Question

Will Sonos work with google home?


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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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112 replies

I use a sonos connect to pull in the audio from my tv. I plan on using the google music cast with my connect to push music through out the house with sonos.
iismewalk I may tap you for some help in my setup. its a cluster at the moment. cant get my soundbar to work yet and still have the whole integration to get to....and holiday 🙂
Looking at the back of the playbar you need an optical output on your TV to get the sound to your playbar. The connect, connect amp, and the play5 all have input Jacks that show up on your app. From here you can play throughout the house by grouping them together.
iismewalk, Nice if i had new modules. I have 2 connects. Primary connected to router and secondary connected wless to primary. Finally got playbar working. Now I get bugged for beta updates on droid phone and tablet but I cannot do the updates. Next up is how to train this fn google home. It doesnt understand anything. Once trained I want to use your prior instructions to run things.
How did you get this to work? I got SmartThings hub today - set it up - but can't get Google Home to play music via my Sonos in any rooms. Would be grateful for any advice/tips you have on this one.

My guess is they will want to work with home but that integration with home will have to come later.... we don't know a lot yet about how developers are going to be able to work with home.

I would assume a lot of what they learn with echo integration will work the same with home integration so future home integration won't be a long way behind echo. I would say if we expect echo by first quarter next year maybe home by 3rd quarter. I guess depends on size of their team if they have ability to work on both simultaneously. Then what about Apple HomeKit. I would think if your doing the voice thing you would want to work with alexa, Google, and Siri.

I debated canceling my order for addition dots because home seems to be more fluid in its ability to recognize speech. But decided alexa was already doing all I need from it, will be first with Sonos support, and the dots are cheaper then the others (as with Sonos I don't need the speaker part).

With my smartthings I can already play and pause my Sonos speakers so I'm sure home will do that out the gate with my Smartthings hub in middle. with home I would have been able control my play:5 in kitchen that has chrimecast dongle I would assume
Hello Adam, which sonos do you have
Hello Adam, which sonos do you have? Do you have a harmony hub as well?
Hello Jjamca6,
If you go into your Google home app.
Open up tap on left to get to drop down menu
Tap on home control
Hit the (plus / + / add sign) you will see that Google home works with 3 things out the box.
Philips hue
Smartthings
Nest

Once you connect it to smartthings, it will be able to control everything that smartthings can control.
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Not sure this will ever happen.
Sonos would just become another casting speaker like sony, LG, etc, loose their ecosystem status, .


I get your reasoning but i'm not sure that's the case. My SONOS already support Google Play music. All I want is to be able to control my Google Play music by voice. As I type this I seem to recall an article somewhere that said that SONOS might be adding voice support to their devices. My memory is foggy on that fact though. If it is the case then I think Paulw123's logic would make sense.

As a general note ecosystem lock-in never sits well with me. If SONOS goes that route and removes my choice I might have to reconsider my options. I'm seriously bummed that my Insteon won't connect with my SONOS because I'm on Android. As it turns out I'm blaming Insteon for that issue and now SONOS as the SONOS platform is open to 3rd party control it's just that my choosen 3rd party doesn't support it.

We are early days in home automation and early adopters are going to get burned along the way. Maybe I should just accept that.
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If google home takes off, then I can see sonos would have to jump in.
At the moment they are working with amazon and alexa and are bound to learn a lot from that, and are opening up to control from other apps with spotify. They must of realised standing isolated in their ecosystem, which is quite expensive, would narrow their future new market sales.
Maybe their problems trying to fix audible books for a year, has taught some lessons as well.

My SONOS already support Google Play music. All I want is to be able to control my Google Play music by voice.


You can do that today. I'm running the Google Play Music app on my tablet right now, casting to my Sonos Connect natively, and asking "OK Google" to play Eddie Higgins' Essential Standards album. No problem, works great. Just won't work, as far as I know, from the Google Home "air freshener", which will only cast to Chromecast devices.
I agree Sonos needs to get connected with Google Home that is a given. However, in the mean time I thought I would share that if you use Chromecast on your TV (only if you have a soundbar) then you will be able to control Sonos through it. Things like YouTube and Spotify would be easy to do by Google Home. Thoughts?
I was thinking about picking a SONO's speaker up for xmas, but will hold off until they get Google Home integration. They look like descent speakers, dang.
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Not sure this will ever happen.
Sonos would just become another casting speaker like sony, LG, etc, loose their ecosystem status, loose sales of connect & connect amp.
Google may well release other speakers themselves later on as Home develops.
So far Alexa is only partnering with sonos and denon Heos, that I know of. This will drive sales for all partners, sonos users will buy Alexa, and Alexa users might want better speakers.


The integration is also the only thing that has made me reconsider my stance on NOT purchasing any more from Sonos. Without voice activation it's 100% certain that I will purchase no more. The sound quality is great for sure, however, the world has moved on from when I started collecting Sonos. Now that voice activation looks possible through Echo, I will buy dots - good for Amazon, and assuming I'm happy with how the voice activation works, continue to expand my Sonos system.
I have Google Home, Sonos Connect and Chromecast. Any way to connect these so that I can control my home speakers which are connected to Sonos Connect as aneeded audio source through voice commands to Google Home?
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Google home is coming, YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!........... I can feel it ;O)
My guess would be this time next year in UK, after Alexa, just a case of how long after.......
Why would you say Alexa cannot do things like that? It has access to both your schedule and traffic conditions. As to the "smartness" of Alexa, Alexa's "smarts" are in the cloud, not the device, so its "smartness" is not limited to the device, only to the ability of the cloud.


Have you ever played a song in Alexa? then in the middle of the song ask her how to pronounce the name of this artist, you will see her answer! she can not answer that!

Have you ever played a song in Alexa? then in the middle of the song ask her how to pronounce the name of this artist, you will see her answer! she can not answer that!


There is no hardware based deficiency which prevents Alexa from doing this. As I said, all the smarts are in the cloud, so the capability is there if one wants to enable it. So I'm not going to get in a X-Box/Playstation battle over what voice control method does what. They are usually based on emotional loyalty rather that any facts anyway.
Searching the jobs postings usually gives some general hints about direction. Search for API, several hits talking about the new gen of "direct control", accessible via lan or web. That's the term they used for the new Spotify wizardry, not "Spotify Connect", so I'll make the leap and conclude that they're building their own API that Spotify, Google, Apple, etc are all welcome to use. It will no doubt allow control of Sonos features not included in the Chromecast API.
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I've read through most of this and have been patiently waited for Echo/GoogleHome to support Sonos.

Today, I'm beginning to wonder what speaker quality the Echo/GoogleHome units have. I mean, I just read an article that talked about Google Home having multi-room music control. I didn't dig too deep. But, it got me to wondering.

Don't get me wrong. For me, my Sonos1 in stereo (bedroom), Sonos 3 (small family room), and Sonos 5 (larger living room) sound tremendous. However, I can't help but want something like Echo/GoogleHome to tie in and work seamlessly with what I have. Yes, the Sonos mobile app is great. Adding Spotify app control of Sonos is cool. I probably won't use it unless I accidently launch the Spotify app and I'm curious. The Sonos app is pretty darn good. However, I did just upgrade to Spotify Family and may have more Spotify users with self-curated playlists that may want to use the Spotify native app on Sonos. We'll see.

My point is, I don't want to trade my Sonos for a bunch of Echo/GoogleHome's in each room.

It's too bad Sonos/AmazonEcho/GoogleHome couldn't reach some announcement back in Oct/Nov. Before the holidays. I suppose Amazon doesn't mind too much since their Echo is sold out until early January. Ha.
Well then I guess it's a good thing it was last August, rather than last October that Amazon and Sonos announced full Echo/Sonos integration is coming in 2017.

http://press-us.sonos.com/134980-sonos-with-partners-and-industry-leaders-ushers-in-new-era-of-connected-home-listening
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Why would you say Alexa cannot do things like that? It has access to both your schedule and traffic conditions. As to the "smartness" of Alexa, Alexa's "smarts" are in the cloud, not the device, so its "smartness" is not limited to the device, only to the ability of the cloud.


Have you ever played a song in Alexa? then in the middle of the song ask her how to pronounce the name of this artist, you will see her answer! she can not answer that!


Do you mean that Alexa is unable to pronounce it or gets the pronunciation wrong? Or doesn't even try as there are many ways to pronounce names?
Is your name Ant-toe-knee or Anth-o-knee?
Is part of my name Blam or Bal-ham or Bal-um
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You got me. I wasn't clear. I meant announcement that they were going to have the feature just as the holidays rolled in so the Echo or Google Home could be a hot item to gift. I'm just being picky. I'm using Sonos integration (non-beta) as the tipping point for trying out AmazonEcho/GoogleHome.


Well then I guess it's a good thing it was last August, rather than last October that Amazon and Sonos announced full Echo/Sonos integration is coming in 2017.

http://press-us.sonos.com/134980-sonos-with-partners-and-industry-leaders-ushers-in-new-era-of-connected-home-listening
If that is your tipping point, your decision is made. Sonos is definitely going to integrate with Echo in the coming year, it would not have announced a partnership if it were not. There is currently no indication whether they are (or are not) going to integrate with Google Home. So if you are looking for a voice control assistant that works with Sonos, your only choice at this time is Echo. As to announcements, even after large splashy press releases (Apple Music, Spotify Direct Control, Echo), Sonos tends to go silent during the internal/private testing phase. Then *poof*, a public beta is announced. With no inside knowledge, I imagine the quiet at this time is probably due to this.
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If that is your tipping point, your decision is made.

Thank you jgatie for the feedback. I see your point.

Do Sonos users go for the Echo or the Dot? I assume the Dot since the Echo has a better speaker but is maybe rendered redundant The price makes the Dot a low-risk investment. Maybe this isn't appropriate conversation for a Google Home titled thread.

It would be superb if Sonos would allow you to use your Echo as a zone. Somehow I don't see that happening. But, I won't complain much.