Sonos claim that with Google Assistant integrated into their speakers, “playing music with your voice is just the beginning of what’s possible”, but you’re going to have to wait longer for it.

It’s been a whole year since last October, when Sonos said that they would be bringing Google Assistant to their Sonos One speaker. But a year on and Amazon Alexa is still the only voice supported AI built into Sonos’ microphone equipped speakers. But Sonos promise that Google Assistant support is on the way.

Sonos say that their team have been working hard with their partners at Google to bring voice control to their speakers. On top of voice control Google Assistant will, similarly to Amazon’s Alexa, be able to play straight from streaming services without the need to connect with an external device. Beyond that you can ask about the latest news, plan your calendar, ask Google questions and much more. Sonos say that when Google Assistant does come to Sonos One the “remarkably smart voice assistant will let you do all kinds of things on Sonos”.

Sonos have said they are hoping for a 2019 date for the integration to go live, though are reluctant to set that in stone citing the need for “a bit more time to get the experience right”. For the meantime Sonos are looking for beta testers who are willing to give up some time to test using Google’s assistant with their Sonos One. Testers will be required to listen to at least 14 hours of music per week, use 10 voice commands daily to test Google Assistant’s functionality, and they need to be able to respond to surveys within 72 hours.

Sonos are going to spend a few weeks screening applicants and then test the experience with a few hundred people at first. They’ll open it up to a few thousand more testers afterwards to get real world feedback and ensure Google Assistant works at its best with Sonos One.

Sonos said: “We’re very excited to see Google Assistant come to life on Sonos, and we know our customers are too. Indeed, it’s easily one of the questions we get the most from customers, press, and even in the comments on our Instagram feed: When is Google Assistant coming to Sonos? We’re listening. Together with Google, we’ve learned a lot, and are confident the integration will be worth the wait.”

Sonos plan to share their updates in early 2019. You can sign up to be considered for their beta test here: www.surveygizmo.com/s3/4667021/Google-Assistant-Recruitment