The Roam SL speaker is meant to operate as a portable device and hence be moved around - Without auto-TruePlay, you would have the situation whereby it would require tuning each time you changed its position and that therefore doesn’t make much sense. It was ‘perhaps’ easier to find it’s best settings that suit the majority of widely used locations, based on all the usage of the Roam auto-TruePlay tuning results instead and maybe that ‘best sound’ is what the device uses instead.

I wouldn’t personally want to keep having to tune the device and if I planned to leave it ‘static’ I would have perhaps chosen to purchase a Sonos One SL speaker instead.

Hi Ken_Griffiths,

Many Thanks for the reply!

I understand you’re thinking, BUT not all people use them in the same way.

Mine two Roams SL (just new) are fixed outside on the terrace wall.

I used to have there two Sonos ’es “Play One” and because they are NOT waterproof I have made something that it could never rain down on them.

Unfortunately the air in Spain can get very moisty and they broke down after 3 years because off moist air issues.

Hence I bought myself two Roam ‘s SL ones, because they are at this moment the ONLY Sonos speakers which are COMPLETELY waterproof.

Why then add this feature to the Roams and not to the Roams SL?

It’s only a matter of adding (software) this feature to the Roams SL.

Regards,

Marc.

I think your use situation for a supposedly ‘portable’ speaker is by far in the minority. You could also have opted to purchase the ‘Roam’ in your case - it’s IP67 rating is the same as the Roam SL. 

I agree with the author disappointment and I can add my usage as support.
At my place the sonos roam sl sits at a “fixed” position and plays music, it sits in the center of the house so any member of the family can take the speaker with him to different place and returned it back to his base position.
considering the speaker support local wifi streaming I guess many buyers consider the option of “base position” for playing music when sitting at the area. 
I would like too the option to tune..

You just need to purchase the regular Roam in that case, rather than it’s SL (Speechless) counterpart. The SL obviously has less features including…

• Trueplay
• Microphone
• Voice Assistants 
• SoundSwap

The vast user-majority will use this little speaker as a portable product, making a (fixed) Trueplay feature mostly irrelevant. It’s why auto-Trueplay was developed to cope with the portability of the device and for that to work effectively, a mic is needed.

I’m guessing the Sonos engineers may have made a conscious and carefully considered decision to not include the Trueplay feature, as it may make a fixed-tuned portable device perhaps sound ‘less-good’ in some entirely different environment… an average overall sound setting is probably the better option… and for everything else, there is the Roam.

I was searching on the internet how to tune the Sonos Roam SL. So me too, i would be happy with the feature…

I would also love to be able to use trueplay on Roam SL as I am planning to use them as fixed laptop speakers.

Add me to the many who are disappointed that the Roam SL cannot be tuned employing a smart phone’s microphone. The device sits in my study on my desk 90% of the time. The other 10%, I move it to a different room or the garage when I’m doing some chores and I want to listen to music. I don’t use Alexa or Google Assistant, so the onboard mic in the regular Sonos Roam is pretty much useless to me and an added expense that I didn’t want to pay for. One would think that the Sonos engineers could add software to allow tuning with a smart phone and include some type of warning to the user that if the device is moved, it would need to be re-tuned. The warning could have a “Are you sure you want to tune your Roam SL?”, YES/NO confirmation.

Here’s another vote for Trueplay via iPhone for the Roam SL. The feature is already out there on other speakers. Why not give us the choice to use it?

I don’t think this will ever happen, personally speaking, as the speaker is designed to be ‘portable’ and unlike Auto-TruePlay, which is adaptive to its environment, a single (static) TP tuning will otherwise be for a fixed position only and moving the speaker about to a different environment may sometimes make it sound worse, rather than better.

The fact the Roam speakers are intended for portability, I think means this feature will unlikely be implemented on this small device, Those that need Trueplay features should purchase a Roam and not a Roam SL ..and those that want a ‘fixed’ Trueplay-tuned speaker should perhaps aim to get the new Era 100 speaker instead, which comes with added stereo output and the potential to access a line-in audio option too.