“Alexa, Switch to TV”

I'm having the same problem. I'm sick of the same response from Sonos, "It's not a CEC based command", no s*** Sherlock. I'm not trying send a command to the TV I want the Beam to switch it's source not the TV!!!

I have tried the renaming tick but it doesn't work for me. Before I did it, when asking "Alexa, swith to TV" I got the response " Living Room TV doesn't support that". After renaming Living Room to TV, the resposne is now "I could find a device named [no device name given] in [my name]'s account"

Seems like another half a job by sonos. Like the audio ducking on every Sonos device when I issue a command to an Alexa device.

@jonkong, have you tried the "Alexa, switch the [room name] to TV." or "Alexa, switch to TV in/on [room name]" commands? You're correct, these aren't CEC commands, they're Alexa commands to trigger the Beam to switch to the line-in input.

When you change the name of the room, make sure that you're discovering devices after. You should see the Beam listed in the Alexa app as the name of the room in Sonos, and as an Alexa enabled device. You'll also see the HDMI input listed with the room name and TV at the end.

You'll also see the HDMI input listed with the room name and TV at the end.

@Ryan S What do you mean the HDMI input listed with the room name and TV at the end?
Are you saying that I should see this format "[HDMI[Number]] Living Room TV" with in the Alexa App?

I'm having the same problem. I'm sick of the same response from Sonos, "It's not a CEC based command", no s*** Sherlock. I'm not trying send a command to the TV I want the Beam to switch it's source not the TV!!!

I have tried the renaming tick but it doesn't work for me. Before I did it, when asking "Alexa, swith to TV" I got the response " Living Room TV doesn't support that". After renaming Living Room to TV, the resposne is now "I could find a device named [no device name given] in [my name]'s account"

Seems like another half a job by sonos. Like the audio ducking on every Sonos device when I issue a command to an Alexa device.

Use the command "Alexa, switch to TV on [room name]".

That is the only command that works reliably for me.

You'll also see the HDMI input listed with the room name and TV at the end.

@Ryan S What do you mean the HDMI input listed with the room name and TV at the end?
Are you saying that I should see this format "[HDMI[Number]] Living Room TV" with in the Alexa App?

I worded that a bit poorly, my apologies. In the Alexa app, under "Smart Home" you'd see the Sonos room name with "TV" at the end. That refers to the HDMI input on the Beam and is used for CEC commands. When you say something like "Alexa, turn on the TV" to the Beam, the command is issued to the device labeled "[Room Name] TV", assuming it exists.

jonkong,

I have my Beam in the 'Dining Room' ... so in my case I see two separate devices in the Alexa App Smarthome section on the 'devices tab' one is for the Alexa voice control of the Speaker and is simply called 'Dining Room' but there is a second device also installed called 'Dining Room TV'. This separate device is used for some additional TV commands.

So if I was originally watching TV and then went and played some music on the Beam, but later needed to switch back to the TV audio out ... I simply just say the following command “Alexa, Switch to TV on Dining Room'”

Obviously you just need to use whatever 'room name' your Beam is located in.

Note the word 'on' is rather important in the instruction, don’t use 'in the' in its place, as it may not work.

Also note, once you have issued the above Alexa instruction to your Beam, you will then (strangely?) find afterwards, that you can go onto use the more simple instruction, like this... 'Alexa, Switch to TV', at least until you switch off your TV, then a user has to revert back to using “Alexa, Switch to tv on (Room Name)”. So it appears you have to use this instruction on the first outing, every time.

Another thing that might help. I found that the reason the command wasn't working for me was that the room name in Sonos and consequently Alexa was being overwritten periodically by my Apple Home App. In the Home App the device was called Sonos Beam and the room name was Living room. But the Home app clearly decided to rename the Sonos room to "Sonos Beam" every so often.

Once I renamed the device in Apple Home to "Living room" the "Alexa switch to TV ON LIVING ROOM" worked. Though sometimes Alexa will say OK but not actually switch...but mostly it works.

I haven't tested the ramification now of using Apple Music to the Sonos device now that it is simply called "living room" though.

I have a problem where when I turn up the volume on the TV remote, the volume on the beam and the TV go up together causing a reverb. On the app on my phone, the named beam (living room) is switched to tv but at the moment both volumes are affected. Most of the time, turning off the TV and turning it on again helps 95 percent of the time but nog always.