There seems to be room for another voice assistant. Sonos, best known for top-of-the-line audio products, is reportedly introducing its own voice assistant in the next few weeks, bringing in options besides Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Google Assistant and Samsung’s Bixby.
Reported first by The Verge, the makers of excellent wireless Sonos sound system will launch something called Sonos Voice with the wake-up words “Hey Sonos”. It will reportedly have access to most of your song libraries across Apple Music, Pandora, Amazon Music and Sonos Radio.
After it arrives to customers in the US on June 1, Sonos Voice is expected to have an international rollout. All Sonos products that run the company’s S2 software will support Sonos Voice Control. That something is in the works was made evident when there were recent job openings related to the “Sonos Voice Experience”, with the company saying its ambition is to “make voice interactions fully private, more personal, and more natural”.
If leaks related to internal testing are to believed then Sonos Voice will be able to run “core music tasks” faster than Google Assistant or Alexa and the control feature will supposedly be programmed to allow for “voice concurrency” or letting you use two assistants on one device. For example, you could use Alexa as well as Assistant for smart controls while Sonos for music playback.
Sonos has hinted at developing an assistant after its November 2019 acquisition of Snips, creators of an AI voice platform for managing connected devices. Other recent reports suggest that the company may have an entry-level soundbar — probably called Sonos Ray — in the works. Unlike the company’s more expensive Arc and Beam soundbars, this may not have integrated mics for voice controls.
MPThere seems to be room for another voice assistant. Sonos, best known for top-of-the-line audio products, is reportedly introducing its own voice assistant in the next few weeks, bringing in options besides Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Google Assistant and Samsung’s Bixby.
Reported first by The Verge, the makers of excellent wireless Sonos sound system will launch something called Sonos Voice with the wake-up words “Hey Sonos”. It will reportedly have access to most of your song libraries across Apple Music, Pandora, Amazon Music and Sonos Radio.
After it arrives to customers in the US on June 1, Sonos Voice is expected to have an international rollout. All Sonos products that run the company’s S2 software will support Sonos Voice Control. That something is in the works was made evident when there were recent job openings related to the “Sonos Voice Experience”, with the company saying its ambition is to “make voice interactions fully private, more personal, and more natural”.
If leaks related to internal testing are to believed then Sonos Voice will be able to run “core music tasks” faster than Google Assistant or Alexa and the control feature will supposedly be programmed to allow for “voice concurrency” or letting you use two assistants on one device. For example, you could use Alexa as well as Assistant for smart controls while Sonos for music playback.
Sonos has hinted at developing an assistant after its November 2019 acquisition of Snips, creators of an AI voice platform for managing connected devices. Other recent reports suggest that the company may have an entry-level soundbar — probably called Sonos Ray — in the works. Unlike the company’s more expensive Arc and Beam soundbars, this may not have integrated mics for voice controls.