Microphone randomly turning on or off on new Sonos Arc with just Sonos Voice Control

Hi @ShaunG 

The solution is to get a replacement unit - to do so, you need to call in. One more hoop jump is required.

I hope this helps.

Deleted

As an edit to my last post, I’m growing more annoyed with Sonos customer support/technical support. Two days ago I reached out to contact Technical Support because @Corry P advised that a solution was available for this issue. I did so and was happy with the response I received. At least I would have been if they did what they said they would do.

I have had to reach out this morning by phone to their support team because I have still not received the email with instructions on returning the defective unit and receiving a replacement. I was told I would have that email within 24 hours. I waited 2 days. My spam folder has nothing from Sonos and neither does my inbox.

Customer Support advised me there was an issue with the address on my return request. She would not say what it was or how it happened, despite me asking, other than there was a technical issue on their end. She was having to “email” and “send a message” to their return team to close out the request from 2 days ago, and then create a new request today with my correct address. Mind you, the last time I contacted them was by chat to get the return process started. I know my address was correct when I typed it into the chat, because my transcript says so. The person on the phone with me today said that she would follow up and let me know within the next 20 minutes or so the response of the cancellation request from 2 days ago and then I would receive an update email from here, plus the email for the return instructions.

Well, That was this morning at about 10am. It’s been 4 hours with no emails. It would be nice for something the Sonos team says to actually occur. I’m getting very doubtful that any of this is going to work out correctly, especially the issues I’ve had with this whole process, as well as the previous post from @Chagn saying their replacement didn’t fix the issue and they are having to get a 3rd Arc.

For the cost of these speakers, expecting correct information and an actual follow through with that should be expected. For this to be a simple RMA return for replacement, I should have a very quick process to complete. This should never take DAYS to complete. Having to wait an entire day before receiving instructions to complete for the process to begin is less than ideal, but adding in the additional issues and the fact that I had to reach back out to their customer support team to find out what was going on is not good customer service. They should have reached out to me when it was determined that the RMA was not able to be processed so they could correct the issue on their end. Don’t wait for your customers to realize they haven’t been contacted and have to reach back out to find out what is going on.

Any of the competitors would have already processed the return and had a replacement product on the way that same day.

Hi @ShaunG 

Sorry to hear of the issue you had with organising a replacement, though it does look like things will be sorted out for you soon - as @Chagn demonstrated, this is certainly not normal.

I’ve been told that all the affected Arcs have been purged from the warehouse, so the chances of now receiving a replacement Arc with the same issue should be close to zero.

I hope this helps.

Hi @ShaunG 

No, you won’t need your case number - all we need is your registered email address to find your existing case(s).

The last agent you spoke to who currently has ownership of your case seems to be off today, so I’ve taken steps from over here in Europe to get someone to take ownership of your case and get things moving again - I don’t think there’s any need for you to call in again. Please keep an eye on your emails.

I hope this helps.

@Corry P Thanks a bunch for all of your help! Within a couple of minutes on your post, I had an email get through to me. I was by far able to get more information with your help than through chat/phone. I hope they can improve on their process, since the issues I had shouldn’t be possible. I was finally able to use the link and get my advanced replacement processed. Now to just wait for the speaker to come in. That’s also great news that the units with the microphone issue have cycled through inventory. I’m looking forward to being able to use the touch buttons on the Arc again.

@Chagn Thanks for the helpful info. I’m hopeful my first replacement unit will be what I need to get fully functional.

As a side note, the community forum with Sonos employee representation is by far a better experience for me than dealing with the frustrations of chat and/or phone support. Although all of the customer support personnel have been extremely friendly, I never got a positive result from either chat or phone. The entire process needs to be refined so customers are not sitting waiting for an email to never come. The follow up/verification process on the support side needs to be modified so this isn’t possible. Better yet, most other companies will process RMA returns right there on the phone with you so no other steps are necessary.

I’ll follow up once I get the replacement in, and the old unit out. The only hesitation I have now is the caution on the advanced replacement method. I have 14 days from the date the RMA is generated to return the old speaker. Not only that, but it apparently has to be received and verified by the 14th day, which reduces the time line even more. It’s the Christmas holiday now, which will very likely delay everything (receiving and sending), so I’m going to be a very unhappy customer if I get charged for a speaker because of delays/processing time. More to follow.

I too have this issue with the mic, and contacted the sonos support chat a week or so back. They asked a few questions and almost immediately said I need a replacement. 
 

Got the returns email in 24 hrs as promised, and have selected the Advanced Return option so the replacement is shipped first. This means i can use the box from the replacement to send the old one back as i threw the box out.

While far from ideal solution, and i appreciate others have had a slightly less than perfect experience with Sonos CS on here, compared to the fiasco that is Bang & Olufsen warranty returns, which took over 3 months and multiple threats of legal action to get a working speaker back, Sonos Support have been mightily helpful and this is how customers should be treated.

Hats off to you Sonos. Been a customer since 2008 with the old ZP120 and ZP90 and the funky remote control, and will certainly continue to be a customer.  

Hi @Chagn 

I can only recommend you get in touch with our technical support team regarding your new Arc’s behaviour.

Well, the saga continues. I did receive my replacement speaker, and it has seemingly solved the problem so far after the last few days of use.

But now I can’t get Sonos support to get me the shipping label, so I’m waiting to be charged because I have no way to send the defective speaker back. Over the last week, I’ve called in and gotten on chat four times. Sonos is having some issue with emails going out. I get dozens of emails a day from many different companies. I received the notice once I signed up for the advanced replacement, and that email that the replacement was shipped, but never received the email that included the return shipping label. The other emails said it would come in a separate email.

Every time I get in contact with support, they attempt to send me the shipping label that I never receive. I’ve checked my spam, and continue to receive every other email I am expecting, including other Sonos emails… I’ve tried asking for a manager, they refuse. Last week they said that they would send a notice to the product returns team, and I would hear back from them in 24 to 48 business hours. That was last week. Even not counting if Saturday is considered a working day, Monday and all of Tuesday certainly has been, with no response follow up email or call. I still have no email and no way to return this speaker with simply the assurance of the last person that helped me to tell me they wouldn’t charge me for the replacement speaker. I have zero confidence this is going to happen and am already planning the subsequent phone call to my credit card company to report this issue when they do charge me.

I have never had this poor quality of support from any company. This is by far the worse replacement system and worst replacement experience I have ever had, even when dealing with companies in China where I have to deal with one day delays in responses, at least they were able to get results quickly and replacements on their way without the hassle. I do like the Sonos products, but this has me reevaluating whethere I want to continue to spend this kind of money on speakers, that I will then have to spend countless hours with support dealing with THEIR issues.

This is an absolute failure Sonos, you need to get your act together. I should not have to deal with issue after issue on the same return! First it was the defective speaker with zero solutions. Then once the solution was available, I had to spend even more time calling in to support to get the return started. After waiting days to the email that would never come, I had to get on the phone again for help getting the email resent. That support person manually sent me the email that I then got in seconds, while I was still on the phone with him. Then I sign up for the advanced replacement, get the email confirmation and a few days later another email with notice the speaker was shipped. Those email tell me that I have 14 dates from the start of the RMA to return the defective speaker or I would be charged for the replacement, then tell me I will receive another email with the return label. I wait. I don’t get an email, but receive the replacement speaker. There is no label in the box either. That would be too easy, right? I have to get on the phone with support. That person was less than helpful. He supposedly tried to manually send me the label, I didn’t get it. Then he tells me that he is sending a message to the product return team, and I would have to wait some more. He refused to transfer me to a manager and just repeated himself over and over and over. I tried calling for someone that might actually help me a few hours later. That person just looks up my account and tells me that the previous person tried to help me. I have to beg him to try and email me the label, at least to attempt it. He tries, still no email. He just repeats the same stuff the previous person said and I have to wait a week (today). I continue to have no label and no way to get this defective speaker returned. What kind of sham is this? I am now trying to get on the support chat AGAIN to see if they can just kick this can down the road even longer.

*** Update (41 minutes later). I spent the next 41 minutes from posting above on chat (bouncing between chat and phone to see what may actually get results) since chat is easier while I try and get things done instead of wasting all of my free time on this issue. First chat person gives me the same song and dance… the product return team…. etc etc. Then tells me they are tied up on the same issue with someone else (must be a regular problem over there) and he will have to email me the results of his conversation with the product return team… Uhm, I’m not getting the email with the label in it, so why would you think that I’m going to get the email about the missing email? That doesn’t seem too logical. The chat ends before I get a chance to respond. Convenient. After reconnecting to a new person and having to explain this to them for the 8th 6th+ time, I get the same response from him. The product return team will need 48 hours to get back with you… tomorrow is one week of waiting. They need another 2 days? I ask to speak to a manager, but get told Sonos has no method of connecting a chat to a manager. I was given the 1-800 number and a case number (I guess I’m trying to collect case numbers at this point), with instructions to just ask for a supervisor when I call in. After wasting another hour on this nonsense, I guess I’ll wait until tomorrow to find time to kill another hour trying to call and talk with a supervisor. Pretty sure a carrier pigeon would have been more effective at this point.

@Corry P Thank you for checking. I’ve had better luck with the help you’ve offered by far compared to phone or chat support. I did finally receive the label yesterday afternoon just before I got on the phone to call in again.

It has definitely not been my email address as the cause. I get countless emails every day with a few that get sent to spam, and I check both the spam folder and inbox, and have had no other emails missing from the 30-40 I get a day. I’m not sure where the issue was, since I had no trouble getting the email verifying my completion of the advanced speaker replacement, then a subsequent email that the replacement speaker was shipped.

I only have been putting my experiences on here for 2 purposes, in the hopes that any of this feedback can somehow make a difference on the side of Sonos working to improve customer experience, and to any of those that check these support forums and want to see what others have experienced in similar circumstances. It doesn’t affect me in any way to get it off my chest or not, although it was very frustrating the interactions with Sonos support on phone and chat. I came away with a solid belief that absolutely no effort was being done to improve anything and that each and every employee I dealt with on chat and phone, certainly excluding my interactions with you, since you have managed to get more accomplished than the combination of all other employees I’ve interacted with.

In most cases, the Sonos support was simply continuing to repeat the same messages, despite my attempt at providing additional details in order to try and get a different response. There were one or two interactions where I did end up with a helpful person on phone/chat, where they went the extra steps to try and answer my questions instead of just reading off of the script, but the vast majority clearly weren’t interested in more than the template of just wait more time and see.

My best recommendations would be to implement some kind of message system to Sonos in the logged in Sonos account, or to simply provide the shipping label in the box with the speaker on the advance return. Some kind of additional options for the cases where there are technical difficulties getting information (shipping labels) to customers. It is also not very helpful when we have exhausted the scripts the support personnel follow, and they are not able to simply transfer a customer to someone from another team that may be able to directly help. In my case, to get me to speak with the product return team directly to try and resolve the issue, instead of waiting an entire week for a 24-48 hour response because it happened to coincide with a major holiday and weekend.

In any case, if you are able to take this information and improve the support side, that would be outstanding. I thoroughly enjoy the Sonos products, but I do have to say, outside of the direct support from you going above and beyond, the rest of the support experience with a fairly simple process of an advance return was by far the worst I’ve had, including having to send an entire 65” LED TV from a major brand back as defective out of the box. That RMA process was completed in about 45 minutes with a single phone call and all I had to do was box up the product, wait for my new unit to come in and the defective unit picked up. I didn’t have to spend any additional time trying to get support. Many other companies over the years have had similar processes, so the extended issues on this process were not pleasant. It sounds, from others that have posted, that my interaction may be an outlier from the majority of people’s experiences in returns, but that doesn’t resolve the issue for me as a customer.

I’m still sticking with Sonos as a brand, because I do enjoy the product lines and the quality is certainly above my expectations, but I dread the thought of having to deal with another product issue requiring a RMA process.

To finalize this whole process, I was able to get the label on the defective unit, and it will be heading to FedEx tomorrow. I’ve been operating the replacement ARC for several days now, and have not had a single issue with the touch controls or the microphone turning on/off randomly. I’m still only using the Sonos voice control, and not the other integrations for voice control, but everything is working as expected and is certainly a lot better an option than having to use my ARC with the touch controls disabled.

@Corry P Again, I do want to pass to you my thanks for helping get the issues resolved and for reaching out in the beginning when this issue first popped up. You went above and beyond and helped me get through the other problems I had with the RMA process, and I understand you are overseas from us here in the US, so I do appreciate all of your effort and time, and keeping track of this post despite the many others posting elsewhere on this community. So, thanks a bunch and if there is any way to leave a rating or review for you, I would be happy to!

I also had issues and received a replacement. What’s ridiculous is I received a refurb unit that has a production date of early 2022. I just paid ~$1k for a new one a few months ago… is this how Sonos is handling the requests?

Bought the Arc, installed it. No problem. Surround speakers and a SubMini. No problem. Manually on/off microphone. No problem. Using Google Assistant. No problem. Now the next thing…I also use the Sonos Connect to play my records. I select (in my Sonos App on iPhone I named it Connect also) my Connect device which is connected with my BT headset through a BT adaptor (optical cable). My turntable is connected to my Sonos Connect with the usual red/white cables. To play the records, I select Line Input in my Sonos App to play in Connect (name in my app).

This way I can listen to my records using my BT headphone. No problem. But…when I select my LivingRoom where my Arc (with surround and SubMini) is located, then the ARC-microphone randomly goes on/off with the lady telling me so. This happens also when I deselect Connect and listen to my records only with LivingRoom selected.

Now deselecting Line In and switching to TV and selecting Livingroom AND my Connect, gives me no issues. I am having TV-sound through my headphone as well as in my living room.

It seems the issue mic-on/off only (in my case) appears when I use Line-In in combination with the selection Living Room.

Reading all other complaints, it seems that when any input-device other than where the HDMI-cable is connected with the ARC is selected, the issue appears.

Just sharing my findings concerning the issue. Hope someone recognizes this and can repeat the case and hope that Sonos can be helped with this finding.

I will trouble-shoot this further.

For my last comment on this topic for the resolution… I was contacted by Sonos and asked to speak with a supervisor about the certified refurbished speaker replacement for my specific circumstances. To say the least, I was not happy. However, Sonos has turned that around and made things right by me, so I’m willing to giving Sonos another shot. I continue to say that I do greatly enjoy their products, it has just been an issue with the RMA process that I had the major issues with.

In the end, if anyone has any issues with a Sonos product that warrants a replacement, I highly recommend just returning the product to the retail location you purchased it. It is by far easier than dealing with the hassle of the return process, and the surprise circumstances of getting a certified refurbished unit for one you purchased new. If you’ve had the speaker for a while and can no longer return it to the retail location, then I guess you’ll have to go through the RMA process and just deal with getting a certified refurbished unit, which is better than a defective speaker. In my case, my Arc was defective out of the box, so I would expect to receive a same condition replacement, since I had not yet had a chance to have it become a “used” product where a certified refurbished speaker would be acceptable.

I hope Sonos is able to take note from the experiences here and make changes to their RMA process and customer interactions. Sonos made right by me, so I’ll continue to support Sonos, albeit with a slight decrease in faith of the phone and chat support. I still highly recommend support through this community forum. Hopefully anyone finding themselves in the same/similar circumstances can consider all of this in making your own informed decision.

At least this specific microphone issue is resolved for me. Best of luck to everyone.