Moderator Note: Google Assistant is now available for use with Sonos. Read here for more information.
It's May 2019, no Google Assistant nor update from Sonos Execs on Sonos one. This feels like a failed Kickstarter project.
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Meanwhile, here are a few links to some early media reviews of the Google Assistant working on Sonos devices...
Variety Media Report
CNet Media Report
Engadget Media Report
Android Central Media Report
Variety Media Report
CNet Media Report
Engadget Media Report
Android Central Media Report
Of course a demo isn't everything, but seeing how functional this integration already seemed to be in January, it makes me wonder what (or who) is causing the delay.
I'm more and more starting to believe that it might be Google, who will likely be less anxious for Sonos to release this ASAP than Sonos themselves. Another competitor to their Home hardware, with a competing voice assistant present within the same ecosystem... Not to mention the name Sonos already has in multi-room, whereas the implementation of multi-room and grouping within the Google ecosystem is... limited to say the least. Add the fact that Sonos are intending to design the backend to be the best of both the "works with Google Assistant" and "Google Assistant built in" worlds, with the voice activated speakers working as the latter and the legacy speakers working as the former, I can imagine Google will not prioritize development for a potentially formidable competitor to their own hardware.
Of course Sonos will never give any insight into this, because they will not want to damage their credibility, nor blame Google and lose their support.
Although I never bought into Sonos just for the voice integration and I'll never sell my Sonos because of the lack of Google Assistant integration, I can see this becoming a problem for Sonos. As evidenced by the threads that keep popping up here, Sonos is starting to lose trust and traction for their voice-enabled speaker offering.
Some of the responses from Sonos employees I've seen on these communities (the English and local ones), also hint at the fact that they too are becoming exasperated with the delay and the fact they cannot (or may not) give any information.
That said, since it is in Sonos' best interest to implement this feature rather sooner than later, I am still confident that they are doing everything in their power to make this happen.
I'm more and more starting to believe that it might be Google, who will likely be less anxious for Sonos to release this ASAP than Sonos themselves. Another competitor to their Home hardware, with a competing voice assistant present within the same ecosystem... Not to mention the name Sonos already has in multi-room, whereas the implementation of multi-room and grouping within the Google ecosystem is... limited to say the least. Add the fact that Sonos are intending to design the backend to be the best of both the "works with Google Assistant" and "Google Assistant built in" worlds, with the voice activated speakers working as the latter and the legacy speakers working as the former, I can imagine Google will not prioritize development for a potentially formidable competitor to their own hardware.
Of course Sonos will never give any insight into this, because they will not want to damage their credibility, nor blame Google and lose their support.
Although I never bought into Sonos just for the voice integration and I'll never sell my Sonos because of the lack of Google Assistant integration, I can see this becoming a problem for Sonos. As evidenced by the threads that keep popping up here, Sonos is starting to lose trust and traction for their voice-enabled speaker offering.
Some of the responses from Sonos employees I've seen on these communities (the English and local ones), also hint at the fact that they too are becoming exasperated with the delay and the fact they cannot (or may not) give any information.
That said, since it is in Sonos' best interest to implement this feature rather sooner than later, I am still confident that they are doing everything in their power to make this happen.
Although I never bought into Sonos just for the voice integration and I'll never sell my Sonos because of the lack of Google Assistant integration, I can see this becoming a problem for Sonos. As evidenced by the threads that keep popping up here, Sonos is starting to lose trust and traction for their voice-enabled speaker offering.
While there absolutely is truth to this, and there will be customers who have already damned Sonos as a failure of company, there will also be those that are quick to forgive once GA gets here. Then there will be some that express great disappoint that GA doesn't do everything they ever imagined it would, claiming that the lack of feature X makes GA integration completely useless to them personally (and thus every customer). There will be those who jump to other products and claim it's better, while settling for lesser features that may or may not their needs. There will even be some that claim Sonos is a failure, while secretly still enjoying their Sonos. Some that get off the bandwagon only to jump back on when they find nothing better out there (in their subjective terms) or jump back in when the next product Sonos releases wins them back over.
There is no denying that Sonos would have been much better off if they had released GA integration before the Christmas shopping season last year, but I don't think the damage is beyond any kind of repair. They will continue to make customers rather happy and disappointed at the same time.
Hey Danny, almost didn't recognize you there, I was only looking at the avatar ;)
there will also be those that are quick to forgive once GA gets here. [...]
There is no denying that Sonos would have been much better off if they had released GA integration before the Christmas shopping season last year, but I don't think the damage is beyond any kind of repair. They will continue to make customers rather happy and disappointed at the same time. Of course, as someone who is, like you, a loyal customer of Sonos and has seen Sonos being written off before due to lack of some or other feature, I am not saying all is lost, but I do think that there will be people at Sonos scratching their heads at the opportunities that are missed due to this lengthy development.
I think the main concern lies within the group of users that were already disappointed by some of the other gripes we see showing up here sometimes, like the update situation, or lack of wide-range HT codec support, and also the customers new to Sonos who bought a Sonos One as their first device, hoping to use GA by the end of 2018. For these users, there might be a percentage, however small, that already got rid of their Sonos because of this, and they may be hard to win back.
There is also the group that is buying or looking to buy into Sonos for what users like you or me would call "the wrong reasons", people who are actively comparing it to Amazon Echo, Google Home, Apple Homepod or third party devices that are relatively stand-alone and do not share Sonos' multiroom heritage. These potential clients might never get to know Sonos due to the current lack of GA. In many of the GA threads, I have argued that voice control is not the core feature of Sonos, but in the current market, these clients are still an important demographic for them. These people will not likely reconsider Sonos once they have fulfilled their need for a voice-controlled speaker.
There is no denying that Sonos would have been much better off if they had released GA integration before the Christmas shopping season last year, but I don't think the damage is beyond any kind of repair. They will continue to make customers rather happy and disappointed at the same time.
I think the main concern lies within the group of users that were already disappointed by some of the other gripes we see showing up here sometimes, like the update situation, or lack of wide-range HT codec support, and also the customers new to Sonos who bought a Sonos One as their first device, hoping to use GA by the end of 2018. For these users, there might be a percentage, however small, that already got rid of their Sonos because of this, and they may be hard to win back.
There is also the group that is buying or looking to buy into Sonos for what users like you or me would call "the wrong reasons", people who are actively comparing it to Amazon Echo, Google Home, Apple Homepod or third party devices that are relatively stand-alone and do not share Sonos' multiroom heritage. These potential clients might never get to know Sonos due to the current lack of GA. In many of the GA threads, I have argued that voice control is not the core feature of Sonos, but in the current market, these clients are still an important demographic for them. These people will not likely reconsider Sonos once they have fulfilled their need for a voice-controlled speaker.
Whilst I’m very much looking forward to seeing Google Assistant on Sonos, I have to say I think the Sonos integration with Amazon Alexa will take some beating as things stand, especially now that Sonos works so well with ‘Alexa Enabled Groups’ and users are able to set their chosen “preferred” speakers that auto-group together etc. (a feature that I really like!!)
Plus, I think it’s admirable that Amazon has allowed its users to have the choice of setting a default Music Service Provider, like Spotify, Deezer ...and more recently Apple Music, in addition to their own Amazon Music Service.
So credit, where credit is due, I think.?
I’m struggling (at the moment) to see how Google will ever top that, but perhaps that’s why these things are taking so long?
I have been using both Echo Dot's (older Gen2) and Google Mini Hub's at home for a while now ..and the Mini seems to have the edge in hearing my requests, but I’m just not a fan of the Google Assistant and Home Apps on my iPad, they are a bit of a maze to navigate and find things, particularly in the early days/weeks of first use. I much prefer the Amazon Alexa App, but I wish the interface for that App was a bit faster on screen.
In my particular case, I think there will be advantages and disadvantages for both of these voice services and rather than choose one, I think my early preference will be to install both assistants in all the main rooms of my home so that I (hopefully) can go onto get the best of both worlds, at least until a clear winner emerges in the next few years.
...and may the best man, or woman, voice assistant, win !! ?
Plus, I think it’s admirable that Amazon has allowed its users to have the choice of setting a default Music Service Provider, like Spotify, Deezer ...and more recently Apple Music, in addition to their own Amazon Music Service.
So credit, where credit is due, I think.?
I’m struggling (at the moment) to see how Google will ever top that, but perhaps that’s why these things are taking so long?
I have been using both Echo Dot's (older Gen2) and Google Mini Hub's at home for a while now ..and the Mini seems to have the edge in hearing my requests, but I’m just not a fan of the Google Assistant and Home Apps on my iPad, they are a bit of a maze to navigate and find things, particularly in the early days/weeks of first use. I much prefer the Amazon Alexa App, but I wish the interface for that App was a bit faster on screen.
In my particular case, I think there will be advantages and disadvantages for both of these voice services and rather than choose one, I think my early preference will be to install both assistants in all the main rooms of my home so that I (hopefully) can go onto get the best of both worlds, at least until a clear winner emerges in the next few years.
...and may the best man, or woman, voice assistant, win !! ?
Checks actual calendar . . . rolls eyes. :8
I don't think we really disagree on this point. It's a loss that cannot be fully recovered.
I don't know if I'm a loyal customer so much as I'm a selfish customer. I stay with Sonos, yet because I'm happy with it, but also because I'm invested in it, and I don't care to 'hurt' myself based on principle. The same goes with Google and Amazon to certain extent. A part of me feels I should give my business elsewhere, due to their size, politics, or what have you, yet I don't want to make the sacrafice on my side. Years ago I had given up on Best Buy due to an issue I had with them, but came back when I got tired of making my life more uncomfortable. But I also used to be loyal to Apple, but jumped off their platforms when good alternatives where easy to transition to.
Not sure if that really has anything to do with the main point, other than illustrate that customers can act differently in different situations, which I think is easy to agree with.
Quite possible.
In my particular case, I think there will be advantages and disadvantages for both of these voice services and rather than choose one, I think my early preference will be to install both assistants in all the main rooms of my home so that I (hopefully) can go onto get the best of both worlds, at least until a clear winner emerges in the next few years.
...and may the best man, or woman, voice assistant, win !! ?
Alexa still wins in my book right now, but I've been trying to give google a chance lately. Ultimately, I'm hope a more neutral 3rd party comes along giving a solid alternative that doesn't push you quite so strongly into adopting any particular ecosystem. I'm hopefully that Samsung's Bixby (and upcoming Galaxy Home speakers) could fill that role well. Samsung doesn't have their own music service, and their history with Smartthings and suggestion that they will be more open source is promising. Quite possibly allowing Sonos to get the kind of voice integration features Alexa won't provide. It may be too late though, in several different features and market segments.
First off... it's still April. May isn't until Wednesday. Next week.
Google Assistant integration was demo'd at CES 2019.
I would agree with the topic starter, I purchased my beam + 2xOne on the primes that it had google home last year. I keep waiting... and waiting... and waiting... nothing. Sure they did demo's, that means nothing. If I buy/upgrade my existing sonos setup based on a specific feature, I do not expect to have to wait a year for it.
I have accepted that Sonos usually is years behind with the features I want (Atmos, a proper HDMI hub for all my stuff etc.) because they make really great products. However, don´t ever sell me something and not delivering, it just makes me dislike you as a company. So, commit to a date and deliver.
I have accepted that Sonos usually is years behind with the features I want (Atmos, a proper HDMI hub for all my stuff etc.) because they make really great products. However, don´t ever sell me something and not delivering, it just makes me dislike you as a company. So, commit to a date and deliver.
I have accepted that Sonos usually is years behind with the features I want (Atmos, a proper HDMI hub for all my stuff etc.) because they make really great products. However, don´t ever sell me something and not delivering, it just makes me dislike you as a company. So, commit to a date and deliver.
Just following up -- 10.2 added Google Assistant support -- you probably know that by now.
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