Sonos Voice Control

The Challenge

As the leader in sound experiences, Sonos sought to create a custom voice for its Sonos Voice Control, aligning with the brand’s commitment to high-quality, seamless user experiences.

The challenge lay in developing a voice that could accurately understand and pronounce non-standard text specific to the music industry and handle artist and track names in multiple languages.

This level of sophistication required consistent voice recording and precise articulation, making it essential for Sonos to partner with a team experienced in developing custom AI voices.

The Solution

Sonos selected ReadSpeaker’s VoiceLab, renowned for its bespoke voice expertise, to create the custom voice of SVC . The process involved:

• Recording sessions with the actor Giancarlo Esposito, ensuring speech delivery met the required consistency and articulation standards.
• Training deep neural network (DNN) models with the recorded data to build a voice capable of dynamic, real-time responses.
• Close collaboration between ReadSpeaker’s experts, Sonos, and Esposito to fine-tune the output for optimal performance.

The result was a custom voice that could seamlessly handle complex, non-standard text and support multiple languages, maintaining the brand’s identity and enhancing user engagement.

The Results

ReadSpeaker’s custom voice solution has empowered Sonos Voice Control to provide a high-quality, hands-free user experience:

• Delivered a unique, branded voice that enhances the Sonos Voice Control interface, reinforcing Sonos’s commitment to innovation and quality.
• Ensured the voice could handle music-specific terminology and multilingual content, broadening its usability.
• Upheld Sonos’s privacy standards by processing all requests entirely on the device, with no data sent to the cloud.

ReadSpeaker’s collaboration with Sonos demonstrates the growing value of custom voice in brand strategy, setting a benchmark for personalized and secure voice interactions in consumer technology.