Contributor II

Sonos One alternate Alexa "wake word" change

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
December 26, 2017
68 replies
22433 views

I was going to buy a pair of Sonos ones when they first came out but the inability to change the "wake word" from Alexa was a deal breaker for me as I already have a multi-room Sonos/Echo/Alexa Home autmation setup in which I use the "wake word" "computer". Therefore any expansion to my existing setup has to also have the abilty to alter the "wake word" to "Computer" as with the Echo/Echo dot. Has this issue now been addressed? If not, can this issue please be addressed in a future update to allow the Alexa Wake word on the Sonos One's to be changed from "Alexa" to "Computer"?

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

UKMedia

Hi There is still no ability to change the wake word but Sonos are aware of the demand and I personally would be surprised if this wasn't addressed in the near future.

Remember: Sometimes Red Wine helps :)

M

mojops

Lyricist I

Please make Sonos match up with the other smart home products. I can't use the name Alexa. This should be easy - Echo, Computer, Siri, whatever, but please give us control of the wake up word.

M

mojops

Lyricist I

Please allow grouping of speakers just like Amazon Alexa please!!! Don't do one foot in one foot out on smart home.

C

cpadill

Lyricist I

Dissapointed that I cannot change the wake word on my Sonos One. This should have a function delivered from the get-go for obvious reasons. Let start for the fact that there are people named Alexa, so if you have an Alexa (or an Alexis, as I discovered my Sonos also wakes to Alexis), in your household or for company, you better turn off the microphone on your Sonos because otherwise every time you call the person Sonos is going to get on the middle. Trust me, it is irritating.

k9kids

Trending Lyricist I

Allow changing the wake word to "Sonos" on the Sonos One.

Its a no brainer solution.

A day without music is boring

UKMedia

Allow changing the wake word to "Sonos" on the Sonos One.

Its a no brainer solution.

...but without any idea of the complexities of the development required! :?

Remember: Sometimes Red Wine helps :)

K

kr01

Lyricist I

Ability to change the wake word should have been part of the minimum viable product. Really disappointed in Sonos.

D

drcooney

Lyricist II

This really has to change immediately. In addition to having people with the name Alexa around, our household pet is named Alexo and we frequently give him commands. Alexa constantly get confused. We just got the Sonos Alexa device and it will need to go back to the store if you don't update the software within the next couple weeks. I know the technogeeks/engineers will think this a big ask, but it's just a simple make-or-break update. Please hurry - I don't really want to return the device.

R

rowleyaj

Lyricist I

I also have this issue, living in a household with two Alexs, adding Alexa doesn't really work out very well. To get around this our other dots all use the wake word Echo. Unfortunately I bring disappointing news for everyone here. It's a limitation of the Amazon Web Service that Sonos use to provide "Alexa" support, and not something Sonos can resolve on their own.

The service is called Alexa Voice Service (AVS), theres a technical post about it on the AWS developer blog: https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/865c3b71-a592-492a-89bb-4e0850e60b25/sonos-one-brings-enhanced-alexa-music-capabilities-to-customers

I've looked through all the API docs relating to the SDK that Sonos use, as well as various chunks of code on GitHub. For local voice based recognition there is no technical reason another word can't be used. However for cloud based verification of the wake word, and as part of the requirements of using AVS the only wake word that can be used is Alexa.

> 2.1. Your product SHALL only use Alexa as the wake word.
https://developer.amazon.com/docs/alexa-voice-service/functional-requirements.html

The Sonos forum doesn't seem to have any way to link threads in a meaningful way, or have any kind of moderators that collate and close threads. So I'll add these links here rather than post on every old thread:

https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/sonos-one-problems-6792649
https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/wake-word-change-6797103
https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/mic-sensitivity-and-wake-word-6793202
https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/sonos-one-alexa-trigger-word-6792663
https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/do-we-have-more-wake-words-yet-6794658
https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/alexa-chime-alexa-wake-word-alexa-voice-volume-sonos-one-6794355
https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/changing-alexa-name-6793042

R

robnonsense

Lyricist I

I need this too. No real reason other than I prefer calling her "Computer" cos it feels like I'm on starship in an 80s SciFi show.... And that, Sonos Dev Team, should be reason enough... 🆒

Show more replies

Sign up

Login to the community