How to default TV playback to Arc Ultra & music playback to all speakers?

I think the ‘ungroup on Auto-Play ‘ in the room settings for the Arc Ultra will remove the unwanted speakers when the TV starts playback. But I don’t think there’s a similar setup when they go from TV to music. It’s not something I do frequently (or at all, my Arcs are for TV playback, I have other Sonos speakers I use for music). 

You’ll also need to set TV Autoplay in settings for that room (keep scrolling down until you reach it). 

There is no default setting so that music will start playing on every device. Your friends would have to group the speakers for music playback every time after solely playing TV audio on Arc Ultra/Sub.

The quickest way to do this without using the app is enabling Sonos Voice Control, then just staying “Hey Sonos, group everywhere”.

As already mentioned, TV Autoplay and Ungroup on Autoplay settings will meet the criteria for only the Arc Ultra/Sub playing TV audio. Switching to TV audio can also be achieved with voice commands.

Hi all,

Thanks for your thoughtful replies.  At least half of the functionality I was hoping for is possible with the TV Autoplay and Ungroup on Autoplay settings.  As for the other half of the functionality—automatically grouping the soundbar/sub with the other speakers when listening to music—it looks like Sonos users have been hoping for that feature for some time now.  I found this thread from 7 years ago:  

It seems like part of the appeal of the Sonos ecosystem is the interoperability between devices, which is what Apple has done so well over the years. The whole point of getting the Arc Ultra/Sub 4 was because my friends already had Sonos speakers, so it seemed like this would be an easy way to extend the music listening experience to their TV room via the soundbar/sub, while also having dedicated speakers for watching TV. If we had known this wouldn’t be the case, then they could have paid about half as much for the same quality speakers for the Samsung Q990F or equivalent.  I hope after 7+ years, Sonos will finally implement a way to automatically add the soundbar/sub to the other group of speakers when listening to music.   

thanks,
Ben

You could create and save a named group comprised of the rooms you want, and then play the music to that “group”. 

Thanks, I’ll give that a try.  I’ll be visiting my friends in a couple of weeks, so I’ll give all of your tips and tricks a try then.