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Sonos One is getting worse and worse at listening

  • 23 January 2023
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For months now there seems to be an increasing decline in the effectiveness of the Sonos One’s ability to listen and perform tasks.  I’ve had it for about 4 years and it has largely been fine and perhaps gets the most amount of use of all my Sonos devices as it’s in the kitchen, although somewhat more hard of hearing than pure Amazon Alexa devices, which is understandable as this is a Sonos device first and foremost and the mic array design is more recessed.  With that in mind it has been kept in an ideal position, away from a wall and other kitchen sources of noise.

The decline in response though has manifested in stages.  last year it often was randomly not turning off any music or radio stations, even if initially activated by voice command to that device.  BBC Radio 4 or radio FIP for example would launch fine but it would either ignore the command to stop with a tone or deny it was even playing, despite the historical command language being adhered to.

Now though it hears the commands, acknowledges them by saying “Playing BBC radio 4” and the BBC sound jingle and then just mere silence.  Same goes for FIP.  When I activate the same stations via the Sonos app, they start no problem and commands to stop are fully ignored or will say goodbye and still play on. 

Alarms and timers can be set but often can not be turned off.  There is much shouting at these times before it gets angrily unplugged for a few hours.

Additionally, previously long used alarms, like turning the radio on in the morning have ceased working altogether.

Regular Alexa questions, like how fast does the earth rotate, are happily answered.  Alexa voice services have been removed and re-added too as per trouble shooting page.

I have searched all apps for hardware resets to try that but there is no obvious method and I  can see no other solution.

 

Please help before the Sonos One discovers the menaces of violence put upon it.

 

 

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Best answer by Ken_Griffiths 23 January 2023, 18:09

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I don’t have the same experience. I find Alexa on my Sonos One/Move/Roam very responsive, moreso than our echo dots - maybe try removing the Assistant and the Sonos skill in the Amazon App and rebooting the speaker and then reinstalling things back and see if that resolves your issue.

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As stated, I’ve tried removing and reinstating connections as per the trouble shooting guide

As stated, I’ve tried removing and reinstating connections as per the trouble shooting guide

In that case, it maybe best to go onto submit a system diagnostic and either note/post it’s reference back here and then contact/chat with Sonos Support Staff via this LINK  and see what the Staff can suggest to perhaps resolve the issue.

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Thank you Ken.  I’ll give it a go

 

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Diagnostic done. Confirmation number is: 3280539.

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Looking at the Amazon Skills reviews there seems to be a serious problem with it since a recent update.  Lots of non-Sonos mentioning reviews citing the same issues

Looking at the Amazon Skills reviews there seems to be a serious problem with it since a recent update.  Lots of non-Sonos mentioning reviews citing the same issues

Alexa works fine here for me. I have Alexa on numerous devices and the Sonos speakers seem to hear the instructions before/better than my echo-dot devices. If you can’t resolve it, just speak with Sonos Support Staff, as mentioned earlier, as they have tools that can likely test things at their end for you.