A first look at what could be Alexa-powered Sonos speakers
Soon you’ll be able to tell your Sonos what to play with Alexa built-in, and we may have just got our first sneak peek of those speakers.
Last month Amazon Echo announced that they would be opening up their APIs to bring Alexa into a bunch of new devices. Amazon announced that they are working with audio manufacturers like Bose, Samsung and more to bring Alexa’s AI to more and more devices. Of course the partnership everyone cares about is Sonos speakers going smart.
Now we may have our first look at what an Alexa-powered Sonos will look like with some new leaked images. The pictures come via Carsten Knobloch, a German blogger who says a reader sent him photos of the future Amazon-powered Sonos. Take a look at the supposed device below and you’ll see that it… looks almost exactly like any other Sonos. Well I suppose they have a brand to maintain.
What is worth pointing out is the very clear microphone slot and logo just above the circle of controls. Whilst it’s an unconfirmed leak the images match up perfectly with Sonos’ FCC filing showing a layout exactly the same as is seen on top of this Sonos speaker above.
Whilst the matching control layout adds legitimacy to the images it could easily also be the case that the image was created by a user using that image as a guideline for the top of the speaker. Regardless of whether it’s real or not the image gives us a good idea of what we could expect from the Alexa-powered Sonos speakers that are on their way.
In a statement last month, Sonos’ vice president Antoine Leblond said: “Alexa set the standard for voice in smart homes, so working with Amazon to bring voice control to Sonos for the first time was an obvious choice. This has been a close collaboration from the beginning as we’ve worked together to combine the magic of Alexa with the seamless multi-room audio capabilities that Sonos pioneered. We’re proud of the work we’ve done together as Amazon’s first multi-room partner – all you’ll need is an Alexa enabled device and playing music out loud on Sonos will be as easy as saying, ‘Alexa, play music in the living room’.”
Sonos are expected to reveal their voice-assisted speaker(s) on the 4th October. Their FCC filing read that it will support “multiple voice platforms and music services” so Alexa may not be the only one getting the Sonos treatment.