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

Hi @Corry P, already done and i got 3rd 😡 replacement after review the support tickets send by app.

Sorry, but i expect better qualtity of sonos products -- special if the product with issue will be replaced by product with the same issue more than one time.  Each replacement need a lot of time to configure and i am disappointet more and more from the ARC and the replacement service.

I wrote already some comments to ceo@sonos.com.

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.

Hi @ShaunG 

I’ve been informed that we’ve sent you an email once again - I hope it will get through to you this time. Could you please confirm if you have received it or not? If not, perhaps you have an alternate email address that we may have more luck with? If so, please let me know what it is by a Direct Message to me here and I’ll try to get the label sent there instead.

Thank you for your feedback - I assume it was somewhat cathartic to get that off your chest, but it is also extremely useful for us to pass along to management so we can improve procedures and such like. 

@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!

Hi @ShaunG 

I’m very glad to hear that things have finally begun moving along as they should have initially - thanks for getting back to me. The backup email address was really just to cover all possibilities, just in case - it was indeed a problem with our own systems that were causing these issues.

I will be sure to hand the feedback you’ve left here in the last few posts to the relevant teams - thank you again.

And regarding feedback for my own contribution, I believe you have already taken care of that! Thanks!

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?

@DkayyWell, that was news to me. I just checked the replacement for the brand new speaker I bought a few months ago… I now have a Sonos Arc from 2021… This is the biggest ripoff I have seen in a long time. Not only did I have all of the problems just to get my replacement, but now I receive a speaker that is 3 years old. There is a $180 price difference in the Sonos Arc and the certified refurbished Sonos Arc. This is as bad as a bait and switch. Sonos owes me $180, or a new speaker!

That about does it for me, I think that will be the last Sonos speaker I purchase. I will no longer support this brand. I paid a significant amount of money just a few months ago to receive a brand new speaker, and reported the defect in the unit within days of purchase… just to receive a 3 year old speaker replacement. I also didn’t notice in fine print on the box, it even says certified refurbished.

If I owned my speaker for a while and it then developed an issue, I wouldn’t have an issue getting a refurbished unit. My unit was brand new and within the first day or two when I reported the defect in the unit. There is a big difference in the distinction.

Looks like I’m off to find a better company to send my money to. This is unfortunate, to say the least.

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.

@Stalem It sounds like maybe your issue, even though it is with the mic on/off might be a different issue from the one we were having here. You may get more help/comments if you open a new topic for that specific issue? Good luck!

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.