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    SONOS One officially adds Alexa support in Australia

    When SONOS One was announced, the promise of a great speaker that supported both Alexa and Google Assistant was an inviting one. While SONOS still say Google Assistant (and Airplay 2 support is coming later this year, from today, Australians can use Amazon’s Alexa weith Australian voices, accents and nuances through the SONOS One.

    Sonos will release a free software update that enables Alexa voice control for the Sonos One smart speaker in Australia, joining the US, Canada, UK, and Germany.

    Amazon Alexa to control their entire Sonos home sound system with full voice support for Amazon Music, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn. Voice controls like pause, skip, volume up and down, and asking what’s currently playing are available for all other music services that Sonos supports.

    In addition to supporting English voice control for some of the most popular streaming services, Sonos One will also allow owners to enjoy Australian-based Alexa skills. With the development of skills being made easy, many Australian providers have jumped on board. You can hear the latest updates from TEN Eyewitness News, receive travel updates from QANTAS, as well as do all the standard Alexa-enabled smart home control of your IoT devices.

    And with continuous free updates from both Sonos One and Alexa, new features, services and skills will be unlocked to make the experience better and smarter, including Airplay 2 and Google Assistant support which will be available this year.

    The Sonos One is priced at A$299 and is available at sonos.com and retailers nationwide.

    Sonos One Details

    Sonos One is part of the Sonos home sound system, so it works seamlessly with other Sonos speakers and gives you access to more than 80 music services. You can use Sonos One as a standalone speaker, pair two for serious stereo sound, or use them with PLAYBASE or PLAYBAR to create home theater surround sound.

    • Designed from the ground up to deliver surprisingly rich sound from a speaker of its size.
    • Driven by two Class-D digital amplifiers, one tweeter, and one mid-woofer.
    • Includes a six-mic array and an adaptive noise suppression algorithm to focus on the right person and ensure the voice service understands everything clearly.
    • Voice capture technology with echo cancelation allows the speaker to still hear you over the music. The volume also intelligently lowers, or “ducks,” when you speak to it so you don’t have to shout over the music.
    • The light on the speaker will be illuminated if the microphones are active. The light is hardwired to the same circuit that powers the microphone array, so if the light is off, it means the microphone is off.
    • Owners can use Trueplay to easily tune Sonos One to sound great no matter where it’s placed in the home.
    • Sonos One is available in all-white and all-black matte finishes.

    VP of Software at Sonos, Antoine Leblond said,

    “We are all about giving customers the freedom to choose the streaming services and voice services they want in their homes, and bringing Alexa to our entire home sound system in Australia is a big milestone for us.”

    “With the Sonos One, we took everything people love about Sonos – an agnostic approach with streaming partners, amazing sound quality, flexibility with multi-room or stereo-pairing capability, a thoughtfully designed speaker that’s easy to use – and added voice as another means to getting music lovers to the songs and sonic content they love.”

    I was lucky enough to get access to test Alexa on SONOS One when it launched back in October, 2017. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments.

    To learn more about the Sonos One, visit sonos.com.

    Jason Cartwright
    Jason Cartwrighthttps://techau.com.au/author/jason/
    Creator of techAU, Jason has spent the dozen+ years covering technology in Australia and around the world. Bringing a background in multimedia and passion for technology to the job, Cartwright delivers detailed product reviews, event coverage and industry news on a daily basis. Disclaimer: Tesla Shareholder from 20/01/2021

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