I’m experiencing issues related to the volume of Alexa since the Sonos update to 12.1. I’m using a surround setup with one Sonos Beam and two Sonos Play:1 in my living room. Since a few years, the Alexa response volume was just static and not related to the music volume set by Sonos. This was a good thing because you could listen to music in very low volume while you could talk to Alexa and get a normal, relatively loud response.
Since 12.1, the Alexa volume seems to be related to the overall speaker volume. Now when the volume is set maybe between 1-20%, it is just impossible for me to communicate with Alexa because her responses are extremely quiet. I can only start to understand her again when the volume slider is maybe at 25-30% or higher, but then of course the music is also proportional louder, which is not good.
Is there any way to set the Alexa volume independent of the music volume?
Thank you very much in advance.
Best answer by nabheet
Well I have an interesting update. I am not sure but the I may have accidentally fixed my Sonos Beam Alexa volume issue.
I am not sure what exactly fixed the issue but I had made quite a few changes. I started with enabling Trueplay in the Sonos app. Then set the treble/base/midrange volume to maximum values in the Alexa App → devices → [sonos speaker], then changed it back. I also enabled the loudness radio button in the EQ setting in Sonos App. Then I had also changed the speaker in the Alexa App for the Sonos speaker from Built-in to itself, basically the name that Alexa thinks it has. And then changed it back.
I don’t know how to validate my changes as I think my Sonos Beam is working fine currently. Both my TV volume and Alexa volume seem to be in the same range.
also, forgot to mention that my TV is really old so I have used the included Fiber Optic output sound to HDMI adapter.
Hoping this will help someone else or invalidated.
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Thanks for reaching out and bringing this up to us.
We appreciate all your feedback here in the community, and changing the voice assistant volume separately can be a very useful feature for sure, but this is not yet available at this time. We don't have any specific details that I can share around if this can come to Sonos, or when it might, but I'll make sure to log this as request and pass it along with the team. We work closely with the Amazon team too, but it's always best to let both sides know if there's a feature you're looking for.
Please let us know if you have additional concerns we’d be happy to send them up for you.
Sure, the feature request is one thing. But the actual topic is, that the Alexa volume behavior has changed with Sonos 12.1 from a behavior which was working very well for quite some years. And it didn‘t change in a good way, so maybe you can look into it and restore the previous situation.
Just to recall: Previously, Alexa had a „minimum“ volume with Sonos, so even when you turned down the volume of the speaker a lot, Alexa would always speak at a certain volume. If you turned up the speaker, Alexa would get louder as well, but there was always a minimum volume which was pretty decent. Now if you turn down the speaker to a really low, ambient filling volume, Alexa is so quiet that you just can‘t hear her anymore. Hard to believe that this is intended behavior.
Just an update for others who are having this issue. I called support as suggested by Annazel S and the rep I spoke with was not aware of this issue. I told her about this post and when she checked with her superiors they were able to confirm that the engineers are working on a solution for this issue. She said they hope to have a fix available in the next update but was not able to give me a timeline on the release.
If you call support, expect to go through basic troubleshooting steps with no change to the issue. Looks like we’ll have to wait until the next update.
This issue makes Alexa inoperable on Sonos One. I called and spent 60mins on the phone with a tech support rep. She insists that this is an Amazon problem. When I showed her that the same issue arises using Google assistant, she insisted that this is a Google problem. When I mentioned that there is a post in the community discussing this issue, she insisted that it is an isolated issue and only affecting a limited group of users. Needless to say, don’t waste your time trying to troubleshoot the issue because they won’t admit that their software update screwed up the integration with voice services and that it’s causing many users problems. I guess if I were them, I probably wouldn’t admit it either but it is nonetheless very frustrating.
Hi any update on this? I'm having the same problem volume to too low to hear alexa unless I turn tv volume way up but then when it goes back to tv the volume rocks the house. I've not issue with alexa on my sonos move.
Hi any update on this? I'm having the same problem volume to too low to hear alexa unless I turn tv volume way up but then when it goes back to tv the volume rocks the house. I've not issue with alexa on my sonos move.
This is still happening to me on this end. with a sonos beam on 2 different set ups so the issue is not “a few users” if anyone has a fix to this please let me know! very annoying.
Just to add to the list of complains and make it clear is not a few showing the problem. My Beam presents the exact same issue as mentioned in other posts, please fix it.
Come on SONOS the Alexa volume HAS to be different to the SONOS volume! I’ve just bought and installed a Beam to my system and am amazed that I have to have the volume on the sound system hellish loud to be able to hear Alexa’s responses. This should have been fixed a long time ago - the issue has been brought up in the past!
I’ve just registered here to add my name to the list of people suffering the same problem with Alexa volume too low on their Sonos Beam. This is clearly not an isolated issue. Don’t suffer in silence - add your name here!
Come on Sonos, two months is a long time to fix a simple problem (that didn’t exist before the fatal 12.1 update).
Don’t forget - other products are available - which apparently have better software support helping to increase their life span. If we all give bad reviews, it can be bad news.
When I pay out well over £1,500 and commit to a sound system, I don’t expect to have to replace it every couple of years when the software renders it unusable!
Just hurry up with that fix. Other companies manage to fix problems quickly, why not you?
I’m having the same problem on my Sonos Arc. This Sonos system cost a lot of money, and something this simple should not be an issue. What’s wrong with Sonos engineers, or the product management that would let this through? Major fail.
A couple weeks ago I Sonos-ified my house with an arc, beam, sub, and several Ones with the intention of having access to Alexa throughout the house. One of the pushes in my purchasing of an extensive set of non-SL speakers was to replace my echos around the house, but as I am unable to hear them when I’m quietly playing music, Alexa has become useless.
Blasting your music to hear and use Alexa is not a reasonable solution.
This issue has also been the culprit of a couple overcooked meals as I was unable to hear the alarm I set on my Alexa.
I’m also very disappointed to find that this is a NEW issue caused by later firmware updates, and that product support has failed to acknowledge this negatively impactful behavioral change to their product line. I’d expect more from a multi-thousand dollar system that claims to seamlessly integrate with Alexa.
I’m sorry to say Sonos is loosing a brand new customer right off the bat.
Just another voice chiming in to say this is a big issue. Alexa is unusable in the current form, and Alexa is a large part of why I bought a Sonos Beam.
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