Hi there,

I’m getting quite frustrated by the amount of "Sorry, I don't know how to help with that yet" and other various apologies or no response from Google Assistant on my Sonos One (gen 1) when trying to play music via Spotify Premium. I’ve had the same setup (see bottom of this article) for almost 9 months and for the first 4-5 months this was pretty fluid and worked well, but it seems to have got progressively worse, and often ends at me yelling at Google. I haven’t changed anything in the system setup detailed further down.

I used to be able to easily say “OK Google, play The Eagles” or whatever song / album / artist and the only issues I would have were with my accent / variations of artists etc. But now it seems really difficult for Google Assistant to know I even have Spotify. I have to try a huge myriad of sentences, some as long as “OK Google, play The Eagles on Spotify on my Sonos Lounge System”, all of which there is no rhyme or rhythm. Once I do eventually get Spotify going, it then is usually easier to ask it to change song / artist, etc, but not always. It’s like once I get it started and keep it going, it’s better, but something is still not right. 

MY SYSTEM:

I have two Sonos One’s (both gen 1) and a Sonos Amp connected in a 4.1 setup (with virtual centre front). The Sonos One’s act as the surround speakers, with one of them also the mic for Google Assistant. The Amp is connected to two wired speakers and an externally powered Sub. The Amp relieves TV audio via Optical (using the HDMI to Optical adapter supplied) - this is used instead of HDMI due to conflicts between the Google Chromecast 4K and the Sonos AMP when “fighting” for device control over ARC on the 2016 Samsung 4K TV - therefore using Optical removes this issue. All of this operates via a high speed modern wireless router and 100Mbps NBN internet connection. Ironically I have no issues saying “OK Google, play The Crown”, which turns on the TV, starts Netflix on the Chromecast, starts playing the episode and switches the audio source of my Sonos system to TV. In fact the whole Google Assistant > Sonos > Chromecast > TV experience is flawless and we never receive Google Assistant errors like with Spotify.

Would love any suggestions / fixes.

Thank You, Dan