I am thinking about purchasing the new Google home voice recognition product, I understand that Sonos will work with Amazons echo in the near future. Does Sonos have any information regarding google home integration?
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Thats excellent but you need to get on the Google Home bandwagon quick because I and others never had any interest in an Amazon Echo but I've already preordered 2 google Home devices. My sonos is connected to numerous zones indoors and out with much higher quality speakers than Google Home will have but if I can untether from my device and use voice I will default to the Google devices quickly I would guess. Their search logic is just off the charts better than anything else and if you are using voice you just want it to work. I am probably one of the original 1% of Sonos purchasers and I have sold MANY people on your products. Please don't render all of that useless by not getting on board with Google Home immediately.
If I were to guess, there would be 2 potential issues there:
1) They only have X number of folks to work on integration, and they're all dedicated to Amazon (maybe Amazon paid them to do them first)
2) There's a possibility that Amazon paid for exclusivity for a period of time? I'm just guessing here, but I think it's entirely possible.
Some combination of these two might be why they haven't announced your desired outcome. But I think that if you can wait for some undefined period of time, you'll get your wish.
There seems to be a lot of competition in this space, between Google, Amazon, and Apple (and likely others, as well). I'm sure that not unlike their music sources, Sonos would benefit from being associated with as many of them as possible. So it boils down to how quickly and easily each can be integrated into the software/feature set on both sides.
I happen to be a user of both Apple and Amazon, but would welcome the Google Home feature set as well, so that I had choice, and so that Sonos would continue to thrive and make my substantial investment in their hardware worthwhile. I recognize that these things don't happen overnight. I've been in negotiations of this type before, and frankly, until the ink is dry on both side's signature on a contract, it's all just vaporware.
1) They only have X number of folks to work on integration, and they're all dedicated to Amazon (maybe Amazon paid them to do them first)
2) There's a possibility that Amazon paid for exclusivity for a period of time? I'm just guessing here, but I think it's entirely possible.
Some combination of these two might be why they haven't announced your desired outcome. But I think that if you can wait for some undefined period of time, you'll get your wish.
There seems to be a lot of competition in this space, between Google, Amazon, and Apple (and likely others, as well). I'm sure that not unlike their music sources, Sonos would benefit from being associated with as many of them as possible. So it boils down to how quickly and easily each can be integrated into the software/feature set on both sides.
I happen to be a user of both Apple and Amazon, but would welcome the Google Home feature set as well, so that I had choice, and so that Sonos would continue to thrive and make my substantial investment in their hardware worthwhile. I recognize that these things don't happen overnight. I've been in negotiations of this type before, and frankly, until the ink is dry on both side's signature on a contract, it's all just vaporware.
I imagine if and when Sonos decides to integrate with other voice control systems, they will announce it. Right now all you can be sure of is Alexa integration.
PS - As to "me" having to do anything about "my" products, I don't work for Sonos. Sonos employees are marked as such.
PS - As to "me" having to do anything about "my" products, I don't work for Sonos. Sonos employees are marked as such.
Right, sorry, the thoughts were directed at the link that you provided not you directly. My bad.
Google home hasn't even been released yet and we just recently heard details on it. Expecting Sonos to be far enough along for any announcement on Google home is ridiculous.
I mean the announcement doesn't talk about Google home because there are as no such thing as Google home when they had the announcement.
I mean the original post said they needed to get on board with Google or Amazon blazing he trail. Then find ininfomed that they are in fact deeply involved with Amazon ... then that's not good enough.
I wish I could edit my typos but n my phone.
Alexa. 8 months gestation with Prime members, then release and 15 months later release to Europe. So by then a "mature" proven sales product.
Google home. ... not available.
That's the simple reason why Alexa is with Sonos and GH is not at present.
The advent of voice control from competing sources, do not discount Apple in this war, may fuel fragmentation of the next level of control i.e. Tell Home to do something and how does it do it, or it may see the consolidation of next level control equipment so that you only need one hub, like only needing one router, to process the commands.
Whilst the cuddly and sparkly front end attracts much attention what is happening, or may happen, to the actual engine that executes your home (small h) commands. It is currently as fragmented as a fragmented thing and none offer certainty of operation with home automation. Yet.
Google home. ... not available.
That's the simple reason why Alexa is with Sonos and GH is not at present.
The advent of voice control from competing sources, do not discount Apple in this war, may fuel fragmentation of the next level of control i.e. Tell Home to do something and how does it do it, or it may see the consolidation of next level control equipment so that you only need one hub, like only needing one router, to process the commands.
Whilst the cuddly and sparkly front end attracts much attention what is happening, or may happen, to the actual engine that executes your home (small h) commands. It is currently as fragmented as a fragmented thing and none offer certainty of operation with home automation. Yet.
I don't want to discount Apple. My home is all Apple MacBooks, iPads, iPods, and iPhones. Oh yeah, and one Apple TV. However, Googles voice recognition on their app is so many light years ahead of Siri, which literally gets every single thing I ask it wrong, where Google gets the same spoken words exactly right almost every time makes the voice assistant device closer to really functional in the near term.
If Sonos are not quick and give us some proper feedback of their intentions and timescales in this area then they're going to lose out on market here as Google and Amazon steal the home audio sector.
Announcement? Intentions? Timescales? Amazon? Ask and you shall receive:
http://press-us.sonos.com/134980-sonos-with-partners-and-industry-leaders-ushers-in-new-era-of-connected-home-listening
Yes, i'd seen that ... how long is soon though?
That was posted 2 months ago and alexa and google home are both available and already allow you to voice control music. Some specifics are required before people start drifting off to them or as first time users wondering why they should go sonos at all, leaving less in sonos's coffers for future development.
I know it's early days for both, but no confirmation on it being worked on for google home and no specific dates for Alexa is not very heartening. I imagine if they're creating an SDK / API then if it's done for amazon, then it's easy enough to implement for google; but what are their incentive as their product does it by using their subscription models - lnking to sonos and music libraries means less income to them.
I think we just need our confidence levels risen in sonos.
I think they are fully focused on Alexa. But as you say the alexa work may help the possibility of Google. And Sonos has a history of working well with Google.
I would say alexa public betas first of the year with Google a long way off if ever. If they do decide to do Google I would think 3rd q next year would be earliest.
I would say alexa public betas first of the year with Google a long way off if ever. If they do decide to do Google I would think 3rd q next year would be earliest.
Another curiousity is will the play:5 microphones be able to serve alexa. Will all future Sonos products have the microphone. It's a natural fit with the Sonos alexa.
I'm still hoping for some new Sonos hardware in November or so for holiday season. Very quiet on hardware front with all the software announcements.
I'm still hoping for some new Sonos hardware in November or so for holiday season. Very quiet on hardware front with all the software announcements.
How great would it be to see sonos joining this list next year?
http://www.google.com/cast/audio/
http://www.google.com/cast/audio/
Yes, i'd seen that ... how long is soon though?
Well, if you read the announcement, it says "an invite-only beta test later this year, with general availability in 2017." How much more specific do you think they should get? (Hitn: You aren't going to get anything more specific).
That was posted 2 months ago and alexa and google home are both available and already allow you to voice control music. Some specifics are required before people start drifting off to them or as first time users wondering why they should go sonos at all, leaving less in sonos's coffers for future development.
The specifics are Alexa is announced as definitely coming to private beta this year and full release after that in 2017. Nothing else has been announced. So if you are making a decision for the earliest support of voice control on Sonos, your decision is pretty easy. It's either Echo/Alexa, or nothing.
I know it's early days for both, but no confirmation on it being worked on for google home and no specific dates for Alexa is not very heartening. I imagine if they're creating an SDK / API then if it's done for amazon, then it's easy enough to implement for google; but what are their incentive as their product does it by using their subscription models - lnking to sonos and music libraries means less income to them.
I think we just need our confidence levels risen in sonos.
You can be confident Sonos will bring voice control via Amazon Echo/Alexa early next year. As to the claims of linking to Sonos meaning less income, there is no financial relationship between Sonos and the subscription music service partners. The Sonos Music Partners API is free and open to any and all services. Sonos receives no income from the music service subscriptions, as stated by Ryan S from Sonos here:
Sonos doesn't get any kickbacks, percentages, or any sort of monetary incentives from our music service partners
when it comes to using or adding them to Sonos.
We're always happy to partner with new music services and explore making them available on Sonos. We have a free
API available to use for anyone, and a team dedicated to support them even, again, for free. Some features aren't
available or aren't exactly the same because they aren't part of our API, but we're constantly trying to improve
that as well.
Also, music services determine what account types they will make available on Sonos. This is usually based on a
lot of factors that they consider.
sorry, i meant the other way around. what incentive do amazon/google really have to develop alexa/home to work with sonos. sonos is now basically a competitor to them for providing multi-room music. in many cases, using sonos takes away from amazon/google revenue because many of us sonos users use extensive music libraries rather than using amazon/google paid streaming music services which currently (ignoring some of the kludges you can do) is hand in hand with amazon/google speakers.
interesting times...
Well ... I for one just purchased 6 more Dots.
I thought about holding off and waiting to see more about Google Home. Had Google been proactive in working with Sonos and announcing their support of Sonos I would probably have waited.
However, being that Sonos has announced support coming for Alexa specifically .... I went ahead with purchase.
Open source and 3rd party integrations are what help sell their product. Not attempting to support as many protocols to control via voice as possible will mean less groups of consumers wanting to buy your product.
These products are not about keeping people within their ecosystem. If they try that they are going to fail as a whole home voice control.
You can see it in apple homekit. They have been limited in what they support in homekit and it hasn't taken off.
I thought about holding off and waiting to see more about Google Home. Had Google been proactive in working with Sonos and announcing their support of Sonos I would probably have waited.
However, being that Sonos has announced support coming for Alexa specifically .... I went ahead with purchase.
Open source and 3rd party integrations are what help sell their product. Not attempting to support as many protocols to control via voice as possible will mean less groups of consumers wanting to buy your product.
These products are not about keeping people within their ecosystem. If they try that they are going to fail as a whole home voice control.
You can see it in apple homekit. They have been limited in what they support in homekit and it hasn't taken off.
sorry, i meant the other way around. what incentive do amazon/google really have to develop alexa/home to work with sonos. sonos is now basically a competitor to them for providing multi-room music. in many cases, using sonos takes away from amazon/google revenue because many of us sonos users use extensive music libraries rather than using amazon/google paid streaming music services which currently (ignoring some of the kludges you can do) is hand in hand with amazon/google speakers.
interesting times...
Well first of all, Echo/Alexa is not multi-room audio. The devices have no multi-room capabilities at this time. Second, 92 percent of all music listening on Sonos is streaming radio or paid on-demand as stated in this blog entry:
http://blog.sonos.com/news/to-a-billion
I'm pretty confident in saying the streaming services would rather have the 92% of music on Sonos that is streamed vs. worrying about the 8% from the local library.
Plus, what Chris says above^^.
When Amazon, Google, Apple, spotify + whoever ,enable through sonos, it's with streaming subscription services, of which 92% of sonos customers will be interested in, that's a lot of potential £9.99 a month forever revenue for them. They are not into making money from speaker hardware like sonos is.
This is a major strength for sonos who are not tied to a single companies ecosystem(or their own anymore), like Samsung, Yamaha etc.
This is a major strength for sonos who are not tied to a single companies ecosystem(or their own anymore), like Samsung, Yamaha etc.
We are talking about Google Home integration here. This is old news.
I think it's coming. I just picked up a Google Home yesterday and was messing around with the IFTTT integration with Google Assistant. I have a Lutron Caseta light system which integrates Sonos so I set up an IFTTT trigger in Google Assistant set to "play Kitchen Sonos" and got this error. "This phrase is reserved by the Google Assistsnt. Please rephrase".
Interesting....
Maybe the word "play" is forbidden 🙂
Try with a synonym!
Try with a synonym!
OK, it took a while but I got my Google home to control my sonos in a round about way. If order to do this you will have to have a harmony hub and smartthings.
With this I am able to go to any station in my sonos favorites, volume up and down, turn on and off.
I have not conquer how to totally control different zones yet, mainly because I only have two set up so far.
1. Put everything you want to access in sonos favorites.
2. Harmony hub:add devices (sonos speakers) to hub. Add activities to the hub.
3. Smartthings: add harmony to smartthings. Thus will add hub and all the activities that you have made.
*****anytime you add, change, or delete activities this step must be redone.
4. Now go to Google home app. Smart control. Add smartthings and each activity.
** to activate remember to say turn on not play
** for volume: say set to _____%
YouTube video coming soon...
With this I am able to go to any station in my sonos favorites, volume up and down, turn on and off.
I have not conquer how to totally control different zones yet, mainly because I only have two set up so far.
1. Put everything you want to access in sonos favorites.
2. Harmony hub:add devices (sonos speakers) to hub. Add activities to the hub.
3. Smartthings: add harmony to smartthings. Thus will add hub and all the activities that you have made.
*****anytime you add, change, or delete activities this step must be redone.
4. Now go to Google home app. Smart control. Add smartthings and each activity.
** to activate remember to say turn on not play
** for volume: say set to _____%
YouTube video coming soon...
Thanks for that iismewalk. Wanted to update my old sonos systems with sleeker play 5 and playbar with sub and was hoping to get a Google home to run things. I need to mesh portable speakers for music with better tv sound for movies . Sounds like you have a nice work around for now.
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