At WWDC’21 Apple announced opening up Siri to third party hardware, are there plans to integrate this and make it an option for voice assistant just like Alexa and Google Assistant?
Best answer by James L.
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today I read that the first 3rd party devices supports the “hey siri” feature. @SONOS: any updates?
It requires Sonos to support it though, the HomePod/Homekit Hub is just the device that will be used to route the commands once Sonos supports it.
From memory watching the WWDC presentations, Apple stated that Siri can be routed to any Homekit Hub, despite the media’s focus on HomePod.
Just double checked, 1:17:55 of the keynote was the HomePod segment and they do say route Siri to the HomePod, despite subsequent features immediately afterward (Homekit secure video) routing to both the HomePod and Apple TV. If Apple has made it so it is only the HomePod then that is dodgy.
With iOS 15 and HomePod OS 15 launching tomorrow and this feature becoming available, is there any update from Sonos?
I love Sonos gear, have for many years even before they were a household name. I sold my old legacy Sonos kit and now just have a Beam and One. I love them, but they don’t get much use (other than as just a sound bar, and occasional Airplay when we have guests) because Alexa sucks on them (Alexa sucks in general, but it’s a necessary evil unfortunately at the moment). I need smart speaker everywhere because, like more and more people, they are the main interface for smarthome devices. Unfortunately Amazon’s Echos are the default.
Although we have Echos around the house, my choice is smart home platform is Apple HomeKit (plus Homebridge), so having Siri baked into third party products is going to be absolutely amazing for my smarthome and will allow me to ditch Amazon and go fully HomeKit. If Sonos don’t add it I’ll almost certainly have to swap out my remaining Sonos gear.
Come on Sonos, you know you want to!
Userlevel 2
Agreed, seeing a bit of a conflict for SONOS to encourage people to buy another companies speaker - that’s why I’m hoping the Apple TV’s will eventually gain that ability, specs should be equal or better and it is running the same(ish) operating system - so hope dies last I guess? ;)
Regarding the design: From my understanding the other “integrations” do the same, but instead of being Satellit mic/speakers for the voice commands and responses and sending them to a local device that has the compute and “smarts”, the data is sent to Amazon/google servers for processing (I might be getting this last part wrong…).
I don't mind buying a single HomePod Mini to tuck away somewhere to do processing. I would prefer the processing be done on my AppleTVs, but if not it is what it is. If Sonos is going to play hardball and not support this, then my planned purchase of additional Sonos and Symfonisk devices will go to a company who does and I'll sell what I have.
And Sonos I'm not going to write Apple to tell them to do something they just announced because you don't have control and most likely access to my data as a part of it. The ball here is squarely in Sonos’s court and it's not 2014 where they're the only game in town anymore. They do it and keep the business of Apple users or choose not to and start competing against their used gear flooding the market.
Even as a “satellite” to a HomePod, this would be a great integration. Apple/Siri HomeKit recognizes what room the device is in, that way you could in theory say “hey Siri, play X” and it would recognize the request being made on that sonos device in that room as opposed to having to specify, “hey Siri, play X on living room sonos.”
I hope this also permits for a deeper integration and control via HomeKit and airplay 2. Currently it’s a bit clunky in that the device control is routed through your phone or appletv as opposed to pulling and controlling the music directly to the device how HomePod and Sonos do in their individual softwares.
Agreed, seeing a bit of a conflict for SONOS to encourage people to buy another companies speaker - that’s why I’m hoping the Apple TV’s will eventually gain that ability, specs should be equal or better and it is running the same(ish) operating system - so hope dies last I guess? ;)
Does Apple TV already have Siri functionality? If so, I think that’s possible. If not, then I’m not sure Apple will have the profit motive to let you use Sonos or other speaker/mics for Siri without having to buy a homepod.
Regarding the design: From my understanding the other “integrations” do the same, but instead of being Satellit mic/speakers for the voice commands and responses and sending them to a local device that has the compute and “smarts”, the data is sent to Amazon/google servers for processing (I might be getting this last part wrong…).
For the most part, every voice enabled speaker would just send the voice to a cloud server for processing, so yes, that’s correct. Even homepods, really Siri in general, followed this process. Siri would not work with an internet connection. It looks like that trend is changing and some commands are now processed locally...which I find a little surprising personally. This is clearly faster and better for the user, but I thought Amazon/Google/Apple liked collecting all that data in the cloud. I would guess they are still getting data on your usage, just not right away.
This Verge article agrees with you. “The voice assistant will be routed through a HomePod if the devices are connected to your network.”
That makes me think it won’t be the best fit for Sonos ‘integration’, as it’s not really an integration at all. All you’re doing is setting up devices as satellite microphones/speakers for a Homepod. You need to have at least one homepod obviously. Not sure how that would work for music playback. It could presumably be a better design overall, in that your satellite devices might not need to be upgraded when new features arrive. That would all just happen on your homepod?
Agreed, seeing a bit of a conflict for SONOS to encourage people to buy another companies speaker - that’s why I’m hoping the Apple TV’s will eventually gain that ability, specs should be equal or better and it is running the same(ish) operating system - so hope dies last I guess? ;)
Regarding the design: From my understanding the other “integrations” do the same, but instead of being Satellit mic/speakers for the voice commands and responses and sending them to a local device that has the compute and “smarts”, the data is sent to Amazon/google servers for processing (I might be getting this last part wrong…).
This Verge article agrees with you. “The voice assistant will be routed through a HomePod if the devices are connected to your network.”
That makes me think it won’t be the best fit for Sonos ‘integration’, as it’s not really an integration at all. All you’re doing is setting up devices as satellite microphones/speakers for a Homepod. You need to have at least one homepod obviously. Not sure how that would work for music playback. It could presumably be a better design overall, in that your satellite devices might not need to be upgraded when new features arrive. That would all just happen on your homepod?
Hi
We don’t have anything to announce at the moment regarding native support for Siri on Sonos, but I’ll be sure to pass your request on to our development team for consideration. It might also be worth letting Apple know that you’d like to see Siri on Sonos products, since it’s ultimately their decision as to where their service is available. 
Thanks for the quick response, for someone like me that is deeply invested in both SONOS and apple products it would be great to see that gap closed 
And with local processing of the requests this would provide faster responses and more privacy, compared to the other two. I’d just hope Apple finds a way to have Apple TVs process these requests as well, especially given I already have SONOS in each room (if I read the announcement correctly, at the moment one would need one of their home pods)
If I’m not mistaken, the last new feature that Sonos announced in advance before actually implementing was the Google Assistant integration. And unfortunately, that got delayed serveral months, with a few disappointed, and Sonos might have wished they didn’t mention anything. So maybe Sonos opts to keep it quite this time.
However, an integration like this is a sales driver, so perhaps Sonos may want to announce it as people will buy product in advance. As well, Siri integration may go smoother, since it would be the 3rd time around, and presumably, Apple is more eager to work with Sonos than Amazon and Google were, since Apple likely has more to benefit from the integration.
It’s also possible that Sonos is less interested in an Apple voice integration than they were with Amazon and Google. Amazon and Google keep adding features that they can’t keep up with, a 3rd voice assistant may not bring in as many new customers, and Sonos may be working on their own voice assistant.
Userlevel 2
+3
LOL Sonos seems to be the most popular request of all the third party integrations into the Siri ecosystem. Apple forums are lit up with that request as well. @ JamesL. You may want to get a reply stamp made to save time! LOL 
for the future!
+17
Hi
We don’t have anything to announce at the moment regarding native support for Siri on Sonos, but I’ll be sure to pass your request on to our development team for consideration. It might also be worth letting Apple know that you’d like to see Siri on Sonos products, since it’s ultimately their decision as to where their service is available.
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