Why when I program my remote to turn the power off does it require two pushes to turn the sound bar?

jokeefe68

I have the Polk Soundbar 6500bt. I have successfully programmed it to turn the volume up and down as well as mute on and off from the remote of my cable box. However, when I try to program the power on and off using my cable remote, it requires me to push the power button twice to toggle on and off. What happens is the tv turns on and then off while I try to get the soundbar to turn on. Similarly, when I try to turn the tv and soundbar off, the tv turns off on the first push and then back on when I push a second time to get the soundbar turned off. I am hoping the tv and soundbar will turn on and off together.

Thanks

msg

Do you have the instructions for your cable TV remote?

How many "device" buttons does it have/support?

I'd probably start with defaulting the remote, and start over.

If I'm understanding your goal correctly, without a macro, I don't know that you can have a single button control two devices' power at the same time, unless those devices use the same remote codes. Typically, you'd assign a remote "device" for your soundbar.

There is a function in some universal remotes called "punch through", where a particular set of buttons/controls always controls one device, regardless of which device is selected/active on the remote.

jokeefe68

The remote for the cable box has no device codes. The cable box does not get turned off with the power button on the remote. It stays on. The cable box remote has been programmed to turn on the tv with the power button. Also, the volume controls are set to control the tv sound. I programmed the Polk soundbar to respond to the volume buttons on the cable box remote. When I press volume up, down or mute, the volume on both the tv and soundbar are adjusting. I then adjusted the tv settings to only have volume on the soundbar (through the optical cable). But for some reason learning the power button of the cable box remote on the Polk soundbar doesn’t seem to work. I don’t understand why it would work on volume but not for power. The manual seems to suggest it will.

I also have a Logitech Harmony 650 remote. I have programmed it to do what I want. However, I feel it doesn’t seem to control the cable box as intuitively as the cable box remote.