Sonos One and Beam Gains Google Assistant

UK Sonos One and Beam owners can now use Google Assistant to control their smart devices with their voice.

Google Assistant for Sonos is rolling out in the UK right now, following its US release a few weeks ago.

Sonos Update

Google’s voice-activated assistant is now available to Sonos Beam and Sonos One owners following a free software update, though it might take a few days for it to roll out. However, looking at the Sonos community forum, many in the UK have it already.

The update has also landed for customers in Germany, Canada, Australia, France and the Netherlands. It arrived in the US in the middle of May.

Google Assistant

Sonos’ smart speakers already support Amazon’s Alexa. So now you have a choice of which digital butler to use. Additionally, this means Sonos has bragging rights to being the first company to offer support for multiple voice assistants in the same sound system.

Google Assistant has more than a million actions, so there should be plenty of hands-free commands to try out. You can ask Google Assistant to start a song, queue a TV show, control smart home devices, and ask for updates about your day, including calendar events and traffic delays, just as you can with Google Home.

Naturally, basic controls such as play/pause and skip to the next track, request music from radio stations and streaming services, are also available.

Choice of Alexa or Google Assistant

With both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant now supported, owners of the Sonos One or Sonos Beam have a choice between which assistant is used. You’ll have to pick between Google Assistant or Alexa, though – you can’t have both set up at the same time. However, there’s nothing stopping you from switching between them; you’ll just have to go through the setup process again.

The company claims that the purpose behind bringing in multiple assistants is to demonstrate the power of a multi-partner platform that offers a choice to its customers.

Sonos CEO Patrick Spence told GadgetyNews:

We value freedom of choice, empowering listeners to choose what they want to listen to and how they want to control it. We imagine a day where we’ll have multiple voice assistants operating concurrently on the same device, and we’re committed to making that happen as soon as possible.

Getting Google Assistant on your Sonos

If you already have a Google Assistant device, such as the Google Home or Google Home Mini, you can now use the Google Home app to add the Sonos skill.

Once added and you’ve linked your Sonos account to your Google account, you can use your voice speakers to control your Sonos system with your voice.