How to activate Alexa mics on Sonos One surrounds?
Best answer by Ryan S
This would work for everything but with the Beam and Sonos Ones.
When bonded with a Beam, Sonos Ones will have Alexa disabled on them. We found during testing that the best experience was when the Sonos Ones microphones were turned off. CEC based Alexa commands don't work through the Sonos One, so if those were hearing your commands instead of the Beam, it wouldn't pass them to the TV. I'll pass the word along to the team that you'd like to be able to turn the microphones back on, and more importantly, that the Beam is having trouble hearing you. That shouldn't be the case.
You might want to give us a call on our support line and see if they can help get the setup cleaned up a bit and improve the Beam's listening.
This would work for everything but with the Beam and Sonos Ones.
When bonded with a Beam, Sonos Ones will have Alexa disabled on them. We found during testing that the best experience was when the Sonos Ones microphones were turned off. CEC based Alexa commands don't work through the Sonos One, so if those were hearing your commands instead of the Beam, it wouldn't pass them to the TV. I'll pass the word along to the team that you'd like to be able to turn the microphones back on, and more importantly, that the Beam is having trouble hearing you. That shouldn't be the case.
You might want to give us a call on our support line and see if they can help get the setup cleaned up a bit and improve the Beam's listening.
I would like to second this, please pass on feedback that consumers would like to reactivate Sonos Ones microphones when used as surround speakers. I purchased these over Play:1’s for Alexa functionally. As it sounds with many on this thread, dissapointed to be mislead.
An update in software it seems will remove many customers frustrations.
Just curious. As the only time the mics on the Sonos One's are disabled is when they are set-up as surround speakers with a Beam, why is this an issue? Is the mic on the Beam not sufficient?
Someone from Sonos should actually try this in their home. Since getting the 5.1 setup my wife and I are always shouting across the room to get Alexa to hear. In short, if you want to art getting frustrated with Alexa, buy the beam/one 5.1 combo.
Someone from Sonos should actually try this in their home. Since getting the 5.1 setup my wife and I are always shouting across the room to get Alexa to hear. In short, if you want to art getting frustrated with Alexa, buy the beam/one 5.1 combo.
I find that the Beam is just fine for listening, and understand why Sonos wouldn't want to complicate things by making CEC functions only work if the Beam happened to listen to you. However, I completely get why users would want the option of deciding which mics are on and off.
As a potential work around, you can add echos in the same room and setup Alexa groups so that the music plays on the 5.1 setup by default.
CEC functions would be turn on/off TV, switching inputs, and volume control. It should be noted though that CEC functions are not the only way to control these features, and not all TVs support these features, so it does makes sense that some/many users would give up CEC functions to get the mics turned on surround speakers.
I've come to realise of the many reasons to buy Sonos, Alexa integration is most definitely not one of them.
I've come to realise of the many reasons to buy Sonos, Alexa integration is most definitely not one of them.
I can see where you are coming from and I don't have the Beam so can't really comment on the specific product but I find Voice Control of the Sonos system overall to be great and something I wouldn't want to lose.
I've come to realise of the many reasons to buy Sonos, Alexa integration is most definitely not one of them.
I can see where you are coming from and I don't have the Beam so can't really comment on the specific product but I find Voice Control of the Sonos system overall to be great and something I wouldn't want to lose.
I think if viewed as an added bonus feature I'd agree though if Alexa integration is an important factor I feel there are technically (though may be not aesthetically) better ways of achieving voice controlled audio systems.
For me it was a significant part of my decision making process when getting my Beam and Ones surround system so my non-technical other half could access streaming music playback easily.
The frustrations I mentioned above combined with the quite frankly stupid inability to set a static Alexa Voice volume instead of it raising with the general volume (don't even mention the awful relentless confirmation 'BONG'), are quite literally a turn off for me and my family I'm afraid.
Nothing is clear, please Sonos, provide an answer! Either this is technically not feasible and explain why, or please add this features that everybody having one Beam and 2 Ones as surround want to see implemented!
Thank's!
Nothing is clear, please Sonos, provide an answer! Either this is technically not feasible and explain why, or please add this features that everybody having one Beam and 2 Ones as surround want to see implemented!
Thank's!
Your answer is on the very first page, marked as the best answer.
At the very least I’d like to be able to choose which mic is in use on a 5.1 setup. My rear right one is in a much better place to hear me. I may end up installing another dot, which is insane.
I once purchased the Beam and Sub, had nothing but problems with it, returned them. Kept the Sonos ones, but now having the mic problem, just stopped working and yes I did disable sonos and re-enable it in my skills and yes i tried to turn on the mic, still not working. I am now replacing all sonos components and will never have another sonos device in my house and I will never recommend sonos to anyone wanting he experience sonos promises, but never delivers.
I once purchased the Beam and Sub, had nothing but problems with it, returned them. Kept the Sonos ones, but now having the mic problem, just stopped working and yes I did disable sonos and re-enable it in my skills and yesi tried to turn on the mic, still not working. I am now replacing all sonos components and will never have another sonos device in my house and I will never recommend sonos to anyone wanting he experience sonospromises, but never delivers.
If you still have the Sonos One’s, can you open the Sonos App>Settings>Services>Voice Services>Amazon Alexa and ensure that they are listed as enabled.
Any progress on this problem. It seems there is a lot of people who could benefit from this functionality. My partner who was sceptical about this setup from the beginning is about fed up with having to yell at across the room all of the time. Please allow the this function!
Any progress on this problem. It seems there is a lot of people who could benefit from this functionality. My partner who was sceptical about this setup from the beginning is about fed up with having to yell at across the room all of the time. Please allow the this
You could get an Echo Dot or Google Mini to avoid the need to yell. (Or possibly just an Echo Input, although I have not yet looked into those.)
I’d love to have an update on this from the Sonos team. We want to use our surround Ones the way we want.
Please allow us to use the mic and have Alexa function on the surrounds. This has been a request from many people on this thread. It seems like a common need and should be a reasonable request to the dev team.
Very frustrating at the moment since the mic on the Beam sucks!
Please fix this! Please enable alexa mics on Play Ones surrounds
I've the same problem. So please take a look and fix this damn thing!
I spend half day trying to enable Alexa with Sonos 1 when setup in 5.1 and was not able to do it as the link to Alexa is lost as soon as you configure the play ones from stand alone to 5.1. This is very frustrating as I bought them for this purpose replacing 2xPlay 5 that i am using stand alone in another room. Please SONOS fix this setup issue. I do not want to add another Echo for this purpose. Thank you
+18I am a Google Assistant user (on a Beam, setup with One’s as surrounds) and have no Alexa experience, but it does seem odd to me that Beam-users should have to shout at their Beam to have Alexa work. With GA this has never happened to me. With some issues I have had it has helped to uninstall GA from Sonos and then reinstall it. Would this not also work on Alexa?
Add me to the list of customers who what this ability enabled! I just purchased another set of Ones to add as surrounds to have extra Alexa capabilities. I was fine with having Play:1s but the wifey wanted an Alexa device closer to her. I figured I would replace the Play:1s with Ones since I have that set up with my Playbar. To my surprise it’s disabled with the Beam. Please come up with a software update!
Another frustrated and dismayed user here. It does explain why they don’t advertise a Beam and 2x Ones bundle, only the Beam and 2 x One SL.
Please look into what seems like a fairly simple logic update, or even an option with some limitations if necessary.
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