I’m thinking about getting a larger television, as what I have is a bit too small for the living room. I have an inexpensive soundbar that mostly works, but doesn’t always turn on with CEC, and occasionally stops passing the video signal through and needs to be power-cycled.
Are there any TVs and soundbars out there that can integrate with Home Assistant, and don’t need a cloud connection at all? (Not even for initial setup.) I was about to buy a Sonos soundbar when they were on sale last month, but discovered that you don’t actually own Sonos devices, since setup is locked behind a cloud account and the company could change the terms of access at its whim.
I’ve read encouraging things about the Sony Bravia devices, and the manuals seem to say that you can set them up entirely locally (although some features are cloud-only). Is this still the case?
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My setup is fully offline and works quite well:
I have a LG G4 which I connected to my non-internet access point. Home assistant accesses the API locally and the TV cannot reach internet. I only use the API to check if the TV is on but I can change the source, volume and launch apps.
I use a Vero V as media center, this one is connected to the main access point but I trust it and I need it to access my NAS.
My soundbar is offline but has CEC and eARC.
The Vero turns the TV on and off with CEC, then the TV turns the soundbar on and off with CEC and the sources of both are setup everytime.
So the LG TV can get connected to the local network without an app or cloud account? Perfect! I guess HA integration for a soundbar would be a nice-to-have-feature, but not critical. It would be nice to have Music Assistant connect to it directly for music playback, but as long as it turns on and off via CEC, I can continue to play music through Kodi/LibreELEC.
Yep! But you have to prevent it from reaching the internet one way or another.
As for music, that’s what I do but I think it’s a shame to turn on the TV just to listen to music on the soundbar, so most of the time I just connect to it in bluetooth with my phone, even though it’s not lossless that way.
TV with analog audio out and a “dumb” sound system with analog in.
If OP wants surround, Atmos, etc., this isn’t gonna work. Analog outputs can’t handle ambisonics, and TVs don’t have discrete 6 channel outputs. If you want 2.1, 5.1, Atmos, MPEG-H or whatever, you’ll need a digital output to your sink device (AVR/soundbar, etc.). Digital doesn’t mean internet connected. And there’s no real benefit to forcing an analog output from your TV. It’s DAC probably isn’t better than the DAC in an AVR or soundbar.
Surround sound receiver that works via optical or HDMI. That’s what I would recommend over a soundbar that will ultimately end up unusable after a few years. No need to overcomplicate it with HA.
Or… An older Bose soundbar. Bose recently open-sourced some of their older stuff that is no longer supported.
As someone who grew up with older surround sound equipment in the house, I’m just having a hard time imagining a scenario where any network connection at all would need to be involved.
Surround sound receiver that works via optical or HDMI. That’s what I would recommend
Those are both digital outputs, not analog. Maybe you’re confusing digital with internet connected?
I’m not advocating internet-connected audio gear, but plenty of people like the utility of networked audio for automation, in-home streaming, and multi-room setups. But again, those can be isolated from the internet.
I’m not confusing anything.
This is what OP was asking:
Are there any TVs and soundbars out there that can integrate with Home Assistant, and don’t need a cloud connection at all?
I answered accordingly. There really isn’t a reason for a soundbar or surround sound system to be connected to any sort of network. Streaming music is the only reason I can think of, but that can be handled by bluetooth (which many sound systems have), or even an AUX IN with a dock or bluetooth adapter.