Turn down Assistant volume on Sonos One?

I’m completely stunned by Sonos’s arrogance and incompetence. With apologies to the Sonos employees who answer queries on this forum, but the fact that nobody involved in product development at Sonos is willing to give assurances that a UX bug this big is going to be fixed shows a continued contempt by Sonos management towards its customers.

Yesterday I took delivery of two Sonos Ones for my office. It’s an inferior setup to the ZP120/Tannoy Revolution DC4 speakers but having to upgrade a whole Sonos system quickly during a time of economic uncertainty means I have to take a look at what kit I’m really using, and a Sonos Amp with its ramped up price compared to the ZonePlayer is overkill in some rooms.

You know what, if I am going to replace old kit with new, the new stuff actually needs to be good! To be honest, I didn’t really need the voice assistant, but I hate having stuff that doesn’t work and now I regret buying the Sonos Ones.

Back in the day, Sonos justified its premium price with a superb user experience. I still miss the controller that would switch on when I picked it up and took me straight to my music.

Fast forward to 2020 and Sonos is a greedy money-sucking company that can’t even be bothered to fix a volume control on a music system. Anger and regret. That’s how Sonos makes this customer feel. Five-zone upgrade now on hold.

This is a brilliantly simple workaround - been putting up with my beam responding at whatever volume I've got it set to for 18 months or so and just resigned to it - always hate having to ask it to turn a light in at 3a.m. when rest of household asleep BUT got a couple of minis spare so ideal use right here!! Many thanks.

( wonder when they'll get round to sorting out the incorporating Sonos speakers into the Google group facility 🤔)

Excellent simple workaround 😉👌

Ha! - just realised my effective implementation of this solution is to remove Google assistant from my Beam and use the mini for voice control. The Sonos are still present in my Google home set-up so can be controlled from both the Sonos app and Google assistant. BUT it's hardly making use of Sonos integrated Google Assistant ( good job I'd got a spare mini sitting around looking for something useful to do 😉) .

Showed up here with the same problem, but it looks like there isn’t a solution, so I’m just adding a +1. I like my speakers, but this is almost a deal-breaker. I switched to Sonos from Google’s speakers since people were saying the GA functionality is almost identical, but the lack of attention to detail on the assistant volume is a terrible experience.

The minimum volume of the assistant is ridiculously loud if you’re in a quiet house. Even if Sonos volume is 1%, GA seems to respond at like 20%. 

Separate volume controls (and a volume limit for GA) would be great. I’d also really like to set these via GA (not just the Sonos app) so I can use them in Google Home routines (e.g. make sure my assistant is really quiet when I go to bed).

I’m here for the solution to this problem too. Get onto it guys, like the other bloke said in a previous comment. Paying a premium for a quality experience is what is expected, otherwise we’re paying a premium for peanuts. Cheers guys and nice work with producing quality sound. ;-) Just fix the problem! ;-)

I purchased a Sonos one for my bedroom recently, the Alexa integration is fantastic. Or so I thought until I woke in the middle of the night and instead of get up and look at my phone, I asked Alexa for the time. Everyone in the house woke up.

The inability to change the Alexa / GA volume is absolutely ludicrous. There are numerous forum posts about this going back years. When Sonos staff do respond they are just generic robot responses with no useful information. The product is fantastic but the lack of this vital feature along with the lack of acknowledgement and transparency on these forums is appalling.

Is anyone that works at Sonos prepared to let us know if / when this is coming so that customers can make informed decisions before buying more speakers?

I would expect this with a cheap Chinese speaker from eBay but not Sonos. How disappointing.

Just wanted to add my voice. +1 for this request.

Also to respond to people's frustration. I am a customer and I share the frustration, however, I've also worked where these Sonos reps stand. As a liaison, their job is to take your feedback to the team.... Not the other way around.

It's not really an arrogance thing either. The teams have roles and responsibilities. The product development team is super busy working on developing products. And where they are happy to take input, the ability and patience to provide output is very limited. If the "liaison" team were to corner a product development team member to take time out to give information, despite being well intentioned, heads would roll. I can just imagine a project manager intervening with a "what are you doing, these guys are busy".

So, in all reality, find the CEO's Twitter account and post a comment at the top. These guys just want to keep their jobs. Obviously, you're looking for a culture change at Sonos which is not very likely to happen over a forum post.

Cheers!

I’d have to agree with this, the staff obviously work hard and produce great products. There is however, in my opinion, a problem with how feature requests are prioritised, handled internally and communicated back to the customers. It makes for a bad user experience when people feel like they are not listened to or taken seriously.

The point you raise about developers being too busy developing new products is not in my mind a valid reason to abandon customer requests from people that have already paid good money for the products.

Just my opinions, I realise that it might sound like people are complaining at the forum staff but that is certainly not what myself or hopefully others are doing. We are complaining at the processes and procedures that lead to customers opinions seemingly being abandoned.

You are probably right that there may be a problem with how feedback is handled. However, I don't see any issue with forum staff giving an "I don't know" answer. Some people have issues with this answer and feel this answer is problematic. I actually don't. So, I assume others may be like me and be more indifferent.

We did pay good money for a good product. I agree with that. Now, I say let's move on. If we expect better ongoing services beyond the great product, maybe charging a subscription or monthly maintenance is in order. I'm not clear where customers are entitled to having "voices" after the product is paid for and delivery is completed. If anything, it is a privilege to even have a forum where your voice can at least be heard.... By someone.

I'm not sure if there is much more I have to say. I agree with you up to the point of entitlement.