"Goodnight Google" command results in nightmares

  • 19 November 2020
  • 4 replies
  • 457 views
S
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I have programmed the ‘Goodnight Google’ command to turn my bedroom lights off, and to run some ambient background music until I fall asleep. That all sounds lovely, doesn’t it?

I thought so, too. However since I bought my Sonos One to replace my Google Home, when the ambient music (chirping crickets in a field, for anyone interested) finishes an hour or two later, usually in the middle of REM sleep, the Google Assistant suddenly screams “I’m sorry, I don’t understand!”, waking me up in the middle of the night, only for me to go through the entire process again if I make the mistake of using the ‘Goodnight Google’ command. It might make sense if I had asked Google to do something, but I’m usually unconscious, and my cats don’t speak English (that I know of. I have seen Dolittle - terrible movie, don’t bother - but it’s a work of fiction after all. Isn’t it? Cat’s cant really talk to Google, can they?). While you’re pondering that, I happen to find it very annoying, so if you or anyone you may know may know why it might be doing this, I’d be keen for a solution.

NB: I’ve just bought another Sonos One (SL) so my nightmares will now be in stereo.

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4 replies

Paul A
Userlevel 6
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Hi @scott2bjoking.

Welcome to the Sonos community and thanks for reaching out to us. I understand the frustration it may cause especially in your situation of being disturbed while at sleep. Let me help you out with that.

I would like to recommend submitting a diagnostic after 3-5 minutes after the issue starts happening for us to check what might have triggered the prompt “I’m sorry, I don’t understand”. This phrase is the response after 2 situations have been met. 1. Google assistant heard the trigger word like “Hey Google.” and 2. Google assistant received a command but does not know how to proceed or heard a voice that it did not understand. I would also recommend contacting our technical support team as soon as you are available for more in-depth troubleshooting steps or possible product replacement. Especially if the product is found faulty.

I hope this helps.

Please let us know if you still have further questions or concerns. We are always here to help.

Thanks,

 

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S
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Hi, 

 

I also have this issue under exactly the same circumstances. The ambient noise plays for approximately 50 minutes after ‘Hey Google, goodnight’. Approximately 10 minutes after the ambient noise stops GA says ‘I’m sorry I don’t understand’. There was no noise or command to make the assistant say this.

Diagnostic report 1998226014 was taken within 2 minutes of it happening earlier.

 

thanks

 

Stuart   

J

I have Alexa, not Google.  ‘Alexa, goodnight’ does what I have programmed (turn off all the lights in my home) 99% of the time, but occasionally Alexa just treats it as a friendly comment and responds with something inane like “don’t let the bedbugs bite”.  Fairly harmless but I wonder if your problem arises in a similar way - confusion between a ‘routine’ and a normal comment.

And if I were to say ‘Goodnight Alexa’, Alexa would be puzzled because she wouldn’t hear the ‘goodnight’. 

Maybe change the instruction to ‘Hey Google, sleep routine’, or whatever the correct formulation is with Google.

This is very speculative, given that I don’t even have Google voice control!

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Thanks John, but ‘goodnight’ is a routine embedded into GA as the screen shot shows. You can adapt the routine as you see fit, it is very different to the Alexa routine and in many ways better than the Alexa equivalent which didn’t work correctly on Sonos. 
 

The easy fix for this is to remove the sleep sounds element, but then it partly defeats the object...

 

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