Sonos Roam does not work with Sonos S1 App

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78 replies

Airgetlam

But with a few particular non-speaker exceptions, Sonos continues to offer S1 which works on older speakers, with exactly the same feature set as before.

The challenge is that Sonos is a software driven device, not just merely hardware. Much the same as Windows 11 won’t work on a ‘386 computer, or iOS 14.6 doesn’t work on a iPhone (1). 

If the hardware wasn’t driven by software, then yes, I can agree it should last effectively forever. But each Sonos device has essentially a small computer in it. So it requires an operating system to do all the things it needs to do. Operating systems change over time, and always get larger, not smaller. This is why Sonos needed to do the S1/S2 split, older devices just didn’t have available memory to put a newer OS on it. 

At the end of the day, it’s not a hardware thing being retired*, it’s an OS being frozen. Not retired, still valid and used by thousands of folks as S1.  

 

  • Exceptions are the CR200 and the Sonos Dock (30 pin iOS device connector), neither of which are speakers. 
Bruce
M

Thankfully I bought my Sonos roam from Costco - will take it back in 80 days.

Not worth the effort to upgrade to S2 when I have 3k invested in S1 products.

BTW - Sonos can fix this if they put customer satisfaction above the bottom line - my Sonos PlayBars is backward comparable on S1…just sayin.

 

 

M

Sending mine back: my partner isn’t techy, and doesn’t understand why it won’t just work with the £1,000s of Sonia kit we have already.  Explained that, for it to work, we have to renew every bit of Sonos kit in the house.

and frankly, if I’m going to do that, why would I buy Sonos again?

I am not sure what you want Sonos to do.  The whole point of creating the S1 / S2 split was to allow product developments that were held back by needing to operate with the oldest products.  if the Roam had to be compatible with the ‘legacy’ devices, it wouldn’t be the Roam.

You cannot group the Roam with your existing devices but you don’t need to get rid of them.  Which Sonos products do you have?

Then explain how my move is on S1???

melvimbe

Sending mine back: my partner isn’t techy, and doesn’t understand why it won’t just work with the £1,000s of Sonia kit we have already.  Explained that, for it to work, we have to renew every bit of Sonos kit in the house.

and frankly, if I’m going to do that, why would I buy Sonos again?

I am not sure what you want Sonos to do.  The whole point of creating the S1 / S2 split was to allow product developments that were held back by needing to operate with the oldest products.  if the Roam had to be compatible with the ‘legacy’ devices, it wouldn’t be the Roam.

You cannot group the Roam with your existing devices but you don’t need to get rid of them.  Which Sonos products do you have?

Then explain how my move is on S1???

 

Move was released before  the S1/S2 split., Roam was created after. What you get on S1 with Move is only what was capable at the time of the split, with  no feature improvements that came with S2. As well, Move and Roam do not have same set of features.

 

Danny
S

I won't get a roam for this reason, I understand that old devices can't run on the new system but the opposite is a bit strange and prevents people from buying the most recent Sonos products… just waiting for some of the equipment to let me down and move to a different system. Any suggestions welcome!

Ken_Griffiths

I won't get a roam for this reason, I understand that old devices can't run on the new system but the opposite is a bit strange and prevents people from buying the most recent Sonos products… just waiting for some of the equipment to let me down and move to a different system. Any suggestions welcome!

Most (almost all) of the Sonos products listed in your online profile here are S2 compatible - so what you’re actually stating here doesn’t make much sense.

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S

I won't get a roam for this reason, I understand that old devices can't run on the new system but the opposite is a bit strange and prevents people from buying the most recent Sonos products… just waiting for some of the equipment to let me down and move to a different system. Any suggestions welcome!

Most (almost all) of the Sonos products listed in your online profile here are S2 compatible - so what you’re actually stating here doesn’t make much sense.

Changing all my connect amps is still too much for me at the moment so I'll stay with S1... And I still makes sense to be frustrated that new products are not compatible with the old system, and looking at the thread it seems like it irritates lots of people... 

jgatie


S1 products can all link together and play music from a streaming service.  But an S2 product with more memory and processing power not can’t?  It’s so dumb.   I want to buy new Sonos products to complement my system.  Not be forced to buy a new system.  

 

You just don’t get it.  The app and players all need to communicate with each other, so they all need to recognize other devices on the system.  Sonos is not updating the app or the firmware on the players, it is only doing bug fixes and security patches.  So how is an app/firmware that is not being updated going to account for a device that didn’t even exist when the updates stopped? 

Y

Ugh, so maybe if these people didn’t order stuff they should have known (by reading) it was not compatible with their existing systems -- I would have my Roam already.   Mine won’t be here until tomorrow -at the earliest.    

Why would anyone think a brand new speaker is compatible with S1.  I doubt any new product will be.

Why would a company sell a product that had previously been back and forward compatible and basically force users to upgrade the older components. I have a small fortune invested in Sonos equipment and cant justify scrapping my 3 connect amps for a meager 15% discount on new equipment. There needs to be a workaround for the Roam to work with S1. I hate being forced out of my current equipment. Not good customer relations

jgatie

I want a device that will work with my current system.  I'm willing to pay for that.  I'm not willing to pay for something that won't.  So you say I don't get it.  I just disagree.  Any S2 device is powerful enough to do what the S1s can.  So let me as the consumer decide.     

 

Nope, still dont get it.  What you ask for is impossible.  It's not a question of can the Roam run S1, it's if S1 can recognize a Roam. There are no updates being done to the S1 firmware.  None, zero, niet, nada.  It simply won't fit in the older players.  So how is a ZP90 going to know how to sync with a Roam if S1 doesn't know what a Roam is and (once more for the cheap seats) S1 cannot be updated to recognize the Roam!!??

J
Userlevel 1

Well put. However, Sonos was a start up multi-room offering needing people to invest in the brand - which they did, often heavily - who have now been under under-valued and over-looked.

People do not need “forever” support, nor do they expect their products to perform all the new stuff; but I have not seen any legitimate reasons for why software cannot cope with different hardware platforms; surely the software should be capable of identifying the hardware and determining what can and cannot work? Windows 7 has stopped support but it has not stopped laptops from doing the basic tasks that they did previously. There has been little to no thought around compatibility. Sonos is now a bunch of compromises until I again invest heavily and my gut feel is that past performance is probably an indication of future performance unfortunately.    

 

It gets complicated, and it’s been discussed at length many times before, but the idea that any new feature can be added to the more modern speakers, while leaving the older speakers untouched, just isn’t accurate.  The older speaker’s hardware limitations hold back what the entire system can do.  So Sonos had 3 choices to make here.

1 - Keep everything on the same system, with limited ability to improve the system as a whole.  Competition’s systems would be able to provide new features that Sonos cannot since they were not held back by old hardware.

2 - Have an S1 and S2 system, allowing new products on both with different feature sets.  This would allow Sonos to keep up with competition, but would add customer confusion as to what features are available on what systems, and perhaps double that development, testing, and support costs.

3 - Freeze the S1 system, and only add new features to the S2 system.  This allows for new features with a less confusing feature set (although I guess some people didn’t realize S1 was frozen), while keeping the same development and testing costs while only slightly raising support costs.

The right decision would depending a lot on the volume of people with S1 legacy hardware, level of competition, and costs of dev/testing/support….all these that we really can only guess at.  It’s understandable to believe that option 1 or 2 would have been the better way to go if those options fit your needs better, but entirely possible that those options were not sustainable for Sonos.

Again, nothing I can’t disagree on, but the third option deflects a significant cost onto your user base and away from Sonos...a natural choice (especially give the tone of the CEO and approach by Sonos when announcing this). 

If you have the technical detail as to where this has been discussed at length (or even able to summarise here for general consumption), that would go some way to helping people understand things better, but without it we can only continue to assume; driven by the context in which these changes where announced: the user base is, and is expected to, support a significant cost of Sonos moving forward with the competition. Its a win win really, trapped user base, and sell more products to upgrade.   

And I would add the lack of effort with even trying to achieve any degree of compatibility shows; the S2 speakers dont work alongside the S1 system at an virtual assistant level, so users have to make a choice which “system” they want to use with their home assistant...when I can simply add a smart speaker from a competitor and still control both separately.

P
Userlevel 1

Yup. 

jgatie

What are you like in high school. 

 

 

Nope. 30 years in software engineering. Nice comeback though.  When you can’t rebut the facts, attack the poster.  

 

Ken_Griffiths

And I would add the lack of effort with even trying to achieve any degree of compatibility shows; the S2 speakers dont work alongside the S1 system at an virtual assistant level, so users have to make a choice which “system” they want to use with their home assistant...when I can simply add a smart speaker from a competitor and still control both separately.

With Amazon Alexa you can simply create two ‘linked’ profiles and add Alexa to S1 using Account A and Alexa to S2 using Account B - both will be able to access the music service installed on one of the accounts (use same Sonos account for both, but use a different Household ID), or simply use free services like Spotify Free - alternatively, use a family music account.

It’s only slightly more difficult to do the same setup with two Google Home accounts.

If you have iOS controller devices, then it’s possible to play streaming audio in sync across both S1 and S2 Households - you just need an Airplay compatible speaker in each Household and can then group/play Airplay audio to both systems, which is what I choose to do. The two Households just have to be on the same LAN subnet.

So there are still things that provide a few aspects of S1/S2 compatibility… but Sonos are just trying to drive ahead, like all such tech companies, I guess?

L

My original Roam works perfectly fine in my "legacy system" with the S1 controller.  I have just received a Roam SL...this apparently will not.  I am pretty hacked off that Sonos have (in their opinion) updated a system such that those early adopters and supporters are now deemed legacy users.  I shall request a refund on return of this (to me) useless product.  I will of course never purchase a Sonos product again...nor, when the system finally conks out, will I replace it with another Sonos system.  So disappointing

L

Addendum to above...I mean my original Sonos Move, (I referred to it as a Roam)

L

Thank you Ken....you are of course correct, I should have made myself aware of this by accessing this information rather than relying on Sonos to highlight this prominently on their sales promotion for the SL.  Sonos being rather poor in their valuation of, you know, their customers.  I will be returning this product for a refund.  I will use the money to buy a decent blue tooth speaker from, probably, Bose

 

 

Ken_Griffiths

Thank you Ken....you are of course correct, I should have made myself aware of this by accessing this information rather than relying on Sonos to highlight this prominently on their sales promotion for the SL.  Sonos being rather poor in their valuation of, you know, their customers.  I will be returning this product for a refund.  I will use the money to buy a decent blue tooth speaker from, probably, Bose

I’m just a user like yourself,  but I really don’t see the point in exchanging the Roam for a ‘poorer sounding’ Bose portable speaker, which will also just work separately from your S1 Sonos system anyway. That’s not achieving anything other than cutting off your nose to spite your face.

It makes more sense to return the Roam and forget having a portable speaker altogether or just stick with the Roam running on S2 alongside your S1 system.

You would only need to add an Airplay2 capable device to your S1 system to be able to stream audio to both S1/S2 - and these things collectively make the Roam far more appealing than switching to a Bose portable speaker. 

Anyhow the decision is yours. 

L

Thank you John for sharing your opinion...

L

Sorry ...android phones retired!....leaded gasoline!!!!

Is this some sort of Sonos excuse company?!?

Really rather amusing to read

jgatie

@LNB123, I don't understand how Sonos is supposed to make a unit work on S1 that didn't even exist when S1 was last updated?  How is S1 supposed to support the Roam when 1) It doesn't know what the Roam is and 2) It cannot be updated to know what the Roam is?

ratty

The S1/S2-split was unfortunate but unavoidable.

And covered is excruciating detail here and here.

T
Badge

Thanks. 

 

 

J

I just received my Roam and discovered it’s not compatible with my existing system and so I’m sending it back.  To echo earlier replies, as a customer I shouldn’t need to take the time to read through all of the specs for a widely-known brand’s products to ensure they work with my existing system (any company that sells a “system” or “network” should offer backward compatibility).  I spent over $10,000 to have12 Sonos zones installed inside and outside my house only to read last year Sonos abandoned all of this hardware leaving it stranded in 2019 forever.  Who does this to its customers?  What company encourages its customers to install a network of hardware (not easy-to-upgrade software) that will not be supported a year later??? Sonos’ CEO apologized for this immense mistake but didn’t make it right.  Given Sonos management’s complete insensitivity to its customer base, I questioned purchasing the Roam, but now that I realize it doesn’t work with my system, it’s clear I’ll never buy another Sonos product again. Bye, Felicia

Factually incorrect in so many ways, but this is a dead topic so no point in discussing further.

jgatie

I just received my Roam and discovered it’s not compatible with my existing system and so I’m sending it back.  To echo earlier replies, as a customer I shouldn’t need to take the time to read through all of the specs for a widely-known brand’s products to ensure they work with my existing system (any company that sells a “system” or “network” should offer backward compatibility).  I spent over $10,000 to have12 Sonos zones installed inside and outside my house only to read last year Sonos abandoned all of this hardware leaving it stranded in 2019 forever.  Who does this to its customers?  What company encourages its customers to install a network of hardware (not easy-to-upgrade software) that will not be supported a year later??? Sonos’ CEO apologized for this immense mistake but didn’t make it right.  Given Sonos management’s complete insensitivity to its customer base, I questioned purchasing the Roam, but now that I realize it doesn’t work with my system, it’s clear I’ll never buy another Sonos product again. Bye, Felicia

 

You are a liar. Nothing Sonos sold you was no longer supported after a year.  

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