Sonos will launch Google Assistant on its smart speakers next week

I would guess that only Gen 2 One's will be supported. There has to be a good reason they updated the hardware recently.

It shouldn't be the case - Sonos said the Gen 2 was in anticipation of future needs. I can't believe it's such a short time to the future 😃 Plus, the Beam is also supported. That's not seen an upgrade.

Would be nice if they opened up instead of only in the US. Here in Denmark we are not getting it next week:(

Who says that GA is about to launch next week – the tabloids? Never mistake scribblement for fact. No official word from Sonos yet on that front.

Actually Sonos have officially announced this. It's referred to in the shareholder letter dated 9th May. However not happy that it's US only and I await to see how extensive the integration is? If it's just Sonos One & Beam a bummer. Why should I have to buy new speakers to use GA. We will have to wait and see how it pans out!

Let's hope we will be able to enable it outside the US with a workaround, like Alexa can be activated beyond supported regions. However, with Google, I wouldn't be very keen to change my home location in my Google account, since that would break a lot of other functionality of the Google ecosystem.

Given what Google have done to Nest I will stay with Alexa. I thing Google Home (or Nest Home) have changed their strategy recently for the worse.

I seriously doubt the integration is on Sonos One and Beam only. Given how the Alexa integration works, and how Google Assitant also utilizes the cloud, it would be completely illogical to impliment only speakers with built in assistants. You pretty much would need to intentionally handicap the integration for some business reason. Sonos might sell more speakers that way perhaps, but the hit to customer goodwill would be high, and it does not fit Sonos MO. I can't see Google wanting to do this as it would actually discourage sales of Google home products, since a customer who has a Sonos room without built in VA would buy a Google Home for that room.

You also have to remember that the authors of these articles are not going to be into the details of Sonos the way we are. They wouldn't recognize that they're statements could be taken the wrong way, or possibly even know enough about Sonos to know there is a concept of controlling other Sonos speakers by voice.

I would guess that only Gen 2 One's will be supported. There has to be a good reason they updated the hardware recently.

No, not buying this theory. There isn't a a good reason to think that the Google integration requires significantly more hardware than Alexa. This is cloud computing after all. Even in the off chance that it did, Sonos would surely give users the option of turning of other features, like airplay 2 perhaps in order to accommodate GA.

I might be more inclined to believe that Gen 1 speakers can have either Alexa OR GA configured, while maybe Gen 2 can have both configured at the same time? That would make some sense to me, I'd be more inclinded to believe that the Gen 2 has more to do with production costs (perhaps using more common parts with the beam) and farther future proofing then a consequence of the GA integration.


Regardless, I really hope that we'll be able to configure Alexa and GA on the same speakers. I'm pretty much set in my ways with Alexa, and would be open to migrating to Google. I just can't do that if I have to give up the ease I've established with Alexa and practically start over again.

I would guess that only Gen 2 One's will be supported. There has to be a good reason they updated the hardware recently.

Lol. Did you not read my post, immediately before yours? Yes, legacy Sonos speakers will be supported using Google Home devices.

It's most certainly not just the One and Beam. As the CEO was quoted above, any Google Home device will be able to control Sonos speakers. Just like any Echo device allows you to control any Sonos speaker ever made via Alexa.

Right, but the issue is which devices you can talk to. The Beam, sure, and, I am surmising, the One Gen 2. I don't think the One Gen 1 is going to work. We'll find out at some point. Obviously all models can be controlled with voice, that doesn't need any more hardware (or software) support than Alexa-remote-control needed, but its the mic-listening devices that are hardware challenged, as they have to run three very separate software stacks: Sonos Classic, Alexa, and Google. We have seen that a lot more memory (4x) is required for this compared to the non-mic-equipped devices.