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


Userlevel 2
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. 

137 replies

I'm an Android user too (mostly), but one only needs an iOS device to configure the xPRESS keypads. After that they operate independently.

But, yes, they are quite pricey. However they're pretty customisable (a 'scene' will group defined players and preset volumes, and 'favourites' are a selected subset of Sonos Favorites sources), and unlike some alternatives they don't require a hub as they connect directly to WiFi.

The SYMFONISK thing does look interesting.
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.
I'd love to have this feature implemented too!
Its an absolute pain in the neck. I like many here spent a lot of money on the Playbar with surround speakers.

To all the patronising comments on here saying nobody uses the system like this, sorry you are totally wrong and Sonos both market it to work like that and have a wizard for setting up surround speakers.

Its a design oversight and an awful setup, my girfriend hates it because she cant control the volume on the TV without asking me to use my phone to change the surround speakers.

The arrogance of Sonos staff to dismiss this is fairly typical Ive noticed. On to the next product poorly implenented, the minute there a rival product I will be switching.
Userlevel 7
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Its a design oversight and an awful setup, my girfriend hates it because she cant control the volume on the TV without asking me to use my phone to change the surround speakers.



Are you sure you have the rear speakers set up as surrounds? My TV remote turns up/down the volume of my Playbase and rear surround One’s without needing to touch the app on my phone.
As stated, if you have indeed setup surround speakers, they will be controlled by the remote's volume. This thread is about grouped speakers. Methinks you need to configure your system correctly.
Its an absolute pain in the neck. I like many here spent a lot of money on the Playbar with surround speakers.

To all the patronising comments on here saying nobody uses the system like this, sorry you are totally wrong and Sonos both market it to work like that and have a wizard for setting up surround speakers.

Its a design oversight and an awful setup, my girfriend hates it because she cant control the volume on the TV without asking me to use my phone to change the surround speakers.

The arrogance of Sonos staff to dismiss this is fairly typical Ive noticed. On to the next product poorly implenented, the minute there a rival product I will be switching.


tommy d, if you stop the rear speakers as surround speakers, it works perfectly. Controlling the TV volume also controls de surround speakers volume. The problem this thread talks about is when you have your soundbar grouped with other soakers on the house (that are not surround), in this case, you do have to use your phone to control the volume of those grouped speakers.

Has this issue been resolved?  Would like to control two play ones grouped with beam via tv remote. Seems simple enough. Right now - remote only controls beam - need to use app to control stereo mode plays. 

Phil6362772, my understanding is you’re not using the play1 as surround you’re just grouping them for music or tv?  As far as I know my tv remote won’t even control the beam volume with music.  Only when the tv is on probably due to HDMI. However. The only thing I can suggest to you is purchasing the iPort express audio keypad. It’s a great remote that lets you add all your sonos stations to it with a quick key to toggle through them. It also lets you set up a “scene” if you hold the “favorite” button for one second. The “scene” you set up in the app is any or every speaker you want and you can also set the volume and station that begins to play.  The added feature that will interest you is the fact that you can control one speaker volume or all speakers in group. Also, they do not need to be set to the same volume. You choose a percentage for each speaker in the group for the “starting” volume. 

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.

I completely understand what your saying here and would agree it can both be a positive and negative, so I was wondering if we could possibly do it were when you create a group the group it’s self has a group settings section were to were you will have a toggle to say control this group with a remote or not and maybe a setting for sync this group like a sorrow does sounds or separate rooms. Just an idea. Looking forward to future updates and products.

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. 

Hi a want this funktion to, pleas make it hapen. Option if remote control change volune synk all group spakers or not. A hevely invested in Sonos speakrs. This funktion is must have in THE app!  Is posible this funktion coms in THE new app tjat is relest? Sorry for THE bad English.

+1, either allow TV to control group volume or allow full stereo on surrounds as an option. Stereo on the “surrounds” is preferred for most of our tv watching/gaming. Same deal as other people, have to control volume using tablet or phone.

+1

and make it an option of course!

and not only for remote group volume control also for the speaker buttons in group + voice control in group.

Damn simple and poor user experience… i’m waiting for over 3 years now for this feature.

also in other communities countries a lot of people in favor!

Sonos is not lessen their customers the are very bad support on this. 5 yers ago post. googel havebetter support and in going to by Google specers.

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!

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.

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 3
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...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.

Yes I suspect you’re right when you say it’ll never happen after all these years but whilst this may of no interest to you, that doesn’t make it a bad idea and plenty of folks (myself included) would find this useful.

...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.


John, your statement is not right. I have Alexa active and can say that when all ones & playbar are merged in one room, it’s not possible to give the right command to Alexa because also the voice control has impact on the volume of all boxes in the complete “merged” room, therefore not rembering the offset of the rear boxes (one’s in my case) vs the playbar… so the sound is not remembered correctly, making one of both to loud (the playbar), (not to speak of delay of voice control, whenever using the TV, the IR is the most fast and efficient volume control).

The best solution for this is an optional setting to sync volume control and remeber the offset, If your core business is audio then fundamental research to best user experience and volume EQ is important.
But if you don’t find it relevant, feel free to not mark the hypotetical improvement option, but as this topic is a small bit of the iceberg I think there are alot of people frustrated for this lack of volume control.

Userlevel 7
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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.

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Is this still not resolved?!  I also just bought a Beam to join my other three Sonii and found out that I cannot control everything using the TV remote.

 

On a side note, I also recently returned a Move because I couldn’t charge it with any of the myriad USB-C chargers I already had at home.  Why is Sonos overlooking such simple UX problems / requests?

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Seems very very very clear to anyone with a brain cell it's a feature buyers of Sonos products want . Not all buyers will have sofisticated set ups and this seems a reasonable request . Iam sure it's more useful to people than worrying about the sound in a speaker in another room where more often than not no one is in that room .

Utter disgrace Sonos have not implemented this simple feature but that's what you get when you deal with billion pound companies who take customer feedback with a pinch of salt . 

I came here with this exact problem hoping to find the answer and am leaving disappointed... For everyone upset about not wanting this to be a feature,  a simple checkbox that enables or disables this option for people that want it in the app would be enough to satisfy everyone.

Option: Control The volume of grouped speakers together (On/Off)... you don't want it, don't enable it. You do want it, then enable it. It's not a difficult ask come on Sonos.

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