Google Assistant support for multiple homes with single Sonos account?

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
May 28, 2019
47 replies
4608 views

I switched all of my Sonos devices at my upstate home this weekend from Alexa to Google Assistant (2x Beam and 2x Sonos One) and everything worked great and controlled all of those as well as my 3x Connect:Amp devices. The Beam CEC control to turn on and off TVs with Google works great!

I attempted to update the Beam and Sonos One at my apartment when I returned to the city and when I run through the process, the Google Assistant app fails to find any devices.

My apartment setup has the same Sonos account with the latest firmware updates, same Google Account (which is configured for two homes) and is on the the same UniFi networking equipment (different SSIDs).

Are there any known limitations with a single Sonos account at multiples homes? There shouldn't be any limitations on the Google side as I have Ecobee thermostats at Google Home locations. The only other difference is that that I don't have any "real" Google products like a Home Mini at my apartment, so I'm wondering if a regular Google device needs to be a home hub to set up non-Google devices.

Thanks,
Sean

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Best answer by Ryan S

Hi Sean, the Google Assistant integration with Sonos is designed to link one Google Account with a single Sonos household. In the apartment, you're likely running a different Sonos household ID (which is expected for different systems). This is why you're having trouble.

The best thing you can do is to either have two Google Accounts, or try to merge your two Sonos households. Merging the households involves bringing a speaker from one location to the other and resetting one of the two systems. Then rebuilding the location using the speaker from the other house as an existing system. It's a little tricky and will delete any playlists and settings you have on the system you're merging.

Show previous replies

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DorianB

Lyricist I

@106rallye I discovered this thread yesterday so I haven't had an opportunity to try the workaround. I do not actually understand it, as it's described. I don't want to bring my arc from my studio to my home, so I guess I bring a Sonos 5 speaker from my home to my studio space. Do I have to bring all the speakers (stereo pair and sub) from my home to my studio space in order to "rebuild the system"? And then I can just move that system back to my home on a different WiFi network? I understand RyanS is trying to provide a solution but it seems like there's a lot of assumptions of steps that leave me feeling uncertain as to how to proceed.

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DorianB

Lyricist I

@Airgetlam the word premium shows up in several of their product and package names, but it's also an assumption I make based on my observations on how Sonos positions themselves in their marketing. Thanks for your contribution to this issue that's frustrating several users.

Ken_Griffiths

I have also recently discovered that I am affected by this problem, having set up a new Google Home at my studio space with a brand new set of Sonos speakers. By linking my new Google Home in the studio to my new Sonos system it has dumped my whole setup at home. This is totally unacceptable from what purports to be a premium speaker brand and I'm pretty mad about it. If I had know ahead of time I would have gone with another brand of speaker.

It probably is designed by Google to work in this way with Sonos, to try to stop people sharing their music subscription across multiple locations - if you were able to share things for your Home and Office, then clearly people could do it for their Home and ‘other’ Family Homes, or even with their neighbours/friends - so it makes sense that to get it to work in different locations, you will need two Google accounts. I can’t see Google changing the way it works. Netflix are stamping down on this type of opportunity to share subscriptions too.

106rallye

@Ken_Griffiths There’s no subscription for Google involved, at least on my system. @DorianB Bringing one speaker is enough to build a system from.

Ken_Griffiths

@Ken_Griffiths There’s no subscription for Google involved, at least on my system. @DorianB Bringing one speaker is enough to build a system from.

A user though needs to have a ‘paid’ music subscription service linked to their Google Home/Assistant for it to work (it’s one Google Home per Sonos Household) - it’s a similar thing with Amazon and Alexa too, where the Amazon account is free, but the Alexa and chosen ‘paid’ music service is linked to one Sonos Household only. Otherwise we could all share our paid subscription with family and friends.

There are ways around these things, by transferring/extending the same Sonos Household, but that’s a completely different story and not relevant where different Sonos systems/Households are being used with the same Google, or Amazon account... but I accept those accounts are ‘free’. The music subscription attached to them though isn’t for them to use for playback purposes on Sonos.

Ken_Griffiths

@Ken_Griffiths There’s no subscription for Google involved, at least on my system. @DorianB Bringing one speaker is enough to build a system from.

Yes, extending the same Sonos Household across the different locations is ‘key’. Having two entirely different Sonos Households is the reason that the issue has arisen, with the voice assistant service needing to be switched between Home & Office..

106rallye

The link of more than one Google Account to one Spotify account (in my case) could possibly be a problem indeed.

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