The Sonos vs Google Disaster Hammers Your Smart Speakers

Sonos vs Google is getting ugly, and it's likely to get uglier as we move forward. The scary thing is this won't just hit your Nest speakers, but likely your Echo speakers as well and it will probably get worse for all of you, the consumers, before it can get better.

We can say that Sonos' lawsuit shouldn't have ever happened, or we can say that Google should just pay Sonos for royalties, but what matters today is what's going to happen to your smart speakers and specifically your Google Nest speakers, your Google Home speakers, your Google Chromecast, and your Android or Pixel phone. Those products are losing features in the next 2 months (less now), and Google is applying updates already.

Sadly, there's not a lot we can do today, but I'll show you what you can do....

Thanks for watching, and Don't Hate, Automate.

Brian

[Slocko]

I've always had a routine that sets all my speakers individually to 20 percent at 3am.

I call it baseline. That way when I wake up, all my speakers are at the same level.

I haven't touched any of the speakers and so far the routine still works.

[egesanli]

Sonos just killed all the wifi speaker industry. They shouldn't be able to take the patent of these essential features

[Yama_]

The fact that Sonos even got a patent for controlling volume on speakers in different rooms is baffling to me.
I guess Google should just license the tech then. They have literally all the money after all.

[riffraff]

I can't get a defnitive answer. Will the Era 100 speakers connect with googel fiber/Nest Pro MESH steup? Im hearing it wont, and only will connect to one devicce i.e. (soundbar) some say it will, trying to determine before I buy the Sonos Beam and Era 100 speakers.

[wys]

It's never a patent to have main volume control all speaker attached to the main amp from analog era. This is a basic and logical way of the sound system. This has to work on any smart speaker units despite Sonos patent.

[aumis]

One thing most people miss (and I noticed missing from your timeline, although it did include the note about granted patent dates) is that these Sonos patents were actually originally filed as Priority claims way back in 2003 (In fact these patents start expiring next year). This was long before others had thought about wirelessly controlling speakers from a controller or any of the other things that now seem obvious about wireless speakers. Sonos spent years spending money developing technology that only recently has become mainstream. It's just a nuance that gets missed, and one that is should be in every article. Thanks for the video!!

[toffeebear]

This is bull... Anyone really believe that sonos invented Centralised volume control? Of course not. I had philips devices that did that before sonos was a thing. Sonos have been abusing IP protection

[MrEdwardCarpenter]

Brian, thanks for the informative video. Interesting to hear. My question is: Is there actually any good news in the pipeline in the short medium or long term for us Google home speaker and display users. It all feels terribly stagnant at the moment - to the extent that it might all just become obsolete.

[CharlesReiche]

Google assistant and YouTube music should suddenly be broken on Sonos speakers. Oops

[Blueridgedog]

I have a Sonos system in all the rooms in my house. I started this because they created the ability to have centralized control before Google and Amazon had products available. Yes, they charge significant prices for their products. There is nothing to subsidize them as that is all they sell and they don't have the volume to have steep economies of scale advantages. As the years rolled on and I saw what Google and Amazon became, I continued to stay with Sonos.

[Displays..]

Patents like this should never be allowed...

[Leonvolt]

Just tested something. You can control volume levels at the same time when using home assistant

[unityelt]

Now we can't play sound in all speakers at once. I was able to go to home app, selected a group and stream to group. I don't get that option anymore

[HectorMachCesar]

I had my chrome cast audio connected to my sonos play 5 but since a year ago stopped working and I thought that the chrome cast had died, so I plugged it to my Bose speaker and it worked perfectly fine. Did sonos stopped Google chrome cast to connect via plug in through software update?

[jitengori]

Hi Brian. Do you happen to have any update on the group volume issue? Appreciate any insight!! Thanks!

[DeMiGoD]

Does this effect sonos speakers as well? Because im using google home to play music on them

[Slocko]

So Brian is this change a server side change? They are not expecting us to do what you did and reset back to factory the speakers right?

[gospelgroupie]

Hey Google, SONOS' net worth is $3.8Bil. Just buy it already, along with all of its patents, and then make Alexa uniquely unbearable to use.

[robertoburgmet]

My sonos are not showing up on the cast button (youtube/android), I'm in the same network and I've done everything for them show but nothing, they sound though but thru the sonos app. Does any of this has something to do?

[bokunoatama]

I have 2 Nest mini 2nd generation stereopaired. Over the past weeks i experianced that i could not change the volume by voice command. The last 3 days though it just started working properly again. So confused since i thought i understood that this function wont be included anymore.