Sonos could be building its own Alexa and Google Assistant rival
It looks like Sonos is considering introducing its own virtual assistant for future smart speakers.
A Sonos customer on Reddit shared a survey where the company pitches “Sonos Voice Control” which offers “quick, easy and private control designed for Sonos by Sonos.”
The assistant, which would be activated somewhat unimaginatively by the phrase “hey Sonos,” would undertake the usual music-related duties that the likes of Alexa and Google Assistant perform. It would play tracks on demand, adjust volume, skip songs, pause playback and pass music from speaker to speaker.
The big differentiator would come in the form of speed and privacy, with Sonos explaining that all commands would be processed locally. Sonos promises “faster response times” and that “no audio is sent to the cloud, stored, transcribed, or listened to by anyone.”
This sounds an awful lot like the technology Sonos acquired when it purchased Snips for around $37.5 million back in 2019. In the press release announcing the move, Sonos described Snips as an “AI voice platform for connected devices that provides private-by-design voice technology,” and CEO Patrick Spence said that it would help “create an even more differentiated and immersive experience for customers” going forward.
While the focus on privacy may sound like a targeting attack on its rivals, Sonos interestingly doesn’t pitch its voice assistant as a replacement for Alexa and Google Assistant, which are already built into some of its current speakers. Rather, it suggests the assistants can live in harmony.
