Sonos plans to expand its voice controls with help from Philips Hue

Sonos Voice Control is set to be introduced to Philips Hue’s smart home platform by the end of the year. This collaboration is expected to expand the functionality of the speaker and soundbar’s smart assistant, and marks the first time that Sonos is compatible with another smart home platform. While news is still scarce on this, here’s what we know so far.

Sonos introduced its Voice Control smart assistant to its smart speakers and soundbars in 2022. Since then, Sonos has upgraded Voice Control to do more than simple commands like playing music, and it can now set timers, check the weather and tell you the time, as well as adjust volume and skip songs.

This seems to be set to change as it was recently announced on HueBlog that Sonos Voice Control will become compatible with Philips Hue’s platform by the end of the year. This is a big difference from simply controlling its own speakers, as Sonos Voice Control will be able to control and customise Philips Hue’s lighting.

But other than news that this collaboration is set to happen, there are hardly any details surrounding what Sonos Voice Control will be able to do with Philips Hue smart lights. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d expect Sonos Voice Control will be able to turn lights on and off, adjust colour and brightness, and potentially control Hue scenes.

What I’m most interested in finding out about is whether Sonos Voice Control will also be compatible with Philips Hue’s other smart devices. While the brand is primarily a lighting company, Philips Hue has been expanding into other smart home gadgets, including security cameras, sensors and smart plugs.

As mentioned, there’s no updates currently about what Sonos Voice Control will be compatible with, but it’d be interesting to see if it’ll also be compatible with Philips Hue’s full portfolio of lighting and security devices.

We’ll have to wait and see, but Philips Hue recently announced an upcoming media event taking place in September – potentially IFA – so hopefully they’ll tell us more then.