Contributor I

Answered

Cannot group Sonos system with Google Home devices

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Sonos,

After all this waiting. And after multiple articles. And after multiple phone calls to your service reps (including today), I’m now being told that you cannot group your Sonos system devices with your Google Home devices (after being told for months and more than a year that the aid be able to group them). Even the rep I spoke with today tried to help me and didn’t find out it wasn’t possible until he spoke to a system engineer. You can do it with Amazon devices, but STILL not with Google devices

In all honesty, what is the point of adding Google assistant to Sonos if you can’t even use Sonos speakers with Google Speakers together in a group? It’s pretty useless for me to be in living room, have to get up and walk to my kitchen to say “hey google, play x in my Living Room” and then walk back.

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Ryan SAnswer

Retired Sonos Staff

Hi Roman, sorry to hear it took you so long to find your answers. You're correct, the current integration brings Google Assistant to Sonos devices with built in microphones, and it allows you to control what's playing using Google Home devices. However, Sonos devices and Google devices are unable to be grouped together to play the same thing in sync. Also, there isn't currently the ability to set a Sonos device as a preferred speaker within the Google Home app.

This is just the beginning of our integration with Google Assistant and we're looking forward to making improvements as we go, but I don't have any specifics I can share on what's next, or if either of those things are on the list. We'll be sure to tell everyone when changes are made, so you can always watch out for announcements on our board here, or elsewhere.

Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.

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Kels

Lyricist I

Hoping the speaker grouping is high on the next features list too...

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Shadley

Lyricist II

I’ve just bought the Beam and 2 One’s for my living room.

Just tried to add these devices to my Google Group of devices which consists of 3 JBLs and a Chromecast. I’m very disappointed to find this thread and that Sonos devices cannot be added to Google Group of devices.

JBL devices can be added to a Google Group of devices so why can’t Sonos?

I have a 100 day trial so I’ll be seriously considering returning these Sonos devices and getting the JBL Bar instead, which has Google Assistant. I expect that will be fully integrated like my JBL 10’s and 20’s.

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SyrousOne

Lyricist I

What in the actual f*ck.

I finally got myself a Sonos One with the idea of pairing it with my other google devices. Brought it home, set it up, only to find out I can’t play music on my google home and Sonos at the same time?!

Looks like there are posts going back 6 months on this!!! Give us an ETA or I’m returning this thing and getting something that works. 🤬

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melvimbe

What in the actual f*ck.

I finally got myself a Sonos One with the idea of pairing it with my other google devices. Brought it home, set it up, only to find out I can’t play music on my google home and Sonos at the same time?!

Looks like there are posts going back 6 months on this!!! Give us an ETA or I’m returning this thing and getting something that works. 🤬

You are not going to get an ETA, and it’s doubtful that this will ever happen. Sonos and GA (and Alexa and everyone else for that matter) use different patented multiroom protocols to play audio together. Sonos isn’t likely to drop their protocols in favor of GAs, nor would GA give up theirs...and vice versa. Even if both companies did decide to do this, it would take quite some time to develop and test it all out. Can’t see this happening wiithout a major shift in the market for whatever reason.

I would recommend picking a speaker brand for multiroom audio system and sticking with it instead of trying to mix and match. Pick Sonos and use GA for control...or pick GA and use their speakers and others that are stand alone speakers only (not part of their own multiroom system).

Not trying to undermine anyone’s frustration with this, as it’s understandable why people assume it all works together like that, just that it doesn’t match the reality.

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Danny

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SyrousOne

Lyricist I

What in the actual f*ck.

I finally got myself a Sonos One with the idea of pairing it with my other google devices. Brought it home, set it up, only to find out I can’t play music on my google home and Sonos at the same time?!

Looks like there are posts going back 6 months on this!!! Give us an ETA or I’m returning this thing and getting something that works. 🤬

You are not going to get an ETA, and it’s doubtful that this will ever happen. Sonos and GA (and Alexa and everyone else for that matter) use different patented multiroom protocols to play audio together. Sonos isn’t likely to drop their protocols in favor of GAs, nor would GA give up theirs...and vice versa. Even if both companies did decide to do this, it would take quite some time to develop and test it all out. Can’t see this happening wiithout a major shift in the market for whatever reason.

I would recommend picking a speaker brand for multiroom audio system and sticking with it instead of trying to mix and match. Pick Sonos and use GA for control...or pick GA and use their speakers and others that are stand alone speakers only (not part of their own multiroom system).

Not trying to undermine anyone’s frustration with this, as it’s understandable why people assume it all works together like that, just that it doesn’t match the reality.

The frustration arises out of the misleading positioning of Sonos working with Google Assistant/Home.

They omit to mention that if you want to group speakers you’re shit out of luck. While I’d love to empathise with their cross platform protocol powergrab bullshit, the user experience has to be the driver. In this particular case, they dropped the ball and I’m returning their shitty speaker for one that will work with GA as advertised.

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mrcsonos

Contributor I

Yep...this is total false advertising to say it has GA when what they should be adverting, full disclosure, that they provide only half GA functionality...not being able to integrate/group with rest of my home system is a deal breaker...will be returning these speakersssss...asap

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Beati3

Contributor I

I share everyone’s frustration, but … there’s one work around you’re maybe ignoring. I’ve plugged a Chromecast into the AUX socket on my Play 5 gen 2 and that means it accepts voice commands from my Google devices. I’ve set it as the default speaker to play music from my Google Home. Voice commands to my Google Home play to the Chromecast only, not my Sonos One even though the 5 and One are grouped in the Sonos app. Ironically there’s no AUX jack on the “Google enabled” Sonos One in my bedroom. But … as long as I’ve got my Sonos speakers grouped, I can use voice commands to the Sonos One to control both speakers. I see the limitations, but the Sonos speakers are so superior in sound quality to the Home/Nest devices, I don’t know why you’d want to use them together. I understand though. One voice command to rule them all would make sense.

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Shadley

Lyricist II

Please can someone explain why JBL speakers can be added to groups on the Google Home app but Sonos speakers can’t? I don’t understand why other 3rd party companies have this ability but Sonos doesn’t?

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Beati3

Contributor I

Shadley, I suspect they can’t even though, like Sonos speakers they’ll show up in the Home app, this suggests they don't group either.

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Shadley

Lyricist II

I have 3 JBLs and a Chromecast all grouped together on the Google Home app so I’m not having the same issue the people are within the link you’ve provided.

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