Sonos has distinguished itself in the smart speaker field by offering a choice of Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant rather than just one, and recent reports suggest it might be looking to expand that choice further. 

First reported on Reddit and spotted by Voicebot.ai (via Slashgear), Sonos is said to have sent out a consumer survey asking for feedback on an in-house assistant that would respond to the command "Hey Sonos". 

It's said the "Sonos Voice Control" assistant would be able to control things like speaker grouping, playback and volume controls, whilst also being able to find music to play. It's also claimed to sit alongside Alexa rather than replace Amazon's assistant, and it would be designed for offline processing.

The latter point is important as if the Sonos assistant would work without an internet connection - something both Alexa and Google Assistant require - it could mean that it would work on the Sonos Roam and Sonos Move when they are in Bluetooth mode. 

The Sonos survey is said to have suggested local processing could be faster and examples of commands that could be supported by the in-house assistant included pausing, skipping and grouping speakers, as well as finding playlists, radio stations and other music. 

It is also suggested in the survey the Sonos Voice Control would handle music playback, while third party assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant would continue to handle other requests, such as what the weather is like. 

For now, nothing is official but we will definitely be watching this space.