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kishlette
Trending Lyricist I
May 31, 2018 9:07 AM UTC

Spare Apple TV 4K remote only increases Playbar volume

I have a spare Apple TV 4K remote control (not paired to any device at the moment) and I thought I'd use it to control my Sonos Playbar. I want to use the volume up and down buttons as you'd expect and the menu button as the mute.

I go into the controller, into preferences and enter remote control setup as you normally would. I go through the set up; it asks me to hit the volume up button and it successfully recognises the remote, then it asks me to hit the volume up button three times, the volume down button three times and the mute button three times. Everything goes as you'd expect (I've set up other remotes before and nothing seems unusual) but, after I exit the set up and try to use the remote, every button on the remote only increases the volume. No decreasing, no muting - just increasing.

I've tried going through the setup five times now - both with the TV on and the TV off. Every time it seems to go through the setup process just fine but I end up only being able to increase the volume.

I've seen other posts on the same issue (different remotes) but no actual solutions... Super frustrating! Does anyone know a fix for this?

Thanks in advance for your help!
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4 replies

MikeV
MikeV
May 31, 2018 5:09 PM UTC
Since the 4th gen and 4K Apple TV remote communicates with the Apple TV through Bluetooth, it likely needs to be paired to an Apple TV, then through the Apple TV it can be configured to control Sonos for volume control and you won't even need to go through the TV remote setup in the Sonos controller.
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    rawpoly
    Contributor I
    May 31, 2018 9:38 PM UTC
    So there is some additional steps in setting up the apple tv remote for sonos:
    https://support.sonos.com/s/article/3403?language=en_US

    This worked for me.
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    kishletteAuthor
    Trending Lyricist I
    Jun 1, 2018 3:04 AM UTC
    @MikeV I think the ATV4K remote is IR as well (the previous ones weren't). The issue with having the Apple TV control the Sonos is that you have no mute button. If I pair the spare remote directly, I can configure one of the buttons to mute. Sorry - that, I should have added in my original post
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    kishletteAuthor
    Trending Lyricist I
    Jun 1, 2018 5:24 AM UTC
    I think I should clarify my intent here because I'm not sure I explained it fully in my original post.

    For background, at the moment I use the remote that came with my ATV4K to control it - let's call that one Remote #1. I use my bulky TV's remote control (it's an LG 55EF950T OLED) for the volume on the Playbar - that's all that remote does now since the ATV4K turns my TV on and off. The reason I don't use Remote #1 to control both the ATV4K box and the Playbar volume is because the ATV4K remotes don't have a mute button.

    Separately, I have a spare ATV4K remote that is not paired to any device - let's call it Remote #2. I would like to use Remote #2 in place of my bulky TV remote to control the volume on the Playbar. On Remote #2 I want to use the volume up and down buttons as you'd expect and the menu button as the mute.

    So, at the end, the intention is still to have two remotes - but both will be ATV4K remotes with Remote #1 for the ATV4K box itself and Remote #2 for the Playbar volume.

    The problem that I described in my original post is about trying to get Remote #2 to be my volume controller.

    I hope that makes sense. Apologies for not being clearer in my original question - I should have fully explained the idea of having two ATV4K remotes.
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