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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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Best answer by Ryan S 15 May 2019, 00:50

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

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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.

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. 🤬

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.

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. 

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

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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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?

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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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.

So I just bought a One for the living room with probably the overall goal of completing a 5.1 setup.

In terms of Google products, I have a regular Hub in my bedroom and a Home Mini in the kitchen, with a Shield TV and come Christmas Day, a Chromecast Ultra in the living room.

So not as entwined within the Google ecosystem as many here.

I guess my point and what I’m thinking for me is that should I just stop my Google purchases from this point onwards and merely buy the Sonos stuff to get the whole house audio set up?

I recently purchased a Sonos playbar, sub and two surrounds only to find that they cannot seamlessly integrate with my google home devices.  I really do like the Sonos speakers, but the failed google integration is a real deal breaker so I’ll be returning the Sonos setup sometime this week if I can’t find a work around.

I saw one person mentioned using a chromecast to the aux in of a sonos speaker as a potential work around.  Can anyone confirm if this works and the level of integration that can be achieved, such as does this allow me to group the Sonos speakers in one room with google home speakers in another room to play music in both rooms concurrently?

Unfortunately, buying only Sonos is not a realistic option for me because I don’t want to spend $500 bucks a pop for speakers in every room of the house, but would like to have a nice quality sound system in the tv/entertainment room that can integrate with the more affordable, but lesser quality speakers in the rest of the house.  True Google integration is obviously not a priority for Sonos if they won’t even venture to release an official statement on whether or not support for this functionality is planned or in the works.  I’m a very disappointed new customer and will likely not be buying Sonos again due to their false advertising on the level of Google integration (or lack thereof in this case).

Bambooya, I can confirm that any speaker you can fit a chromecast to will have 100% integration with Google speakers and can be grouped. This means through the Home app, not the Sonos app. Unfortunately you can't integrate Sonos One this way as they don't have AUX inputs.

Beati3, Thanks for confirming!  It sounds like using chromecast audio is a viable work around in my case or for anyone with a Sonos device in the room with a aux input.  It’s too bad I just discovered that Google discontinued chromecast audio so there’s no guaranteed method for integrating going forward.  Due to this I’m still planning to return the Sonos and stick to Google for now.

Sadly, it looks like the Google Assistant integration in Sonos is pretty weak.   Hard to say who’s to blame, Google or Sonos.   No matter, you can’t group Sonos speaker in a Google Home Group, and, you can’t even shuffle a Spotify playlist with the Sonos Google Assistant.   And, no ETA for fixing.   The Sonos speakers sound nice, but if I can’t use the Google Assistant to control, I’ll return and replace with speakers that have better GA control.  

I too was disappointed about lack of grouped speakers integration with GA. However, I was not particularly surprised. Sonos’ business model is similar to Apple’s. They want you to buy into an ecosystem, not just a single product. The Sonos One is the gateway drug, the good value for money speaker to tempt you in, with the hope you’ll add one to each room, then a pricey sound bar to your TV, followed by more Ones to add as surround speakers. 

If they provide full (speaker groups) integration with Google Assistant, we can all then choose to buy a Google Home Max instead, or a Google Nest Mini for the rooms where the extra volume isn’t required. I’m not sure this is what Sonos want. 

I hope I’m wrong.

I was looking into buying a Sonos 5.1 system and integrate it with my smarthome and google with the intent of adding the speakers into my various groups. Seeming this cannot be done, I won’t be buying. Glad I found this tread. Made an account just to post this and follow it in case down the road it does become possible.

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Well I think this may explain a lot of the seemingly-inexplicable missing features within the GA-Sonos ‘integration’. As I suspected it’s nothing to do with any technical limitations.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/8/21056198/sonos-google-statement-lawsuit-ces-reaction-big-tech

Well I think this may explain a lot of the seemingly-inexplicable missing features within the GA-Sonos ‘integration’. As I suspected it’s nothing to do with any technical limitations.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/8/21056198/sonos-google-statement-lawsuit-ces-reaction-big-tech

 

I don’t think the recent news really changes much of what I said above.  Although Google may have used some of Sonos tech to do their multiroom audio, they are still not the exact same protocols.  I don’t think the lawsuit is really going to change much as far as this goes.

 

As far as other missing features, it’s hard to say whether Google didn’t want to give those features, Sonos didn’t want to implement and maintain them, or the Sonos hardware just couldn’t do the required processing.

I am immensely disappointed in the lack of ability to group my Sonos One with my google home speakers.  This is unacceptable and makes my Sonos essentially useless in parties.  I’d rather pick 5 decent speakers over 1 sorta good overpriced one.

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https://9to5google.com/2020/02/15/assistant-sonos-default-speaker/

Anyone got this working ? I can now see my Sonos speakers and set them as a default (I couldn’t before), but music still plays through my Google Home device.

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.

 


Perhaps I'm not understanding your scenario properly, but I don't know see why you would ever have to do any walking to another room as you describe, unless you don't have an GA compatible speakers in the living room at all.

If you have a Sonos One or a Beam in your living room, you can enable it for GA and then say "hey google, play x" to that device.. If you have have Google home speaker in your living room, then you say hey google, play x in my Living Room” to that device. If you don't have any GA device in your living around, there is no feature that would prevent you from having to walk to another room to give a voice command.

 

The ability to group Google assistant speakers means you can play the same audio source synchronized in Multiple rooms at the same time. 

Like others I am extremely disappointed that Sonos and/or Google hasn’t resolved this issue with grouping speakers (Sonos One’s and Beam’s with Google/Nest speakers). This clearly is a feature that everyone has expected and want with the Google assistant integration.

It has been some months now, since the original post was created and we as the customers still have no insight to whether this feature is being worked on or not, it would be great if Sonos could at least comment on whether it was in development and/or something that is never going to happen. From there it will give us the ability to decide if we should invest in a fully integrated OR part integration with Sonos and Google Assistant environment.

It can be done with Alexa so I don’t see why this can’t be done with Google Assistant.

I love my Sonos speaker… But I am afraid my next purchase will not be Sonos because of their inability to bring us

Well I think this may explain a lot of the seemingly-inexplicable missing features within the GA-Sonos ‘integration’. As I suspected it’s nothing to do with any technical limitations.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/8/21056198/sonos-google-statement-lawsuit-ces-reaction-big-tech

Thank you for this article. I only wish I had seen it before I dumped my hard-earned cash into a Sonos speaker.
 

I have no problem at all in settling for a JBL speaker, if they have full GA integration. Thank you for letting me kick the tires Sonos… But I think I’m going to trade in your Fiat, for a Lamborghini!

Come on already. Fix that problem Sonos!!!!!

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