Skip to main content
Answered

Volume level not set properly via Google Assistant


Forum|alt.badge.img

For some months now I’m experiencing an issue when asking Google Assistant to set the volume of our speakers/rooms to a desired volume. This does not work properly when asking to set the volume to either level 3, 5 or 10. The other volume levels seem to work okay though, as per below list:

  • “Hey Google volume 0” : room volume is correctly set to 0%
  • “Hey Google volume 1” : room volume is correctly set to 10%
  • “Hey Google volume 2” : room volume is correctly set to 20%
  • “Hey Google volume 3” : room volume is incorrectly set to 3% (instead of 30%)
  • “Hey Google volume 4” : room volume is correctly set to 40%
  • “Hey Google volume 5” : room volume is incorrectly set to 5% (instead of 50%)
  • “Hey Google volume 6” : room volume is correctly set to 60%
  • “Hey Google volume 7” : room volume is correctly set to 70%
  • “Hey Google volume 8” : room volume is correctly set to 80%
  • “Hey Google volume 9” : room volume is correctly set to 90%
  • “Hey Google volume 10” : room volume is incorrectly set to 10% (instead of 100%)

Given Sonos’ recent volume issues with i.a. Google Assistant, I was hoping that this issue would also be addressed and resolved with the latest firmware release 82.2-59204 but unfortunately it was not.

Does ​@SONOS or someone else know if this would be a problem on Sonos side or Google?

Of course I’d like this to be resolved as well 😉

Thanks for your support?

Best answer by Corry P

Hi ​@P.Janssen 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

Thanks for reporting this behaviour - we have (mostly) been able to replicate it.

I will let the right people know so this can be investigated, but, in the meantime, please be aware that if you specify a percentage in your command, you should get the exact percentage you ask for - this is what happened for my colleague who was testing for us, at least.

I hope this helps.

View original
Did you find what you were looking for?

13 replies

Corry P
Forum|alt.badge.img+18
  • Sonos Staff
  • 8336 replies
  • Answer
  • December 23, 2024

Hi ​@P.Janssen 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

Thanks for reporting this behaviour - we have (mostly) been able to replicate it.

I will let the right people know so this can be investigated, but, in the meantime, please be aware that if you specify a percentage in your command, you should get the exact percentage you ask for - this is what happened for my colleague who was testing for us, at least.

I hope this helps.


Forum|alt.badge.img
  • Author
  • Trending Lyricist I
  • 12 replies
  • December 23, 2024

Thank you ​@Corry P for your prompt reply!

I’m happy to hear that ​Sonos could replicate and will further investigate the issue. Hoping it could be resolved by a next firmware update 🤞

I checked stating the requested volume level in actual percentages and can indeed confirm that this works as intended. Thanks for the proposal.


Forum|alt.badge.img
  • Author
  • Trending Lyricist I
  • 12 replies
  • December 23, 2024

While playing around with Google Assistant and it’s settings, I also noticed that Google seemingly changed the tone of their available voices, both female and male. I’m using GA in Dutch so not sure if the same is applicable in other languages though.

Anyhow, with that I now hear a GA reply with the new voice tone (either male or female voice) but when tapping on/off the microphone on our GA enabled Sonos (ARC & ONE) speakers I hear the old (female) voice tone.

It’s not a major issue, but would appreciate if you could check this behavior as well and maybe align the GA voices and tones as used/selected with Google Home 😉

Thanks for the efforts!

 


Corry P
Forum|alt.badge.img+18
  • Sonos Staff
  • 8336 replies
  • December 24, 2024

Hi ​@P.Janssen 

Just to clarify, you hear two different female voices from the Sonos speaker depending on whether you just pressed the microphone button or not? You’re not saying that Google Assistant’s voice just sounds different on a Google Nest, for example? I don’t think I have ever heard of this, or indeed that there was a change of the voice in the first place.


Forum|alt.badge.img
  • Author
  • Trending Lyricist I
  • 12 replies
  • December 24, 2024

Yes, when I press (tap) the microphone on/off button on our Arc or One (Gen 2) speakers, I hear the same female voice response “microphone is enabled/disabled” (in Dutch) as I am used to since I bought the products back in 2021/2022. I’m not using Google/Nest smart speakers 😉

But when I get a Google Assistant response on a voice instruction (like “what time is it”) I’m now hearing a different female voice. When I set GA to the male voice using the Google Home app, I’m hearing that male voice repond to an instruction as expected. But when switching on/off the microphones, the speakers respond using the ‘old’ female voice instead, as mentioned above.

It seems that Google has changed the tones of the female and male voice some time ago this year (at least in Dutch).

I was wondering if this should have been reflected automatically in the microphone on/off voice response, same as setting GA voice to female or male.


Corry P
Forum|alt.badge.img+18
  • Sonos Staff
  • 8336 replies
  • December 24, 2024

Hi ​@P.Janssen 

Thanks for the confirmation.

I have a Dutch colleague and he just checked and found that his Google Nest device and his Sonos Move both have the same behaviour, so whatever this is about, it seems it is Google’s choice.

For what it is worth, I can’t make much sense of it.

I hope this helps.


Forum|alt.badge.img
  • Author
  • Trending Lyricist I
  • 12 replies
  • December 26, 2024

Thanks for this information ​@Corry P 

So it seems that the GA voices that I hear are fully controlled by Google. Maybe they might align sometime later… 😁

Still looking forward though to the resolution of the volume level setting issue in a future firmware update.


Corry P
Forum|alt.badge.img+18
  • Sonos Staff
  • 8336 replies
  • December 27, 2024

Hi ​@P.Janssen 

My guess is now that for some commonly-used phrases, Google keeps some pre-recorded wav files that it sends your speaker for certain replies - keeping a recording of these is presumably cheaper in energy usage than using Text-To-Speech engines each and every time. It seems these pre-recorded messages were recorded with the older voice, whereas non-pre-recorded messages are genuine TTS, and you hear them in the newer voice as a result.

You could point this out to Google - perhaps it is something that they have so far not considered.

Yeah the volume issue is strange; it is affecting Google, Alexa and Sonos Voice Control, but not for all users.

I hope this helps.

 

Edit: I got confused here - there is an issue with voice assistant’s volume as compared to the speaker’s, which we are investigating. The issue reported here is not seen with the other voice assistants, just Google Assistant.


Forum|alt.badge.img
  • Author
  • Trending Lyricist I
  • 12 replies
  • December 27, 2024

Your guess might be accurate; it would definitively explain the observed behavior. I’ll consider reaching out to Google as well.

I’ll keep an eye on future Sonos speaker firmware updates and come back once I have noticed that the volume setting issue is resolved.

 


  • Lyricist I
  • 1 reply
  • January 7, 2025

I’m experiencing the exact same issue as posted by the OP. I have a Beam gen1, 3x One gen1 and 1x One gen2. Issue occurs on all these products. 

I also just installed the latest system update released a few hours ago. This hasn't solved the the issue for me, I'm afraid.


Forum|alt.badge.img
  • Author
  • Trending Lyricist I
  • 12 replies
  • January 8, 2025

I can also confirm that updating my Sonos system to the latest 82.3-60160 firmware unfortunately did not yet solve the volume level issue with GA on my Arc or One (Gen 2) speakers.

Still hoping that the next system update will provide the resolution… 🤞

https://support.sonos.com/article/release-notes-sonos-system-updates


Forum|alt.badge.img
  • Author
  • Trending Lyricist I
  • 12 replies
  • February 8, 2025

Okay, so our Sonos system received two more firmware updates (83.1-61130 and the recent 83.1-61240) in the meantime, but neither of which did resolve the issue with GA volume level setting unfortunately 🙁

I can still work around this by using the volume level percentage instead though, but that’s not prefered.

@SONOS is there any due date on when to expect the issue to be finally resolved?


Corry P
Forum|alt.badge.img+18
  • Sonos Staff
  • 8336 replies
  • February 10, 2025

Hi ​@P.Janssen 

No, but thank you for bringing this back to my attention. I’ll see if I can poke anyone about it.


Reply


Cookie policy

We use cookies to enhance and personalize your experience. If you accept you agree to our full cookie policy. Learn more about our cookies.

 
Cookie settings