Skip to main content
Avid Contributor III
April 23, 2024
Answered

connecting portable projector to home theatre

i have a silly question :)

i have a portable projector. Halo xgimi+ which has an aux port. Due to my room layout i can only place the portable projector close to my rear speakers which are era 100’s. 

So the question is, if connect the projector via aux cable to my era 100 via sonos cable (usb-c to aux) would that allow me to use the whole home theatre system?

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.
Corry P
Corry PAnswer
Sonos Staff
April 24, 2024

Hi @arslanelver 

Thanks for your post!

That is not going to work, I’m afraid - when speakers are assigned as surrounds, they lose the ability to accept line-in inputs as they basically become secondary to the home theatre primary device, which tells them what to do/play.

You would need to either add another speaker (with line-in) to your system, or remove the Era 100s you have set up as surrounds from your Beam’s room and have them operate independently (not that I recommend these solutions as line-in comes with a minimum of 75ms of delay that will mess with lip-sync).

A better option (depending on your room arrangement and equipment used) might be to purchase a third-party HDMI audio extractor - fit it between your source device (Blu-Ray player, Android box, Apple TV etc) and the projector, then connect your Beam to the output of the extractor via the optical adaptor that came with the Beam. This will avoid the input delays I mentioned above. I can’t recommend any particular devices, but a search for “HDMI audio extractor optical” should produce a good amount of choice.

If, on the other hand, you don’t intend to use an external source device with the projector, it’s product page says it supports eARC, so you could connect your Beam directly to it (Beam (Gen 2) supports eARC, but the original Beam does not - you may need to deactivate eARC mode on the projector). This is assuming the projector can be both close to the Beam and produce a sufficiently sized picture, of course. A long HDMI cable should work otherwise.

A Bluetooth audio link to a Sonos speaker should also be possible, but, again, that speaker cannot be configured as a surround sound speaker for this to work

I hope this helps.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein

3 replies

Corry P
Corry PAnswer
Sonos Staff
April 24, 2024

Hi @arslanelver 

Thanks for your post!

That is not going to work, I’m afraid - when speakers are assigned as surrounds, they lose the ability to accept line-in inputs as they basically become secondary to the home theatre primary device, which tells them what to do/play.

You would need to either add another speaker (with line-in) to your system, or remove the Era 100s you have set up as surrounds from your Beam’s room and have them operate independently (not that I recommend these solutions as line-in comes with a minimum of 75ms of delay that will mess with lip-sync).

A better option (depending on your room arrangement and equipment used) might be to purchase a third-party HDMI audio extractor - fit it between your source device (Blu-Ray player, Android box, Apple TV etc) and the projector, then connect your Beam to the output of the extractor via the optical adaptor that came with the Beam. This will avoid the input delays I mentioned above. I can’t recommend any particular devices, but a search for “HDMI audio extractor optical” should produce a good amount of choice.

If, on the other hand, you don’t intend to use an external source device with the projector, it’s product page says it supports eARC, so you could connect your Beam directly to it (Beam (Gen 2) supports eARC, but the original Beam does not - you may need to deactivate eARC mode on the projector). This is assuming the projector can be both close to the Beam and produce a sufficiently sized picture, of course. A long HDMI cable should work otherwise.

A Bluetooth audio link to a Sonos speaker should also be possible, but, again, that speaker cannot be configured as a surround sound speaker for this to work

I hope this helps.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
Corry P
Sonos Staff
April 24, 2024

There are some interesting design choices on that projector: 😏

 

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
Avid Contributor III
April 26, 2024

sorry i was away for the last few days! thanks for your reply :)