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With Android phones moving to Gemini, this change interferes with using Google Assistant on Sonos devices. If Google Assistant is not already set up on Sonos, the setup process now redirects to Gemini, making it impossible to connect GA to Sonos. For those who have GA already activated, enabling Gemini on the phone causes GA on Sonos to respond with a connection issue, rendering it unusable.

 

This creates a difficult choice for users either stop using GA on Sonos or avoid switching to Gemini on their phones. Given that GA is likely to be fully replaced by Gemini in the near future, how does Sonos plan to address this transition and ensure continued voice assistant functionality on its devices?

 

 

I also hope to finally receive an official response to this.


Apparently, Sonos hasn't and won't (for the time being) include Google Assistant support in newer or future products.

If Google Assistant is no longer available soon, there probably won't be an upgrade to Gemini. This means that older Sonos products will no longer be supported.

Important message to Sonos:
If I were the CEO of Sonos, I'd swallow my pride and finally listen to the customers.
1. Retrofit Google Assistant or Gemini support for all products
2. Chromecast integration

So you lost a legal battle against Google (perhaps rightfully so), but don't you want to treat your customers to something nice again without taking money out of their pockets for new, expensive speakers?
Maintain your ecosystem and software consistently so that customers don't ditch the company, because there are enough other manufacturers that offer "very close" quality.

At the latest when Gemini is not supported and my Sonos Arc or Sub breaks, I will have to look for a good alternative to be able to play YouTube Music properly without the Sonos app.

Let's be honest? You could have also worked well with Google. Your hardware would complement the Nest system (like IKEA). Google would benefit immensely from you, and you would benefit from Google's customers. After all, anyone who has individual Nest speakers might also want a home theater system.


So you lost a legal battle against Google (perhaps rightfully so), but don't you want to treat your customers to something nice again without taking money out of their pockets for new, expensive speakers?

 

I get why people assume that Sonos stopped supporting google due to the legal battles, but it seems more likely to me that Sonos looked at the cost of the license and dev support costs to support Google voice and chromecast, as well as the market for the feature, and decided that it wasn’t the way to go.  Maybe that will change, but I doubt Sonos made the decision based off pride, rather than what was good for Sonos.

That said, I do think Sonos needs to make an announcement regarding what will happen to speakers that do have GA onboard already.


Assuming Sonos knows what will happen, at this point…


I don't understand what all this secrecy is about instead of just speaking plainly, and I can already say that those who don't keep up with the times will be left behind.


I am suggesting that Google hasn’t told Sonos yet, so Sonos is unable to make this statement desired. 


I’d really like an answer on this. I’m thinking about adding more to my Sonos system, but if they can’t sort stuff like this out, I’ll not make any more purchases and go with a brand that can. All manner of devices work happily with Google Assistant - can’t be that hard or that expensive.


I would also appreciate an answer from Sonos on this. I've had to move my Voice Assistant to Alexa post the upgrade but would much rather be using Gemini as its become a disjointed experience.


At the time Sonos stopped enabling GA on their newer devices Sonos stated new demands by Google made implementing GA unworkable for Sonos, see 

Though in one of the preceding posts ​@Corry P leaves the possibility GA Will return open, I will not hold my breath until this happens. Sonos is still working with Google Nest Mini’s though.

I do hope Sonos will either make GA work on newer devices or go over to Gemini though, because GA is the only voice assistant that work in my native language, Dutch.

My work around for GA on my Arc Ultra for now is that I’ve enabled GA on a Sonos One that I use as one of my surrounds.


I think it’s better to separate this in to two distinct features

1 - Using GA/Gemini voice assistant via Sonos voice enabled devices.  I would be surprised if this happens anytime soon.  There is surely some licensing costs and development effort.  That said, Sonos has a new CEO who may view this feature, and the relationship with Google, differently than the old CEO.  If they did want to pursue this, I think Sonos would still take the approach of not making any official announcements till the new feature is fully tested and ready to go.  Sonos had made announcements and a go live date when GA was first promised, but the missed the target date badly, upsetting a lot of customers.

2 - Using Gemini to control Sonos speakers via non-Sonos devices.  This seems like it would be entirely up to Google to develop and enable. The interface is already there for GA, so Gemini would just need to use that same interface.  However, Google could decide that they want an entirely new interface, maybe even for good reasons, which could require work on Sonos part.  I would think Google would want everything that worked with GA to automatically work on Gemini though, without requiring every other company to dedicate develop efforts, at least to maintain existing functionality.


I appreciate the complexity but at the end of the day this is an issue for sonos to sort out and they need to move with changes in technology too.

I purchased a "smart" speaker (actually 5 in total) for a reason and they're not really "smart" anymore. If it's not resolved I'll probably look to move my ecosystem to another brand when it's time to upgrade.


I had the exact same issue where I had to reconfigure google assistant on all my Sonos speakers.

After having reset factory all of them and tried everything I could think of. I finally switch on my old android phone. (Samsung S20) and I was able to configure google assistant as it was. (thanks it was not updated with Gemini)

Nevertheless, for the one who doesn’t have this possibility it’s now a pure nightmare to configure google assistant on their Sonos speaker and I don’t understand why Sonos is not doing anything.

 


 

I don’t understand why Sonos is not doing anything.

 

No-one can be sure Sonos isn’t doing anything. Given Sonos never announces anything until it is ready, I don’t imagine we’d hear about top level discussions between Sonos and Google until resolution has been reached and Google Assistant (or Gemini) implemented.

One might hope that the new CEO will want to clear things up between Sonos and Google, given both parties have at different times been found to have breached the other’s rights or patents etc - upheld or not. It’s in neither’s interests to not collaborate, and whilst the ‘battle’ happened under Spence, hopefully the bad blood will be deemed impractical in commercial terms for the parties as both sides has means of being restrictive to the other. 

Time will tell but I’d be surprised if resolution wasn’t reached in the end.


I'm so f***ing pissed about them not fixing this or even admitting there is an issue. I spent over an hour with their support chat resetting my whole damn system and to find out it's a known issue through a forum instead of truly maddening. If I hadn't spent almost 5k on my setup I'd throw them against the wall. I bought smart speakers, to control my smart house that's fully rigged. 

Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.


The irony is, if you ask Google whether Sonos supports Google Assistant, Gemini delivers this!

 


Hi ​@Roq_and_roll 

Sorry to hear about the issue you had with adding Google Assistant. The agent you spoke with will receive some feedback, as they should have provided you with the following information:

Gemini Workaround

  1. Open the Gemini Mobile App on Android.
  2. At the top right, select the user profile picture or initial.
  3. Select Switch to Google Assistant.
  4. Select Google Assistant, then select Switch.
  5. Ensure Chrome is set as the default browser.
  6. Reboot the Android device, then attempt to add Google Assistant on Sonos again.

Screenshot 2024-12-20 at 12.42.09.png

Once Google Assistant has been installed on Sonos, you can change the assistant back to Gemini on the phone using the same method.

I hope this helps.


Google plans to replace assistant with gemini end 2025 — and then what?


It’s a workaround that gets the assistant back onto the speakers, but if you switch back to Gemini on your phone, you just get errors. It’s not a workaround. It’s just a time waster. 


Hi ​@Roq_and_roll 

Sorry to hear that you get errors when you switch back to Gemini on your phone.

What errors do you see, and where do you see them, please?


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