Google assistant functionality is awful

  • 16 November 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 938 views
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Moved into a new house and had enough of the budget left to buy myself a Sonos arc. Fantastic. Wanted one since they were announced. Coupled with the fact Spotify were giving out free Google home minis and myself and my partner managed to get a hold of two of them on the back of two accounts, we had the makings of a pretty cool home set-up.

 

Using the Google home mini is a dream. Commands are understood and carried out (albiet with a little too much vocular waffle for my taste but whatever) and the range of functionality is impressive. 

 

Throw the arc into the mix and oh my lord. What a worthless peice of shite the assistant becomes. I have more luck getting my 1 year old son to follow my requests. Considering the price of Sonos products (and don't get me wrong in terms of sound quality it's worth every penny). The lack of support for Google assistant is shocking especially as you can pay extra for the Sonos one specifically for voice commands. Not having any Google products you could be fooled into thinking that it's Google that's the issue here. However, when using the two in tandem the problem is obviously Sonos. 

 

Now not having complete Google functionality is fine. Understandable even. But most basic music functions are met with either an error message or more infuriating, complete silence. Changing the loudness flat out does nothing. Shuffling playlists just hasn't been added yet (despite the fact you can do it on the home quite easily), moving music from one room to another worked yesterday but inexplicably doesn't work today... I could go on.

 

The question is, are these issues going to be resolved any time soon? Or is it worth selling my mini's and opting for an Alexa set up? It's  more infuriating that there's nothing wrong with the Google assistant and I'm enjoying using Google yet as soon as I try anything on my favourite and most costly device I'm met with the dribbling moron that is Sonos Google.

 

Any advice appreciated.

 

 

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2 replies

106rallye
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

This doesn’t help you, but when Google Assistant works less well on a Sonos device than on a Google device, and in my experience is does indeed work less well, though not as bad as it seems to do with your system, there’s no telling if it’s Sonos or Google that’s doing a bad job……..

You might want to call Sonos to talk about the problem though, because GA seems to work a lot better on my system than it does on yours.

JamesDan
Userlevel 4
Badge +6

This isn’t your fault. And I don’t think it’s Google’s fault either, since their speakers work like a dream compared to Sonos, including many third party speakers with Google Assistant.

This is clearly Sonos’ fault, as harsh as it might sound.

I’ve been trying to use Google Assistant on Sonos ever since it launched, and it’s basically unusable. And not being able to shuffle music using voice commands is just laughable. And there not being a separate alarm volume. And the Assistant simply not responding or throwing out error messages and alike. And everything is just so slooow. And no voice ducking when using a Sonos speaker with a Nest Mini for instance. And the list goes on.

Complaints about all this have been going on for yonks and Sonos doesn’t do a thing.

If you’re looking to buy a Sonos speaker for sound quality alone and multi room audio it’s a fine choice, no question. But if you’re thinking about buying a Sonos One for instance because of the great sound AND the voice assistant capabilities you’re better off looking elsewhere.

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