According to people familiar with the matter, Sonos is preparing to officially launch its own voice assistant “Sonos Voice Control” in the next few weeks to control the Sonos audio platform to play music. On June 1, the rumored voice assistant is rumored to first reach US users via a software update, followed by an international rollout.
Sonos has previously used similar products from other platforms in its own speakers, but with its own voice assistant, Sonos Voice will replace Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. All current Sonos products running the company’s “S2” software version will support Sonos Voice.
Sonos recently posted a job posting related to “The Sonos Voice Experience,” and the company says its ambition is to “make voice interactions completely private, personal, and natural.” The debut of Sonos Voice Control will mark Sonos’ time to finally expand into services as the company looks to expand its hardware business.
In keeping with Sonos’ pursuit of privacy, the feature doesn’t record user audio commands or forward them to the cloud for processing. “Hey Sonos” will be the wake-up call, and the company’s internal tests claim it’s faster than rival Assistant services on core music tasks.
It’s not a well-kept secret that Sonos is developing its own voice capabilities. The company has expressed interest in customer surveys, and last year, early details about the service were discovered in the Sonos mobile app.
Currently, Sonos lets users play specific songs, artists, or playlists with voice commands, among other features. Upon launch, Sonos Voice will work with Apple Music, Amazon Music, Pandora, Deezer and the company’s own Sonos Radio. Spotify and Google’s YouTube Music have yet to join.
Previously, although Sonos Voice Control is the pioneer of Wi-Fi speakers, they have not had its own voice assistants, so Sonos is in an awkward position after Amazon, Google, and Apple have come up with their own products. And even in the current era of streaming music, Sonos still doesn’t have a corresponding service.
The company has seen a future where it will place a greater emphasis on software and try to establish itself as a central hub for streaming entertainment — possibly beyond audio to integrate video. Sonos CEO Patrick Spence hinted at these goals in an interview: “We’re hiring software people into new areas that we’re not into today. In hindsight, it’s easier to understand that a company has been working on all these great things. We just didn’t see it in that moment.”
Last month, The Verge reported that Sonos’ next new hardware product, the Sonos Ray, is a cheap soundbar priced around $250 that will be released in the coming weeks. However, unlike the company’s more expensive Arc and Beam soundbars, it won’t integrate a microphone for voice control, meaning it won’t support Sonos Voice Control.