From Sonos reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/sonos/comments/h7z9gv/hd_fury_is_working_on_an_earc_solution_for_sonos/
HD Fury is working on an eARC solution for Sonos Arc - Full Audio & Atmos from any HDMI sources
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I’m assuming the ‘stretch’ goal will be a firmware update in the future, and not a hardware change.
That’s what they have said. Looking at the ‘download’ tab on some of there other products, They do provide frequent updates.
There’s now a dedicated thread on the AVS forum for this potential new product.
https://www.avsforum.com/forum/195-soundbars/3153792-hdfury-sonos-arc-earcadapter.html
The preorder count is now at 761.
The preorder count is now at 761.
Make that 766
The preorder count is now at 761.
Make that 766
Could make it to 800 my Monday?
Userlevel 7
Hdfury is going to make announcement soon on discord just need to press the 
on one of his post should be in the next 15 mins.
Only five more clicks on to go before the big announcement for Sonos Arc owners! Surely there are five people on this community forum that can help!
https://discordapp.com/channels/314050739771146241/724421828701061161/736726289402036276
The announcement was that the stretch goal functionality has been implemented.
– Ability to forward CEC volume control from source to SONOS Arc
– Ability to forward CEC volume control from TV to SONOS Arc
– Ability to retrieve ARC from TV ARC input and forward it to SONOS Arc
Video below is a demo of these features in action.
I asked the following additional questions:
1 - Do CEC power on/off commands from source to TV get passed through? 2 - Do CEC power on/off commands from Arc to TV work? (Done via Arc voice control) 3 - Do CEC switch input commands from Arc to TV work? (Done via Arc voice control)
Awaiting answer.
And the count is 787. All that means now is the price jumps to $165.
They’re up to 795 pre-orders which, as
So… now just begins the waiting game to receive it. They said that they’ll announce a shipping update by mid-August. I’m hoping that they’ll be announcing shipping units at that point given how quickly they’ve been moving.
Fun times!
I signed up to Discord today but can’t find out how I actually get invited to their server. Keen to show how desperate I am for this.
As a projector owner I’m really relieved on cost. I don’t need access to TV apps’ audio and I was expecting any HDFury device to come in much more expensive.
If I had a non eARC TV I’d be looking at all of them is complexity, plus any other benefits of a new TV, and thinking that $400 might be better spent on a TV upgrade. But given the huge appeal of an all-Sonos household and the fact that projectors and ARC aren’t regularly partners, I feel we’ve really lucked out getting this support so soon. Well done to everyone who asked!
Discord is rather confusing, for me anyway. Once you have your account setup, you’ll need to enter the ‘server’ you have an invite too. You should be able to paste the discord URL back on page one when they ask for the server, and that will get you in. But as stated, it’s not necessary to preorder, it only allows you too see some discussion and get your name on the mailing list.
You’re right that the total cost of getting this to work is definitely something to consider, but if you have a larger TV, $400 is much cheaper than a replacement TV, especially if your current TV isn’t old. Even then, you’ll have the ability to use this device and setup in other rooms when you do upgrade your TV or projector to eARC.
I noticed the device below is often talked about in Discord or the AVS forums. It seems like a good way to get the Arc connect out of your TV, that you can then feed to a switch or matrix to feed the dongle (and TV for other sources) to the Arc, if TV apps are important to you. That may ultimately be cheaper than the HDFury equipment, but not as elegant.
Not much in terms of new information to talk about regarding Arcana. The current pre-order sales count is at 980, which means the price will jump from $165 to $175 when it reaches 1000 orders.
And although I don’t really have the best grasp of video processing, it looks like some of the features of Arcana can help improve picture quality as well. Some of that is modifying the signal, and some of it seems to be more about properly communicating video capabilities between source and display.
- Price is now $165.
So HD Fury is now saying the following.
Shipping of the first 1000 pre-ordered units is expected before October 1, 2020.
Shipping of pre-ordered units above 1000 is expected before November 1, 2020.
This section will be updated on a daily basis to keep you informed on the delivery date and the total number of pre-orders:
The pre-ordered unit count is now at 837, so there is now another reason, besides price, to consider ordering now rather than waiting. I had assumed that sometime in October/November, or at least before Christmas, that the device would be shipped out to resellers in fairly large quantities, and would be available on Amazon like other HD Fury products. Not so sure on that.
Pre-order count broke 1000, so price is now $175. Price won’t change again till 1500, or pre-order ends. No official date for when preorder ends, other than ‘before October 1st’. From what I’ve seen from watching HDFury, then much prefer to under promise and over deliver, so I imagine it will be a couple weeks sooner than that.
Should have mentioned this earlier, but they are only doing a 1000 devices in the first order batch, so purchases after this point will ship ‘before November 1st’. They have also said that Arcana should start showing up in online retailers, like Amazon, November 1st, but that will be at the after pre-order price of $199.
This makes a lot of sense to me, and if you need more than one device to input to the dongle, a simple switch will work, without requiring an actual matrix device.
I preordered too! Thanks
This makes a lot of sense to me, and if you need more than one device to input to the dongle, a simple switch will work, without requiring an actual matrix device.
This is true and I think it’s a better product overall. I am little surprised by the move though as the added feature somewhat eliminates the need for, or better stated as ‘fit with’, HDFury’s other matrix/switching products....
I suppose though that it reduces the chance that a customers disappointed with the product, if they did not get a proper switch/splitter/matrix to god with the Arcana.
This is probably the key. They realized that they could make the product more user friendly, easier to understand, and, importantly, something that worked out of the box as a stand-alone product if you only had one device to hook up. Which might describe a bunch of people (99% of my viewing is done via Apple TV, so while I’ll probably still get an HDMI switch for the extra functionality, there are plenty of others who may not). All for very little additional cost.
Plus, it’s obvious they’d been getting a lot of push-back on the Discord channel about the total cost of potentially having to Pair Arcana with Diva/Maestro/Vertex2. While those may be wonderful products, they’re not cheap by any means.
Also, there is no doubt that the device will need an external power source, since HDMI splitting requires additional power. I imagine it with be USB powered so it can connect to the back of a most TVs
I believe they’ve said there’s a USB-C port on it to provide power. I doubt they’ll include a power supply in the box for the cost they’re going for, but HDFury has been pleasantly surprising me throughout all of this so who knows.
It would be nice if by the time they are delivered they have got it to the point where you just plug it between the TV and the ARC without the need for a switcher.
Not sure I understand what you mean here. Arcana has one HDMI input for sources. If you need more to pass more than one source through Arcana to send audio to the Arc, then you will need an HDMI switch. If you only have one source, then you do not need a switch.
If valid, that’s great news. The two questions I have are when, and how much...which I assume everyone else is curious about, too. Thanks for the link.
Note: that post is not from Sonos.
I feel you, but at the same time I’m kind of looking forward to Arcana being the simplest possible solution to do what I want it to do - give me a way to get Atmos from my external devices to my Sonos Arc. I have no doubt that HDFury could (and probably will, down the road), throw the kitchen sink at this problem and come up with a solution that does everything anyone could possibly want. But I also have no doubt that that will take a lot longer and cost a whole lot more and will be a lot more complicated.
I can agree with this, and don’t really know how complicate it would be. As I’ve said before adding more features to Arcana is taking away potential sales from other items. As far as the kitchen sink goes, not 100% sure how big the market is for this, and they already pretty much cover everything with a combo of vertex2 and arcana. I would not be surprised to see a vertex 3 have an eARC port added though.
At this point, I’m going to count it as a minor miracle if they actually get Arcana into consumers’ hands by September/October considering that we’ve had our Arcs for a grand total of about 2 weeks now. I’m sure there will be other options that will open up other functionality but if I can just get Atmos from my source to the Arc, I'll, personally, be happy.
This is the first I’m really seeing a product grow from original inception/need to actual product, so it’s interesting to see how all this develops.
(I, personally, will be VERY happy indeed considering that I don’t care a thing in the world about built-in TV apps or CEC control since I never use the apps and control everything with a Harmony Hub - but I may be in the minority).
I do use TV apps right now, and firetv. I tend to use the TV apps because I like the interface better, but also will share content across 2 TVs at times, which i can’t do with TV apps. So it may be for the better. And I don’t have a harmony remote, and all these changes are driving me in the direction of needing/wanting one.
And just think, this all could have been avoided if Sonos had just stuck one more damn HDMI port on the freaking Arc…. ;-)
I understand why it was not included, and would have been shocked given Sonos history if it had, but I would have liked to see it included.
Hrm….. that’s an interesting thought,
With “super powers” I knew that Arcana could now send audio from the built-in tuner / built-in apps back through Arcana to the Arc, but hadn’t thought about adding additional HDMI devices directly to the TV to then send audio the Arc via the TV’s HDMI-ARC port.
I guess it depends on whether the tv (or HDMI-ARC) would support that. I mean, by default that’s how HDMI-ARC works, so… it should? Maybe? Possibly?
Will be interesting to see what HDFury has to say about it.
EDIT: Actually, I see their response now on Discord. Looks like this WILL work. Not my use case scenario, but a major plus for flexibility and functionality for those that do!
So,
Edit - Turns out it was the new HDMI cable I bought which claimed to be Arc compatible. I switched the set up in the room so I use the Sonos provided cable to run into the arc and this made the difference. The Arcana does indeed work. Need to test some modern films now for atmos effect...
Speaking of watching this develop in real-time
HDfuryToday at 12:38 PM
@Michiel For the moment consider you will have to use IR learning, we are checking if we can handle cec forwarding and clear that as well. CEC TV > ARCANA > sources will work, CEC TV > ARCANA > SONOS ARC, not sure yet, but we have a few ideas to try before concluding.
So, it sounds like they’re trying to figure out CEC control as part of Arcana. Gotta love these guys!
That’s a nice feature. CEC control of features will be nice, as I do find it convenient to have a source turn off the TV (xbox). If using a switch would want to make sure that gets past through. CEC control of the ARC...eh. The problem with CEC control between Arc and TV (assuming same experience between Beam and TV) is that many commands TVs just ignore, or only follow if the command is coming from current HDMI input (which for the Beam and Arc, without Arcana, is never) So you usually can’t usually use the Beam/Arc to turn TV on/off or switch inputs. You can control volume of the Beam/Arc though, which you can already do via IR commands...which is actually better since the TV doesn’t need to be on for IR to work, while CEC needs the TV on.
If they do manage to have CEC between TV and Arc via Arcana, makes me think that TV Arc support isn’t too far behind.
If valid, that’s great news. The two questions I have are when, and how much...which I assume everyone else is curious about, too. Thanks for the link.
Note: that post is not from Sonos.
Thanks for the correction.
Dave
You’re old enough to know that phrase… cottoned on, as in understood? I suspect it’s probably a corruption of ‘caught on’, but who knows. I suppose I could look it up, or contact the folks at ‘A way with words’.
My issues are my damn TV from Vizio. I have been told, and confirmed by experimentation, that it will not pass anything beyond DD when the input is an HDMI port. Since I choose not to use the internal apps which report watching habits back to Vizio, that leaves me with the two, and possibly three inputs I want to run through the Arcana device. And this is a 2019 Vizio model. Had I but known that a Sonos was going to go eARC, that might have been something I’d paid more attention to.
That being said, this isn’t Sonos’ fault. I made my bed, I need to lie in it. Which means I’ve preordered the Arcana, and will shop for a switch as soon as the Arcana ships. I’m interested in hearing what Atmos does for me, but I’m also aware of how limited the amount of Atmos encoded stuff there is out there. Trying to be realistic about the whole thing. Not expecting that suddenly everything I watch on DirecTV will be Atmos encoded, even F1 and Baseball/Football.
Edit:
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/cotton-on
I have a bestbuy tv from 2016 and have a Comcast cable box and then there are apps available from Comcast would Atmos be available if I got the arcana in this situation
As long as your Comcast box actually supports Atmos from streaming apps (which it looks like the Xfinity X1 does), then Arcana should be just the ticket to get Atmos to your Sonos Arc as it totally bypasses your TV.
and also have they said if it comes with HDMI cables required between devices?
For the estimated $122 pre-order price of Arcana, I highly doubt it will come with HDMI cables. But I’m just speculating.
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