Sonos will launch its own voice assistant on June 1 in the United States. As The Verge announced earlier this month, Sonos Voice Control will be added to all of the company’s intelligent voice-activated speakers through an upcoming software update. Upon arrival, owners of these devices will be able to start playing music, skip songs, adjust the volume and send audio to other Sonos speakers in your home using “Hey Sonos” voice commands. Sonos Voice will expand in France later in 2022, but the company has not announced plans to deploy outside these two original countries.
Amazon Music, Apple Music, Pandora, Deezer and Sonos Radio are supported startup services. Some will be disappointed with Spotify’s absence, but during a recent press briefing, Sonos clarified that the assistant can still execute basic commands such as pause, pause, follow controls, volume, and so on for Spotify content. which is already playing on the Sonos system, although customers will not be able to request a song or playlist from Spotify using Sonos Voice Control.
Sonos touched a celebrity to become the voice of Sonos Voice Control. Giancarlo Esposito, best known for his roles in Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul and The Mandalorian, gave his recognizable voice to the service. The actor went through a lengthy recording session to give the Sonos machine learning system enough samples to work with.
You will hear the voice of actor Giancarlo Esposito when you interact with Sonos Voice Control. Image: Sonos
Sonos voice control is strictly focused on music and is not intended to challenge Apple’s Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri as a full-fledged digital assistant. The company says customers will be able to use Sonos Voice and Alexa on the same device at the same time, adhering to the latter for smart home controls and time inquiries, calendar appointments and general issues with which the Sonos service is not intended. to cope. Google Assistant cannot be used with Sonos Voice Control.
Sonos Voice Control can quickly move music from room to room. Image: Sonos
In addition to basic music commands, Sonos Voice Control can also be used to group speakers and rooms – you can tell it to play something “anywhere” to activate all your speakers – or move audio from one device to another in seconds. Sonos has designed the service to be as fast as possible; the company says it is limiting “answers and bells” in favor of speedy voice command execution.
Sonos voice control is designed to understand everyday language instead of requiring specific phrases. (For example, you can say “Hey, Sonos, turn it up” instead of “turn up the volume.”) And while they’re strung close together, you can follow one voice command with another without having to say “Hey Sonos.” ”Phrase every time. For Sonos portable products such as Move and Roam, you can also check the battery life.
Sonos emphasizes the confidentiality of its assistant
Sonos seems confident in the work of Sonos Voice Control. The company says you can get quite detailed with commands like “stop playing in the kitchen and play in the living room instead” or “turn up the volume in the bedroom only.” It is these examples of Sonos that show why it made sense for the company to create its own voice solution instead of using resources to make these things work through the skills of Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant.
The service is rooted in the technology that Sonos took when it acquired Snips, a privacy-oriented voice assistant, in 2019. After buying the company, the Sonos team continued to develop the service before today’s presentation. All Sonos voice control commands are processed locally on the device and are not sent to Sonos servers in the cloud.
Jo Dureau of Sonos, vice president of voice experience, and Alice Kuke, head of machine learning research at the company. Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
Sonos says that many users refrain from setting up or using the voice assistant of smart speakers for privacy reasons and believes that Sonos Voice Control can overcome this hesitation. If it meets the company’s performance requirements, it can definitely become a convenient new feature. Sonos voice control is free, which is not surprising given its limited range.
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