I've used the Sonos Playbar with a multitude of TVs and have found a few nuances that would greatly improve the Sonos Playbar experience.
Support more than one remote
All households have 3 or more remotes, and sometimes even more – It is so annoying to have to switch between the remote you are using to control your media, and then use another remote to control volume – It'd be great if regardless of what remote you were using, you could control the Playbar volume
Support RF (Radio Frequency), not just IR (Infrared) signals
Many remotes for Smart TVs including Samsung, the worlds largest Smart TV manufacturer, only support RF signals with their remotes – Users have to find weird hacks to make the $700 playbar work with the TVs.
Show a volume indicator to the TV
For many TVs, once Sonos is connected, do not show the volume level as it goes up or down – it is so annoying to have to guess what level of loudness the Playbar is when you do not use the app.
Improvements For Sonos Playbar
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Just a note, the 2nd two features wouldn't be possible with the existing playbar as they require hardware that doesn't exist. Clearly, you have to have a RF reader on the playbar to read RF signals. And displaying volume on the tv only works if the speaker/receiver is connected to the tv through HDMI arc.
On the first one, I've never understood why thee was a limit to just one remote. Although honestly, I would guess most customers are using a good universal remote, and therefore don't need to be able to program more than one remote. Personally about 50% of my viewing is on cable, and the cable remote controls sonos volume. About 45% is with firetv which has no volume button on the remote. The other 5% or less is when I pull out an old bluray, and that's so rare I don't really care about having it be on a universal.
On the first one, I've never understood why thee was a limit to just one remote. Although honestly, I would guess most customers are using a good universal remote, and therefore don't need to be able to program more than one remote. Personally about 50% of my viewing is on cable, and the cable remote controls sonos volume. About 45% is with firetv which has no volume button on the remote. The other 5% or less is when I pull out an old bluray, and that's so rare I don't really care about having it be on a universal.
This is for the PLAYBAR going forward – I realize the need for an RF reader. How about an adapter, lol? As for Displaying Volume, LG TVs (WebOS2.0) support this with the TV's native volume indicator when using the optical input. Further, there is not an HDMI port on the PLAYBAR, at least on my model.
I've been working in the living room/home space as a User Experience designer for the last five years for Google, and most research indicates users generally do not have harmony-type remotes. Regardless, for $700, Sonos should be aware that its common for users to have more than one remote, and that supporting multiple seems like matter of programming the receiver to handle multiple remotes.
This is for the PLAYBAR going forward – I realize the need for an RF reader. How about an adapter, lol?
Out of curiosity, I did a quick search and didn't see any device like that. There are a lot of ir extenders, and universal/hub like devices that can do ir and rf, but not really a rf to ir converter.
As for Displaying Volume, LG TVs (WebOS2.0) support this with the TV's native volume indicator when using the optical input. Further, there is not an HDMI port on the PLAYBAR, at least on my model.
I wasn't aware that optical could send any signals back to the tv. It would have to do that otherwise, the tv couldn't accurately display the volume, since Sonos volume can be controlled through other means.
And yes, lack of hdmi on the playbar was my point in saying that it lacks the proper hardware.
I've been working in the living room/home space as a User Experience designer for the last five years for Google, and most research indicates users generally do not have harmony-type remotes. Regardless, for $700, Sonos should be aware that its common for users to have more than one remote, and that supporting multiple seems like matter of programming the receiver to handle multiple remotes.
If by harmony-type remotes, you mean universal remotes, then that means the user would have multiple remotes in use, specialized for specific device (tv, cable, blue-ray, streamer, etc). And if that is the case, the user is picking up different devices to do different things. Why would volume control of Sonos need to be on all these remotes instead of just one (like it is for all the other tv related remote functions). I can see where if a user wants to keep 3 or 4 universal remotes handy, that it would make sense for Sonos volume control to be on all of them. That's the scenario I thought you were referring to.
Actually Samsung smart tv's have Bluetooth remotes not radio frequency
The best way to fix this is for Sonos to include its own remote with the playbar, like every other soundbar on the market
The best way to fix this is for Sonos to include its own remote with the playbar, like every other soundbar on the market
Yes, but I don't think there is any expectation that Bluetooth remotes can act as universal remotes, since the vast majority of devices use IR or RF.
The best way to fix this is for Sonos to include its own remote with the playbar, like every other soundbar on the market
I'm not sure what that fixes.
Regardless of it being Bluetooth or RF or IR, a $700 piece of equipment should be able to support. Many devices under $100 can support all three of these.
I'm actually stating this is the wrong approach. Why do users need to have yet another remote on their table? I mean do you really want another remote to worry about being lost in the couch, devoured by your dog, or thrown in the fireplace by your toddler.
The problem that needs to be solved is allowing whatever remote you are using, whether its for your Apple TV, Roku, Cable Box, Smart TV, etc... that it will also control the PLAYBAR volume – why should a user continually have to pick up another remote to change the volume?
Sonos has the technology...
The problem that needs to be solved is allowing whatever remote you are using, whether its for your Apple TV, Roku, Cable Box, Smart TV, etc... that it will also control the PLAYBAR volume – why should a user continually have to pick up another remote to change the volume?
Sonos has the technology...
Playing a little devil's advocate here, wouldn't the same logic apply for the remotes of your other devices? Instead of having a separate apple tv remote wouldn't you want your apple tv functions to be mapped to a different remote so you don't have to have a separate apple tv remote? Perhaps that's not fair, since Sonos is essentially just volume control as far as remote goes. Other remotes are going to have functional buttons that are not universal in nature, such as voice control for example.
(fyi, work is kind of boring today...)
The problem that needs to be solved is allowing whatever remote you are using, whether its for your Apple TV, Roku, Cable Box, Smart TV, etc... that it will also control the PLAYBAR volume – why should a user continually have to pick up another remote to change the volume?
Sonos has the technology...
Playing a little devil's advocate here, wouldn't the same logic apply for the remotes of your other devices? Instead of having a separate apple tv remote wouldn't you want your apple tv functions to be mapped to a different remote so you don't have to have a separate apple tv remote? Perhaps that's not fair, since Sonos is essentially just volume control as far as remote goes. Other remotes are going to have functional buttons that are not universal in nature, such as voice control for example.
(fyi, work is kind of boring today...)
Haha, I wish that were the case. I think an analogous example to yours is with the Apple lightening charger and Android's USB3 charger – fights have broken out over the fact these two things achieve the same goal, but don't work together.
As for TV remotes, Sonos is at the merci of hundreds of different TV manufactures and their consumers, and the vector of intersection is at the functionality of controlling the TVs volume. Sonos should be aware and accommodate the TV consumers purchase versus the playbar working great on one TV (my LG), and OK on another (my Samsung) – If nothing else it should display functional UI that is as good as the TV, if not better.
The Sonos speaker system, although superior in a lot of respects, could really be a perfect consumer experience by rounding/improving some of the pre-existing expectations all home theater/speaker systems support.
Be the better tech, nah'mean.
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