What are you turning on? 

Hi

First..as @melvimbe asked...”what are you turning on?”  Your profile shows that you own no Sonos product that could possibly be turned off..excepting a Move or Roam product. Sonos products (other than the two mentioned)  are always on. Sonos products merely go into a low power mode after a period of non-use.

I’ve never heard an “ad” play on my Sonos for Alexa. Furthermore, using Alexa or any voice assistant is optional and are not on by default even during setup. So...once again...”what are you turning on?”

If you are referring to “banner ads” in the Sonos app you can opt out by going to your profile page or via the app > Settings > Data and Privacy > Additional Usage Data

It happens every time I play KQED on iHeart Radio but the ad is not coming from the radio station. 

Still not sure of what you are trying to convey. Can you post a video of what’s happening???

Full disclosure: I’m not an iHeart user.

This ad might be posted by iHeart before connecting you to a station. You could investigate this by trying other stations. It is also possible that iHeart and a station have some sort of pre-connection agreement that delivers a custom ad each time a connection to that station is initiated.

It’s apparently a sonos ad - it only mentions sonos and sometimes Alexa. 

It’s not complicated - here’s an example what it says in a lovely British lilt (this version doesn’t mention alexa).

“Hands free is now worry free thanks to sonos voice control. Available with any sonos product, sonos voice control makes it easier than ever to play music and control your system without lifting a finger. And because your voice never leaves the speaker you don’t have to stress about any compromise to your privacy. Get started with sonos voice control from your app settings menu or visit sonos.com to shop compatible speakers.” 

Note it just did it when I started a Spotify playlist too!

Clearly a sonos ad, not from the iHeart or TuneIn or Spotify. 

Sorry I don’t have a platform to host video/audio. Also “turning on” is a red herring” I just meant when I hit play on the app. 

thanks

I ask what you meant by ‘turning on’ because it wasn’t at all clear what you referring to.  It could mean plugging into mains, it could mean opening up the Sonos app, starting a stream, etc.  Even with starting a stream, it’s obviously important which streaming service is used.

Anyway, although the content of the add is for Sonos, I doubt that the source of the content is generated from your speakers or from a Sonos content server.  Most likely, Sonos has bought ad space with these services in your region with the target demographic being anyone that is connecting via a Sonos device.  If that’s the case, Sonos could pull those ads, but the service would likely replace it with some other ad.

Regardless, it’s useful to voice your dislike of the ad.  It doesn’t hurt to let iHeart and other stations no as well.  Even if Sonos is producing the ad themselves somehow, the service probably don’t want that ad appearing as part of their service (without them getting revenue for the ad).

Hi @Jim in Oakland 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

There are similar reports on other threads:

I don’t think it is intentional - I recommend you contact your local technical support team to report this as we don’t have access to iHeart here in Europe, so are unable to test/reproduce this issue here.

I think it will help if you are able to record a short video of this happening and share it with the team - it’s easiest to do this before calling.

I hope this helps.

Edit 17/1/24: changed “It’s certainly not intentional” to “I don’t think it is intentional”

To be clear this is a sonos issue, not a iHeart issue. I get the same ad also when I listen to spotify. The ad is clearly coming from sonos, not a streaming service. I’m not crazy or foolish. Please take my comments seriously. 

Today’s ad text: 

“Sonos elevates your home. Did you know this device also comes with alexa? When you activate alexa on your device you can set up reminders. Just tell alexa what you want a reminder for and when to remind you. Alexa, remind me to take the trash bin out every Sunday at 4:00PM or Alexa, remind me to feed the fish at 8:00. Simply go to settings on your sonos app, click services and voice and add amazon alexa.”

What did the technical support team suggest, when you contacted them with the video, as requested by the Sonos Forum Moderator above?

Here are the two audios. Sorry, they are low volume. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W1GVYE7LDHT5xLzRgV6an-V6sSt9vByQ/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_2tBQwiZbunBfdhXOcDbzVoRUXN6UXGC/view?usp=drive_link

@Jim in Oakland 

I listened to both audios and there is clearly a 3rd party marketing entity involved. 

Questions:

Does the add occur on only one Sonos speaker?

Are the streaming services on an add free tier or not (you would typically pay more for add free)?

It happens system-wide. 

Why do you say it’s clearly a 3rd party? Why are the ads directing me to sonos products and website? 

You haven’t answered my question. What does the Sonos Technical Support team say when you call them?

OK my bad. I could have sworn that I got the ad on spotify too but can’t re-create it. Maybe I AM crazy. 

In the other thread I did find this…

• “I think I just solved the issue.  I just noticed that this message may only come when I use a radio station thru Sonos Radio.  The radio station is KQED.  There are two choices under Sonos Radio: “KQED” and “KQED-FM”.  I had the message problem when connecting to Sonos Radio KQED.  I switched to Sonos Radio KQED-FM and currently I am not getting the 30 second voice message.  I am not going to retry the KQED station version and hope that sticking with the KQED-FM station version has resolved the issue.”

I found the same result. So problem solved although I’m still perplexed by how/why this happens on KQED. 

Thanks for your patience and support. 

Because if it was Sonos ad originating from your speaker or a Sonos cloud service, it would appear for everyone across any service, not specific with certain radio stations or services. Services like iheart and KQED make a profit by selling ads, surely even more for targeted ads.  And the service know that you are listening through a Sonos speaker.  If Sonos bought ads with them, then it would make sense to play those ads when someone is using a Sonos speaker.

NOthing wrong with not liking the ad and wanting Sonos to pull the ad. It’s just likely that Sonos technical group had nothing to do with the ad, because Sonos marketing group ran the ad through a 3rd party.

@Jim in Oakland

Glad you resolved the ad issue. One more point …as Sonos has its own Voice Assistant it would have made more sense to push you toward it rather than Alexa.

I posted on the same issue here 

Jim probably “solved” it the same way I did, by switching to a TuneIn-based stream rather than iHeartRadio, they are both available in the Radio HD service.

To those asking, I called Sonos Support and they said this is expected behavior as the service is not part of their platform. It is pretty clearly a Sonos-sourced ad though, it’s usually for enabling Voice Control (not Alexa) on speakers you already have, and not selling anything; maybe it’s their default ad when there’s not one available to serve up? Or else they are paying for iHeartRadio to *not* sell speakers to, and just annoy, existing customers?

Oh well, not the worst thing that’s ever happened ever.