What we know about the alleged "Alexa" of Sonos

What we know about the alleged "Alexa" of Sonos

After months of rumours, everything indicates that Sonos will also join voice assistants with its own service. It will be called Sonos Voice , and it will leverage the Sonos speaker ecosystem to deliver a privacy-focused home automation experience . The development has been carried out with a lot of secrecy, but we already know several of its key points and how this new assistant will reach the public.

Sonos bets even more on the connected home

As published by The Verge , Sonos devices that already have an integrated microphone will receive a software update on June 1 and will add the new Sonos Voice function, a new voice assistant that will be offered as an alternative to Google Assistant and Alexa . This new assistant would arrive just at a good time, as Sonos is expanding its brand towards services and distancing itself from large companies.

At the moment, Sonos has not confirmed anything at all, as they say, it is company policy not to comment on any kind of rumor or speculation. Much of the information The Verge has come up with has come from researching Sonos circles. And it is that the company has been publishing job offers related to “the Sonos voice experience” for months.

What will Sonos Voice offer?

sonos sin alexa

We’ve already seen that Sonos is betting heavily on software and services. Sonos’ first goal with its new voice assistant is privacy . The interaction between the user and Sonos Voice will be totally private, a way to differentiate itself from Alexa and Google Assistant.

Apparently, the assistant will be invoked with the words “Hey Sonos”, and would not need to connect to the cloud to process the commands in the first place. That is, if we use basic commands , Sonos Voice will not require Internet access as it does with Alexa.

On the other hand, the assistant will work from day one with the music services of Apple Music , Amazon Music , Pandora , Deezer and Sonos Radio itself. We imagine that Pandora will only be available in the United States, as usual. Spotify and YouTube Music, on the other hand, won’t be in attendance on launch day, though hopefully they’ll join the boat later on.

Apparently, Sonos Voice will coexist with Alexa and Google Assistant on compatible devices, a very correct move by Sonos, as it is interesting for the adaptation process.

Available from June 1st

This new software will primarily reach Sonos customers living in the United States . Apparently, it won’t be necessary to get a new Sonos equipment, as compatible devices will receive an OTA update that same day.

However, we do not know for sure the list of speakers that will be compatible with this new assistant. On the other hand, it is known that the deployment of Sonos Voice will be gradual. The update process will begin in the United States and will expand to the rest of the countries of the globe during the following weeks.

Just around that date, the new Sonos Ray should also be launched, a sound bar that we do know will not be compatible with this new assistant, since it will not have microphones for voice control.