Microphone sensitivity for the “Alexa” wake word is low

I just can't get my head round this. The Echos and Dots, I believe, detect the wake word using the microphones and processing on the device itself (we are assured nothing is sent to the cloud until the wake word has been recognised and the lights come on) so I assume it's the same on the Sonos One. Surely Sonos tested the Sonos One in a few people's homes before releasing it to make sure that the microphones and the software, etc on the device worked. So how is it that lots of people are experiencing wake word detection to be so much worse than the Echo devices? And how can we be sure this can be fixed with only device software (not hardware) updates?

If we bought our Sonos Ones from Sonos then we have the option to return them in 100 days if this doesn't get better, but if we bought them elsewhere we may have only 30 days or less for this.
The listening is done at the player level of things, the microphones don't send anything up until the wake word is detected. However, software updates with the data of what the wake word sounds like go from the cloud to the player. Basically, the cloud trains the player on what to be listening for. That learning happens over time, and therefore it's a gradual process, one that's been taking place for over a year on Echo devices. There probably isn't going to be a single update that says "microphones fixed". They will get better over time.

The microphones on the Sonos One can be quite sensitive. I had an early test version that picked up just about anything with an "s" sound as a wake word. It's gotten a lot better. Picking out what is and isn't a wake sound is all about pinning down excess noise and figuring out accents, tone, and pitch, all while sorting through background noise.

The variation in microphone sensitivity is odd. Some have no issues while others do. I assume this is software unless they have that poor a quality control on hardware. I can even say Alexa from another room and they respond.

The sensitivity is surely going to vary based on the local environment (acoustics, background noise, etc) as well the tenor of your voice and other related factors. In my case, I would almost swear my Sonos One is trained to think the wake word is "Alexa ALEXA!" Yet at the same, the Sonos will sound off at the oddest times even when the television volume is low and the nearest speaker is well across the room. I never had this issue with any of my echos or dots,

Overall I like the Sonos One and I'm going to hang in there and hope this will get better as Ryan suggests. While some are returning theirs, I am not. However, I have delayed making additional purchases of any additional Sonos product until I see whether there is progress on this and other issues.

Though the microphones work great in the majority of homes and setups, we're at that point where we're collecting more and more samples and fine-tuning the microphones. Voice control improves in stages, so I'd expect to see improvements as releases come. There isn't just going to be one update, but several that continue to tine the microphones and the Sonos One in general. One top of the microphones, you'll see the Alexa skill get better too, improvements on that may be as quick as every couple weeks, you might not notice what's changed though, depending on what it's targeted at. Those updates would largely be handled on the cloud side of things, so it wouldn't be a software update on your system (those will come too though).

My suggestion would be to keep using the Sonos One. If you do have a lot of trouble with it hearing you, see if there's anything that might be causing a lot of background noise right next to it. That would help in the short term.

Ryan, This is a disappointing answer as it's clearly intended to obfuscate that the ONE has a microphone issue. Please remember that the ONE was heavy hyped to have better voice pickup over the Echo due to 6 microphones and "advanced signal processing" -- but this isn't the case.

I would like to add that the Sonos microphone isn't even 50% of what the amazon echo sensitivity/accuracy is. I could be 5 feet away and it's still not able to pick up my voice. I'm not sure if it's that I'm not loud enough or I'm not saying "Alexa" clearly. Randomly when people are having conversations in the room, it will answer even without anyone saying "Alexa"

Maybe Sonos should offer other words.

Just to add to this - when I first received my Sonos One in October I was relatively happy with it and was going to live with its limitations, giving time to Sonos to improve its software and features over time. I, in fact, posted on another thread singing the praises of the Alexa integration But after living with it for a couple of weeks now, it appears I spoke too soon, it is driving me and my family crazy. My wife is just about ready to throw the thing through the window.
We have to ask it about 5 or 6 times before it responds to 'Alexa' - either we get louder or closer. The echos we have do not have this issue. It just will not respond to the wake word consistently.
On the other hand, it makes that god-awful wake up ding sound ALL THE TIME to other words, if we are talking in the kitchen where it is placed - 6 or 7 times within about 10 minutes last night. Among the phrases that woke it up were 'next to', 'complex', 'Leicester', and most surprising of all 'Crispy'! I have tried all these phrases on the dots we have and nothing!
There appears to be something very wrong with either the mics or the software or both with respect to the wake word.
It is most definitely not a good advert for Sonos to our friends that come round - being constantly interrupted with a DING! whilst trying to chat is very frustrating for everyone.
I would suggest that Sonos allow us to set another wake word or let us turn that awful 'I'm awake' sound off. Both features are customizable in the echos/dots.
I will be keeping the One only because we wanted another Sonos in the dining room, so moved the original kitchen play 1 there. But we will be turning off the mic, at least when we are eating in there (which kind of negates the purpose of the Alexa integration)
But I am returning the two Sonos One's I bought as Christmas presents for my daughters - we believed it was a neater solution than just getting them dots to go with their current Play 1's - but we will be going back to the original plan of dots.
Maybe in a years time, things will have improved

Same here. The mic doesn’t work most of the time. If you have to repeat you command 3 times, it is close to useless.

While using the Dot does work much better, the main reason I purchased the Sonos One was so music would default to playing on my Sonos when using Alexa. I have a child and he and his friends are always asking Alexa to play music. With the Dot you can't configure music to play out of the Sonos by default, you have to specify which Sonos speaker you want the music to play on. Trying to get kids to remember to do that is a never ending battle. It always results in music being played on the Dot itself. It would be great to be able to select the Sonos speakers to be the primary speakers until they resolve the microphone issue.

No experience of the One, but I am very impressed by just how well Dot - or even Echo - does this even in a room that isn't a very quiet one. With some complaining about over sensitivity, this seems like a bit of a challenge for Sonos. One consolation for buyers is having paid just what was the price of the play 1 till the One release and the easy cure of this issue by adding a Dot.

I honestly don’t think this is just microphone sensitivity issue.

I have the same problems and have more success if I raise my voice to say Alexa (often with the Dot in the bedroom responding!).

But I also have a lot of weird beeps throughout the day from both of my the Sonos One as if it heard Alexa while I am talking or while the TV plays. Basically, the Sonos One is getting a lot of false positives. I check my Alexa logs and there are about a dozen recordings of it listening and misunderstanding no one said “Alexa”. It’s a complaint on several threads.

I suspect turning up mic gain on the Sonos is easy for a developer. A change could be made in under a day for that. The problem is that now it hears more background noise and errant sounds... and very likely now cause a lot more people to hear freaky recording beeps.

I suspect the Sonos algorithm to phonetically detect the ALEXA keyword is not as advanced or fleshed out as Amazon’s.

Same problems with Alexa wake word sensitivity, I thought it was a fault with the hardware, shouting Alexa 3 to 4 times then moving within 1 inch of the speaker to repeat, was not part of the deal, returning if not fixed in the next 90 days.

Ryan, can you explain how a cloud update is going to fix the locally processed Alexa wake word? Also when is the fix being put in place? The request for an ETA seems to be being ignored.

Does the One Mic perform better when the One itself is silent, and music is playing through other Sonos speakers?

No, its sensitivity to the wake word is, at best, 1/10 that of a Dot. I can speak directly toward the One from 3’ away. It will not respond, while the Dot, 20’ away at a 90 degree angle, will. It’s a ridiculous situation, and ought to be Sonos’ #1 priority right now. I’ve not noticed any improvement whatsoever over time.

Also finding the wake word sensitivity very hit and miss and this is with little background noise and no music playing. At times having to raise my voice actually wakes some of the Echo's in other rooms.

To me it seems to have got worse over the last couple of weeks.

Wanted to post an update, I will say the situation has gotten better....sometimes. It definitely seems like it's being worked on, because at times I can actually speak relatively normally (still not as normally as I can with my regular Echos) and the One will pick it up. However other times I'll still be standing there "Alexa, Alexa, ALEXA" in a quiet room from a close distance. I'm not sure if the inconsistency is an improvement or not, but at least it's good to see signs of something happening.

However a new concern (for me at least, I'm sure others have noticed), the TV in the room where the One is isn't used often, but a few weeks ago my wife and I binged some TV one night, and I was hearing the One beeping with false positives several times an hour all night long. The One is probably 7-10 feet from the closest surround speaker in the room. Then last night I was on a facetime call with my iPad about 5 feet from the One, same thing, all conversation long the One was beeping and Alexa was going "hmm, I don't know about that". I finally just muted the mic until I was off the call.

For anyone here who wasn't an Echo owner from day 1, I will say that seeing the sensitivity change over time for devices like this doesn't seem to be uncommon. When I first got the Echo it picked up everything on day 1......everything. A few months later I started to notice that I was having to speak very s l o w l y and clearly to get the Echo to recognize the wake word. It was probably a year before it got to the point where the Echo is now, very few false positives and almost 100% reliability on picking up the wake word if you're anywhere near it. I will say I'm surprised that Sonos went as conservative as they did with the sensitivity, I would have rathered them skew towards over sensitive than under.