Beam IR sensor stops working

You haven’t mentioned if you have tried setting up the remote again in ‘Settings/System/[Beam Room Name]/Remote Control Setup’ in the Sonos App? .. if you haven’t done that, I would perhaps give that a try - Also rather than rebooting the player, you can simply toggle off/on the IR sensor instead in the same room settings area.

Yeah thanks. I’ve tried all that. What leads me to believe it’s the IR sensor failing/jamming is that when I try to set up a new remote and it prompts you to press the volume up button it doesn’t recognise any remote, not just the one I was previously using. Toggling IR off then back on doesn’t do anything either. 

I had this when my beam was too close to my tv. I brought it forward a bit and then never had an issue. 

My TV and Beam are wall mounted so I can’t really alter it unless I lower it but that’s a last resort as I’ve just finished decorating 🤣

I had this when my beam was too close to my tv. I brought it forward a bit and then never had an issue. 

My TV and Beam are wall mounted so I can’t really alter it unless I lower it but that’s a last resort as I’ve just finished decorating 🤣

 

Ah right ok. Mine was parallel under my Panasonic and I think it was getting confused. 

If you have the TV remote working ‘sometimes’ and you do also have other Sonos products in your system, have you tried/considered a factory-reset of the Beam and setting it up again?

How is BEAM connected to the TV? It is possible that BEAM’s Volume is being controlled by communication over the HDMI ARC connection to the TV, not IR. This communication scheme is known as CEC (Consumer Electronic Control) and it can be a pain in the neck. If BEAM is using HDMI ARC, rather than rebooting BEAM, try briefly disconnecting the HDMI cable. Both the TV and the SKY box could be part of this drama.

With respect to IR difficulties, I don’t expect that rebooting BEAM would have any effect. Some TV’s may pollute the IR environment -- sometimes. You can experiment with using a piece of cardboard to cast a shadow on BEAM’s IR sensor. Also, sunlight and some high technology lamps can interfere with IR communications. This can be tricky to diagnose because your body position might cast a constructive shadow from time to time. And, time of day can be in the mix.

So when I’m watching TV and everything is working when I adjust the volume it states on screen “audio system volume +\-“ but the white Sonos light also flashes so it looks like it’s operating the TV volume as well as the IR sensor on the Beam. Today when it’s not working properly the Sky remote will work and adjust the TV volume on the Beam as it IS connected via HDMI ARC but won’t work when TV is off and streaming music. 
With regards to IR interference it is in a south facing room and it was very bright today….so my question is…once the IR sensor is overwhelmed/puzzled/stops working could it be due to a change in brightness/excess sun etc?? 
Maybe some clear tape over the IR sensor to limit any interference?? 

It works perfectly for a week or so and then just stops responding  I don’t have any other Sonos products but might consider a reset or maybe some tape over the IR sensor to limit interference 

If BEAM is using IR for Volume adjustments, BEAM will always respond to IR commands. If BEAM is using CEC, BEAM will respond to the SKY and TV remotes only while watching TV.

So if I disable HDMI control might this help?? I do have a HDMI adapter that disables CEC too. 

The real test to do here, is if things work when the TV is off and in standby mode. Play some music to your Beam with the TV off and adjust the music volume with the TV remote - if it doesn’t work then you know the control of volume was ‘highly likely’ via HDMI-CEC and not the Beam’s IR Receiver.

Are you absolutely sure the TV remote is infrared and not a wireless RF remote? - it will almost always work over HDMI-CEC with the TV on, that’s providing that a TV peripheral, connected to another HDMI port, is not stealing the focus away from the Beam. Which I think might be happening in your case and you’re maybe looking at things from the wrong angle. (Perhaps🤔?)

If the TV remote has mic/voice control for any kind of voice assistant (just as an example) then it’s unlikely to be connected over IR to the TV.

So with TV off the Sky remote (which is Bluetooth and IR enabled) works to control volume on the Beam when streaming music. Now it’s all working I went back into remote control setup on the all and this time it will recognise the remote if I set it up as a new remote control. When is stops working it just doesn’t receive the IR from any remote and it won’t let me set up any kind of remote. It’s simply the IR sensor stops working until I power cycle 

Yes, disabling CEC is often very helpful. Another trick is to claim to the TV and SKY remotes that they are controlling the Volume on a fictional A/V receiver, then train BEAM to use those IR commands. This will prevent the TV’s own Volume control from responding to Volume commands. This will downgrade BEAM’s utility slightly, but most users will not notice. Unfortunately, some TV’s will not present advanced audio formats when their CEC is disabled.

You might have lost me a bit there. I have a CEC-less HDMI adapter so I might try that tomorrow. 

@Mark Huddleston 

I also have an alternative suggestion you can also perhaps consider trying, but this is only if you wish to leave HDMI-CEC enabled…

Note: Always try to setup the sky remote on Sonos with the TV switched off/in Standby-mode - you could, I think, leave the HDMI-CEC protocol in situ on all devices and setup the sky remote to control a ‘fictitious TV’ not the actual make/model of TV that you have.

The TV volume/mute should still work anyway (hopefully) via the sky-box HDMI-CEC connection to the TV… and then see if that new IR code perhaps works any better for you? 

Just give the sky remote an entirely different TV IR code. Oh and of course reprogram the Beam with any newly-assigned IR code too. 

If it proves to be no better than before, then just revert the remote back to what you have now.

Then if the IR control still continues to fail, (always check this whilst the TV is off/in standby mode) the next option will likely be to submit two system diagnostics, one with, and one without, the IR working on the Beam and make a note of the Sonos submission reference numbers and then contact/chat to Sonos Customer Support about the issue via this LINK. 

Thanks for that but I use the Sky remote to power off the Sky mini box and the TV so I need to assign the remote to Sony TV with the correct code. If I assign it to another random branded TV I won’t be able to do this. 

So I connected the CEC less adapter this morning. Now when I turn TV on it doesn’t send any signal to the beam and will not override any music streaming so that’s no good. 
So I went into Sky remote control menu and looked at the option to control a sound system. Set this up and now it seems when I adjust the volume watching TV with Sky remote it is using Beams IR sensor and not HDMI as I do not get any volume slider on the TV screen. Not sure how this is going to perform as it is relying more on IR but I’ll give it a try. 
 

UPDATE ** The Beam is clearly unhappy with me messing around and has now stopped responding again. Toggling IR on and off and setting up remote in Sonos app does nothing. 

Why are you mixing ir and CEC control (which to me seems to be the cause of your problems)? Why not rely on CEC?

CEC is great for watching TV but the Beam was bought for a kitchen for music steaming when TV isn’t turned on. It’s just much easier to have the Sky remote handy on the bench for volume adjustments instead of having to access your phone to adjust volume. 
 

So you use the remote especially to turn the volume down when not watching TV but when you are enjoying music from Sonos sources?Would voice commands not work for this?

Yeah I do use Alexa quite a bit for starting streaming (mainly playing radio stations) and voice recognition and speed of response is great however volume increments are a little clunky. I said the other day “Alexa volume up” and it jumped pretty much to full volume. I nearly 💩. Plus I’m trying to keep things easy for the missus and the kids with one control. 

Admittedly, I use both CEC and IR too, as I like to use the TV remote aswell to adjust the speaker volume when playing music, but also use Alexa aswell. I have several remotes programmed with the same IR code and they are just handy to pickup and use. 
 

I tried a different (Sony TV) IR code on one of my cable box ‘remotes’ this morning and in my case despite it not being the correct code for my OLED LG TV, it still works in my case and it even powers the TV off/on and adjusts the volume - so that still maybe worth a try here, I think. It’s just that HDMI-CEC needs to be on, on all devices including the connected Sky Box to control the TV… Nothing ventured, nothing gained, as they say.

@Mark Huddleston Alexa is a computer. The command “Volume up” let’s the computer make the choice by how much. “Volume up by 20%” or “Volume to 20%” let’s you make the choice….