When my Sonos Beam volume is set a comfortable level for watching tv and I ask Alexa a question, the volume of her response is too low. I am unable to hear the answer. If I raise the volume of the Fire Cube it doesn’t change the volume on the Beam. If I raise the volume of the Beam I can hear her response, BUT the volume is WAY too loud to watch tv..
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I’ve got this problem using a Fire Cube plugged into HDMI 2 port on my TCL (google tv OS), and the eArc HDMI 1 port connected to the Beam. I can hear the initial chime (softly) and Alexa is so soft compared to the content I’m play either from the fire cube or directly from an app on the TV. Does anybody have any new ideas on a resolution?
Same issue here with new ARC. They just need to update the software to have an independent volume setting for Alexa, sounds simple ?
It seems like it might already have independent volumes - given that it seems it is when I am listening to TV that the Alexa responses become very quiet - probably Alexa volume 1 or 2. It seems to adjust to a much quieter Alexa volume than what I have the volume of the Sonos for the TV input set to. I can’t pinpoint exactly what it does. It might be setting Alexa to a percentage of the TV volume but then it leaves it at that volume when the TV is off. I know this much. When Alexa is too quiet, I can say Alexa, set volume to 4. Then later on after watching TV and with TV off, it is set much lower.
Sonos - just explaining exactly how it works as a start I think would be really helpful for all of us having this issue. Ignoring us is the opposite.
It seems it is just something we have to live with. One note on the above - when the Alexa volume is too low, if I say “Alexa, what is your volume”, it still responds with 4 even though it is clearly not 4. Then, saying “Alexa, volume 4” sets it where I want it. I do think it is something Sonos should be able to fix but perhaps it is not a very high priority or there is some technical complexity that they cannot overcome.
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Seems not to work for me with my One Gen2. Everytime i trigger the routine the music volume is changed to the volume i set in the routine.
Yeah unfortunately it didn’t work for me either. I tested it several times on my Beam and my Arc and it just changes the actual Sonos device volume, not Alexa’s. When I turn the volume back down to my normal listening levels there is no change…Alexa is still too quiet.
I’ve got this problem on my Move. Comfortable listening volume, but Alexa is like 25-50% of the music volume. It’s like Alexa is speaking at the volume of the ducked music (music reduces in volume when you ask her something, but she doesn’t speak up, she talks at the volume of the reduced music).
I’ve tried Google Assistant and now Alexa and they both have massive problems on Sonos. Incredibly disappointing.
That's interesting. The Google Assistant volume on my Move is actually correct, and the same level as the music.
The problem I have is the Google Assistant volume on my Beam Gen 1 bring incredibly quiet compared to the overall volume.
Do you ever group your Sonos speakers and adjust your overall volume for the group, or adjust the relative volumes of the speakers in that group? I wonder if it's a side effect of that.
Of course the actual solution is Sonos providing a separate volume control for the voice assist volume, or if that's not possible, simply increasing the default volume of the voice assistants.
Same issue here with an ARC and 4 Ones Gen2 :(
That's interesting. The Google Assistant volume on my Move is actually correct, and the same level as the music.
I haven’t checked Google Assistant volume, I have just had many other issues with Google.
Do you ever group your Sonos speakers and adjust your overall volume for the group, or adjust the relative volumes of the speakers in that group? I wonder if it's a side effect of that.
Nope, I only have two speakers so far.
Of course the actual solution is Sonos providing a separate volume control for the voice assist volume, or if that's not possible, simply increasing the default volume of the voice assistants.
It certainly seems like it!
Experiencing this as well with my Era 300. I think what is fundamentally missing is that it's very possible you may want your voice assistant coming out of one speaker to be at a different volume than your music coming from the entire system.
Leaving some negative reviews on their products where I bought them. They can't claim to have voice assistants when it's this dysfunctional. This may be the only way to get them to listen.
That's interesting. The Google Assistant volume on my Move is actually correct, and the same level as the music.
I haven’t checked Google Assistant volume, I have just had many other issues with Google.
Do you ever group your Sonos speakers and adjust your overall volume for the group, or adjust the relative volumes of the speakers in that group? I wonder if it's a side effect of that.
Nope, I only have two speakers so far.
Of course the actual solution is Sonos providing a separate volume control for the voice assist volume, or if that's not possible, simply increasing the default volume of the voice assistants.
It certainly seems like it!
You can still group 2 speakers. I sometimes have the same music playing on my Beam and Move. When you group them, you have an overall volume and an individual volume for each speaker.
It's a bit of a long shot, but I'm going to try grouping my speakers and playing with the various volume levels, to see if that helps.
You can still group 2 speakers. I sometimes have the same music playing on my Beam and Move. When you group them, you have an overall volume and an individual volume for each speaker.
When I go to Settings > System the “Groups” item is disabled and when I tap it says “This feature is available on systems with three or more rooms.” 🤔
Userlevel 1
+2
Lowering surround aud
For what it's worth I fixed this by lowering my surround audio offset from +15 to -15 on both tv and music.
Settings>System>Product Name>Surround Audio
I also set the volume limit to something that made sense for me. This fixed the issue realted to volume being set by Alexa.
I hope this helps someone!
Walt
Lowering surround offset in that way makes buying products to create a surround sound experience pointless. That is No solution. You might just as well have no Sonos products at all.
You can still group 2 speakers. I sometimes have the same music playing on my Beam and Move. When you group them, you have an overall volume and an individual volume for each speaker.
When I go to Settings > System the “Groups” item is disabled and when I tap it says “This feature is available on systems with three or more rooms.” 🤔
Ahh yes, that threw me at first too (very poor UI design) but I was adamant there must be a way of grouping 2 speakers.
What you have to do is go to the System tab in the app (middle tab at the bottom) then you should see both your speakers. Then click on either of the group icons (square icon with a triangle at the bottom) and it'll give you the option to group them together. You can now play the same music through both speakers.
You're welcome.
What what I can tell that plays on both speakers, but doesn’t create a named group that you can save.
No, as you discovered, you can't save them as a named group until you have 3 or more speakers.
I assume this is because if you only have 2 speakers there is only 1 possible group you can make (speaker 1 + speaker 2) so manually pairing them (as I just described) is the simplest way to achieve this.
However, if you have 3 speakers you can suddenly have 4 possible groups... speakers 1 + 2, speakers 1 + 3, speakers 2 + 3, and speakers 1 + 2 + 3, therefore groups are a better way of managing these pairings.
+1 same issue here. It is very annoying!
I have this same issue on my new Arc. I adjust Alexa back up to a reasonable volume when nothing else is playing and then it returns to a very low, unusable volume while and after watching TV or listening to music. Extremely frustrating.
Recently switched from Fire TV’s to SHIELD TV’s and for whatever reason SHIELD has a higher baseline volume, so now Alexa is completely inaudible when the TV is at a comfortable level.
This was always an irritation but now Alexa is literally unusable, fantastic.
Spoke with Sonos support and they've been able to repro this issue, but said it won't get prioritized for resolution until more users file tickets complaining about it.
Moderator Note: Recorded and removed Case number. Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.
Same issue here with new ARC. They just need to update the software to have an independent volume setting for Alexa, sounds simple ?
Sounds more like a hardware issue to me, software can be amended.
Don't know if it helps anyone but I had the same issue but seems better after reducing my TV (not beam volume) to zero. I forced my LG TV to select internal speaker, not HDMI then reduced the volume to zero. Then when it switched back to HDMI input increased beam volume to comfortable level. Alexa voice level is OK now. I guess the voice assistant level is preset in relation to beam volume and if the input from device (e.g TV) is different this screws it up. Would still be great to have a separate voice assistant volume in the sonos app.
This REALLY worked!! Thank you so much.
Userlevel 1
+2
Apparently Sonos have developed their own sound feature called Sonos sound. It works the same as Alexa and Google Home but obviously with louder responses. It's currently rolling out in the US via an update, but no dates set for elsewhere yet.
This is the problem with investing in a “system”… once they’ve gotcha they don’t really care much about supporting their existing customer base’s concerns… only in selling more **** to you.
I would gladly pay $5 to have this issue fixed and I bet if Sonos could charge each of their customers that to have it fixed, it would’ve been done yesterday.
Moderation edit: removed offensive language
This is the problem with investing in a “system”… once they’ve gotcha they don’t really care much about supporting their existing customer base’s concerns… only in selling more shit to you.
I would gladly pay $5 to have this issue fixed and I bet if Sonos could charge each of their customers that to have it fixed, it would’ve been done yesterday.
I count 19 unique complaints in this thread. $5 x 19 = $95, which would cover my software engineer salary for just a little over an hour.
Are you referring to Sonos Voice Control, as detailed here?
It has not yet been released anywhere, not even the US.
For what it worth this is what I did. Prior to getting ARC had a echo dot hooked to a Bluetooth speaker. After hooking upARC and enabling Alexa I unplugged dot. Noticed volume really sucked with Alexa like all the complaints on here. Have ARC setup in in app under “living room” so when I give Alexa a command I hear it over my Bluetooth speaker. If I want play Amazon music I tell Alexa to play in living room and it plays over the ARC. I can control the volume on Bluetooth speaker to my liking.
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