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Sonos One + Sonos Voice Control + Apple Music -- Poor Accuracy

  • 21 February 2023
  • 7 replies
  • 259 views

I am a long time Amazon Music + Assistant user on my Sonos One, and am attempting to change to Apple Music.  Since my listening workflow is calling out songs or bands using voice-control, which works fairly well with Amazon, I am trying to use the Sonos Voice Assistant with my new Apple Music sub.

Here is my problem -- accuracy is ABYSMAL for me so far!  I’m not seeing this complaint often online, so I wonder (and hope) I am doing something wrong.  The Sonos Assistant is using Apple Music (in fact I disconnected Amazon entirely from Sonos to make sure it wasn’t causing issues), but nearly all of my requests are failing entirely or being mistaken.  Here is a sample workflow:

  1. Q: “Hey Sonos.  Please the song ‘Solitary Man’ by ‘Crooked Fingers’”
  2.  A: “Sorry, I didn’t understand what you asked for.  Do you want to play something by Crooked Fingers instead?”
  3. Q: “Hey Sonos.  Play the song ‘Solitary Man’
  4. A: Plays ‘Solid Men to the Front’]
  5. Q: “Hey Sonos.  Play the song ‘Solitary Man’
  6. A: Plays ‘Solitude’]

Repeat ad finitum (with just about every song I try).  I’d say 50% of requests fail with “I don’t understand -- use the Sonos app”, and another 40% play something entirely different from what I asked for.  ALL of these songs by the way are in Apple Music with the titles/artists I am requesting, and I am enunciating as clearly as I can.  

Is there any way to troubleshoot these extreme accuracy issues?  Is there any other way to get voice control by song title on Apple Music through my Sonos One? Am I destined to keep Amazon Music forever?

Any help would GREATLY appreciated.  Thanks!

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7 replies

Sotiris C.
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

Hello @geoffkatz, welcome to Sonos Community!

I recommend checking for updates in the Sonos App, if you haven’t already. We improved the Sonos Voice Control accuracy - along with other newly added, highly requested features.

Please have a look at the article below for additional information:

If you still experience issues with Sonos Voice Control after the update, have a look at this troubleshooting page.

Let me know if this helps. 🙂

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D

Hmm.  I haven’t seen this at all with Apple Music and Sonos.

B

Hello @geoffkatz, welcome to Sonos Community!

I recommend checking for updates in the Sonos App, if you haven’t already. We improved the Sonos Voice Control accuracy - along with other newly added, highly requested features.

I’d argue the latest update made the accuracy significantly worse, as I’ve definitely had the same problems as the OP, and they seem to have become worse since the last SVC update 😔

I find the issue ALL the time when trying the play playlists from Apple Music; two examples that fail 100% of the time:

  • Living Room Dance Party (Fails saying it can’t find that content, but can be found from the Sonos app and played manually, this one has NEVER worked since SVC launch)
  • Get Up! Mix (A for you playlist, normally this ends up playing the “Hip Hop/R&B throwback playlist instead, occasionally it will play a song with a similar name, this one used to work about 50% of the time).

Things I have tried to resolve this:

  • Remove and re-add SVC
  • Alter what I’m asking for; Hey Sonos:
    • Play playlist <>
    • Play playlist <> on Apple Music
    • Play the <> playlist
    • Play the <> playlist on Apple Music
Sotiris C.
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

Hello @beericanadian, welcome to you as well!

I appreciate the report and feedback. There is a partial outage in regards to Sonos Voice Control.

You can see updates on Sonos Status.

The latest information is that we’ve identified the issue and a fix is being implemented.

In the meantime, please use the Sonos App to control your system.

Leaving a like and marking Best Answer might make someone's day. Who knows, that someone might be you.
B

Hello @beericanadian, welcome to you as well!

I appreciate the report and feedback. There is a partial outage in regards to Sonos Voice Control.

You can see updates on Sonos Status.

The latest information is that we’ve identified the issue and a fix is being implemented.

In the meantime, please use the Sonos App to control your system.

I very much doubt the current outage is related; I just tried a few requests that normally work, and I’m getting an error stating “your music provider is not available, please try again later”. That is not a normal response at all. Usually the issue I’m facing presents as either a “can’t find that content” error, or by playing random other content, instead of the content that is requested.

B

@Sotiris C. Just curious as to if there is any update on this from your end.

The outage has been resolved for many days, and the same problems that have always existed with SVC’s accuracy, still exist.

Don’t get me wrong, there are certain features of SVC that I appreciate, being 100% on-device and working even when connected to a device over bluetooth is certainly nice, however, I find the accuracy of SVC so poor, that it’s almost unusable for anything but play/pause/skip and adjusting the volume.

I know that Sonos has a competitive spat with Apple, but Apple has allowed Siri on other devices (like the Ecobee thermostats) for quite some time, and I know that there are limitations like having to be on the same wifi network as a HomePod mini, but unless Sonos can find a way to DRASTICALLY improve the accuracy of SVC in the short term, you should really allow Siri on your speakers, even with the limitations. I LOVE the sound and quality of my Sonos speakers, but already having to break the “Hey Siri” habit to use SVC on only ONE speaker in my household is annoying enough, having it properly recognize only 30% of the commands is unacceptable.

D

I have an Era 100 and I find the voice assistant absolutely “useless” with Apple Music. Not once has it played the correct song whereas my Amazon devices gets it right 95% of the time. 
This is piss poor performance from an expensive so called “smart “ speaker. Dumb is what I call it now. 

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