Grouping Sonos Speakers through Google Assistant

Hi @DitlevHolm.

Thank you for reaching out.

Yes is you can use google assistance for the two rooms to play music, but not able to group them using the google voice command.

Make sure you properly set up your google assistance in your Sonos app. and sometimes it's with google voice that's having a glitch.

You may also find this support document-link worth a read. Help and tips for Google Assistant on Sonos

Let us know if it works. If you need help with any other information, please be sure to let us know.

This does not work for me (i.e. Hey Google, play Elton John in the kitchen and the living room). I even tried typing it in using the keyboard on Google Assistant for iOS. When I type it in, it only plays the music on the last source listed. So in the example above, it only plays in my living room.

Does some additional setting need to be activated for this to work? For example, does the “Continued Conversations” feature need to be activated for “and” statements to work within Google Assistant?

PS. I’m using Spotify Premium as my default music service. In addition, the two speaker groups I have are the only two speaker groups in my house. So if there was a “Hey Google, play X on all speakers” command, I’d setting for that as well (but it seems like you can’t do that either).

Hi @Nollind.

Thank you for your reply.

First, make sure your device is running iOS 12 or higher.

Then check to see if you've downloaded the latest update to Google Assistant from the App Store.

Next, open the Google Assistant app and tap on the button in the bottom right-hand corner.

Tap on “Add to Siri” and you will be prompted to record a voice command.

Confirm it’s working by invoking Siri and saying your chosen voice command.

Google Assistant will automatically open and you can begin issuing further commands.

You can now try to ungroup the two speakers then ask google to play something in the living room and kitchen.

Submit a diagnostic report also for us to see whats going on in your network.

Let us know if it works. If you need help with any other information, please be sure to let us know.

Mark, I’m completely confused by the first part of your response. I’m trying to get the voice command to work on my Sonos Beam. I only mentioned I typed it out in Google Assistant for iOS (on my iPad) to emphasize that my command is being received correctly (versus potentially misinterpreting my voice when relaying it to my Sonos Beam). But regardless of typing it out in the Google Assistant app, which ensures the command is received accurately, it’s still not working.

You can now try to ungroup the two speakers then ask google to play something in the living room and kitchen.

I’m also confused by this statement. One speaker is setup in one "room" and the other speaker is in the other "room". They’re not "grouped" at all, which is what I’m trying to achieve so they can play together. So how can I ungroup them if they’re not grouped in the first place? (BTW I believe I came across some “group” function in the S2 app but you can’t setup groups unless you have three devices in three rooms I believe.)
 

Am I missing something evident here? What do you mean by ungroup?

Ps. My apologies. In looking at my previous response I said I had two groups but that’s incorrect. I have two "rooms” setup. The living room has just a Sonos Beam in it and my kitchen has a Symfonisk Bookcase speaker. That’s it. I have no “groups” setup because as far as I’m aware I need three speakers to allow “grouping” (as per defined in the app). Is this why I can’t “group” the two rooms to play together via a voice command?

Hi @Nollind.

Thank you for reaching back again.

Thank you also for clarifying that you have 2 rooms setup only.

Can you please submit a diagnostic report for us to shed some light on your with google assistance.

For grouping, if you're seeing the two rooms in your Sonos app » System you should be able to group them.

Just follow these instructions to group and ungroup rooms.

Let us know if it works. If you need help with any other information, please be sure to let us know.

My diagnostic confirmation number is 1459317199.

I’ve always been able to group rooms manually via the Sonos app.

I’ve never been able to group rooms via a Google Assistant voice command on my Sonos Beam (nor via the Google Assistant iOS app even if I type in the command).

Hi @Nollind.

Thank you for reaching us back again.

Currently, we only have limited commands for Google voice assistance. to know more about this click here.

Users can only group the speakers manually using the Sonos app.

But grouping the speakers using google voice is a good idea.

We will forward this to our higher tier as a recommendation.

 If you need help with any other information, please be sure to let us know.

BTW I’ve been trying to figure out how to play music in two rooms at once via a Google Assistant voice command for months. In all of the many articles I’ve found on the subject (20 or more), I have never seen a single one mention that you can play multiple rooms just by using “and” in the voice command (ie Play Elton John in kitchen and living room).

Instead they say that to play in multiple rooms or your whole house at once, you have to create a named group first (ie create “Home“ group that is two or more rooms) and then command Google Assistant to play that named group (ie Play Elton John in Home). Yet I never could figure out how to create a customized named group (because the feature only just recently got added to Sonos but only if you have three or more devices).

So if what you’re saying is true, that you can use “and” to play in two rooms at once, why have I never seen this as a example of a Google Assistant command anywhere on any site I’ve visited, even Google’s support articles? Is the use of “and” a new voice command capability recently added to Google Assistant?

Uh, you’ve lost me again. Look at the top original post in this thread. He’s asking the same thing I am and yet you responded that you could group rooms via a Google Assistant command. This is why I was confused by your initially reply to him saying YES you could use a Google Assistant command to do this.

Now you’re saying you can’t do this, so your initial response to him was in fact incorrect?

Hi @Nollind.

Thank you for reaching out to Sonos support.

Your right my mistake about the first reply sorry for the confusion I will just update that post.

What I mean by Yes is you can use google assistance for the two rooms to play music, but not able to group them using the google voice command.

Also if the google voice is not working perfectly and we already exhausted all troubleshooting steps in the support website for Sonos.

You can contact our phone support agent so you can be assisted with more thorough and in-depth troubleshooting steps, you may also contact Google customer care for further assistance with Google Voice.

If you need help with any other information, please be sure to let us know.

If you reread the original post, it asks a fairly direct question of “can I use this specific command?” How can you effectively reply Yes to it without confusing the person? That command will not work as indicated because you can’t get Google Assistant to start playing the same music in two rooms at once with one voice command. That’s because that’s effectively “on the fly” room grouping via a voice command which Sonos can’t do yet since Google Assistant can’t even do it yet either (as multi-room playback with one voice command requires setting up a custom named group first to do so).

Now google assistant support support room grouping via voice for multiples google speakers. When could we expect room grouping via voice also for sonos speakers?

Hi @CharlesMougenot.

Welcome, thank you for reaching out to Sonos Community.

I'll submit a feature request to add room grouping via voice for multiples google speakers to our development team.

We don't have a timeline we can share for this feature, but we'll be sure to make an announcement if we have any updates.

If you need help with any other information, please be sure to let us know.