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Sonos no longer turning on to voice command

  • March 29, 2026
  • 3 replies
  • 41 views
A

I have a Sonos One and a Roam speaker.  Both have voice, and I use Sonos Voice control.

My main source is BBC iPlayer (also use Deezer) but will not use Big Tech products - one reason I bought the Sonos was that the Voice facility is local not cloud/BigTech based.

The speaker won’t recognise a request to turn on BBC iPlayer, so I have to do that through the app (half a billion users of BBC haven’t got through to Sonos..!) but previously, if I ask it to turn on, it would have turned on whatever was previously playing.  Now, it just says “this speaker is not a home movie product”…

Obviously, something has changed from the Sonos end...does anybody know what?

3 replies

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  • nik9669a
  • Senior Virtuoso
  • March 29, 2026

From your description it seems to be trying to use BBC1 - a tv station, rather than a radio station. Can you be more specific in what program you want when giving the voice command? 

Mr. T
  • Mr. T
  • March 29, 2026

Are you confusing BBC iPlayer with BBC Sounds?

BBC Sounds is not a supported service for Sonos Voice Control, however, if you were previously playing BBC Sounds and just stopped the audio on your One or Roam, then try using the command “Hey Sonos, resume” instead.

    A
    • andrewcorser
    • Author
    • Contributor I
    • March 29, 2026

    Thanks to nik9669a and Mr. T: yes, you are both correct - BBC iPlayer Radio is now called BBC Sounds: sorry!  I know the change in name happened some time ago, but I still forget the new name!!
    And Mr. T, thanks for your suggestion: “Hey Sonos, resume” does now do what “Hey Sonos, turn on” used to do for me, so issue solved.  (But what has changed so “turn on” doesn’t work any more?)

     

    I am interested, as well, in why Sonos does not included BBC Sounds in its supported services - to me BBC News is a major global source.  Deezer is supported although it isn’t that big (which is why I chose Deezer rather than Spotify - which does seem to have links with BigTech) ...

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