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Sonos is today bringing Google Assistant to its smart speakers to do things like play music, control televisions and video, and answer random questions. The news makes Sonos one of the first speakers to let you communicate with both Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant through a simple change in the Sonos smartphone app.
Alexa support was introduced for Sonos speakers in 2017, and last year support was expanded to AirPlay 2, which allows Apple devices and Siri voice commands to control Apple Music.
Sonos also talked last year about integration with the Tencent-supported Rokid AI assistant that speaks Mandarin Chinese.
You can designate an AI assistant for each Sonos speaker you have, so you could start a song with Google Assistant in one room and then ask a speaker in another room “Alexa, what music is playing?”
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Google Assistant will be made available through an over-the-air software update for Sonos One and Sonos Beam in the United States in the days ahead and for Sonos owners in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom in July.
Google Assistant with Sonos will also be able to do things like carry out custom routines, translate languages, tell you a joke, speak with Google Assistant voice apps, and ask multiple questions in a row with Continued Conversation.
To add Google Assistant to a Sonos speaker, go to the Voice Services section of the Sonos app.
The news comes as little surprise, since Sonos shared its plans to bring Google Assistant to users in a Q2 earnings report last week and announced the idea in June 2018 when the Sonos Beam made its debut.
Google Assistant recently got a number of additions, including the ability to assign reminders to people in your household and answer more how-to questions and the debut of Nest Hub Max with facial recognition software.
