Considering Apple TV Have Bose 700 and newer smart Samsung TV

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Considering Apple TV Have Bose 700 and newer smart Samsung TV

Here's the good: I have a Bose 700 and newer Samsung TV. The Samsung has a reasonable interface and plays the movies I like. The Bose 700 supports Airplay and connects to the Samsung through HDMI ARC. I am able to get the TV to play its sound to the Bose 700 and I can stream music to the Bose through AirPlay. (The Samsung also supports Airplay directly but not very well.)

Here's the glitch. Once I stream music to the Bose 700 through Airplay, I have a hard time getting the Samsung TV to recognize the Bose 700. I end up turning things on and off. Going through the app and sometimes resetting the Bose. It's such a pain that I've all but stopped using my Bose for music.

I'm wondering if things will get better or worse if I add an Apple TV to the setup. Will the Apple TV improve how the TV connects to the Bose? That is, will my problems with getting the Bose to switch from being an Airplay device to being a TV speaker? Or will it likely add to my troubles giving me more things to turn on and off and, overall something more finicky and less robust?

Also, I've used older Apple TVs but not the new one. I know Apple TV can play my Apple Music and will also will do a great job as an Airplay device. A sad part of this is that I think I'll have to turn the TV on in order to stream audio to it (and have it play on the Bose. I've also heard I might get around that part by connecting the Apple TV to the Bose through the TOSI connector? Will that make everything worse or better?

Posted on Apr 10, 2022 2:09 PM

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Answer 1

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abqmichaelj_is_me Author

Level 1

30 points

Apr 30, 2022 8:14 AM in response to bgmeek

I think I resolved my problem. It was true that the problem was that the TV and Stereo were not setup correctly. Trying to use the CEC settings in the Bose app had no positive effect.

The fix required properly resetting the Bose Soundbar to get it to initialize the CEC interface from scratch. I followed two different Bose support videos on this topic and found this one to work. https://youtu.be/VNYI7VaJFZs Basically, you disable CEC on the Bose, unplug everything including the HDMI cable, then power up both while the HDMI is still connected and re-enable the CEC. Then finally you plug in the HDMI cable.

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Answer 2

bgmeek

Level 4

1,193 points

Apr 10, 2022 6:22 PM in response to abqmichaelj_is_me

It sounds to me like your Samsung TV and Bose soundbar aren't setup correctly when it comes to HDMI CEC (Consumer Electronics Control). Using CEC (sometimes referred to by Samsung as "Anynet+"), the Samsung should signal to the Bose when it's sending audio - particularly if another connected device (such as a new Apple TV 4K) turns on and begins playing. I remember trying to help a puzzled Bose soundbar 700 owner along these lines and learned that Bose offers quite a few HDMI CEC-related config options using their app (a bit more granular and complicated than necessary as I recall).

Anyway, once you're using an ATV4K, you'll more likely play music through it, either through a native app like Apple Music, or using AirPlay as you're doing to the Bose (but to the Apple TV instead).

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Answer 3

Apr 10, 2022 7:06 PM in response to bgmeek

Yes. When I first got it, my Bose had like 3 CEC options. Now there’s seven plus off. None work better for me than the default. Now mine might have been a bad test as I discovered that the system likes to be re-booted between settings. So it’s possible that one of the settings that didn’t work required a reboot to get it to work. I sadly think I got that as good as I can get it. Problematic, but workable as long as I don’t “confuse” the Bose by asking it to use its problematic AirPlay interface.

As I tried to make it clear, I fully understand that the Apple TV’s music app will let me initiate the music through it. I also understand that will require me to turn on the TV which (old fashioned me) feel is somewhat wasteful (electricity-wise). I also understand that I can stream from my devices through the Apple TV. However, my understanding is that I’ll need to turn on the TV to do that — or at least I will if I use the HDMI interface to do it.

What I don’t know is whether the Apple TV can communicate directly with the Bose. For example, to send its own “wake up” signals through the HDMI interface and possibly do a better job getting the Bose’s attention than the TV does. Alternatively, I don’t know if the Apple TV will, in trying to do so, make the problem worse. That open question — will my situation get worse — is the one that is preventing me from pulling the trigger and buying the Apple TV. If the answer was “no, it’ll get better” then I’m in.

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Answer 4

bgmeek

Level 4

1,193 points

Apr 10, 2022 7:41 PM in response to abqmichaelj_is_me

I'm 90% confident there's a way to get it all working satisfactorily. I expect that you'll mostly turn the system on & off via the Apple TV 4K, which will connect to the TV via HDMI (it has no optical audio output), and communicate to the Bose via HDMI through the TVs ARC configuration. Assuming the Samsung is set properly with CEC fully enabled, it'll all work smoothly. Your Bose manual warns that with HDMI CEC enabled, the TV or other HDMI devices may cause your input to switch (away from Bluetooth or AirPlay for example), and I gather that's what you're looking for.

My own setup has a Sony soundbar that can play music without the help of the TV or ATV4K, yet it wants to show info about what's playing using it's own On-Screen-Display and it wakes the TV to do so (so much for energy saving with Soundbar-only music). Instead, I play music through the ATV4K with its more attractive + informative screen reporting track info and cover art. If you prefer, the ATV's spiffy UHD screensavers can be viewed instead :-).

OTOH, if your Bose will respond to AirPlay and not turn the TV on via CEC while playing AirPlay music (one of those 7 settings?), I'm pretty sure that when you do power on the ATV4K (and TV) using the Siri Remote, the Bose can be made to respond to that CEC activity by switching its input to HDMI [e]ARC to automatically receive audio from the ATV4K via the Samsung. Whew.

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Considering Apple TV Have Bose 700 and newer smart Samsung TV

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