Arc microphone constantly turns off and off by itself

Deleting the voice control is a little ridiculous since you're paying extra for that. They were selling Arc Shadows at Costco for $400. Only difference between them and ours is voice control. Unfortunately, only certain Costcos have stock.

johnnydrama32

just wanted to confirm that the arc from best buy is from 6/22 (last year) and sonos are 6/23 and 7/23 (this year)

Yes, exactly. Best Buy has the older one that works correctly. Let me know if you also get one outside of Sonos and it fixes the issue.

Update: I spent three hours on the phone with Sonos CS today. What an awful experience. One department doesn't do everything, so I was constantly put on hold or transferred.

 I started with T2 support, explained the QC problem, sent this thread, and laid out that it's a hardware issue. They agreed to let me return the original Arc and the replacement, but said I'd need two new return labels since I was initially only returning the first Arc I two labels. But getting them to provide these two new return labels has been akin to scaling Everest. I still don't have them.

I also asked that they let me keep the Best Buy Arc but give me the same 15% discount I received on the Sonos-direct Arcs. The T2 CSA said that would be fine, but then he transferred me to sales, who told me I must've misunderstood. At this point I was determined because I had no return labels or discounts, but had already spent hours of my time. I waited out three hours and finally got a supervisor who said that she would try to coordinate with both the returns dept and sales dept, but it'd take a few days because the depts are separate and don't always communicate.

In short, the CS was horrible. I don't have a way of returning my two Sonos-direct Arcs. I didn't get a discount on the Best Buy Arc. And I wasted 3 hours of my time. But the good news is they are now aware of the mic on/off issue and have sent my diagnostics up to T3 along with my video evidence.

I'm on the verge of returning everything given the horrible support. They're so thankless. We diagnosed a problem that could cost them millions if they keep producing Arcs that need to be recalled. I am so sick of these companies with overseas CS with overseas supervisors. Even the T2 tech support was a call center. For a luxury product, Sonos has been anything but a luxury experience.

johnnydrama32

i also submitted your diagnostics w/ mine to t3 guy. his team is looking at that?

asked if he thought it was strange that your 2022 best buy arc had no muting problem.  no answer yet

it’s a slow, slow process for them.  other people must have the same problem.  we all paid for the voice controls.

costco is selling the arc for $899 and giving a $60 apple or sirius card. 

might be worth just doing  that if sonos won’t give you the 15% and just leave the problem to them?  we are all just doing our due diligence…

will keep u updated

The problem is Costco’s may also be produced in June or July. You just have no idea. Part of me just wants to suck it up and take the 15% loss. My time is worth more than a $135.

I've been having the same issue for the past month or so on the Arc only (have a Beam in another room). Purchased over a year ago and no issues until recently. Just found this thread last night so will try disabling the Alexa voice assistant to see if that works. I have an older Panasonic TV with the Arc connected via HDMI Arc. 

Interesting that your mic problem just recently started w/ a year old arc system

just shared your comment w/ the sonos L3 tech person working on the arc mic muting issue 

I turned off the voice assistant in the app and hasn't happened in 2 hrs. Agree this isn't the answer but at least the annoying chiming is gone for the time being. Sounds like a software update of some kind is in order.

I don't see how it can be software when two of mine do it and one doesn't but they're all on the same software.