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Microphone sensitivity for the “Alexa” wake word is low

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262 replies

D
Userlevel 3
Badge +4
mjgunn, you made some good points. However, how can the sensitivity change without a software update?

Mic sensitivity and accuracy is in the cloud and the Alexa implementation, which do not require a Sonos firmware update.I don't think sensitivity to the wake word is in the cloud: it's claimed that nothing is sent to the cloud until the wake word has been recognised.
chicks
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.


Yes, the sensitivity does appear to have improved a bit, I may finally be able to disable the Dot. However, was listening to NPR on the One, and it triggered several times from its own speaker! Doesn’t appear to trigger on music, thankfully. Still have to yell “Alexa!” to trigger the One when it’s playing even at moderate levels. Sigh. I’m confident all this will be worked out over time, but wondering why Amazon didn’t share its Alexa tuning with Sonos.

Will we need to go through all this again for “OK Google!”?
jgatie
mjgunn, you made some good points. However, how can the sensitivity change without a software update?

Mic sensitivity and accuracy is in the cloud and the Alexa implementation, which do not require a Sonos firmware update.
R
Userlevel 1
mjgunn, you made some good points. However, how can the sensitivity change without a software update? Since the original mandatory update that was done when I installed the Ones a couple weeks ago, there has been no firmware update pushed out to me. Do you know whether firmware updates are done automatically without my involvement or knowledge?

Regardless of the truth in what you pointed out about tweaking over time, I still have to decide whether to trust things will improve, or return the Sonos Ones within the refund window and buy some additional Echo products. Aside from the cost difference, the Echo listens well and sounds okay; the Sonos sounds awesome but doesn't seem to listen very well. Not sure what I'll decide, but that's the dilemma I and perhaps others face.
M
Userlevel 3
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.
E
I've literally had my face sitting on the speaker and said "Alexa" and it was like I'd personally offend her by existing! Then when I do get a response, she is quiet as hell. Like do I owe you money or something? Why are you acting like that?
J
Badge
I have just bought my first Sonos product, a Sonos One, as a Christmas present. I agree we need some certainty on what and when?! Otherwise I will be a very short lived Sonos owner, as i don't want to give a defective product for Xmas...

I think Sonos need to take this seriously or lose customers, like me.
R
Userlevel 1
Same mic sensitivity issue for me. I bought four. One is exactly where the original Echo was in the kitchen. I have to face directly it and practically shout at it, when before I was easily heard by the Echo. SONOS: the most important issue here (assuming that it's indeed a software fix) is to give us a time frame. I like the One, but I will regrettably have to send them back within the refund window because the mic sensitivity renders them unacceptable. You say "no worries, it'll improve over time." I say, "how much time, and how much improvement?" After all, it's my kitchen, my money, and my time. I'd love to keep them, but I need info!!! It's a BIG issue, and I urge you to email all Sonos One owners with a definitive update on this. Please.
T
My 4 yo son simply cannot trigger the wake word on the Sonos One. He has near 100% success with a Dot. As others have said we need to talk loud enough that it triggers the Dot that is three rooms away before it triggers the One.
Sp1ke
Userlevel 2
Badge +4
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.
Steve
M
+1. Have been a avid supporter of SONOS up until now, but this needing to shout at Alexa to get her to wake up is very very poor. Looking to take this one back and rely on the dots which work almost perfectly. Come on SONOS, pull your finger out and rectify this stupid situation.
K
Agreed. Along with enabling Sonos Skills in Alexa for India.:D
So I can put my three November bought "official" Dots to work.
chicks

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.
0
same here. I can whisper to my echo dot (quite impressive to be honest how low i can talk to it_, but with sonos i have to scream. Really annoying. To add on that, Sonos has forced me to buy two sonos one to have stereo sound, but the voice control goes to only one of them which is frustrating. For instance, if i put a timer and then ask how much is left,most of the time the request is picked up by the other speaker that tells me there is no timer set. I ended up switching off the mic on one of the two but then why do i need to pay more for two ones? that's bad imo
K
In continuation to the above, a quote about Amazon devices:
"All three speakers have a seven-microphone array, meaning they should be equally good at picking up your voice commands from across the room.
However, Amazon recommends that the Echo Dot is placed at least three feet away from an external speaker, so that Alexa can hear the wake word and other requests."
Obviously, Amazon suggests what it does only for the Dot because it cannot do so for the other two, that have the same Mic array. Logically therefore, the Dot Mic should do better than the other two, if the Amazon recommendation is complied with or even improved. My experience with Dot and Echo confirms this; as does one reported problem with the clever Vaux speakers that combine a Dot+Wired speaker in one box that ends up looking a lot like a play 1, which is that voice commands have to be louder than what they have to be for a well placed separate Dot.
And this kind of placement recommended for the Dot isn't possible for the One as well, so its Mic has to pick up your voice over the sound that it is delivering. A much bigger challenge than it is for an arguably better equipped and well placed Dot with its 7 mics compared to 6 in the One.
K
flaw that the Echo dot will not “stay connected” to Sonos the same way it does to a Bluetooth speaker. With “stay connected” I mean that it will not respond through the speaker and God forbid you forget to say “play music in the XX ROOM” it will just play music in the Echo.
Not a flaw: that is by a design that is different from how Dot + connected BT speakers work. The solution is to get a One, but at this time it does not seem to be a viable one with an unresolved Mic issue.

IMO, the Mic performance will never be as good as via a Dot that is placed some distance from a noise source, the speaker. Which is why the Dot does better than even the Echo and does not do so if placed next to any speaker it is delivering music to.

Which raises an interesting question: Does the One Mic perform better when the One itself is silent, and music is playing through other Sonos speakers?
Ryan S
Userlevel 7
Badge +26
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.

Local processing is based on cloud data. Data and definitions from in cloud updates get pushed down to the players without the need for full Sonos player updates. The Sonos One needs to know what to listen for, and as the cloud definitions and audio data gets better, the microphones get better at pinpointing on the right sounds.

There isn't a specific timeline to share because updates are constantly being worked on and pushed to the cloud so that voice recognition can continue to improve and get better as we go.
Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.
D
Userlevel 1
Badge +2
I just purchased two Sonos One's and a Playbase. I am a first time Sonos user. So far, as all the posts above mentioned, very disappointed with getting Alexa to wake. I can be 3 feet away and my voice or my wife does not wake Alexa.

Seperately - not sure Playbase is that great. Since it only uses optical out, it looks like I have to purchase a hdmi switcher for it to work with my bluray and ATV4, since my TV optical would not work (Pioneer Elite 150) and I am going through the cable box. I like easy and so far none of this has been very simple.
M
Userlevel 1
I bought two Sonos One units in a household with several Echo devices. The Sonos is absolutely terrible at picking up the wake word. I bought my Sonos Ones on Black Friday so I'm going to give them until January when the return period ends, if they haven't massively improved this so that it's on par with the Echos, these are going right back to the store.
B
Agree that the microphone sensitivity is hugely disappointing. The only reason I got the One was because of another flaw that the Echo dot will not “stay connected” to Sonos the same way it does to a Bluetooth speaker. With “stay connected” I mean that it will not respond through the speaker and God forbid you forget to say “play music in the XX ROOM” it will just play music in the Echo. So I got the One which solves this problem but it can’t hear anything and my Echo which could be in another room still picks up the commands first.

Does anybody know a fix to the first problem or whether that problem is with Echo or Sonos? Very annoying.
S
So I think it is more than sensitivity, pitch of voice is the real issue. My 14 year old daughter wakes Alexa up from the far end of the living room whereas using my normal voice from half the distance away gets stony silence. If I change the pitch of my voice the hit rate improves significantly. Perhaps most of your testers had high-pitched voices? 😃
S
Thanks for the feedback everyone. The microphone sensitivity is entirely software, in the early stages test players would pick up just about anything. It's something that'll get better over time too. So you can count on that improving.
R
Could a temp fix be to use an echo or dot for picking up Alexa commands, then switch off the inbuilt microphone within the Sonos1 ? If so how ?
R
totally agree with MJGUNN report that sonos1 with Alexa is suffering from an unacceptable microphone setting. You have to be within 2m-3m of the unit for it to pick you up. What is the solution / upgrade / setting ?
V
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.

I asked a similar question couple of weeks ago and Sonos has not replied. I am not sure how cloud updates can help the wake word issue. There are currently 2 major issues - 1) One has to shout to get Alexa's attention on Sonos one and 2) False positives of wake word when people are talking in the room and/or TV is on. Sonos not providing a proper explanation other than cloud updates does not help. Very very disappointed with Sonos for the first time (other than their new 8.0 app update)
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