LG OLED42C34LA + Sonos Ray - anyone made these work together?

https://support.sonos.com/en-gb/article/unable-to-adjust-the-volume-using-the-lg-magic-remote

Thanks Ratty. Really appreciate your super-fast response.

On my LG OLED42C34LA if you go to Settings there’s no Device Connector option under Settings-General. There is an option for External Devices which I assume is the same thing under a different name. The options you then get are Connect Bluetooth Controller, HDMI Settings, Universal Control Settings, TV On With Mobile and Delete Connection History (ie no Connection Type option and no obvious way to get to a Component/AV choice). 

If I go to Universal Control Settings it gives me options to control the devices connected to the TV with the TV remote, but the Sonos Ray Soundbar isn’t listed there.

Back on the main Settings Menu under Sound-Sound Out there’s a Use Wired Speaker option, and one of the options under that is Optical Out Device. The TV says ‘Enjoy TV sound through audio devices conncted to the Optical Digital Audio Out. Ajust the volume of audio device with the remote control. If it does not work, check if the audio device supports the LG Sound Sync feature.’

When LG Sound Sync is on, the volume bar on the TV screen moves up and down but the volume doesn’t actually change. When it is off, I get the microphone icon with the bar across it if I press the volume button on the remote.

And I can’t find that SIMPLINK feature anywhere.

This is what I mean about the guidance on that page maybe being out of date or not appropriate for this model of TV?

Under "universal control" settings IIRC, you just simply add Sonos Bluetooth/Sound Bar to the optical port - you have to search for the manufacturer to add it to the TV. Magic Rremote is working fine here with the Sonos Ray. See screenshot from my LG TV (a different model), but I understand all their models work in a ‘similar’ way.

Note too you don’t necessarily need Simplink, as that’s for enabling CEC on the TV, which is irrelevant for the optical port connection, although you may perhaps use the CEC protocol for other connected peripherals over HDMI.

Thanks Ken, that’s working now! You have saved Christmas!!!!

For reference, all you’re doing is getting the TV to configure the remote (via Bluetooth) to emit infra-red codes that the Sonos unit can then learn. To be honest, the remote could emit TV volume codes for anything (other than LG) and the Sonos should be able to recognise it.

Ah glad to hear you got it working. Merry Christmas.

Unfortunately it stopped working shortly after my ‘Christmas is saved’ post. I have no idea why - I followed the instructions, got the TV to search for the Sonos soundbar, and it worked fine until the TV went to sleep. When I woke it up again we were back where we were - the volume symbol on the screen moves when the remote is operating but the sound coming out of the soundbar doesn’t actually change. 
Any point me trying to connect via HDMI instead?

I’ve set up the Magic Remote Control through the Sonos app and I’ve added the Sonos Ray soundbar  through Universal Control as the optical device output. The TV audio is coming out of the soundbar, the volume up/down bar and mute symbol appear on the TV screen when I press them on the remote control, but the soundbar volume doesn’t change.

I’m so embarrassed! The sensor on the front of the Ray was blocked. It wasn’t the TV going to sleep that made the remote stop working, it was someone pushing the Ray further back on the shelf without me noticing that was the problem. Thanks everyone for all your help!

Actually I spoke too soon (again). The soundbar has dropped off once more as soon as the TV went to sleep. This time no amount of moving it makes a difference. All the software is set up and the front sensor is clear, it just doesn’t respond. Any ideas?

I am having the same issue with LG OLED 65” smart TV. Setting up remote through universal control and volume controls look like they are working but no actual change in volume. Can’t get anywhere with the LG help articles or Sonos. Thought this would be way more straightforward. 

Did you search/select ‘Sonos’ as the Soundbar manufacturer in the universal control settings on the TV?

We took ours back to the store. The link between the TV and the soundbar kept dropping off, even though all the settings were exactly as they should be and the Magic Remote controlled the sound bar for an hour or two at a time. Seems like every time the TV went to sleep, the connection would drop off. We replaced it with an LG soundbar and that has worked perfectly with the TV from the moment we installed it.

We have a similar issue with our Sonos One - it stops being responsive to voice commands constantly. We have reconfigured every wi-fi enabled device in our house multiple times, split the router signal and unsplit it again, done more factory resets than I can count and it still happens.

That sounds rather like a compatibility issue - just curious, but what router are/were you using with your Sonos setup? Do you have any WiFi access points/extenders besides the main router?

Hi Ken, we are with Zen Internet using a Fritzbox router and daisychained repeaters. The broadband is split into 5G and 3G signals but the Sonos products can only ever identify the 3G wavelength (if that’s the right term). Sonos thought the problem with the Sonos One might be too many devices in the neighbourhood or too many devices in our home using similar connection slots (or something like that). But nothing we tried has stuck.

I have seen some minor issues reported with the Fritzbox devices here in the community before, but my own thoughts are it might have been the WiFi repeaters in this instance (perhaps?)

Sonos uses SSDP (the UPnP simple service discovery protocol) to initially discover the Sonos players, which is done via multicasting via UDP to 239.255.255.250:1900 and, for good measure, broadcasting to 255.255.255.255:1900. Then unicast is used. Unicast is just a one-to-one transmission from one point in the network to another point; that is, one sender and one receiver, each identified by a network address. Unicast is somewhat in contrast to multicast and broadcast, which are one-to-many transmissions.. and it’s those that may sometimes present issues with networks that have wireless extenders/repeaters.

Both the Sonos players and controllers must share the same network subnet. However if the Sonos devices are connecting to multiple access points, the recommendations (from myself) are that they ideally be set to the same WiFi channel and channel-width. This is for optimum performance particularly in groups and for some reason, some (not all) multi-access-point WiFi systems, it appears some do work fine with Sonos, but others may not, particularly if the satellites/AP’s are perhaps auto-selecting their own WiFi channels. Some extenders can even mangle the MAC addresses of their connected devices.

Another workaround that may help with communication issues is to use wired SonosNet mode with one Sonos product (not a HT surround or Sub) wired direct to the router to setup an ‘exclusive’ wireless network just for Sonos products only - the downside to that though is the controller devices and more recent Sonos products like Roam/Move/Era 100/300 do not use SonosNet.

Anyhow I’m left wondering if you did ever try your setup with Sonos devices blacklisted on your WiFi repeaters, or even try it with the repeaters switched off (just temporarily)?  My thoughts are that might have perhaps fixed things for you? I guess that the Horse has bolted now anyway, but if you didn’t try those things, perhaps the post here, might at least go onto assist another visitor to this thread, who can see if switching off their WiFi repeaters may work for them, or better still, blacklisting their Sonos devices, on their other wireless repeating access points etc; so that everything Sonos, just uses the 2.4Ghz (and 5Ghz) WiFi signals from the main router. 

In my own case I use a WiFi mesh setup, as those work like one network signal only, rather than repeating/extending a WiFi network.

Extender vs Mesh setup:

https://uk.pcmag.com/how-to/117310/wi-fi-range-extender-vs-mesh-network-whats-the-difference