way the system works may be faulty. I certainly wouldn't mind if it was possible. 🙂
I have a stereo pair of Ones in the kitchen, running Alexa. In the GA app, I named them Kitchen Sonos. From any Google device, I can voice command them by asking to play something on Kitchen Sonos. They still respond to Alexa.

So, just get one of the little Google Dot-equivalents, and you can have both assistants in one room.
It's technically feasible. Based on the feedback here, I might have encountered some sort of bug state. When I added GA to my stereo pair, it only removed Alexa from one of them. I can speak to GA on one and Alexa on the other.
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This is frustrating, I'm in the same boat. I have a beam and 2 sonos ones in my bedroom and mute the mics on the ones, using the beam for alexa. I was hoping I could put Google assistant on the ones as well and all the press had lead me to believe I could.
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Is it possible to:
add a speaker to your network;
add Alexa voice services to it;
add another speaker;
add GA to it;
add them as surround speakers to the room

or will that break everything?
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That's what I'm wondering from what other people have said with GA only going to one speaker initially. I'm going to try splitting my room, adding GA to the one's and then grouping back together
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Nope, GA works when they're just a pair of ones. As soon as I join them back to the beam, they don't work with GA.