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Disable Sonos One Alexa from playing a sound when I say "Alexa"


Userlevel 4
I just set up a Sonos One with Alexa and the sound is noticeably better than the Amazon Echo. On the Sonos One though, each and every time I call "Alexa" it plays some kind of acknowledgement tone. When I call my Echo or Dot, thankfully there is no such tone. Is there anyway to disable it?
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Best answer by Ryan S 29 January 2019, 18:01

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313 replies

I'm also adding my voice to this thread to allow us to disable the tone...

I have 2 x Sonos One in stereo configuration in my bedroom. The tone hampers with natural voice communication with alexa, disrupts the command and is way too loud for discreet use when my wife is sleeping. It also alerts in an unsynchronized double-tone in stereo configuration.

This is a deal-breaker and absent a substantive response from Sonos, I will be returning the two Sonos one units and the additional two I have yet to configure within the next few weeks and switching to another speaker setup configured to alexa dots.
Userlevel 1
Thanks for sharing everyone! @curlyel, there isn't currently a change in status for the request that I can share. There's a lot that the team is working on but I can't speak to the tone specifically right now. We do make sure that the team knows how many people are asking for what features so they know which ones are the highest in demand.

I'll be sure to let you know when I hear anything new that can be shared.


Hi it's been another month since your last update, can you share anything more? I've no idea what is going on with the sound but it's suddenly on my Sonos one jumped in volume massively, it's now even more horribly invasive than it was when I originally commented on the thread.

I've completely turned off the Alex integration on one of my speakers because I can't stand it, surely there should be something else you can share?
+1 for this from me too. I’ve just bought a pair of these and having being a year long user of the Alexa services before - it’s making it very hard to like the experience. Ive always felt one of the great advantages I feel of the voice UI on the Echo vs other voice assistants is there is no tone that interrupts your naturally spoken request. With the tone at whatever volume the speaker is set at, sadly it’s like being rudely cut off each time you try and make a request.
I agree with this, that tone is very annoying and i feel like I’m being interrupted every time i try to give an Alexa command
Userlevel 5
Badge +8
Mine even beeps randomly during the day as if I’ve said ‘Alexa’ but I haven’t. It’s hearing Alexa when similar words are spoken on the television and it’s bloody annoying!
Bought two Sonos ones today, really happy with them so far until I started to watch TV. This sound has happened several times in the space of only a few hour! I'm glad it is listening but very dissatisfied with hearing this sound and knowing it can't be turned off. Seems like such a basic thing the Sonos should be able to do. Please add an option asap.
Userlevel 1
Could I recommend something to the Sonos developers, which I guess is something that just hasn't been done, take a Sonos One speaker home with you and set it up in the bedroom.

Then do the following:

1) Listen to some music at a reasonable volume during the day
2) Once it comes to bed time, the room is dark and you are in bed and thinking about sleep, try using Alexa

It will become immediately obvious what the problem is and why this is now a 5 page long thread. It certainly seems like nobody has tested this speaker in a real life situation.
Userlevel 2
Badge +2
The tone may be a dealbreaker for me. My daughter’s name is Alexis so we’ve been using “computer” as the wake work on our echo devices.

I know we can’t change the wake word on Sonos, so at least allow us to disable the bong! Now with my new Sonos One in the room it’s “bonging” constantly when I’m talking to my daughter.

“Alexis (BONG) what do you want for breakfast?”

“Did you finish your homework Alexis (BONG)?”

Aaaargh!!! Fatal flaw in an otherwise great product. At this point I’m thinking of just returning it to Best Buy and getting a better BT speaker for my Dot.


This is hilarious, I have a friend named Alexia and it happens all time when she's at home. I think I need to change friends xD

Speaking seriously, I think that Amazon needs to leave the community to change the wake up word for Alexa, also to third party like Sonos.
How annoying when the Sonos has to make a noise from the kitchen when I’m talking to the echo in the living room.


Ryan, you stepped up to the plate - we need you to go to bat for us.
Dityo on what others are saying. I have multiple play 1 and 5 as well as 3 echo's. I just unboxed a pair of the new alexa 1's. They will be going back since Sonos doesn't seem to care about fixing this major issue/problem.
PLEASE allow us to disable the tone. I won't buy another Sonos until this issue is resolved because it's too annoying.
That tone is so incredibly annoying! How can we make it stop? My other Echo devices don't do that and Google's don't either...argh. Help. Please. Sonos.
Userlevel 7
Badge +26
Thanks for the continued feedback everyone! The suggestion list for Alexa changes and requests isn't a short list, but I'm making sure to keep the most active discussions here in front of the team that's working on them. I don't have any specifics today to let you in on regarding turning off the "boop". You'll see some improvements to ducking and some other things soon though, so stay tuned. And you might have noticed that Deezer was added today!
Userlevel 5
Badge +3
This wake tone is bow causing me real problems in using the Sonos one with Alexa.

Our kitchen has a fair echo in it being large and fully tiled, if you don't wait for the wake tone to go silent before making a request to Alexa then she mishears about 50% of instructions given. This means we can't speak fluently to the Sonos one in the kitchen like we do to the rest of the Alexa devices in the house.

Whoever designed this product with the wake tone has clearly done about zero real world tests. There is a flashing light on the top of the device with the ability to change colour, so why not just use this instead of the stupid wake tone.

I have several play 1's around the home and many with echo dots in the same room. My intention of replacing these with a single play one in each room simply will not happen until Sonos sort out this stupid wake tone.

Sonos are very quickly going to lose out on the whole house audio market to the likes of Google or Amazon themselves if they don't start acting a bit more swiftly to resolve issues such as this which are drawing criticism from many owners. How many months is it now that people have been complaining about this, and whats been done? Nothing.
Userlevel 5
Badge +3
Thanks for the continued feedback everyone! The suggestion list for Alexa changes and requests isn't a short list, but I'm making sure to keep the most active discussions here in front of the team that's working on them. I don't have any specifics today to let you in on regarding turning off the "boop". You'll see some improvements to ducking and some other things soon though, so stay tuned. And you might have noticed that Deezer was added today!

So they are concentrating on items like Deezer and ducking, whilst the single most complained about issue goes unresolved.

Do your developers actually talk to people who are customer facing or do they just get up in a morning and start doing what THEY want to see rather than the customer.
Userlevel 6
Badge +9
Ugh ... just realized the issue is even worse when you enable Alexa's new Follow-Up mode. You not only hear the Wake Sound when you say Alexa, you hear it AGAIN after she acknowledges your initial command and waits for another.

Ryan, I'm a big supporter, but your continuing platitudes on this issue are rapidly wearing thin.
I'd like to add my agreement about the pointless response tone.
Also, I've just spent the best part of 5 hours trying to get Alexa to play my iTunes library which is located on my NAS. Tried it with Plex and MyMedia and the result is the same. She says "playing X" and then silence. I can play the music from the app, but that's not why I bought it! (I was specifically told by a Sonos rep in a web chat that this was easily implemented, but there are hundreds of people having the same issue.
Not happy.
If only I read these threads before I went out after much persuasion by my wife and bought 2 ones. I already have 5 play 1’s and a connect. That chime is annoying and the dev’s need to get on and fix it a bit quick please otherwise I’ll be going back old school.
Userlevel 5
Badge +3
The excuse given 4 months ago was:

"Since the Sonos One doesn't have the light ring that you might find on the Echo Dot, the tone was enabled so that you know when the Sonos One heard you and when it's communicating with the cloud."

I mean if only there was something like an LED built into the top of the unit that was able to light up green, orange or white.

If only it wasn't such a huge and ambitious technical ask for an LED to cycle through those colours to give a visual indication like on the echo devices.... :8
Adding my voice to those calling for this. I have been with Sonos from the beginning (so long that I bought my Sonos One with the credit from my discontinued controller) and the inability to turn off the noise has my wife asking me to unplug the new device.
Can this issue please be addressed! Just purchased the Sonos ONE set and there’s no way I can keep the Alexa functionality on without being able to control the obnoxious chime and ability to turn her voice down. These products are no different than a Play 1 without fixing this issue.

Long time Sonos user and have never had a product I was disappointed in until this! Please listen to everyone on her and at least give an update on when this will be fixed!!

Long time Sonos user and have never had a product I was disappointed in until this! Please listen to everyone on her and at least give an update on when this will be fixed!!


They must not think it's"broken" or I'd guess it would have been fixed months ago. I'm returning my units to the retailer. From what I've heard, others are too. From a sellers perspective, I can't imagine selling these things to an end user and having to put up with the shipping to customer, RMA, return shipping and then dealing with whatever Sonos' procedure is for getting credit for "defective" units.
The inability to disable the tone and the volume of the subsequent voice responses - which is significantly louder than the actual music/radio volume - are why we are returning the Sonos One and going back to our Echo. It's ridiculous that this hasn't been fixed yet.
Userlevel 7
Badge +11
Thanks for the continued feedback everyone! The suggestion list for Alexa changes and requests isn't a short list, but I'm making sure to keep the most active discussions here in front of the team that's working on them. I don't have any specifics today to let you in on regarding turning off the "boop". You'll see some improvements to ducking and some other things soon though, so stay tuned. And you might have noticed that Deezer was added today!

Wow - 4 months not to do this very simple software change, I am sure everyone who took time out to post on this thread is pleased that you are still on the case. :P

I guess Sonos is just as good at turning a deaf ear to new users as to the early adopters (check out the "SAVE THE CR100" thread!). - Well that is my axe well and truly ground!

Wow - 4 months not to do this very simple software change, I am sure everyone who took time out to post on this thread is pleased that you are still on the case. :P

I guess Sonos is just as good at turning a deaf ear to new users as to the early adopters (check out the "SAVE THE CR100" thread!). - Well that is my axe well and truly ground!


Your axe is down to a nub because of all your off-topic posts about the CR-100. No need to pimp your cause, lest those of us who originally had great sympathy start to lose it due to your annoyances.