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Sonos Beam & GA - Controlling Volume

  • 19 November 2020
  • 9 replies
  • 185 views

When I ask GA to increase volume indeed increases it. But only by 1%, which is not perceivable at all. So if I wanted to go from 20% to 30% I would need to ask it 10 times! This should be much more rapid, like 0% (muted), 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% or even 0, 5%, 10%, 20% etc. 

Similarly If I ask GA to “Set volume to 5”, it sets it to 5%, not 50%.

 

Is it a recent bug, something that will get fixed soon or Sonos feature? 

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Best answer by Simon B 24 November 2020, 17:30

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9 replies

Userlevel 6
Badge +16

Hi @Grogi.Giant, Thank you for reaching out and welcome to the community. Sorry to hear about this issue with controlling the volume on your Google assistant. I want to ask some questions to further check on this issue. 

  • Are there any changes made in the Google Assistant, Google Home, or Sonos  App before this issue occurred?
  • Is it always been like this or the volume increase before is incremental by 5 or 10’s?
  • What is the exact command that you tell Google assistant for increasing the volume?

Answers to this question will help us check what could be causing this issue.

Kindly check this article about Control Sonos with the Google Assistant for the commands that will work with Sonos via Google Assistant and for the volume controls.

Let us know what you have in mind with the advice above.

The Sonos community is always here to help.

Hi Simon,

No, this is the behaviour I am seeing from the very begining on my Sonos Beam.

The commands I use are:

  • Hey Google, Volume Up - increases the volume by 1%
  • Hey Google, Volume Down - decreses the volume by 1%
  • Hey Google, Volume 3 - sets the volume to 3%. This is a direct contradiction to the article you’ve linked, where (Set) Volume 3 should set the volume to 30%. 

 

Commands to control the TV:

  • Hey Google, Turn TV off
  • Hey Google, Turn TV on

don’t work either. Google Assistant will complain that there is no hardware that supports that.

 

Kind regards

Userlevel 6
Badge +16

Hi @Grogi.Giant, thanks for the update and the information that you provided. On this example: 

-set the volume to 3
-set the volume to 30%

-Set a specific volume [0-10 volume levels]

If that doesn't work for that function, we’ll try to take this further. I'll ask you to kindly contact our phone support team for further assistance and more in-depth troubleshooting steps so that they can check why this command doesn’t work for the Google Assistant. 

Let me know your thoughts on the advice above.

The Sonos community is always here to help.

When I ask GA to increase volume indeed increases it. But only by 1%, which is not perceivable at all. So if I wanted to go from 20% to 30% I would need to ask it 10 times! This should be much more rapid, like 0% (muted), 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% or even 0, 5%, 10%, 20% etc. 

Similarly If I ask GA to “Set volume to 5”, it sets it to 5%, not 50%.

 

Is it a recent bug, something that will get fixed soon or Sonos feature? 

Try asking GA to turn up/down volume by 20% or whatever percent you prefer. I just tried this and it works.

Try asking GA to turn up/down volume by 20% or whatever percent you prefer. I just tried this and it works.

Try asking GA to turn up/down volume by 20% or whatever percent you prefer. I just tried this and it works.

I’ve been using GA for three years and from the very begining it did undestood me, my wife and my children correctly. If it doesn’t understand that I want it to be perceivably lauder, it is not smart enough and not worth my attention. Paraphrasing Roger Murtaugh: “I’m simply too old for this stih”. 

The Beam is in the box and first thing in the morning goes back to the shop.

Userlevel 6
Badge +16

Hi @Grogi.Giant, thanks for the update and I apologize for the issue with your google assistant. Upon checking with our team, there is a known outage for this concern as Google seems to have made some recent changes that affect volume for Sonos, but also Google's own devices. Volume control via Google Assistant now works in 1% steps and not as before in 10% steps. Users are not able to decrease or increase the volume in 10% steps anymore like they have been before with the command "Ok Google, decrease/increase". Also, the command "Set volume to 1-10" does not work properly anymore as GA will set the volume to 1-10% instead of 10% steps (e.g. Volume to 5 = 50%).

Our team is closely looking into this issue. This behavior is caused by changes on Google's side and also affects Google's own hardware. Any feedback should be directed to Google. 

The current workaround is to use very specific commands like "increase/decrease by x percent" or "Set volume to x percent".

Let us know what you have in mind with the advice above.

The Sonos community is always here to help.

/…/ as Google seems to have made some recent changes that affect volume for Sonos, but also Google's own devices. /…/

 

Thanks for your response. I indeed noticed the same yesterday evening with my Google devices. It was fixed this morning though. What a unfortunate coincidence… 

Userlevel 6
Badge +16

Hi @Grogi.Giant, thanks for the update. Google might have updated and fixed the bug for this issue. I’m glad it worked fine already. If you have any questions or run into any other issues, please do not hesitate to contact us. We are always happy to assist you.  

The Sonos community is always here to help.