On May 11, local time, US audio maker Sonos announced the brand’s first original voice control system, “Sonos Voice Control.”
It will be available in the US from June 1, 2022, and will be available in France in the second half of 2022. It is undecided when it will be available in Japan, but according to Sonos Japan, the number of countries and regions that can be used will be expanded, so it is possible that it will be available in Japan in the future.
“Sonos Voice Control” is Sonos’s first unique voice system. Speaking of voice systems, it’s easy to imagine voice assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri, but Sonos voice systems are a bit different in nature: play / stop music on Sonos speakers, and volume. It is a function that can control adjustments by voice. You can use the Sonos app experience through your voice.
By the way, Sonos products often work on both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and “Sonos Voice Control” supports both.
For voice control, call for a wake word called “Hey Sonos”. For example, saying “Hey Sonos, turn up the volume” will turn up the volume of the sound. You can switch devices to play, group them, save your favorite songs in your music library, and give them likes.
It is also possible to play specific music and playlists on music distribution services. Supported services are Sonos Radio, Amazon Music, Apple Music, Deezer, Pandora. Other services will be supported in the future.
“Sonos Voice Control” takes privacy into consideration and has a mechanism to process user’s voice on-device without uploading it to the cloud. Since the user’s information is not sent to the outside, it can be used with confidence.
According to Joseph Duro, vice president of voice experience at Sonos, “Sonos has focused on providing an experience that allows users to easily connect to their favorite music content. The most natural way to connect with music is. It’s a “voice,” however, it turns out that many users have privacy concerns and aren’t using existing voice services. “He explained that he thing to do so. In addition, there is an advantage that the speed of responding to the user’s voice is fast by processing on-device without going through the network.
The assistant voice of “Sonos Voice Control” includes American actor Giancarlo Esposito, who has appeared in “Breaking Bad”, “Better Call Saul”, “The Mandalorian”, etc. and has a reputation for clear and tasty voice. Appointed. He says he will continue to add voices from various people.
“Sonos Voice Control” can be used with all Sonos speakers that support voice input. The usage fee is free. It will be available by applying the software that will be distributed in the future. First, it will be available in the United States from June 1, 2022, and in France in the latter half of 2022. The release date in Japan is undecided, but I hope that it will be added in the future.
(Image courtesy: Sonos)
Sonos and Sonos product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sonos, Inc.
