Voice assistants and smart speakers have been one of the hottest topics at this year’s CES, but one development between two major players is worth a little extra attention. Sonos has been promising an eventual integration with Google Assistant, but that support has been delayed past its initial target date. Google and Sonos hosted demonstrations of the voice assistant on a Sonos Beam and Sonos One this week in Las Vegas.
Several tech publications have shared their experience of seeing, and hearing, Google Assistant go through its paces on the Sonos devices. (Check out experiences had by The Verge, Engadget, and CNET.) The version demoed at CES is currently in a limited beta. Pocket-lint reported that Sonos will be ramping up its beta testing of the voice assistant in the first weeks of the year, eventually broadening into the thousands of homes for stress tests.
“Part of the beta is understanding what people want,” a representative from Sonos told Pocket-lint.
There is still no timeline for when Google Assistant will arrive on Sonos devices, but the companies are sticking to a 2019 goal.