Renaming HDMI audio input (revisited)

  • 17 January 2022
  • 3 replies
  • 123 views

A few months ago, there was a discussion about the impossibility to rename the HDMI input for Beam and Arc. Sonos staff argued as follows:

[Line in (with multiple source name) and HDMI (always named ‘TV’)] are treated differently for good, technical reasons and I would not expect this to change.

Ironically, this reply ended with the following quote:

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

 

I have a Beam (gen. 2) connected to my desktop computer, which I use as the computer's speaker system and to stream music from YouTube Music. There is no tv in this room whatsoever. My family members find it rather confusing that they cannot select the audio source ‘Computer’ or something similar, but ‘TV'. This makes no sense at all.

 

As Albert Einstein once said, common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. Please don't use prejudice - Sonos’ “common sense” doesn't make any sense at all in my use case. Please add the ability to select a different name than ‘TV’ for the HDMI source. It would be fine for me if I had to choose from a list of predefined names - anything but ‘TV’ would be fine.


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3 replies

Your quote is taken a bit out of context.   Corey wasn’t pointing out the differences between line in sources and HDMI sources. 

Say for example you have two connect amps,  call them A and B, both with aux line in source   and HDMI  source.    If you want to play play line in source A, but only on Amp B...you can do this.   There is no dependency between the source and where you can play it.  And in order to avoid confusion between line in source A and line source B, you can give them names.

HDMI source is different.  You cannot play HDMI source A on Amp B...without first playing it on Amp A and then grouping with Amp B.  There is a dependency on the source and where you can play it.  In that regard, there is no need for naming to distinguishing between HDMI sources, because the one you see is always the one connected to the device you’re currently focused on.

 

However, I recognize that you have a different need.  Your just changing the name to something that makes sense for your case, rather than distinguishing between multiple options.  That makes sense, however, I can see where it might cause some confusion when people look to play ‘computer’ but don’t see it there….because they don’t have the right room in focus.  Maybe it’s not a big deal, don’t know, but this feels like something that may be a bit more complicated than it appears on the surface.  Or perhaps there is a misunderstanding about the feature request.

Userlevel 7
Badge +20

I also think that the Beam is only marketed as a home theater sound bar for TV output. So that might also be part of the reason for the reply from Sonos.

Userlevel 7
Badge +17

I don't think you should “good, technical reasons” and “common sense”.