Sonos is ready to take smart homes by storm with its own smart speaker, the Sonos One — but it needs some help from Amazon Alexa.。
The company announced the launch of the new speaker on Wednesday at an event in New York City. There's also a new public beta, starting today, to give current Sonos owners access to the voice assistant via an app update; those owners will need to have at least one Echo device, though. 。
Sonos said it would also release a version of Sonos One with Google Assistant, too, but not until 2018. That functionality will be available to anyone who bought an Alexa-powered Sonos One via a software update. Sonos says its goal is to create a "voice agnostic" platform, with room for multiple AI assistants on one speaker. 。
SEE ALSO:Roku might be making its own smart speaker 。Sonos touted an "open" system across its speaker line at the event, saying it already had more than 80 current development partners for its platform, with even more coming in 2018. The biggest name was Apple — Sonos speakers will have AirPlay 2 integration starting next year. 。
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The Sonos app will also receive a slew of updates, mostly to make it easier to control playback across multiroom sound systems. 。 The Sonos One announcement follows months of speculation that the company would bring an AI assistant to its hardware. CEO Patrick Spence hinted at built-in Alexa integration to 。Variety 。
back in January, and the company showed off Alexa on a Sonos Play:5 through a connected Dot speaker in February. The speaker's design was also leaked ahead of the launch. 。
Bringing voice control to Sonos's speakers makes sense. Amazon's latest generation of Echo speakers emphasizes audio quality more than the original line, and Google is rumored to have a premium Home speaker in the works. Apple, meanwhile, is slated to release the $350 Siri-powered HomePod later this year. 。
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