home theatre advice needed

I really appreciate all of you. You have been most helpful. Does anyone know if the era (or any other) would auto connect to the tv when turned on?

I can’t test this right now as storms are rolling through the area.  So the TV Room is unplugged.  As I recall, though, I was able to use SVC in the kitchen speakers to group with the TV Room.  The request was “Hey Sonos.  Group with TV Room”.  May also work to un-group.  I’ll test it when we finally get rid of tho front stuck over us.

Only a speaker connected via HDMI which are Sonos soundbars will auto connect to a TV as officially promoted by Sonos. 

A Sonos bluetooth (BT) enabled speaker might auto connect if both the TV and Sonos speaker remain in BT mode. That’s a very BIG maybe. 

I must say that’s an odd request. Can you elaborate more as to why you’d need such functionality?

If the speaker is already grouped with the home theater room you have the option to choose via settings if it will stay grouped and be included by tv autostart or if all grouped rooms will be ungrouped from home theater room. 
If the room isn’t grouped already, you would have to group it manually to tv audio. 

Mainly because my wife does not use the app. I mean she would certainly be capable but she is also not good to keep her phone on her. So I feel like turning the speaker on then manually connecting it to the tv every morning would be something she would be less inclined to deal with if I am not home.

Did she try Sonos Voice Control to ask the kitchen speaker(s) to group with the TV Room?

You can group a speaker using the touch button on the speaker.

Sonos Voice Control can group the speaker (“Hey Sonos, group with the Living Room”) or if you long press on the unit’s Play button, it will group with a speaker/Room that is already playing.  Holding down the Play button will cycle through all playing rooms until you get to the one you wish to group with.

Just to give you another option, I have an open concept space for kitchen, living room as well.  Audio wasn’t really an issue as I could easily hear the TV from the kitchen area, but video was.  I found myself facing away from the TV and constantly turning my head to see what was happening.

My solution was to get an HDMI splitter and sending the same HDMI signal from my streaming box (Shield in my case) through the attic to the kitchen behind with a 20” monitor on the kitchen counter.  That way, I can look at either screen to see what’s going on.  I used a monitor as it automatically turns on with out and internal streaming box that all TVs come with these days.  If you want audio as well, you could get an hdmi extract to optical with a Sonos Ray, that should avoid having to group speakers and get the delay.

The Ray’s cost is comparable to the an Era 100, but there absolutely would be a cost for a small TV/monitor, HDMI splitter, optical extractor, HDMI cables….and that’s if you have the ability to wire it.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the wife doesn’t want counter space taken up by a TV either.  It’s an option though.

I plugged in the TV Room ( exact name of Sonos Room ).  Unfortunately SVC returned “Can’t find that room.  Check the name of the room in the Sonos app”.   Very disappointing.  The hold Play/Pause button does work.

Is there something wrong with naming a Room TV Room?