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Google Assistant with Sonos in South Africa

  • 4 January 2020
  • 21 replies
  • 2276 views

Hi there,

I am trying to find out whether I can control my Sonos One speaker via GoogleHome in South Africa.

Can anybody assist?

Reagrds,

Heinrich

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Best answer by Reno Botes 12 January 2020, 09:17

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21 replies

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Hello Heinrich,

I have the Sonos One setup and working fine with google assistant.

The company selling the product misleads buyers and then charges R350 to setup the product.

 

Here's what you can do:

Go online(website) and edit your Sonos profile. Set your country to UK or adjacent country where google assistant support works for sonos(for some reason you cannot add sonos device on google home if your account is registered in south africa). 

After your country was changed, navigate on the Sonos app to settings/services and select android assistant under the voice option. Once selected the app will open google home settings. It will now be able to discover the device(if country on sonos is set to south africa it will not pick up the device). Follow the steps and voila it works. Let me know if this was helpful.

 

 

 

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Hi, this worked for me to link my sonos account to my google home device, however I still don't pick up voice assistants under services.  Any thoughts there?

 

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Do you have the option to add services? When selecting the + does it not display any of the voice options?

Try to update the product first and try again. It might be that the firmware is outdated.

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Hi Reno,

 

All my products are up to date.

I only have music services and don't have an option for voice services.  I checked on both my android and desktop app. (a few months ago the voice option was there, but it has disappeared over time...)

 

Nigel

 

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Hi Nigel,

I'm not sure whether this will work but make sure your Sonos device email(registered) is the same as the the google home email address. They should use the same gmail account.

Also make sure that your location in Sonos did not revert back to RSA.

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Hi Reno,

 

I checked the mail address (its the same) and the address was still the UK.  I have just changed it to US to see if that helped but no joy.

 

Will keep an eye on it and see if I get it right.

 

Nigel

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Hi Nigel,

Maybe try a factory reset and do a new setup on the sonos.

Do you see your device in the google home app? 

Also confirm that you have downloaded and installed google assistant from the play store(check this first).

Hi Everyone, I would not recommend a factory rest of your Sonos products. Per this link, Google Assistant is not available in your region on Sonos. I will happily add your voice to the feature request to our engineers for your region. You may also want to check that the region is supported by Google and if not to also submit a feature request with Google. 

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Hi John G,

I have both the Sonos One and Move. The move was bought a month after the One. Both have the google assistant and Alexa options available under voice assistant. It took me a couple of hours to figure out though, but is working fine. What is the eta to add the voice feature? As of December it has not been added and surely this will not be done in the next couple of weeks, yet in South Africa the suppliers promote these features. It is unfair on the customers buying a Sonos system and not be able to utilize all the functionality. Especially in South Africa where the pricing is much higher with our weak currency, high import taxes and shipping. That is why we are trying to assist customers where we can. 

Nigel: if you do mot want to do a factory reset you can always unlink and re-link the unit to see if it works. 

 

 

 

 

Hello @Reno Botes. Rest assured, your voice is being heard. We built this integration from scratch with Google. As time goes on, we will add more countries to the list. However, We can not specify a time frame for when it will be available in South Africa on Sonos at this time. 

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Thanks John / Richard.

 

We are a relatively small market and I suppose not top priority, that said, it would be great to get the features.

 

Kind regards

 

Nigel

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I agree with Nigel,

 

The economy of scale does not tilt in our favour. But thank you for your continued efforts.

Nigel - let me know whether unlinking the device from your app worked.

Also note that I when I initially set-up the sonos account with a UK location I transferred the ownership to my brother's gmail account and then back to mine. This requires a new setup but might be the missing link for your issue.

Let me know if this worked for you.

 

 

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Hi Reno,

I have checked everything else (the address etc etc), but haven't tried the factory reset yet.

 

Based on the latest press release, will wait and see wht S2 brings in June and if I don't come right, will try the reset then.

 

Thanks for your help.

 

Nigel

Hello @Reno Botes. Rest assured, your voice is being heard. We built this integration from scratch with Google. As time goes on, we will add more countries to the list. However, We can not specify a time frame for when it will be available in South Africa on Sonos at this time. 

Can someone please give an update as to the availability of Google Assistant in South Africa? I have recently bought a pair of Sonos one speakers and was told that there is no issue in connecting to Google Assistant. The Sonos App doesn’t even have a facility for voice activation! 

G

Userlevel 7
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The facility will appear after you set your country to UK or US in your profile on the Sonos website, via https://www.sonos.com/myaccount/user/profile/

Has anyone finally figured out how to setuop Amazon Alexa/google home to work with sonos now?

The facility will appear after you set your country to UK or US in your profile on the Sonos website, via https://www.sonos.com/myaccount/user/profile/

Please explain how you did it? Did you have to reset your Sonos system?

Hello Heinrich,

I have the Sonos One setup and working fine with google assistant.

The company selling the product misleads buyers and then charges R350 to setup the product.

 

Here's what you can do:

Go online(website) and edit your Sonos profile. Set your country to UK or adjacent country where google assistant support works for sonos(for some reason you cannot add sonos device on google home if your account is registered in south africa). 

After your country was changed, navigate on the Sonos app to settings/services and select android assistant under the voice option. Once selected the app will open google home settings. It will now be able to discover the device(if country on sonos is set to south africa it will not pick up the device). Follow the steps and voila it works. Let me know if this was helpful.

 

 

 

I’ve followed these steps, and I’m still not able to find voice services. Can I un-link the speaker and redo the whole process?

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Hi mkhizenj,

 

It is important to edit the address via the Sonos web page and not the app. 

 

Try the following: 

 

Unlink the device from the current account

Ensure that both your Sonos account and your gmail account address is set to the U.K

Re-link the sonos account.

Once it has connected and you can see the assistant options you can change your gmail address back to RSA.

I have updated to the new s2 app and it still works fine. Let me know if this works for you.

Regards

 

 

 

 

 

Hi mkhizenj,

 

It is important to edit the address via the Sonos web page and not the app. 

 

Try the following: 

 

Unlink the device from the current account

Ensure that both your Sonos account and your gmail account address is set to the U.K

Re-link the sonos account.

Once it has connected and you can see the assistant options you can change your gmail address back to RSA.

I have updated to the new s2 app and it still works fine. Let me know if this works for you.

Regards

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks, I think the trick may have been with unlinking the app which I couldn’t quite figure out. So I deleted the app and re-installed it. 

So for others, what I had to do was - change my location in the Sonos profile to UK, delete the app and reinstall it, then choose the option sign in to existing system.

Seriously guys, what is the hold up here!? Annoying!! 

I am genuinely disappointed with my Sonos One Gen2 after all the research and time put in towards buying a good quality and up to date speaker that is supposed to make life a bit simpler. Why are suppliers pushing the Voice-enabled capabilities if it is not available? Not impressed and a waist of money and time.

 

After much effort, and reading this article I managed to get my Google Home Mini to connect to Sonos via the IFTTT App (https://youtu.be/20lFWrBi6Qc) but this is still not the full functionality that was promised. @Sonos, we are buying your products and we are not supposed to ask Google or you to activate this function in our country. Its not your buyers responsibility and unacceptable. 

 

Simply switch the capability from Google Assistant to Google Home. That will work until the Google Assistant is downloadable in South Africa

 

Looking forward to your reply and an estimated date to action this feature,

Renaldo