Argh, I had heard something about the spat between Google and Sonos a few days back, but I really haven't been in that kind of 'dive into patent law' mood for some time so almost didn't pay attention to it.
Somehow, Sonos things that asking your smart speaker to turn down the volume is their patent... There a hundreds of things you can ask your Google Assistant to do with your smart speakers, and apparently asking it to turn down the speaker volume is one you can't do now. If you want the volume down, you'll have to use the Home app to adjust it or use the manual controls on the speaker / display.
When I first saw this news, I sort of dismissed it, but it wasn't until later in the weekend that we asked our Living Room pair something and my wife found it too loud in its response, so she asked it to set it's volume lower. There was no 'ding' of acknowledgement, so we asked it it's volume and it replied, asked it to turn itself down, no acknowledgement. Asked the volume again and it was the same.
Then I remembered this piece of news.
Piece of garbage I think.
Personally, I have to say I've never used Sonos, so I can't say whether they really had been on to something that there's no way, no how, that anybody else could do it and no copy. I mean, at the office I can ask Alexa to turn down the Echo... is Sonos going after Amazon?
This is really a pain thing. For someone who has 6 different rooms/set ups with speakers / displays, it sucks. It's not the end of the world, but I really lay the blame at Sonos. And the judge. How is having a smart assistant command to adjust a feature a patent that is needed to be stripped?
Will Philips Hue now sue because I can ask Google to turn down the brightness of my lights?
Will Timex sue because I can ask it to set a timer?
If Sonos is this outraged, where are their Apple and Amazon lawsuits against those speakers?
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