Sleep Timer doesn't work with Google Assistant


Userlevel 2
I just set up Google Assistant, and I'm largely happy with it, except that sleep timers don't work.

When I have spotify playing, if I say "Sleep Timer for 10 minutes", Google Assistant responds "Sleep timers can only be set when media is playing".

Is there any way to get this to work?

38 replies

Userlevel 3
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Not working for us either. Report it to both Sonos and Google.
Userlevel 3
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Generic response from Sonos team.

"Hi there,

Thanks again for contacting Sonos.

We wanted to follow up and ensure that your case was resolved. If you need anything else, simply reply to this email and let us know that you need help. If all is well, keep an eye out for a follow-up survey shortly.

Thanks,
The Sonos Team"

Unsure whether this means they feel it's resolved, or whether as with my other tickets the support staff don't even seem to be aware that Google Assistant has been released. I'll test the timer again when I'm home, but I'm not optimistic...
Not working for me either. On Alexa this worked just fine.
Userlevel 3
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Re-tested, not working for me.
Userlevel 5
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Not working for me either.

Sonos support doesn't seem to be very responsive. You would think that as part of introducing a whole new capability to the product line (Google Assistant support), they could dedicate a person part time for a few weeks to track and answer the customer feedback with something more than a generic response.
Also not working for me. Is there already a solution?
Userlevel 3
Badge +4
Sonos support is as bad and evasive as it was when Alexa on Sonos was released. The too sleep timers didn’t work. Can anyone from Sonos tell us when this feature will work?
Just cutover from Alexa to Google, disappointed that this is an issue, we use it nightly, guess I'm moving back to Alexa.
Set the sleep timer in the Sonos app.
Userlevel 3
Badge +4
Set the sleep timer in the Sonos app.
You can do, but it sort of defeats the purpose of having voice control.
My kids utilize the voice control when going to bed to put on music and a sleep timer, not ideal to have them utilize the Sonos app, but appreciate the suggested work around.

Still not working, 7 months after the issue was initially raised. This is a pretty major feature deficiency to go ignored by Sonos for so long.

 

Agreed, well, technically the sleep timer now works in that it creates a generic 'timer' called sleep that beeps when it expires... :) While music continues to play.  This is not the functionality that we are after.

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Yeah I just noticed this as well the other day. I just got my first Sonos speaker (One) and setup GA but quickly saw that sleep timers don’t work.

Also, you can set alarms via GA, but if you ask GA what alarms you have set, it gives a bizzare reply like “You have an alarm for 9am, snoozed until 4am.” Umm...

Any update on this?  
Feb 2020 and it still doesn’t work. 
the crazy thing is that even if you initiated Spotify using GA, and then asked it to set a sleep timer it denies there is any music playing! 

This critical feature still doesn’t work, more than a year after the GA was released.   My next speaker will not be from Sonos.

Not working, it confirms that “bedroom will stop playing in twenty minutes” then when the twenty minutes are over it screams at me SORRY I DID NOT UNDERSTAND and then just keeps on playing whatever was on. This sucks, it is a rather basic function afaic. Really, really underwhelmed with the whole experience atm.

Userlevel 1

I’m having the same issue as described as of yesterday with a new Sonos Move. So, I guess this is still not resolved. Disappointed to discover these limitations with Sonos and Google Assistant. A sleep timer is a critical feature for me. 

Come on, this is stupid, these posts are now over a year old!!! It’s not like this is a ‘new feature’ it’s simply a broken element / bug! Please can you actually put some effort into fixing this and let us know when this will be done!!!

Another Google Assistant user very dissatisfied that I cannot set a sleep timer using my voice. An issue over a year old and not evident in Alexa? Seriously?

Userlevel 5
Badge +8

I think there’s likely a structural problem involved with how Google hands over streaming to Sonos, which is why it’s not a simple fix and why Sonos hasn’t done anything about it.

Many small problems like this provide clues that GA on Sonos does not directly play the source stream you requested like it would on a Google Home speaker or other Google Assistant speakers. Instead it passes that request to Sonos to fulfill.

That’s why GA on your Sonos speaker sometimes can’t find or play a stream that your Google Home speaker handles just fine, and why you need to separately authorize each streaming service on Sonos. I suspect that it’s also why Google can’t set a sleep timer on Sonos streaming, because Google washes its hands of the stream once it has passed to Sonos. 

Hi Doug

That seems like a sensible suggestion, only I don’t experience the other issues you report. This seems to be the only command that GA / Sonos struggles with. My surprise is that (a) reports suggest that Alexa doesn’t have the same problem; (b) the problem has been there for some time.

I wondered if this might provide a workaround? 

https://ifttt.com/

 

 

Userlevel 5
Badge +8

You will encounter those issues - I guess you just haven’t gotten to them yet. It’s a Sonos requirement that you register music services in the Sonos app separately from Google Home before you can use them. And it’s well-documented here in these forums that GA on Sonos often produces different results from a Google Home speaker when asked to play a song title or stream. Experiment a little, and you’ll find examples.  

IFTTT won’t help with the missing sleep timer because it doesn’t have timers. However I use Olisto to set a fixed sleep timer for Sonos by voice command, since it does have timers as well as links to Sonos and Google Assistant. So I can say “Hey Google, sleep timer”, and it gives me a fixed 30-minute timer and then sends a Stop command to my Sonos speakers.

Doug, thanks, useful,  I was thinking of setting up a third party app as a work around. But Olisto doesn’t have links to Sonos or Google in its Channels now? 
Maybe it’s lost access to them since your post? Or maybe I am stupidly missing something obvious - not unknown!! 
(I’ve used Yonomi to successfully shuffle playlists via GA and Sonos but it doesn’t have sleep timer as an option for Sonos unfortunately) 

Still not working, and still no response from Sonos support. Way to go guys

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