Sonos opens up to possible IKEA collaboration

Sonos has finally lived up to their promise of delivering the first multi-assistant smart speaker hardware

Life

Sonos Beam

With the arrival of the Google Assistant to the Sonos Beam and Sonos One, Sonos finally lived up to its promise of delivering the first multi-assistant smart speaker hardware. What’s more, it’s unlikely to be their last.

Dane Estes, Sonos’ director of global product marketing, said the company voice as additive. He said the company’s new partnership with Ikea is envisioned as a long-term one and that, when it comes to voice controls, “we don’t have a principle that it’s off the table for Ikea.”

“In developing new products, we look at how we can provide the best possible customer experiences, we don’t have hard and fast rules about what may or may not be on the table with a feature like voice.”

“For the first SYMFONISK speakers we set out to combine great sound with beautiful design to make them accessible to everyone – focusing on the fundamentals.

“It’s worth noting that since Sonos is a system, you can control SYMFONISK with voice if you have a Sonos speaker with voice capabilities built-in like Sonos One or Beam, of if you have another device that supports Alexa and soon to be the Google Assistant.”

Dane said: “I can’t speak to our future plans or roadmap, however we’re excited about this partnership and the potential it offers now and for the longer term.”

Speaking of the future, it’s going to be interesting to see how the first generation of smart speaker hardware like the Sonos One and Beam handle the leap forward that Google’s Pixel phones are about to make. Specifically, the leap to local on-device Assistant-powered experiences – which promise to be about ten times faster than the current cloud-based incarnation.

Running on-device and coming to new Pixel phones later this year, the next generation Google Assistant can understand and process your requests up to 10 times faster, making operating your phone, multi-tasking and even composing email easier than ever. #io19 pic.twitter.com/iNPpOvwDM2 — Google (@Google) May 7, 2019

IDG News Service

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