What up with Google Assistant!

Been waiting for Google Assistant for over a year. Bought my Sonos system because of the promise from Sonos that Google Assistsnt would be available in late 2018. Very disappointed.
Stay tuned!

Stay tuned forever... ?

Bore bored bored... very close to giving up as shifted from Squeezebox to google home, etc and was very happy. When I moved into a new house I invested heavily in Sonos throughout on the promise of upcoming google support. Of course this is continuing to fail to materialise and even though I spent thousands on sonos, my wife still uses a google home device for music as Alexa sucks and sonos app is inconvenient when compared to the ease of natural language commands of google assistant. Money would be better spent with google devices and audio amps then sonos!

Im just stunned why Sonos is treating their customers like this. This will only backfire and cause them to loose customers. I loved sonos, but after so much lies i will recommend people to buy others brands. Why dont sonos say something or be more transparent? Are they this arrogant? This makes me believe they only think about money... Shameful.

Why the insults? It is not in Sonos' interest to delay and they have explained it's taking longer than expected.

Because Sonos, by their admission, were late regarding voice assistance technology. They they were slow almost a crawl regarding the work for Google Assistant. Then because of pressure to be seeing to getting this product out due to missing 2018 timescale, they posted a blog 1st November last year saying they had completed a great deal of work on Google Assistant and asking for trialists. The blog further stated than they would give a further update early 2019. Sonos words not my interpretation. Well we are nearly half way through March. By any defenition that is not early 2019.

So another timescale set by Sonos missed. In the UK recently Google were selling their max for £200. I was tempted, but held off. If or when the deal comes back I will buy and ditch Sonos if Google Assistant has not launched.

Google Assistant is available with LG, Sony, JBL need I say any more.

Why don't you people get it that Sonos is WORKING TOGETHER WITH GOOGLE on the integration, and therefore have to adapt to Google's working schedule?

Im just stunned why Sonos is treating their customers like this. This will only backfire and cause them to loose customers. I loved sonos, but after so much lies i will recommend people to buy others brands. Why dont sonos say something or be more transparent? Are they this arrogant? This makes me believe they only think about money... Shameful.

Well, you can't really make an argument that Sonos intended to miss their deadlines. I don't think you can all it a lie, unless you have proof that they never intended to deliver on time, or knew that it wasn't possible. I've heard nothing to support that.

I have no doubt that Sonos has lost some business due to this. Missing the Christmas season was clearly a disappointment. As far as being transparent, you could argument that attempting to be transparent and provide a rough (very rough) date is what's causing the disappointment to begin with.

My argument, based on the fact I have worked in IT R&D for over 20 years, is that they made a market commitment without the actual engineering investment. To allow a slip of a software integration of over 12 months (and it is an integration effort, not a new development) from initial announcement reflects a lack of engineering resource. The poor side of this is that people invested based on their announcement of upcoming support. There is a reason why mature technology companies rarely promote roadmap beyond 6 months unless there is significant back room engineering underway, this is because it can influence sales both positively and negatively. Positively in a way that customers invest based on expectation that may not materialise which damages brand, negatively as it can cause customers to delay purchases while awaiting for the new releases. I think Sonos has shown a high level of immaturity with the way they have handled the google assistant as they obviously made announcements before they have had even proven viability in the labs. As such they have hit hurdles either technically or resource aligned that has caused the delay. The product is solid but without assistant it still is no better in my house then what I had with squeezebox as far as my family is concerned. Once you get use to google assistant it is hard to down sell the family (especially wife) back to remote/mobile control.

For the sake of transparency of setup, 2 x Sonos Ones with Alexa, 1x Sub, 1x soundbar, 2 x AMP so we have Alexa but it has nothing on google. For google I have 2 x google chromecast audio, 3 x google home, 2 x Sony google speakers. The google devices get used by everyone but myself as the lone Sonos consumer in the house.

Sigh, it's getting a little boring.

Google Confirms Integration in Sonos One at CES 2019


P.S. It is also immature to make purchasing decisions based on expectations, announcements, promises or wishful thinking.