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?
Count me in. I bought a move thinking this would be possible.
Here's my added vote for this.
Please add surround support for Roam. As others have said, I had assumed it would be possible, why not?
I was about to order another Roam for this purpose until I saw this post. Holding off for now.
If you did this Sonos you would have a unique solution. Worth considering this.
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
Talking about commercial, I believe they would clearly increase their sales giving the surround features to the Roams. At similar or close prices, some would prefer the Ones for the power, other the Roams for the battery power/wireless feature.
But sales and margins have sometimes different trends...
Sony… Check 5 messages below for the references.
Cheers!
Worth noting that although those Sony speakers do appear to be wireless rear audio speakers (with atmos upfiring option)...that’s all that they are. They can’t be used as portable speakers on their own via WiFi or bluetooth. So yes, they are a good choice if all you want completely wireless (no power cord) rear audio. If you need just portable bluetooth, there are a ton of options out there as well. If you want something that is both a portable bluetooth and WiFi speaker, Move and Roam are good options.
I was going to make the same point, Danny. Sony have designed their speakers for one purpose. Sonos has designed the Roam and the Move for various other purposes. You can’t please all of the people all of the time.
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.
Sonos does not publish a product roadmap.
This is the only thing preventing me from buying another Roam. I have a small living room (like most people living in apartments) and would be difficult to justify having two Sonos One as rear speakers.
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!!!!
Same for me, a pair of fully wireless speakers like the roam would make a great set of surround speakers!
Come on Sonos team, my new arc is asking for that, you can do it! ;)
It would be really a nice feature!
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.
Hello Sonos,
Same, I wait to have this feature to buy two Roam SL to add them as surround in my SONOS TV system.
(My 2 existing One will be better in an other place - ideally in front for a true 5.1 config ;) )
+1 to everything said above, got mine today and very disappointed that it can’t be used as a surround.
just ordered roams as backchannels in 5.1 as i assumed they would work. this is disappointing, no electricity outlets available where they need to be, roams would be ideal. if commercial, pls allow roams or make ones with batteries…..
I was watching a movie the other night with my Sonos beam gen 2. Would love to add some surrounds but don’t have anywhere they could live permanently as I live in a small apartment and my couch backs up to our kitchen/dining area. Being able to put a couple Roams on either side of the kitchen table for when I’m watching movies would be the perfect solution - really wish Sonos would develop this feature. I’d buy another Roam the day it launched. Also eagerly awaiting a sub that’s smaller than the current one...
Definitely a vote from me as well. I had both indoor and outdoor needs for speakers which is why I decided to get the roams. Disappointing that the roams can be used the same as the Ones. Especially since the speakers definitely can play music together, so it’s proven that the speakers can perform dynamic sound
FYI, when Sonos speakers are grouped together, the audio is significantly buffered to make sure it’s able to play in sync. This done via your WiFi network and/or Sonosnet, 2.4 Ghz. When speakers are bonded together in a home theatre setup, 2.4 Ghz is not fast enough for the audio to play immediately and match the audio on the TV, so 5.0 Ghz in a closed setup just involving the bonded speakers is used. There’s a significant difference.
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.
If it were me, I likely leave the speakers plugged in, but that’s because my room layout allows for that. If it did not though, I image it would be a case where I leave them charging in a convenient place, and only set them up when I am sitting down to watch a movie, which could get annoying. People are comfortable using a TV normally and rolling down a projector screen for movies, so perhaps this is not much different.
Personally, I think there is a market for a ‘normal’ Sonos speaker in the same form factor and speaker quality of the Roam, without all the bells and whistles. Remove the battery, BT features, and voice assistant (maybe) and you have a speaker that works well as surrounds or in small rooms like bathrooms. Keep the USB plug for power and a customer can plug into a wall outlet or separate USB power bank if they want to have it be wireless. Price could probably drop to around $120, slightly more than ikea bookshelf, and do well.
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......
Going late…
Sony has just done it with their new wireless with built-in battery and Atmos SA-RS5 surround speakers !
They work with their 5000 and 7000 series soundbars. They even use the sphere sound mapping of the innovative HT-A9 !
Please Sonos, make us proud to keep your system and be fast on providing for such a solution. Even without the Atmos up firing speaker but able to use the Roams/Moves would be enough…
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.
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". 
+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?
This would be fantastic.
+1 to everything said above, got mine today and very disappointed that it can’t be used as a surround. 
)
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.
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