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

I already own a Playbar and recently purchased a Play 1. One thing I find invaluable is being able to control the Playbar using the TV remote, even if playing music. It is very intuitive and easy to use.

What I've noticed however is that now when grouped with the play 1 the TV remote volume control only manages the Playbar vs. the whole group volume.

Is there a way to add an option to have the TV remote control either only the Playbar or the whole group volume once grouped?

Would help to extend the handy and intuitive control the bring the volume up and down across the rooms.

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**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!!!

The only issue I find with the Harmony remote software is that if you have Sonos devices tied up within activities and then go onto rename or change those devices around, that when you ‘refresh’ the Sonos device list and rescan the network, that some devices get duplicated, missed off completely ..and the list of devices do not sometimes reflect the current setup as per the Sonos App.. it seems to get worse over time and you can end up having to remove them all and start from scratch.

It’s a reasonably good workaround for ‘group volume’ control, but it’s not without its own issues if you like to change around devices, or rename them.

I have three Harmony remotes setup on my network and the Sonos device list is slightly different for all three, despite refreshing the Sonos device list for each one in the Harmony App.

A few comments on this. First, it seems like the most common case for this request is people using as stereo pair for TV audio in conjunction with their soundbar. In the case, the real problem is that you can’t use surround speakers in ‘full’ stereo mode with TV audio. If that feature were implemented, it would remove the need IR remote group control. It would also mean you could use the speaker pair for stereo or surround duty in the room without having to fully reconfigure in trueplay tune each time. I configuration setup allowing the options of “always play surround’,’ play stereo when source is 2.0’, or ‘always play stereo’ would cover a lot more ground.

For those that don’t fit the above case, I have a feeling this sounds great in theory, but not so much in reality. There are absolutely times where I have a couple rooms grouped, and it would be nice to be able to pick up a remote and change the volume of the whole group, rather than go to the Sonos app. However, there are also times where I only want to reduce the volume in the room the TV is in, and I’m glad the remote only controls the one room.

For a smart bunch of people the replies on here (clearly from Sonos employees) are really quite incredible. You trully are a shockingly bad company at listening.

Listen up one last time, I have my TV Play Bar grouped with 2 Ones in Stereo mode. After you forced me to replace my old perfectly functioning Sonos One because it wouldnt pair with a Gen 2 (some BS about sound matching, laughable) so the chump I am I bought 2 new ones, massively overpriced ofcourse.

And like everyone else on here I realised the 5.1 sound is horrible so I want them paired in a stereo mode group. Again because the product sucks and they are onto the next rippof, what is it a Beam? If I buy a Beam will it all be fixed, yea?

So here it is. Me, and everyone who has had the misfortune of using this setup wants the TV remote volume to behave EXACTLY like the volume on my phone in the Sonos app, to control Playbar + any grouped speakers. How is that so hard to understand Sonos employees/fan boy trolls? Why does the phone control the entire group and not the remote? You come up with some super rare other PlayBar multi room grouping scenarios to excuse your inaction, ok clever cloggs, so add a single checkbox REMOTE CONTROLS GROUP ON/OFF. Literally a half day job.

Please stop justifying your companies horrible customer support with this nonsense.

After 4 years of struggling with this horrible overpriced system that pisses everybody off Im gonna take a massive hit and buy a proper soundbar, surround setup and receiver. Hopefully some sucker on eBay buys this.

I also tell everyone that asks or sometimes when they dont, NEVER BUY SONOS, they will force you to buy new hardware, it wont work consistently, its overpriced, its a nightmare if you ever want to change house/wifi and the cherry on top is their customer support is non existent and if you do get a response totally arrogant. (see this thread)

Sonos employees are marked as such you paranoid nitwit.

Also, this thread is 6 years old, has 129 posts and at least half of them are responses. That 10 people per year, and one of those is you. So the need for this is not exactly burning up the internet.

Classic reply from another troll/under cover employee with 22893 replies lol.

I am thinking the Samsung looks the best bet Samsung HW-Q950A Dolby Atmos soundbar review | What Hi-Fi? (whathifi.com)

Nope, not an employee. You're still paranoid, though.

And still a nitwit.

But please, buy the Samsung. Then we won't have to see your yearly temper tantrum in here.

Use a different remote. There are a number which act on the Sonos group volume.

Do some research. You could even simply read this thread ...

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!!!!!!!!!!

"ok clever cloggs, so add a single checkbox REMOTE CONTROLS GROUP ON/OFF. Literally a half day job."

This sounds like a great compromise. Any Sonos folks that can chime in?

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.

Thanks everyone for this great thread and thanks Sonos for making such great speakers!

I wanted to contribute back and let everyone know that I was using Logitech Harmony for two years to control Sonos group volume but Logitech Harmony had downsides.

Instead I found a way to just use my AppleTV remote and HDMI CEC to control the group volume.

I’ve posted the code to GitHub in case it helps anyone else:
https://github.com/arcsoundguy/sonos-group-volume-with-tv-remote

Thanks for this!

I found this thread while looking for a way to control group volume with the TV remote. Tried your solution ArcSoundGuy which worked great but I wanted something slightly different and since I know Node.js better I found it easier to just build a similar thing on my own. The only functional difference between the projects is that the application I built doesn’t automatically group the speakers, it only updates the volume for speakers that are manually grouped. I wanted the option to use the speakers independently as well.

I also posted the code to GitHub in case it helps anyone else:

https://github.com/ErikAlfredsson/sonos-sync-group-volume

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