change the wake word PLEASE


Userlevel 2

Is this limitation and Amazon thing or a Sonos thing? Is this an active development item? I was considering purchasing the new sound bar but after learning this I don’t think I will. 
 

The whole point of Alexa is hands free voice assist. So turning off/on the microphone is not a valid alternative. 
 

Please let us know the status of this. Thank you. 


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14 replies

Userlevel 1

I second this. My daughter is Alexis, and my wife owns a Lexus. I really need to be able to change the wake word before I go crazy. I’m not a programmer, but this does not seem like a difficult fix. Please make the update Sonos!

A year on and I’m INCREDIBLY disappointed Sonos have seemingly taken no action on this!

 

It’s so bloody annoying when you have a dog called “Alex” because Sonos WILL pick it up. And because I have changed the wake word on my actual Echo Dot, I have to keep remembering what one to use in each room.

 

This is basic stuff SONOS - come on!!!

It’s the dog I feel sorry for…😁

 

Userlevel 2

Buzz, the benefit is to prevent Alexa from waking up constantly when you’re speaking to someone named Alexa or Alexis or if you say “a Lexus” etc. The amazon products let you change it to “echo” or “computer” to keep this from happening. 
 

currently my Sonos One is going off constantly throughout the day as we reference an employee named Alexis. I had an Echo Dot in the past and I changed it to “Echo” which solved the problem.  

Userlevel 1

Thank you. Yes, I have an echo dot that I use for my pair of Play:5’s. I changed the wake word on the dot to “Echo” to avoid this issue in the family room. Unfortunately, the connectivity between the dot and the play:5 is not as seamless nor as clean of a look as having Alexa all in one unit. 

I also have 5 Connect:Amps, with Echo dots everywhere programmed to operate the whole house audio. They all wake to the word “Echo.”  

My reason for really liking Sonos is the clean uncluttered look along with obviously the HiFi sound. 

That being said I recently purchased two pair of One’s for the kitchen and garage. It would be nice to have all wake words the same and keep the clean seamless solution. I am likely in the minority and maybe Sonos will never push the software change through. Maybe I will break down and buy more dots  just wish I didn’t have to do it  

I know, I know, I’m a little overboard for Sonos!

For those wondering, this issue is not Sonos fault.  For integration, Amazon limits AVS to one wake word: Alexa.

 

Essentially, Amazon only allows those other wake words for their internal products such as echo, etc…

 

maybe a later version of the AVS API will support additional wake words but as of 2.3 it’s not there.

 

Complain to Amazon, not Sonos.

Userlevel 1

According to amazon the only way this will change is if everyone requests it via the help section in the alexa app

 

 

" We always try to improve our Customers experience, please submit your feedback about this in your Alexa app. Go to Settings, Help & Feedback, Provide Feedback and follow the on screen directions."

This is mindblowing that this isn’t a thing yet. I have a Sonos in the kitchen, family room and bedroom but have turned off voice assistant in all of them since my sons middle name is Alexander, we call him Alex from time to time and all the Sonos things go crazy. Refuse to turn on Google Assistant for the lack of Apple Music support. 

Adding double pleases here - was told by Sonos ages ago that this was in hand…. nothing 

 

PLEASE - I have been a programmer in the past and it is literally 30 minutes work with the right library access. Without that it”s 45 so someone at Amazon can flick a virtual switch!

 

Sonos doesn’t give roadmaps, and they will never tell you something is the fault of a partner service.  

GoldTacoma,

What is the benefit of changing the wake word?

Fair enough we don’t have any ‘xa’s here.

I know you will feel this should not be necessary, but if this is causing you real problems (and I can easily imagine it being very annoying), you could get an Echo Dot (sometimes discounted to $/£29) and turn the mic off on the One.

As I have a Play:1 that is my only option, but for me it has other worthwhile advantages over the One.

A year on and I’m INCREDIBLY disappointed Sonos have seemingly taken no action on this!

 

It’s so bloody annoying when you have a dog called “Alex” because Sonos WILL pick it up. And because I have changed the wake word on my actual Echo Dot, I have to keep remembering what one to use in each room.

 

This is basic stuff SONOS - come on!!!

Userlevel 3
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We have been calling for this since Alexa became available on Sonos Speakers some 5 -6 year ago.  I’ve managed to get round the issue recently by setting my Alexa enabled Sonos speakers as my prefered speaker on my Fire cube but as long as you have any other Echo devices this intergration actually works quite well. The bonus is not only do your get to use any of the echo devices wake words but you will also get access to all of Alexa’s features rather than the limited set of features Amazon normally allow on third party devices including the full range of Sonos Alexa enabled speakers. I’ve post the details in this thread here a few weeks ago….