Will Sonos ever enable Google Assistant voice calling?

Bump.

Sonos does not typically give out information about typical development plans until all the details are worked out and they can give a confidant release date.

melvimbe wrote:

Sonos does not typically give out information about typical development plans until all the details are worked out and they can give a confidant release date.

Melvimbe is correct. I'll make sure the team knows this is a feature you're looking for. As to if the Beam has the hardware to support a feature like this in the theoretical sense, I don't believe there's anything the Beam is lacking on those regards that you might find in Google Assistant.

@Ryan S : Following the Google Assistant release date fiasco I doubt I'd set much store by a date even if one were officially available. @melvimbeDanny's "answer" didn't address the question raised, so please unmark it. I'm fully expecting you won't officially comment on my question, but this is a community forum so I'd hoped some knowledgeable community members might comment!

@Ditsy, I went ahead and unflagged that answer. It is probably one of the best you'll get for your second question, I believe I've answered your first one the best I can.

If you'd rather leave this open ended, I can remove the "question" flag and leave the topic as a discussion, people can jump in and share speculation as they'd like.

Thanks @Ryan S . If it's easier for the moderators then please go ahead and alter this to a discussion topic 🙂 I'm just trying to avoid it looking like a closed topic, when really I'd love to see further comment.

Ditsy wrote:

Thanks @Ryan S . If it's easier for the moderators then please go ahead and alter this to a discussion topic 🙂 I'm just trying to avoid it looking like a closed topic, when really I'd love to see further comment.

Will do. We like seeing questions with answers, as opposed to leaving them as sitting unmarked. A discussion is always open, so I'll convert it that direction.

My view is that this will be way down the priority list for Sonos as the voice commands they are most focused upon relate to the control of music and Audio Books. This is just my opinion and so I could be proved wrong but the ability to match Alexa functionality on GA will, IMHO, be a higher priority. e.g. The ability to group of Sonos speakers via a voice command...

Other Google Assistant speakers have added Google voice calling, so it's possible, but I wouldn't put a high priority on this. I've tried it with my GH Mini speakers, and it's not something I use. It's not a great speakerphone - my voice has a hollow echoing sound to the other end - and when I say "Hey Google, hang up", the other end hears that.

It's the same voice service as Google Hangouts and Google Voice, and it's much better used on your cell phone than your smart speaker.

On the other hand it would be nice if Google implemented a remote "drop in" intercom service like Alexa has for their Echo smart speakers. They do have a sort of local intercom service now, but I don't need Google Home to yell "DINNER!" to upstairs.

It's important to me to see a full integration. I don't want multiple devices and a lots of wires when one device could do everything. We won't be buying any more Sonos kit unless this evolves to a full Google Assistant integration which frankly I'm suspecting won't happen.

Currently we have a batch of Google Assistant devices that happily work together, and one Sonos device that can't group with them, or be controlled/accessed by the others. It's not a great experience. The sound is better, but the functionality is absent. We had better functionality with no voice integration selected on the Beam, and a Google Home device stood next to it!

@Doug Ames : we don't use Voice calls on the Google Home Minis either, we found they were better on the Google Home standard. Since they introduced Duo on the Google Nest Home Hubs, we primarily use that and it's been very reliable. It also allows us to call between rooms (a substitute for the intercom that many people are asking Google to introduce).