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Sonos Beam Limitations for a PC environment? Or am I missing something...

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I know that the soundbar’s main purpose is “speaker” for TV. Still, I feel that in 2022 it would be normal for a device that can connect to LANs (both wired and wirelessly) to be able to work in more diverse situations than a simple TV - Beam connection.
I also feel that implementing more features or allowing for more connections would be simple (and not costly) tasks - adding a new port and even updating software

I’ll start with what I have (in terms of devices setup), what I want to achieve and what I can’t do (or don’t know how to do it).

I have a PC connected (via a RTX 3080) to two monitors and one LG C1 TV (via HDMI). The LG TV is connected to Sonos Beam via the eArc port. I’ve also connected the Sonos Beam to my home network using the Ethernet port (so there’s a wired connection here).

When I work, I do it on my monitors (work on one and listen/view YT on the other monitor). I keep my TV off.

When I am playing some games, I do turn the TV on (as I play on the TV) and the sound gets to the Sonos via the TV (PC - TV - Sonos).

The problem that I wasn’t able to solve up to this point is that I want to use the Sonos instead of the Speakers in all instances, so when I work too. This is not possible unless I keep my TV on, which I don’t want to do.

I know there can be 3rd party “solutions” like HDMI splitters/switches, but, from past experience these give a lot more headaches and don’t work as advertised (connection drops way to often, etc).

My questions to SONOS is:

1. Why don’t you add a second HDMI port to allow the Beam to connect to more than one device without the need to swap cable, etc? Would it be that much complicated and costly?

2. Why is the Ethernet port so useless now? I might be wrong here but from what I’ve read, now, you can only use that port to connect to other Sonos devices and create a local “sound system”.
Why not, when connected to internet via the Ethernet cable, Windows is not able to see the Sonos Beam as a sound device that can be selected (like I can select the Speakers or the TV)? It should be a matter of codecs/drivers, no?

Thanks.

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Corry PAnswer

Sonos Staff

Hi @ciupibz

Welcome to the Sonos Community! I've marked this thread as a feature request and it will be seen by the relevant teams for consideration.

Incidentally, if you only use your TV for gaming, you could just connect the Beam directly to the PC via S/PDIF (optical) using the adaptor supplied with the Beam. Set S/PDIF as your default sound device in Windows and all PC audio will come from the Beam, whether the TV is on or off.

More info can be found here:

I hope this helps.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein

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Corry P

Sonos Staff

Hi @ciupibz

Computers will do what you tell them to do, so it’s certainly not outside the realms of possibility that someone could write a simple Windows application that streams system audio to which a Sonos system could “tune in”. I’m not aware of any, however. It would probably require a matching service to be added to Sonos, but we’re open to that. As @melvimbe mentions, however, there would likely be significant enough latency in this process that the audio would be noticeably behind any video/events.

Plus, we’re always looking for other options for playback - it may be a case of simply watching this space.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein

controlav

Lead Maestro

Hi @ciupibz

Computers will do what you tell them to do, so it’s certainly not outside the realms of possibility that someone could write a simple Windows application that streams system audio to which a Sonos system could “tune in”. I’m not aware of any, however. It would probably require a matching service to be added to Sonos, but we’re open to that. As @melvimbe mentions, however, there would likely be significant enough latency in this process that the audio would be noticeably behind any video/events.

Plus, we’re always looking for other options for playback - it may be a case of simply watching this space.

There have been multiple attempts to capture PC audio and stream it to Sonos devices. The one I am most familiar could not do this without substantial latency, as the streaming-from-url Sonos code is simply not designed for low-latency. The real fix would be to leverage the virtual-line-in API set that AirPlay uses, but no-one has figured that out so far.

Author of the leading independent Sonos apps for Android, MacOS, iOS, Windows and Xbox.

Corry P

Sonos Staff

I did have a feeling you’d know more about this than I do, @controlav. Thanks!

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein

melvimbe

Thank you @Corry P ,

It just feels so frustrating for the device to have a network port (RJ-45) and its use to be minimal.

If I understand correctly, now, the RJ-45 port can only be used to link the beam to other Sonos sound devices on the Lan.

It just feel as such a waste (to not make use of the wired connection)… :)

Correct, regarding the use of the ethernet port on the Beam. Other Sonos devices, like the Amp, have 2 ports on the back, so the can be use to connect other devices to the network, but they cannot be used to send audio from non Sonos sources.

Honestly though, if Sonos were to work with Microsoft on a way to send PC audio to the speakers, or MS just built a generic way to do this the way Apple did, then it would likely be wireless...like Airplay. I really don’t think MS has a lot of motivation to do this though. Apple did it to help sell their phones and homepods, only adding it to Macs because it was ‘easy’ at that point. MS doesn’t have phones or speakers, so they have less reason. It does seem like it would be an interesting feature for xbox...but xbox are designed to connect to TVs. But, it never hurts to ask.

Danny

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