Dear all, just a quick suggestion: wouldn’t it be possible to use roam or move speakers as surround spekers for 5.1 systems? Taht would give even greater flexibility and eliminate the need to find a plug in the right location. Usually, you don’t see a picture or a 5.1 program longer than the 10 hours of autonomy of those products, and the design would become cleaner without any wire!
Is there any technical questio that prevents this? Are you planning to solve it out at some point?
Wow. How unkind your words and self-important your written demeanor. I’m sorry to have crossed paths.
It would be polite to reference who and what comments you are specifically referring too.
I think there is little doubt....
Wow. How unkind your words and self-important your written demeanor. I’m sorry to have crossed paths.
It would be polite to reference who and what comments you are specifically referring too.
Wow. How unkind your words and self-important your written demeanor. I’m sorry to have crossed paths.
The fact you cannot use two portable Sonos speakers as surrounds is not a secret. Do yo not read up on things before buying expensive gear?
I agree. At least it is a useful lesson. Never assume, always check. Or prepare for a lifetime of frustration and disappointment.
+17
The fact you cannot use two portable Sonos speakers as surrounds is not a secret. Do yo not read up on things before buying expensive gear?
I feel so duped! I bought two Roams thinking they would just work, like the rest of the Sonos system. I’d happily take restrictions or requirements to ensure performance but when you buy Sonos and pay the premium it is shocking to see these restrictions.
Please upgrade to include this. I have 2 roams 2 moves and an arc. Roams as surrounds would be the best
Please count my vote for truly wireless rear surrounds in enabling Sonos Move and Roam for rear surround speakers.
We just bought an Arc, and are now interested in rear surrounds. We don’t have the proper space nor power receptacle in place for dedicated and stationary rear surround speakers. Plus we rather place the rears when needed, then return back to their proper place after the show is done. Rather than leave in place, permanently.
I would go out right now and buy two Roam speakers if i can use them as rear surrounds.
Enabling the Move and Roam for rear surround speakers just makes too much sense!!!!
Happy new year, best wishes!!!
...and same wish :)
Please please, Sonos, let's have the surround mode on the Roams and on the Moves !
I thought I saw somebody say 10 hours for the roams… I have a move it’s 3-4 hours tops
I helped out at a 6 hour outdoor family children's party during the summer months with two Moves stereo-paired, off their charger loop, running on a 5G Mobile WiFi device.
Starting at full charge, both speakers had quite a bit of charge left in both of them at the end of the party. I can’t be precise now about their battery levels post-party (it was some months ago), but from memory it was at least 30%+ charge remaining and they had been playing quite loudly too around the 70-80% volume level throughout.
I’ve had the two Moves since the speakers were first released. I find them a great portable speaker to take outdoors and the charge in my own case held well on both devices for that family party.
I thought I saw somebody say 10 hours for the roams… I have a move it’s 3-4 hours tops
I wonder if the battery run time would be suitable for Binge Watching.
Plus one
This would be fantastic.
If you are looking for inexpensive surrounds, look here:
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/symfonisk-wifi-bookshelf-speaker-black-00357561/
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.
If you are looking for inexpensive surrounds, look here:
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/symfonisk-wifi-bookshelf-speaker-black-00357561/
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.
Just got my pair of Sonos Roam SLs today, very excited! I bought them mainly to use as desktop speakers for my home office, since Roam supports Bluetooth, I can finally use them with AirPlay for my Mac and Bluetooth for PC. I went in knowing the Roam cannot be used as surround speakers for home theatre setup, but…. once I actually held one in hand, I really hoped Sonos would make Roam part of a theatre setup, the compact size make them perfect for my small living room, and I assume the sound quality won’t be too bad either.
Just in case you are wondering. Yes, there is a SL version of the Roam, probably only for the Chinese market, since both Alexa and Google Assistance are not officially available in China, and surprisingly Sonos didn’t add any Chinese local voice assistant like Xiao Ai from Xiaomi which will do wonders for their sales in China. You do lose the TruePlay auto tuning with the SL version, which seems to be another missed oppotunity, Sonos can simply get rid of the Voice Assistants SW feature and Mic button but keep the microphones inside for the auto Trueplay. Btw, the SL Roam are retailed at 1699CNY in China which is 267USD…. maybe the SL stands for speechless for the pricing… :D
Count me in. I bought a move thinking this would be possible.
Same for me, a pair of fully wireless speakers like the roam would make a great set of surround speakers!
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.
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.
adding software is not difficult.
It’s just a few lines of code really. Getting the 0s and 1s in the correct order surely can’t take that much effort..
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". 
Laugh. The engineers I work with would be happy to argue that point with you, and you also need to consider the electronic parts involved to make such a function work may not exist in these devices, a conscious choice to save manufacturing costs.
The point is, however, making assumptions about Sonos’ business reasons is an unlikely story for success, unless you work within the organization, and have direct knowledge, one way or the other.
I choose to believe that they’re not intent on ‘evil’ per se, and there must be valid reasons as to why they chose this path, beyond the rather simple ‘obvious way to get sales of the ‘one’ (sic)’ that you state.
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.
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