Google Assistant is finally coming to the Sonos One and Sonos Beam

Imho, lets get the Google Speaker Group Integration out there ASAP, and then worry about handling Google Asst requests for recommended nearby restaurants down the road. I mean, it just boils my blood when I hear they are waiting to deliver anything until they optimize the voice control for everything beyond the main objective with supposedly Hi-Fi speakers. Makes no sense??

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "Google Speaker Group Integration", but if means being able to paly Google speakers and Sonos in sync, I think you'll be sorely disappointed. There is no parallel feature with Alexa, and nothing of this nature has been promised or hinted to by Google or Sonos that I'm aware of. Although consumers would clearly benefit from the availability of such a feature, there is no business reason to do this. Sonos for one has intellectual property around multiroom audio that they surely do not want to share.

Honestly, the main objective is to be able to use Sonos One and Beam in the same, or very similar, manner that you would a Google speaker, and to initiate Sonos audio through google voice commands. This has always been stated as the main objective.

The objective with the Google Home Hub - regarding the Music/sound aspect, is to develop integrated speaker groups that can be controlled either with the Hub or any of the individual speakers without interfaces by voice. That is where in my mind Sonos fits in with the markedly better SQ. I never claimed this was a current capability with Alexa, but if the entire Sonos/Google big picture is to create a better sounding stand alone Echo, that is incapable of being part of a speaker group and is not integrated beyond itself, Imho, this is pretty much a waste of time. Who gives a crap about ordering pizza's over a Sonos instead of an Echo? The entire focus of the emerging HA technologies is integration, so how does that reconcile?

Part of the whole problem is, Sonos has been touting Google Assistant integration for well over a year, but has never fully presented exactly what that means? Integration to me means full integration, not just picking and choosing what is actually integrated. If the objective is to just high jack GA, but put a hard wall against working with all others in the local Google HA ecosystem, that's dumb and very shortsighted - And frankly, is NOT integrated at all.

The objective with the Google Home Hub - regarding the Music/sound aspect, is to develop integrated speaker groups that can be controlled either with the Hub or any of the individual speakers without interfaces by voice.

Again, not really sure what you mean with this term. I took a guess, but you didn't really confirm whether I was incorrect or not.


That is where in my mind Sonos fits in with the markedly better SQ. I never claimed this was a current capability with Alexa, but if the entire Sonos/Google big picture is to create a better sounding stand alone Echo, that is incapable of being part of a speaker group and is not integrated beyond itself, Imho, this is pretty much a waste of time.


The Sonos One and Beam are not standalone, not by a long shot. They don't play audio in sync with other smart speakers (except through airplay I think) and that has always been the case. The integration has always been about control...being able to control Sonos playback using the Google (or Alexa) voice assistant. And that's far from a waste of time, even if it may not be of any value you to you personally.



Who gives a crap about ordering pizza's over a Sonos instead of an Echo? The entire focus of the emerging HA technologies is integration, so how does that reconcile?


Being able to order a pizza is way underestimating what the Sonos/Alexa integration means, and surely the same for Google integration.


Part of the whole problem is, Sonos has been touting Google Assistant integration for well over a year, but has never fully presented exactly what that means?


No, not fully, but that have given lots of hints. They have always spoken about integration in terms of voice controlling your Sonos speakers, never in terms of playing Sonos in sync with other branded speakers...if that's what you think of by 'integration'.


Integration to me means full integration, not just picking and choosing what is actually integrated.


Why? Integrations are often not 'full'. Integrations are usually about what aspects of the products makes sense for the two companies to integrate.


If the objective is to just high jack GA, but put a hard wall against working with all others in the local Google HA ecosystem, that's dumb and very shortsighted - And frankly, is NOT integrated at all.

Is HA = Home Audio or Home Automation? And yes integration to allow GA to control Sonos speakers is integration by any definition.

Oddest Google Home / Sonos integration at CES: :D

Well Danny - Seems you are really setting the bar rather low, if you think it's OK to have a whole bunch of separate individually existing but incompatible ecosystems in one home. I'm not sure how you think that's full integration but I have zero interest in debating nor get into parsing every single word with you. Yes, Sheldon, the Pizza remark was sarcasm, lol.

And, if you don't know what Google Speaker Groups are, before lambasting the concept, why don't you research it? I was hoping that my pairs of One's would INTEGRATE into this Google Home Assistant ecosystem, but I will reserve my judgement until this thing is finally released. If it's not INTEGRATED, I then will have waited all this time for nothing, and I will dump them and replace with the Max's, or whatever else is the best performing Google speaker there is at that time. I mean this really isn't a big deal, and sorry to see you getting so defensive.

I was hoping for much more, but again, I'm not basing any decisions on what you may, or probably, may not know. I guess your statement that you don't know how popular Chromecast is, kind of says it all.

I'm guessing everyone will have their own personal wishlist of Google Assistant Integration functionality.

Google Speaker Groups would certainly be awesome.

The lowest/simplest possible functionality is enabling Google Assistant on a Google Assistant Sonos speaker (One and Beam) and forcing the user to interface with Sonos via Google Assistant ONLY through those devices. If that's where they stop then I'll be sorely disappointed.

I think what most are looking for is an ability to interface with Sonos via Google Assistant by using ANY Google Assistant device in their house (home hub, mini, phone, etc). After that it's just a matter of how deep the integration goes - Google Speaker Groups, music services, zone pairing (if manual instead of using defined groups), etc.

I'm guessing we'll start with a rather basic feature set and watch it grow but I'm hoping for the best honestly.

News from CEF2019 interview with Sonos' head of global marketing Michael Papish:
"According to Papish, "the goal is for anything that's cast-enabled would be an enabled source for a Google Assistant speaker such as ours. That's the goal. Cast is interesting in that it actually a piece of software that runs live on a device. We are unlikely to run the live software."

"So part of what we're doing is coming up with our own mechanisms to be able to handle the request for 'here is a stream, pull this to this device'. Cast is nice but it has a lot of overhead - it's basically running a small version of Chrome and that's more than we want to run on our speakers."

Papish also confirms you'll be able to play any cast enabled content on their smart speakers but couldn't confirm whether it'd show up as a native Cast device within in the Google interface. He says it's an aspect of the experience that they're still finalizing.
"

https://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/656210/ces-2019-sonos-move-forward-google-assistant-sonos-one-open-adding-bixby/

Hmm, as a follow up, when this CES newsbite broke, I went to the app to double-check my Beta application, and did the questionnaire again, in the event they are really looking to open up the testing. Like last time, nothing but a sudden flurry of promotional emails. Ergh, rather distasteful, Imho. Seems just another Lucy yanking the football here. 15 months, and counting...

Hmm, as a follow up, when this CES newsbite broke, I went to the app to double-check my Beta application, and did the questionnaire again, in the event they are really looking to open up the testing. Like last time, nothing but a sudden flurry of promotional emails. Ergh, rather distasteful, Imho. Seems just another Lucy yanking the football here. 15 months, and counting...

Sonos said there would be beta testing. They never said that anyone who asked to be in the beta would automatically accepted.

Hmm, as a follow up, when this CES newsbite broke, I went to the app to double-check my Beta application, and did the questionnaire again, in the event they are really looking to open up the testing. Like last time, nothing but a sudden flurry of promotional emails. Ergh, rather distasteful, Imho. Seems just another Lucy yanking the football here. 15 months, and counting...In case you were not aware, the promotional emails can be switched off here, if that is your preference?... https://www.sonos.com/myaccount/profile/ You will find the check box part-way down the page in your profile.

Another brilliant contribution from Danny. Obviously, I said NOTHING about expecting or demanding to be selected for the Beta? You are trying to put words in my mouth again.

What I shared was, the only result of reapplying for the Beta was just being added to their prospect file, which I find a bit out of line. Seems this entire dangling the Beta carrot is more about selling more product than anything.

But, clearly Danny doesn't agree and will now start the process of parsing every single word to try to dilute and spin what I've posted. Carry on Danny...