Sonos could take on Alexa with its own Sonos Voice smart assistant

Chances are you already have more voice assistants living in your home than you do family members, but if rumours come to pass, Sonos is about to throw a brand new one into the mix.

As reported by The Verge, Sonos insiders say the company could introduce its own voice assistant in the coming weeks, which will offer users of its audio products another way to control them hands-free. The voice assistant will reportedly be called Sonos Voice, and will launch via a software update, arriving first for US customers on June 1, with an international rollout coming shortly after. According to The Verge, all Sonos products that support the brand’s S2 software will work with Sonos Voice. 

Sonos Voice, which will use “Hey Sonos” as a wake word for voice control, will work with Apple Music, Amazon Music, Pandora, Deezer and Sonos Radio at launch, with Spotify and YouTube music being notable absentees. 

Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant are both supported as voice assistants with Sonos’ smart speakers and soundbars, but Sonos will push privacy as a reason to choose its native assistant. User commands won’t be recorded and no data will be sent to the cloud for processing. Like its rivals, Sonos’ assistant will allow users to request songs, artists and playlists using voice commands. 

Thanks to a feature called “voice concurrency, you will still be able to use Sonos Voice alongside Alexa, which will likely offer more functionality than Sonos’ initially playback-focused offering. 

There are lots of rumours surrounding Sonos at the moment. The Verge also recently reported that the company will imminently launch a budget soundbar to sit under the Beam 2 and much pricier Arc, although if (as the report claims) the Sonos Ray doesn’t feature built-in microphones, it might not be compatible with Sonos’ new voice assistant. 

Stay tuned to Stuff for official confirmation of all of the above if and when it does arrive. 

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Matt Tate Contributor

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I'm fascinated by all things tech, but if you were going to leave me on a desert island, I'd probably ask for my Nintendo Switch, a drone, and a pair of noise-cancelling cans to block out the relentless seagull racket. When I'm not on Stuff duty you'll probably find me subscribing to too many podcasts, playing too many video games, or telling anyone who will listen that Harry Kane is never going to leave Spurs.

Areas of expertise

Video games, VR, smartwatches, headphones, smart speakers, bizarre Kickstarter campaigns