A surround set on Sonos is formed using two surround speakers. A Five, even when set to stereo, counts as one speaker, so has to be set up to a room by itself. So if you want volume control on all speakers in the same physical room via your TV remote you need another Five or change the Five for two One SL’s. I’m not sure the Arc would respond to the remote when you are not using the tv though (as it needs to be commanded by HDMI-CEC).

Thanks @106rallye. I understand how the app currently limits the types of speakers you can use in a "bonded group" now.

I still think this is an unreasonable limitation! I'm going to return my Sonos kit if i can't figure out a workaround - For  $1500 I expect basic functionality like "turn all my speakers in the same room up and down with a remote", regardless of how Sonos has chosen to implement their configuration hierarchy.

I think you’re going to become Sonos kitless, @kiteless  I’m sure someone would have posted it if they’d come up with a practical workaround. 

There is a remote for the system - it’s your phone. And the remote with HDMI-CEC and (e)ARC is even more a part of your TV than it used to be in PlayBar times. With HDMI-CEEC the remote will only command the system (via Bluetooth and HDMI) when the TV is on instead of commanding the Arc directly via ir (as it would have been on a PlayBar). This limitation seems to be technical in nature (even more so now than in the past) and so to me is not unreasonable.

I can understand people wanting this feature, though I do not understand why when the TV is off a phone would not do as a remote.

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???? 
 

think I’ll sell my beam and 1’s simply because of this. Sounds quite extreme doesn’t it? No more extreme than this ignorance 

I realise the things you mention are nice to have, for some. I also understand that some things are hard to program, given Sonos’ choices earlier: surrounds are commanded very differently form stand alone speakers, Trueplay is different for each set up. Commanding speakers with a remote connected to a TV that is turned off, will be difficult.

Just because you want something, Sonos is not obliged to give it to you. I want an end to the 65k limit and SMBv3 for my Sonos. In the end it’s Sonos who decides where to put their development time, so if you do not like that, looking for another supplier is the perfect option.

Indeed it is. I’ll also says there is no way this option isn’t already built and probably in test app environments. It’s probably even had UAT and sat stagnant already built. It’s baffling that it isn’t an option. 

Controlling group via Hdmi CEC or IR is also a crucial add on for me. Arguments about the need of it is wate if time  as many posts from customers request it. I'm returning my $1800 speakers to best buy just because of it. Going with the bose

I’d be pleasantly surprised if Bose could do the things asked for above:

• control group volume with the TV remote;
• control volume for Sonos when the TV is turned off;
• allowing full stereo on surrounds.

Can you please provide a link to a Bose system that can do this?

Will test the tv remote part and et you know here

Controlling the volume for sonus when tv is turned off is less important for me as if I air play or Spotify play I use my phone not the TV remote. 

Allowing full stereo on surround I know it can.

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.

Making the surround setup able to play stereo will resolve all issues for sure. 

Wondering why sonos have a user forum but not even 1 reply on their part , 6 years worth of over 100 posts in this thread. 

WAKE UP SONOS 

The surround setup (surround speakers) do play stereo, when they are set to ‘full’ rather than ‘ambient’ in the surround settings for music playback.

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

Huh?  Are you calling it an emulation because the 2 channels of audio are coming from the rear as well as the front?  If you don’t like that, why are you claiming that it would resolve all issues?  And the fact that you’re claiming there’s an echo makes me thing you haven’t setup rear speakers as surround, but as a 2nd Sonos room.   

I’ve certainly never experienced any echo from my surrounds, on either a PLAYBAR setup, or an Arc setup. Either when playing the “TV” input, or just using the room as a music speaker set.

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. 

That’s the definition of all channel stereo

No one made this claim.  No one said your rear surrounds speakers can do ‘all channel’ or whatever term you want to use, for TV audio right now.   The points made was that you can do ‘all channel’ for music sources right now, and if Sonos made a functional change to allow for a similar setting for TV sources, it would alleviate many of the complaints in this thread, as well as other issues. 

Source doesn’t matter , if the system will know to do all channel stereo in music it will know also in TV .

:sigh: You are speaking in circles and not very clearly.   Source absolutely matters since a stereo source (music) would not have any distinct audio channels for the surround speakers.  A TV source can absolutely have distinct audio channels for the surround speakers, so it absolutely matters.  I’m not saying it’s impossible to play all channel for a TV source, or commenting on how difficult it would be to implement, but the source matters, and would change the logic in determining what audio is played through the surround speakers and under what conditions.

now you talking , im talking about stereo TV vs stereo music, ,many of the TV channels broadcast / stream in stereo at least the ones i watch. when you take a stereo source ( 2 channel) and you make it all channel it doesn’t matter if it;s music or news .

 Yep, that’s exactly right.  The key difference is music is ALWAYS stereo, while TV is SOMETIMES stereo.  

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.