Remember when Sonos got our collective hopes up about Google Assistant integration? Yeah, about that…
Google Assistant support sadly won’t be coming to the Sonos platform at the close of 2018, as we were originally promised back in August.
When may it be coming and joining Alexa and Siri integration? Well, in “early 2019”according to a blog post published by the manufacturer – what exactly the manufacturer classes is “early” is hearsay, but Sonos did state that it will “lock down a date in 2019” following having “a bit more time to get the experience right.”
Naturally, Sonos didn’t explore what’s causing the hold up in great detail, but in a recent interview during CEDIA 2018’s post-show hours, CEO Patrick Spence revealed such partnerships do “present a lot of challenges” and “working with Google Assistant right now [as with Alexa] comes with a degree of complexity” when it comes to delivering an integration that works on both sides.
For now, beta testing looks set to start soon in a “few hundred homes” (and eventually thousands), and the company is inviting users to sign up to be involved via an online survey. As yet we don’t have any idea of what form Google Assistant support will take (& crucially how it will work with Chromecast), and how it will compare to Amazon Alexa integration.
So, no early Christmas present for Google Assistant fans unfortunately, but in a year that’s given us the announcement of the Sonos Amp and the release of the Sonos Beam & Siri integration, we can probably forgive them (well, ask again in “early” 2019).