Beam Alexa can’t turn off my Samsung series 8 smart tv
I can turn it on and adjust the volume, but can’t turn it off. Everything else works great! There are no options for additional CEC control for the TV.
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I have the same issue on mine. The turn off command only seems to work if the tv input is set to the input Sonos is connected to...which kind of defeats the point.
There are lots of troubleshooting tips around here, this post in particular.
https://en.community.sonos.com/home-theater-228993/enabling-cec-on-your-tv-for-beam-6810049
So there may a solution out there. I personally haven't tried them all to see if anything fixes this issue. I'm also not sure if I want to fix it for my particular situation.
There are lots of troubleshooting tips around here, this post in particular.
https://en.community.sonos.com/home-theater-228993/enabling-cec-on-your-tv-for-beam-6810049
So there may a solution out there. I personally haven't tried them all to see if anything fixes this issue. I'm also not sure if I want to fix it for my particular situation.
Thanks. I’ve already tried these posts, to no avail. I guess I can live with it, but it sure would be nice if I could use Alexa to turn off the tv!
I am in the same situation as you, sort of. I'm only using the tv for an xbox right now, and I seem to be able to turn the tv on/off when the xbox is turned off, even though the xbox isn't on the ARC port. That may be a better solution for me anyway. I at 'seem' though as it worked on Saturday, but didn't seem to work on Sunday night.
I do have a Beam in a different room where I want to eventually upgrade the TV. I thought Samsung would be the best choice, now I'm pretty sure it's not.
I do have a Beam in a different room where I want to eventually upgrade the TV. I thought Samsung would be the best choice, now I'm pretty sure it's not.
I have had this exact same issue too with my Beam and an LG 28MT48S Smart TV, but I think I have discovered now why the 'turn off' command is not working in my case.
All the Alexa (Beam) commands do work, except the 'turn off' CEC instruction.. Anyhow I contacted LG support and this (briefly) is their verbal response (summarised in my own words):
SimpLink was designed for the TV to control SimpLink enable hardware, like a DVD/CD Player for example.. if a user powers off the attached peripheral device then it’s probable the user may go onto use the TV for something else, like ..er... watching a TV channel. Therefore the peripheral is not allowed to power off the TV when it is switched off with its own remote.
On the other-hand if a user finishes watching TV or DVD etc. and powers off the TV... the CEC command is sent out over HDMI to also power off the peripheral... its allowed to work just in that direction only.
So it seems LG have chosen to design their TV to ignore 'power off' commands from peripherals connected to the TV, so that the user can go onto do other things with their TV, after a peripheral is switched off.
Hope that makes some sense... it certainly seemed sensible to me when the LG Support staff were explaining it to me.
In conclusion, I can live with that one Alexa (CEC) command not working on the Beam and will, in any event, continue to use a Harmony Hub anyway to voice control the different aspects of my LG TV.
I love the Sonos Beam by the way and would thoroughly recommend it to everyone as it simply sounds amazing in my dining room.
All the Alexa (Beam) commands do work, except the 'turn off' CEC instruction.. Anyhow I contacted LG support and this (briefly) is their verbal response (summarised in my own words):
SimpLink was designed for the TV to control SimpLink enable hardware, like a DVD/CD Player for example.. if a user powers off the attached peripheral device then it’s probable the user may go onto use the TV for something else, like ..er... watching a TV channel. Therefore the peripheral is not allowed to power off the TV when it is switched off with its own remote.
On the other-hand if a user finishes watching TV or DVD etc. and powers off the TV... the CEC command is sent out over HDMI to also power off the peripheral... its allowed to work just in that direction only.
So it seems LG have chosen to design their TV to ignore 'power off' commands from peripherals connected to the TV, so that the user can go onto do other things with their TV, after a peripheral is switched off.
Hope that makes some sense... it certainly seemed sensible to me when the LG Support staff were explaining it to me.
In conclusion, I can live with that one Alexa (CEC) command not working on the Beam and will, in any event, continue to use a Harmony Hub anyway to voice control the different aspects of my LG TV.
I love the Sonos Beam by the way and would thoroughly recommend it to everyone as it simply sounds amazing in my dining room.
Ken, the explanation seems sensible on the surface, but IMO anyway, it doesn't when you dig a little deeper. HDMI-ARC (CEC) is supposed to be implemented on only one of the HDMI inputs. Only one of your peripherals is supposed to have the ability to make CEC commands. It's then logical that whatever peripheral is used on this connection is the one used primarily, either a video source or audio unit (receiver/speaker).
If it's a video source, it would not be much to expect the user to just leave the primary peripheral on if you want the tv to stay on. Just switch inputs. As well, the problem could be solved easily if the video source had settings to specify whether you want to turn the tv off when you turn off the video source (this is available on the xbox one s).
If it's used for audio, like the Beam, you clearly would want the tv and audio unit to turn on/off in unison. So this LG decision is 100% wrong.
Standards don't work when nobody adheres to the standards. You just end up with a mess where you don't really know if product A is going to work with product B as intended. I don't want my TV making decisions like this for me. I don't want the TV deciding to ignore certain commands because it thinks "you don't really mean that". The way it should work is that the TV supports all the commands that are specified in the protocol. I should be able to configure my TV and devices to send/accept the commands that I want it to send/accept. Same for anything connected to the TV. That's the straight forward simple solution that gives the customer exactly what they want and nothing they don't.
If it's a video source, it would not be much to expect the user to just leave the primary peripheral on if you want the tv to stay on. Just switch inputs. As well, the problem could be solved easily if the video source had settings to specify whether you want to turn the tv off when you turn off the video source (this is available on the xbox one s).
If it's used for audio, like the Beam, you clearly would want the tv and audio unit to turn on/off in unison. So this LG decision is 100% wrong.
Standards don't work when nobody adheres to the standards. You just end up with a mess where you don't really know if product A is going to work with product B as intended. I don't want my TV making decisions like this for me. I don't want the TV deciding to ignore certain commands because it thinks "you don't really mean that". The way it should work is that the TV supports all the commands that are specified in the protocol. I should be able to configure my TV and devices to send/accept the commands that I want it to send/accept. Same for anything connected to the TV. That's the straight forward simple solution that gives the customer exactly what they want and nothing they don't.
Danny,
I can’t disagree with the things you mention. My LG TV is several years old now and I honestly don’t know how the CEC 'standard' controls may have evolved over time.
Clearly, from what the LG Support Staff member said to me earlier today, when my TV model was first conceived, they saw the TV as being the main device that controlled its peripherals and not the other way around. I guess LG were not prepared to implement things and incur any associated development costs for controls they could not envisage being used by their end-users, at that time ...and (sometimes) these things do come down to programming and development costs.
I also presume end-users would have played a part in testing the LG SimpLink implementation at the time and provided 'best practice' feedback to the company.
From Ryan’s post HERE, there are now so many different implementations of the CEC 'standard' controls by the different TV manufacturers and what I’m now wondering is how each of those manufacturers may also have changed their own CEC versions over time, thus making it difficult to really know whether the Sonos Beam CEC commands will work, or not, with a particular model and brand of TV.
It seems a bit of a minefield... but these CEC controls are not really what I see as being important in my book, when it comes to the Sonos Beam... I see them more as just being a 'nice to have' add-on, where the commands do work, that is.
In any event it’s probably the only 'industry standard' that Sonos developers have to work with in this area of device control.
I can’t disagree with the things you mention. My LG TV is several years old now and I honestly don’t know how the CEC 'standard' controls may have evolved over time.
Clearly, from what the LG Support Staff member said to me earlier today, when my TV model was first conceived, they saw the TV as being the main device that controlled its peripherals and not the other way around. I guess LG were not prepared to implement things and incur any associated development costs for controls they could not envisage being used by their end-users, at that time ...and (sometimes) these things do come down to programming and development costs.
I also presume end-users would have played a part in testing the LG SimpLink implementation at the time and provided 'best practice' feedback to the company.
From Ryan’s post HERE, there are now so many different implementations of the CEC 'standard' controls by the different TV manufacturers and what I’m now wondering is how each of those manufacturers may also have changed their own CEC versions over time, thus making it difficult to really know whether the Sonos Beam CEC commands will work, or not, with a particular model and brand of TV.
It seems a bit of a minefield... but these CEC controls are not really what I see as being important in my book, when it comes to the Sonos Beam... I see them more as just being a 'nice to have' add-on, where the commands do work, that is.
In any event it’s probably the only 'industry standard' that Sonos developers have to work with in this area of device control.
Yea, I can't really disagree with your points either. I don't really know the full history of how the standard developed. As far as I know there's only been one standard. If there have been more than one, it clearly should have denoted as 2.0 or something.
It does sort of make sense since the standard was sort of a not well known for much of it's existence that the TV companies would deviate from the standard where they felt it necessary. It's a bad decision in my opinion, but that's only my opinion. I can see where the developers would assume that anything connected as a speaker/receivers would not really need to be sending control commands to the TV. Till the Beam came along, there wasn't a smart speaker or receiver that had control ability that was better than just using the tv or universal remote.
I get that it's somewhat of a nice to have feature. However, it's features that Sonos advertises and can set them apart from other options in the market. It's not really fair to Sonos that the TVs don't support the features and follow the standards that they advertise to support. As a customer, I hear the Beam can do X,Y, and Z if my tv has ARC, and then I find out only get and X and Y because my TV doesn't work as it should? Yes, I can live without Z and am overall very happy with the Beam, but it's annoying to frustrating in this area.
The sad part is that is unlikely to really improve over time, IMO. It's not that well known of a standard. It doesn't have a logo TV companies can slap on the box to increase sales. The typical customer who run into issues are unlikely to know whether it's the TV or the Beam (or other product) that's the problem. So since it's unlikely to effect the bottom line, there won't be a big push to get this right. I kinda can't blame them for that though, as having a bigger screen with better resolution is surely more important criteria to consumers than this stuff.
It does sort of make sense since the standard was sort of a not well known for much of it's existence that the TV companies would deviate from the standard where they felt it necessary. It's a bad decision in my opinion, but that's only my opinion. I can see where the developers would assume that anything connected as a speaker/receivers would not really need to be sending control commands to the TV. Till the Beam came along, there wasn't a smart speaker or receiver that had control ability that was better than just using the tv or universal remote.
I get that it's somewhat of a nice to have feature. However, it's features that Sonos advertises and can set them apart from other options in the market. It's not really fair to Sonos that the TVs don't support the features and follow the standards that they advertise to support. As a customer, I hear the Beam can do X,Y, and Z if my tv has ARC, and then I find out only get and X and Y because my TV doesn't work as it should? Yes, I can live without Z and am overall very happy with the Beam, but it's annoying to frustrating in this area.
The sad part is that is unlikely to really improve over time, IMO. It's not that well known of a standard. It doesn't have a logo TV companies can slap on the box to increase sales. The typical customer who run into issues are unlikely to know whether it's the TV or the Beam (or other product) that's the problem. So since it's unlikely to effect the bottom line, there won't be a big push to get this right. I kinda can't blame them for that though, as having a bigger screen with better resolution is surely more important criteria to consumers than this stuff.
Danny
I have an LG 65UH8500 from 2016 and the commands work perfectly for turning the TV off and on. However I had to say the location of the TV as well. “alexa turn tv off in basement” (where my sonos beam is located). I then went into the Alexa app under smart devices and edited the name from “TV in Basement” to just TV. -see photo. I can now just say “Alexa turn TV off” . Maybe you have tried this already, but this fixed the issue I had turning the TV off with Alexa.
Danny,
I think we can safely say we agree on these CEC issues. It hopefully will turn out to be not too problematic for most CEC commands being used by Sonos... Only 'time' may tell.
The users I feel quite sorry for, are those that have Samsung (2016) TV's with auto-HDMI switching and with no way to turn off that feature, but that’s a discussion for some other day perhaps? Guess those owners will be forced to resort to using their toslink optical connector for the Beam.
One other 'far more aggravating' voice-control feature for me personally, is with Amazon’s Fire-Stick ... the Fire-Stick's own hand-held Alexa remote, still does far more than any standalone Alexa device registered to it in the 'Music, Videos and Books' section of the Amazon Alexa App. It’s just more things that bring about 'confusion' to the end-user. Again this is also a story for another day.
These problems are partly why I see the CEC commands issues as not being too overly important here... there are still far more problematic issues in both the smart-home voice controlled Audio and Video industry that still needs resolving. Most of us encounter such 'head scratching' issues almost on a daily basis.
I guess in truth these A/V industries are very much 'still evolving' and still trying to find their own way of doing things in a 'smart' way.
I think we can safely say we agree on these CEC issues. It hopefully will turn out to be not too problematic for most CEC commands being used by Sonos... Only 'time' may tell.
The users I feel quite sorry for, are those that have Samsung (2016) TV's with auto-HDMI switching and with no way to turn off that feature, but that’s a discussion for some other day perhaps? Guess those owners will be forced to resort to using their toslink optical connector for the Beam.
One other 'far more aggravating' voice-control feature for me personally, is with Amazon’s Fire-Stick ... the Fire-Stick's own hand-held Alexa remote, still does far more than any standalone Alexa device registered to it in the 'Music, Videos and Books' section of the Amazon Alexa App. It’s just more things that bring about 'confusion' to the end-user. Again this is also a story for another day.
These problems are partly why I see the CEC commands issues as not being too overly important here... there are still far more problematic issues in both the smart-home voice controlled Audio and Video industry that still needs resolving. Most of us encounter such 'head scratching' issues almost on a daily basis.
I guess in truth these A/V industries are very much 'still evolving' and still trying to find their own way of doing things in a 'smart' way.
Just to say I’ve just tried your suggestion (see screenshots attached) I asked Alexa to 'scan for devices' between the changes (edits) I made to ensure they were registered, but the 'turn off' command still doesn’t work for me.
What this does show though, is that LG's SimpLink has evolved and changed over time. I suspect my TV is slightly older than 2016.
Thanks however for this suggestion.
Just to clarify before the edit to my Alexa devices shown in the screenshots in my last post. I was issuing this Alexa command.
'Alexa, turn off the Dining Room TV in the Dining Room'
Then after I edited the device (as dajuice1460 suggested) and got Alexa to rescan for devices, I was using this command.
'Alexa, turn off the TV in the Dining Room'
Just so you can see what I was actually saying to my Alexa device on the Beam.
Note, there should be no requirement to say the Room Name (Dining Room in my case) at the end of the instruction, that’s if it’s a unique Alexa device name.
So after the edit recommended by dajuice1460... the voice-command 'Alexa, turn off the TV' should have worked too. I also tried that, without success, but this should work for dajuice1460 in his own setup.
'Alexa, turn off the Dining Room TV in the Dining Room'
Then after I edited the device (as dajuice1460 suggested) and got Alexa to rescan for devices, I was using this command.
'Alexa, turn off the TV in the Dining Room'
Just so you can see what I was actually saying to my Alexa device on the Beam.
Note, there should be no requirement to say the Room Name (Dining Room in my case) at the end of the instruction, that’s if it’s a unique Alexa device name.
So after the edit recommended by dajuice1460... the voice-command 'Alexa, turn off the TV' should have worked too. I also tried that, without success, but this should work for dajuice1460 in his own setup.
I had the same issue. I set a routine for Alexa to turn the tv off but she wouldn't do it. I changed it to television off and now it works!
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