Google Brings Back Group Speaker Controls After Sonos Lawsuit Win

Android Authority's Mishaal Rahman reports that the group speaker volume controls feature is back in Android 15 Beta 2. "Google intentionally disabled this functionality on Pixel phones back in late 2021 due to a legal dispute with Sonos," reports Rahman. "In late 2023, Google announced it would bring back several features they had to remove, following a judge's overturning of a jury verdict that was in favor of Sonos." From the report: When you create a speaker group consisting of one or more Assistant-enabled devices in the Google Home app, you're able to cast audio to that group from your phone using a Cast-enabled app. For example, let's say I make a speaker group named "Nest Hubs" that consists of my bedroom Nest Hub and my living room Nest Hub. If I open the YouTube Music app, start playing a song, and then tap the cast icon, I can select "Nest Hubs" to start playback on both my Nest Hubs simultaneously.

If I keep the YouTube Music app open, I can control the volume of my speaker group by pressing the volume keys on my phone. This functionality is available no matter what device I use. However, if I open another app while YouTube Music is casting, whether I'm able to still control the volume of my speaker group using my phone's volume keys depends on what phone I'm using and what software version it's running. If I'm using a Pixel phone that's running a software version before Android 15 Beta 2, then I'm unable to control the volume of my speaker group unless I re-open the YouTube Music app. If I'm using a phone from any other manufacturer, then I won't have any issues controlling the volume of my speaker group.

The reason for this weird discrepancy is that Google intentionally blocked Pixel devices from being able to control the volume of Google Home speaker groups while casting. Google did this out of an abundance of caution while they were fighting a legal dispute. [...] With the release of last week's Android 15 Beta 2, we can confirm that Google finally restored this functionality.

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[stealth_finger]

Well, one of these stories is at least vaguely tech related. What does gay marriage have to do with anything?

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[christoban]

Science + Stuff that matters

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[GoJays]

Except gay marriage doesn't matter, just like anything sexual that occurs in the privacy of ones own bedroom. In Canada homosexuals could legally marry like 20 years ago. If you want to marry another man, go ahead... nobody is stopping you. What needs to stop is for the gay community to expect the world to celebrate with them. Nobody cares. Move on.

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[christoban]

You seem to care.

Why only for Android 15 ?

[madbrain]

This was working fine with all 15 of my Chromecast audios as far back as 2017. Then, the ability got taken away through an app update. Surely they can restore it through another app update as well. And yes, I really do dearly miss this functionality.

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[omnichad]

Who says only? This is not a press release from Google. Just a secondhand article linking back to a web site where people actually test drove the most recent beta. They can't confirm anything other than what they see.

It wouldn't be an app update, it would be an OS update. The functionality was never removed from the OS. It was force-disabled with a new flag called config_volumeAdjustmentForRemoteGroupSessions. It would be extremely easy to push this out along with a security update. Rooted device

Why even have a jury trial?

[cob666]

I never really understood how a judge can set a side a jury verdict. If they can do that, what's the point of having a jury trial in the first place? If there was a problem with the jury verdict due to some misunderstanding or jury instruction, then declare a mistrial and make the litigants retry the case.

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[gabebear]

The big change is that two of Sonos' patents were deemed unenforceable and invalid. The jury didn't make a mistake but the facts changed.

In a decision dated October 6, U.S. District Judge William Alsup said that Sonos had wrongfully linked its patent applications for multi-room audio technology to a 2006 application in order to make them appear older and claim that its inventions came before Google’s products, as first reported by Reuters.

I wonder if Sonos might end up paying damages for this.

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[omnichad]

The only "damages" would be self-inflicted. Google voluntarily removed the functionality. They could have left it in this whole time.

Re:Why even have a jury trial?

[AmiMoJo]

It can happen when the judge declares that there was an error which would have prevented the need for a jury trial at all.

In this case Sonos tried to link two 2009 patents to an earlier 2006 provisional filing, but the judge ruled that it was improper as a matter of law. By 2009 Google had already announced and released some of this functionality, so without the link back to 2006 the latter patents were invalid anyway due to prior art.

The judge also pointed out that Sonos waited an unreasonably long amount of time to bring the dispute up. They did not file full applications until 2019. It's not unusual to file a provisional application just to establish that something was invented and give a little more time to produce all the documentation needed, but 13 years is ridiculous. By the time they filed the industry had already widely adopted the technology and there were many products on the market with it.

The law doesn't allow you to file a provisional patent application for a thing, wait until someone else invents it, and then flesh out your own application so you can sue them.

I don't get what was original

[MeNeXT]

with this patent except if you add with a computer or with an app. Grouping sound input and output is what mixers were invented to perform back in the analogue days. What is so unique in this idea that it would be patentable? Grouping stuff together to accomplish/simplify a task dates back to prehistory.

What am I missing?

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[omnichad]

It relates to using the device volume controls to control the whole group proportionally to their current volumes rather than individually. Which, sure, is not much different than a mixer board with a master volume output on the input side - except this is for output.

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[jgdnavy]

How is it different from the master level fader on a mixer? Every mixer I've personally used had the ability to adjust the levels of the input, and separately control the over-all level of the various output groups.

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[omnichad]

x...but on a computer.

It's still mostly that. Patents are really wordy (and intentionally vague and confusing) so I don't think I would want to try to dig into that language. Just remember that when you see patent claims written in a few words, it's not the original language and the original language is what counts in court.