Feature Request: Beam swap left/right channel

Hi there, ninjaguy. Thanks for taking the time to post your feature request and welcome to the Community. I am happy to pass this topic along to the team for consideration and visibility.

Thanks again!

I second this request!

Would love this feature too. Its too hard to get at the buttons if the Beam is mounted above the TV.

Is this even possible with a firmware update? Can’t believe Sonos wouldn’t think of this considering many people mount soundbar under the TV and they put a button on top.

I would think it would be. If the beam uses a digital signal processor of some kind which it almost certainly does. Then swapping the outputs over is definitely possible as the inputs and outputs are defined in the software that it runs. Probably not quite as simple as that due to some fancy filtering etc but in principle it should be doable

I second this request, too!

Definitely needed! The device is awesome, but currently not suitable for ceiling mount, which is a shame.

lockotron wrote:

Definitely needed! The device is awesome, but currently not suitable for ceiling mount, which is a shame.

Beam/Playbar/Playbase are not designed to be mounted to the ceiling.

Smilja wrote:

Beam/Playbar/Playbase are not designed to be mounted to the ceiling.

Well, yes, because you can't swap the left/right channels. Otherwise works perfectly fine with the Flexson mount.

lockotron wrote:

Smilja wrote:

Beam/Playbar/Playbase are not designed to be mounted to the ceiling.

Well, yes, because you can't swap the left/right channels. Otherwise works perfectly fine with the Flexson mount.

I'm curious. Yes, can see how the mount would allow placing these speakers on the ceiling, but why do you want to do this? And why does that necessitate the need for swaping left/right channels? Left and right orientation shouldn't change when placed on the ceiling versus on the wall. There shouldn't be a need to flip it upside down. Are we talking about an angled ceiling perhaps? But even then, that would mean that the microphone would be pointed away from the main listening area once flipped.

Sure, I'll explain a bit further. I have a setup with a projector and an electric screen that extends from the ceiling. You would normally combine such a setup with ceiling mounted speakers, if you don't have any shelves or other furniture directly underneath the screen (which I don't). Placing a speaker on the floor would be quite far away from the screen, which provides a bit of a funny effect when the voices are coming from a notably different direction than where the screen is. Also, a lonely soundbar on the floor arguably looks a bit weird.
If you want to put a Beam on the ceiling you almost have to flip it around for the controls to be visible and for the microphone not to point straight into the ceiling. Also, the Flexson mount only supports upside-down installation when mounted from the top. It's even advertised as a feature for installation "under-cabinet" or "higher up the wall" on the Sonos website, which is a bit strange given that you can't swap channels. In essence, if you install the beam under a cabinet as advertised, you need to live with your stereo channels being mixed up. The same for many projector setups, such as mine.
Hope this helps. My ceiling is not angled btw, it's a normal straight ceiling.

That makes sense. In my mind I was picturing the Beam facing downward, not angled down/out. Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about the mic and controls in that scenario. You obviously won't be able to reach the controls, and the mic is optional. You can now 'pair' the beam with an echo dot and get pretty much the same functionality. The biggest issue would be whether you can get the right angle.

is there a reason why you're not going with ceiling mounted speakers? You could get Sonos amp to accomplish pretty much the same thing, with improved sound (depending on the speakers you get).

With individual speakers you would normally go for a left/right/centre configuration, which the Amp doesn't support - I believe it only supports two speakers on it's output side.
I guess you could use an Amp merely as an input device and hang three individual Sonos speakers for left/right/centre off the ceiling, but then you'd be speaking a very different price tag.
I liked the idea of having a sleek stylish soundbar rather than a battery of speakers in the room, but I guess I have to evaluate alternatives.

lockotron wrote:

With individual speakers you would normally go for a left/right/centre configuration, which the Amp doesn't support - I believe it only supports two speakers on it's output side.

It has a phantom center channel.

lockotron wrote:

I guess you could use an Amp merely as an input device and hang three individual Sonos speakers for left/right/centre off the ceiling, but than you'd be speaking a very different price tag.

You actually cannot do that as it's not a supported configuration. You can only hang surround speakers and sub off of the Amp..or any of the other HT products (beam/playbar/playbase) from Sonos.

Keith N wrote Thanks for taking the time to post your feature request and welcome to the Community. I am happy to pass this topic along to the team for consideration and visibility.
Do we ever get to hear if this is likely to happen? It’s been 4 months and a couple of updates since the original post.

I also bought the sonos beam and mounted it with the Flexson mount above my television because in front or under it there is no space. Since the television is in front of me and the beam above it, I mounted the beam upside down in order for the sound to point downwards towards me and not upwards to the ceiling. I thought this 'feature' of swaping the left and right channel was for sure implemented since, firstly, the Flexson mount advertises an upside down mounting, and secondly, the word 'sonos' is the same when mirrored or turned around by 180 degrees. Thus I am really disappointed that this simple setting is not thought of by the engineers.

I would love to be able to reverse channels for this purpose as well!

Yes, this is a much needed feature on all sonos devices. Please implement this update

Keith N wrote:

Hi there, ninjaguy. Thanks for taking the time to post your feature request and welcome to the Community. I am happy to pass this topic along to the team for consideration and visibility.

Thanks again!

I second this request - the mounting holes underneath the Beam fits perfectly for mounting the speaker upside down underneath the shelf my tv is standing on. Unfortunately the left/right channels gets reversed which obviously doesn't match the rest of my surround-setup.

@Keith N Any chance of this feature making it into production? 🙂

I'll make sure to add your voice to the request, but I don't have any plans to let you in on if it'll happen some day. Thanks for asking!

I don’t believe what I read.... best way to mount beam it’s upside down under tv to get possibility to use buttons... and I realize that Sonos logo is genius because it the same upside down... but now I now that was a mistake to buy this speaker... I don’t believe that Sonos don’t support channel switching...

I'm also still waiting for Sonos supporting channel switching in Sonos Beam. Exactly like @lockotron wrote, it' s really strange that it is still quite hard to use Sonos setup with electric screen placed in the middle of a room. When I saw Flexson mount encouraging to mount Beam up-side-down my first thought was finally! Until I checked if channels are being swapped... and they not 😞.