Control all grouped Sonos using TV remote control (via Playbar)



Show first post

137 replies

 

Technically feasible on the -- now apparently discontinued -- iPort xPress keypad. It’s simply configured to adjust the entire group volume.

 

I would bet the iPort was send commands to both rooms through.  It wasn’t a case of a Sonos room telling another Sonos room to change it’s volume level.

I dare say, though it’s not necessary to preconfigure the keypad with the group. It must learn the group members on the fly.

The iPort xPress keypad is a WiFi remote. I’m using the IKEA Tradri remote which also works over WiFi - and yes, these remotes are able to control the volume of Sonos groups. Technically, the Sonos app is also a WiFi remote.

Please help.

I added to group ARC + stereo AMP. But I can't change voice in group from my TV remote control. Add this function: control voice of all group or lock voice all of all group. PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!

Everyone, it’s simple - Obviously not everybody likes the idea, but there seem to be enough people asking about it to warrant the feature.  Imagine for every post you have on here you probably have 100 others that want it, but don’t know where to go to request it.  

 

The solution is the same with every feature that has a split audience - checkbox.  Make it an OPTION.  Problems solved.  Nothing else to argue about.  

Everyone, it’s simple - Obviously not everybody likes the idea, but there seem to be enough people asking about it to warrant the feature.  Imagine for every post you have on here you probably have 100 others that want it, but don’t know where to go to request it.  

 

 

Well, half the posters aren’t in favor of the feature, and another half of the remaining seem to be confused about what’s being asked.  I don’t know that the development effort is worth it for a 1000 or so users of the total number of Sonos users...compared to other feature requests.  Not my call though. but it’s been a few years now.

 

 

The solution is the same with every feature that has a split audience - checkbox.  Make it an OPTION.  Problems solved.  Nothing else to argue about.  

 

As said earlier in the thread.  You can’t just implement every feature request .with an on off switch,  I think it’s pretty obvious that it won’t work well for many scenarios and would be more of a hindrance than help. 

 

This is absolutely ridiculous, either allow TV to control group volume or allow full stereo on surrounds as an option. Also for you Soni’s kings, stop being so patronising, people WANT rear speakers to be used when watching TV normally, also they want group control to be used IF THEY WANT IT when using a remote control. To sit there TELLING them they are wrong and they need to use it differently is ridiculous and unfair. Is it really really an issue to give an army of users a tick box option???? 
 

 

There are a few different questions/issues discussed in this thread here.  The main topic is controlling a group via the TVs IR remote, and yes some people are bringing out that it may not make as much sense in reality as it does in theory.  Indeed, Sonos could have developed this and found through inhouse or beta testing that it was deemed rather confusing and maybe not so useful...even if it make sense in theory.   I don’t care whether this happens or not, I just don’t think it will be as lovely as some imagine it will be.

One of the other topics that intermingled in here is what Sonos defines as a home theatre room.  People are asking to throw an extra play:5, for example, in the physical room and have it be bonded to the speakers that make up the Sonos home threatre.  Some of the comments are about informing people what the actual issue is, and how bonding and grouping are different things technically. If this is what’s referred to as ‘telling people they are wrong’, then well, there are wrong in terms of understanding the situation.  They might not like hearing they are wrong, but it makes no sense to think there

The last topic seems to be the desire to have the rear speakers play the front left and right audio channels, and I personally would be in favor of this. It seems like a toggle between ‘always playing stereo, play stereo when no surround audio channels are present, and never play stereo on the rears for TV audio would meet everyone’s needs.   I’m not sure what the downside would be.

 

Badge

This feature makes all the sense in the world. “Group?” Yes. “Group?” No. Easy. But, I have noticed that even changing my router’s password will take me a few hours to get the whole system working again. It is ridiculous. I will NEVER purchase another Sonos product again. Simple.

I’ll just add my voice to the many prior re having the TV remote control the group. From a software perspective, this wouldn’t be difficult. Just have the changes to the one room’s volume mirrored in the other grouped rooms. I make use of an Amp to essentially allow Airplay to a couple Connect:Amps (which I had previously and which are actually connected to the speakers). The TV is too far away from the (ceiling) speakers to connect directly to either Connect:Amp in any case. I connect the TV to the Amp and group the 3 “rooms” to channel the sound through the ceiling speakers. I was excited to pair my remote to the system, and really disappointed to discover it’s only possible to control the (speakerless) Amp. That’s… frustrating to put it lightly, especially considering I purchased an HDMI/optical converter expressly for the purpose.

 

Yes, I can use the phone to control the sound, but the phone lags, making precise volume control hard to manage.

**SOLUTION FOUND**

After going through this thread I was extremely disappointed and frustrated to find there was no Sonos built-in solution. So I went on the search to find my own solution to the issue. I created this Sonos account just so I could provide this tidbit that worked for me and hopefully help someone. I know it takes a specific piece of hardware, but may help some. FYI - I have an Arc and two One SL’s. 
 

My Solution: If you have a Logitech Harmony remote control you can edit your activities on the volume up, volume down and mute controls to perform a “sequence”. Now when I select volume up, volume down or mute on any of my activities they will all perform the same function on each device. This may also work with other unifying/ programmable remote controls - So worth a try if you have one. 

If you don’t have a Harmony remote control it’s worth looking into. I have found several workarounds to issues like this by having them. The programming is very simple and the interface is extremely gooey. Not to mention I hate having multiple remote controls with so many electronics.

Yes, extremely disappointing that Sonos doesn’t have this built in - Especially for the premium we pay for this audio system. 

Hope this helps someone - Peace!!!

You are right: combine my arc system with the connect.

 

There must be the 75ms delay, but I guess I don’t notice it with movies : it’s a subwoofer...


the arc with ones grouped in another room gives the strange church sound: unusable… (because of the 75ms)

 

I concur.

This is a big issue for us and shouldn’t take 4 years to fix. SONOS get moving on this!!!

Don't understand either...
Badge

No! It's emulation of stereo with echo and no bass. I wouldn't call it stereo

I'm really disappointed there's no way to control grouped speakers with the remote OR even better to get the surround speakers to play stereo when there is no 5.1 sound available.

Actually quite ridiculous... because it would so obviously improve the experience massively with little effort on part of Sonos. So sad.

Userlevel 7
Badge +16

The problem with the 5.1 setup is that for the majority of the time the rears are doing very little. This seams to be why people are grouping a stereo pair rather than bonding as surrounds.

I enquired a long while back about possibly adding a Full TV mode for the rear surrounds (same as full music mode, where Playbar and surrounds play the same content). This would make the surrounds much more useful imho.

Just purchased a Beam to add to my Sonos system (one Play5 and two Play1’s) and SUPER disappointed that I can’t control all of the grouped speakers with the TV remote.   Super inconvenient if need to mute or change volume and have to use the app to do so instead of a simple change on the tv remote.    Sonos, please address this feature gap that people have been complaining about for 5 years!

Userlevel 2
I've just noticed this is a similar request to https://ask.sonos.com/sonos/topics/playbar-group-all-controlled-with-tv-remote
Userlevel 2
Badge
yes!

the TV remote control NEEDS TO control the whole group volume once grouped!

been a year since this thread 😠 😠
Userlevel 2
Badge
please help?

There is no IR receiver built into the Play:5 or Play:1, nor into the Symfonisks products or the ONE and ONE SL, therefore it’s not feasible to control these via IR remote.

Userlevel 7
Badge +21
There's nothing to help with... Sonos feature requests can take months, sometimes even years, before they might be considered, and that's for popular requests. Clearly this isn't a feature many are looking for.

I know that I can say for certain that I wouldn't want someone sitting in front of the TV with a remote to control the volume of a speaker in an upstairs bedroom that is grouped.
Userlevel 7
Badge +22
I agree Mike

Very peculiar idea to have the TV remote control the volume of a speaker not in the TV room when the TV is off. It's not even as if the remote can select music, group rooms etc so you HAVE to have another controller available anyway

Just purchased a Beam to add to my Sonos system (one Play5 and two Play1’s) and SUPER disappointed that I can’t control all of the grouped speakers with the TV remote.   Super inconvenient if need to mute or change volume and have to use the app to do so instead of a simple change on the tv remote.    Sonos, please address this feature gap that people have been complaining about for 5 years!

Even leaving aside the IR issue mentioned by @Smilja (which is significant), let’s imagine someone has the Beam on low volume but other grouped speakers are quite loud.  What do you want to happen  when volume is increased on the remote?  Observation - there is only one volume control on a TV remote; the Sonos app has a volume control for each room.  It’s what it is designed for.

This request is becoming steadily less relevant as voice control becomes more widespread.  ‘Alexa, pause’ stops audio on my Arc and any grouped speakers.

This hasn’t happened in the last five years for the same reason it won’t ever happen. It’s not a very good idea.

Userlevel 7
Badge +20
As MikeV says, feature requests are not always implemented. From Sonos having received these, they undergo consideration based on many, many factors. The primary concern is how useful they may be to our entire customer base, not a select few. What you consider an essential feature may be a massive flaw to someone else and vice-versa. Personally, I wouldn't want other users in my house to have the ability to turn my music up and down whilst I'm listening to music in the study, though I'm sure others would disagree with me. I am not offering Sonos' insight as to the validity of your feedback or idea; we consider all feedback to be crucial. I am trying to illustrate the fact that usefulness is subjective. One thing I wish to make clear is that it is not as cut-and-dry as stating your case and then waiting for a feature to be introduced.
Badge

When you set up your rear as surround / full and you play stereo source like TV the rears wont give you a full stereo like you claims, if you manage to put the hear on the speaker you will hear what i mean, Echo might be the wrong word.

 

The ‘Full/Ambient’ setting is specifically under ‘Music’ and not the ‘TV’ input. Not sure why you would expect that to apply to any stereo  signal coming from the TV. 

Reply