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I live in a studio apartment where the sound travels easily throughout my unit. Appliances such as Washer/Dryer , Dishwasher , overhead oven range fan, and vacuum cleaner easily drown out any audio I was listening to on my Sonos speakers before the appliance turned on. What I'd like would be a microphone on Sonos speakers that could be used to detect changes in ambient volume and adjust the speaker volume to compensate.



Example: I'm listening to a podcast and turn the washing machine on, nearby Sonos speakers detect the increase in ambient volume and increase their volume so that I can still hear the podcast. When the washing cycle is done, the speakers detect the decrease in ambient volume and lower their volume back to the previous level.
Not a bad idea. There are cars that do this, although I've never looked in to whether it's a microphone picking up true ambient noise, or just related to speed. But all speakers should do this 🙂



I suspect identifying what is true "ambient" noise is complex. Although if you've got the data on what the speaker is doing, it shouldn't be hard to subtract that. But I'm not a sound engineer, so "shouldn't be hard" might be relative.
Instead of changing the volume why not use the microphone to detect the non-music component and generate an inverse signal to cancel the noise? Essentially a room size noise cancelling headphone.
You will soon be able to simply ask Alexa to change the volume. I really don't want the Sonos firmware doing this for me.
I agree; if they ever start doing this for us, it needs to be optional, as Trueplay is. Toggle on/off.
Instead of changing the volume why not use the microphone to detect the non-music component and generate an inverse signal to cancel the noise? Essentially a room size noise cancelling headphone.



There was a thread about this last year. Whilst it might be technically possible it would only ever work for one person in the room because the noise to be cancelled is different in every point in the room. Furthermore, unless you could calculate the "nose" at your ears, you would need a microphone on your ears.
It comes with a lot of complications. For one, you would have to be able to set some sort of max volume level. You don't want to wake up the baby, for example when the dishwasher goes off. As well, it would complicate grouping. If you're listening to multiple groups, do you want to raise/lower the volume in all groups or just the zone detecting noise?



BTW, I am almost positive that cars control the volume by speed. It would be so much easier to get that info that calculate the ambient noise.



I'm not going to pretend know how noise cancelling works, but I would be surprised if you cancel sound for an entire room at a reasonable cost. If it could be done, such a device would be flying off the shelves at Babies R Us everywhere.
BTW, I am almost positive that cars control the volume by speed.


Yes, I can't speak definitively for every vehicle, but I've never seen one that used anything other than speed.
I'm not sure about modern vehicles, but prior to having a computer on board, the "speed" was taken from the number of sparks per second -- an indication of engine speed.



With respect to noise cancellation, unless one is cancelling noise at the source, the cancellation will be valid at a single spot. Another detail is noise conducted through the house structure. The best way to deal with this noise is to decouple the noise source from the structure.
To clarify, I meant the general "stereo" reaction. Go faster, volume goes up.



There are cars that use some noise cancelling, but I believe that's almost always targeted at eliminating "engine" noise and sometimes road noise (which is trickier).
@skelton, In the case of noise cancellation for engine and road noise, wouldn't that usually be done in a more passive sense. Bu that I mean, you can place noise dampening material between the engine and cabin (or whatever) that dampens the sound frequencies expected from the engine. Same with road noise from the tires, although I would guess the would varying more in the frequencies.



Then again, I know little about it...I'm just curious. And maybe a little bored at work.
I think dampening is a big part of it, but they're going for some active too. I'm no expert, but here's a story from a couple years ago on what Ford's been doing (high level):

https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/feu/en/news/2015/11/11/how-new-ford-technology-can-make-your-car-work-like---a-giant-pa.html
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