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?
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......
How do you know it would be easy to implement? if you’re assuming that it’s easy to implement, that may be why it doesn’t seem logical to you.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not against the feature. I’m just can’t assume it’s easy to developed, would be easy to operate, and would actually satisfy complaints since you wouldn’t be able to easily use other features of the Roam, and perhaps wouldn’t bring in enough additional revenue to justify the cost. Don’t know. The fact that no other portable speaker can do this, as far as I know, doesn’t make me think it’s as plausible a feature as it may seem on the surface. I don’t see the point in making assumptions that happen to fit the narrative, when you can just let it be known that it’s feature you would use and perhaps buy more products if it existed.
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......
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.
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.
Bought my pair today and was surprised to find they cannot be used as rear speakers, one would definately suppose so!
Pls make it happen!
+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.
+1 to everything said above, got mine today and very disappointed that it can’t be used as a surround.
Out of curiosity, would people still want this feature if setup as surround speakers meant that you had to turn off just about every other feature? For example, if it meant that you could not use bluetooth mode, no auto trueplay, no voice assistant, etc, and the speaker would not function unless both speakers were currently on and with 5Ghz range of the Arc/Beam/Amp that’s connected to the TV? In other words, it would act just like any sonos surround speaker, except this runs off batteries rather than directly wired for power.
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.
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.
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.
Out of curiosity, would people still want this feature if setup as surround speakers meant that you had to turn off just about every other feature? For example, if it meant that you could not use bluetooth mode, no auto trueplay, no voice assistant, etc, and the speaker would not function unless both speakers were currently on and with 5Ghz range of the Arc/Beam/Amp that’s connected to the TV? In other words, it would act just like any sonos surround speaker, except this runs off batteries rather than directly wired for power.
This also has my vote.
Should be able to use Roam (and Move) as part of a surround system.
Software shouldn’t be an issue - just the desire of Sonos to permit it.
Please push for this.
I also think this feature would massively increase the popularity and versatility of the Roams - I can’t believe Sonos have not incorporated this software upgrade yet!?
Move and Roam are not designed to be used as part of a home theater setup. They were designed to move, either indoors or outside the home - and away from where your home theater set-up is.
Then why allow them to be set as a stereo pair? I dont see the benefit of stereo if meant to move around. This also assumes you have two roams and I’d 100% trade that functionality for the ability to add them as surrounds on the fly.
+1 to this topic. It would really be great to have this feature. Being able to have a portable surround speaker system is another level. Hope the developers can consider it! <3
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…..
Two Sonos Roams would be perfect as rear speakers in my living room since I don't have any outlets or much space behind my sofa.
Another vote for roams as rear speakers in surround. I’ll buy two as soon as it’s enabled
Here’s another vote for using Roams as surrounds - the size and portability would be perfect Having truly completely wireless surrounds would be awesome. Please, please, please do this.
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.
Id definitely buy a pair of roams if it had rear speaker capabilities. my room is too small for 2 play ones. I'm considering the Symfonisk shelf speakers, but even those are pretty big in person. The Roams would be perfect, but unfortunately they can be used in that configuration
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...
i think this is a needed must. unless there’s a technical inability to do so, its commercial…
This is a huge missing feature. Seems an obvious benefit to have multi-use speakers that can augment a surround sound set up but still be used to take everywhere. It would have been a big miss if the Move and Roam were built in a way that made this sort of connection prohibitive...
Like this too.
That's a must-have!
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