Sonos One Mic Sensitivity and Lack of Pairing

  • 6 December 2017
  • 5 replies
  • 715 views

Just picked up the Sonos One (My 6th Sonos Speaker)... and I am super disappointed about the mic sensitivity. I placed the new Sonos One is the same exact place where my Echo was.... and I have to repeat and speak very LOUD for the sonos one to hear me. In fact... my echo dot in another room usually hears me first.

Also... the fact that I can't pair a Sonos One with a Play 1 is silly. Using 2 Sonos One as a Pair is Alexa over-kill. This seems like an easy software update.

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5 replies

Userlevel 7
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Just picked up the Sonos One (My 6th Sonos Speaker)... and I am super disappointed about the mic sensitivity. I placed the new Sonos One is the same exact place where my Echo was.... and I have to repeat and speak very LOUD for the sonos one to hear me. In fact... my echo dot in another room usually hears me first.


This is being tweaked and getting better in my view. The interesting thing I've discovered is that if I say Alexa quietly the Sonos One will respond better than if I shout but still not as good as my Echo Dot.

Also... the fact that I can't pair a Sonos One with a Play 1 is silly. Using 2 Sonos One as a Pair is Alexa over-kill. This seems like an easy software update.

There has been much discussion regarding this within the forum but a few things to mention: Just because the Play 1 and Sonos One are similar externally, it doesn't mean that internally they are the same. The CEO has stated that Sonos will look into making this possible but there is no firm commitment at this stage.
Thanks for the reply UKMedia! I am confident that they can fix the Mic... hoping sooner than later. I am currently evaluating going back to my Echo until they get it right. (Note: When the echo first launched... it had similar issues and got better over time). The Sonos 1 paired with a Play 1 i still a head scratcher.... since the current configuration currently contains different speaker (Playbar + Satellites) and while the Sonos one may sound better; not sure why the software would be complex as it's only breaking down the 5.1 sound into left and right channels.
If anything is playing at all, we have to walk over to the Sonos One, put our head over it, and yell “ALEXAAAAAA STOP”
Wouldn’t buy the product again.
Lots of times I’ll be right next to SonosOne in the living room trying to give it a command and the Dot in the basement or bedroom will pick it up before the Sonos if Sonos picks it up at all.
Userlevel 6
Badge +9
FWIW, that's not been our experience and we have multiple Sonos Ones and Echo Devices and music is playing constantly at a pretty healthy volume. Have you tried turning the microphone button off and then on again? There was a known issue recently where the microphone would lose sensitivity over time and that would reset it, and I don't know if that was addressed in the last software update.
I tried what you suggested and it seems to have helped. Thanks.

Just a few weeks before we had to reset/uninstall/reinstall etc because we lost Alexa completely. Seems really buggy to me. Hopefully things will improve with software/firmware updates.