Move or roam as surround speakers

Operationally this would become tedious. One would need to remove the MOVE/ROAM’s from the surround setup prior to taking them to another location. Actually, MOVE/ROAM would not be visible in the controller as individual speakers while they were part of a surround ‘Room’.  

If the reason to use MOVE/ROAM as surrounds is to be fully wireless, this would become tedious also because of the need to charge the battery operated speakers. I predict that at some point the charging task will become so onerous that the charger wires will be dangled somewhere anyway.

My thinking is that If there was the optional functionality to connect as surround speakers,  then while connected as surround,  the other functionalities would be superfluous.
if I was able to brief the design team, I would suggest that The must-have is to be able to easily (like the Sonos One) connect and disconnect from the surround system , and when disconnected to automatically operate as a roaming speaker (or pair of roaming speakers) with the standard functionality of the roam.

the battery power easily may not lasts through the full Hobbit - LOTR series , but then neither would I. But it would be great to be able to set up for a great film party without worrying about the power cables.

there may be limitations in the chip sets or space, and it is highly likely  I will not understand the technological barriers to creating this option and dropping it in with a system upgrade.  

You can’t just instantly ‘toggle’.  There is a reconfiguration to be done for the surrounds to be bonded to the main HT speaker.  The bonded connection uses direct routing (i.e. peer-to-peer) for communication between the HT speaker and surrounds, and the Move or Roam are not designed to do direct routing.  

Sonos operates as an integrated system where speakers stay in constant touch.  The Roam and Move have been designed to connect and communicate only by WiFi, not SonosNet, and not by direct routing.  They are designed to be instantly removable without the system needing to reconfigure.  And this has to work for systems of thirty devices not just two.

But fundamentally this is about horses for courses.  Fixed speakers for surrounds. Portable speakers to be, well, portable.

I’d buy another Roam if this were an option. I bought the first one to use outside on the deck - which it’s been great for. It would be really cool if I could also use them downstairs as rears for a surround setup. In our small room that serves as living, dining, and kitchen there’s really nowhere to put permanent rears that wouldn’t be an eyesore.

@Sonos - I’d buy another Roam now if I new this was on the product roadmap. Just can’t justify it until I know it’s planned for the current hardware. Also leaning towards a Beam gen 2 and Sub, this would push me over the edge.

For the price of Sonos products we should be able to fly them to the moon never mind using a feature which  could easily be implemented. Yes, you have speakers available for surround in the One SL however all Sonos speakers including the Roam should be able to link for 5.1, you have two main speakers available so why not have the Roam link up for surround?

Can't see the logic in having these as portable speakers only......

Mate.....c'mon..…

This is obviously a way to get sales for the 'one', with the R&D Sonos has available, adding software is not difficult.

If I had a nickel for every time a layman told this SE how easy a software change would be and was off by a country mile, I could buy half of New York City.   Stay in your lane, "mate".

That’s another poor assumption.  The Sonos Roam costs $180, while the Sonos One SL costs $200.   Perhaps they make more profit on the SL, but that conclusion is far from obvious.  And, you’re ignoring the fact that ikea speakers, including the $100 bookshelf speakers  can be used as rear surrounds.  If Sonos wanted to push Sonos One sales instead of Roam, why would they allow cheaper alternatives at all?  And of course, as has been pointed out several times in this thread, many people cannot plug in a speaker in the surround sound locations, and battery is the only option.  So those people don’t buy any surround speakers.

If you’re argument is that a customer wanted portable speakers and surround speakers and thus would just buy two Roams instead of 1-2 Roams and 2 Sonos One SLs...I think you’re underestimating how difficult it would be to manage all those features in a single device.  It sounds easy in theory, but in practice, I think it would be complicated and leave customers frustrated. 

Again, that’s not even considering whether the hardware is there,  the development costs for the feature, making changes to setup to accommodate ease of use, testing the feature to make sure it’s actually reliable, impacts on other features Sonos may be planning, etc.

I say all this knowing full well that Sonos could bring in the feature at the next release, and assuming it works reliably, I’d be happy to see it done.  I just don’t see that point of making blind assumptions that it’s all easy.  For one thing, if it was so easy, then the market would be full of portable wireless speakers that can act as rear surround speakers.

Count me in. I bought a move thinking this would be possible. 

The ROAM speakers have a great form factor for a surround rear speaker. Wish Sonos consider releasing a set of affordable rear surround speakers that are mainly there to just be rear surrounds. That way, the speakers could be made a lot cheaper and may help boost sales of the arc and beam gen 2 when sold as a set or a pair that could be bought independently.
 

This is because the One SLs and the others in the SONOS arsenal, in my opinion, are just too big for tight spaces and designed to be primarily used as independent speakers but can ALSO function as surrounds and for someone who’s just looking to add a couple of speakers to complete their setup, it’s an expensive addition and one that’s difficult to justify at that price point.

I’m not a fan of how these look and have not bee impressed with the sound quality.  I would much rather have a pair of speakers with the Roams form factor and audio quality, with mics and batter removed for a slight discount than symfonisk bookshelf.

Plus one

I thought I saw somebody say 10 hours for the roams… I have a move it’s 3-4 hours tops