Enthusiast I

Feature Request: Roam stereo pairing - automagically, not "fixed"

17 replies
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I bought my second Roam recently, to add the option of stereo playback but I must say I’m disappointed with how it works. These are portable rechargeable speakers and will spend a fair amount of time powered off - so with a mic built in (and trueplay++) there’s an obvious opportunity to stereo-up when the laws of physics suggest it makes sense, automatically.

This could be done intelligently:

If one Roam speaker is playing and another on the same system is turned on and can hear the track playing via the mic (you know it’s a Roam speaker and what it should outputting so can be sure it is the “other” Roam) it should switch to stereo pair automatically.
You also know what volume it should be playing, so can judge if the distance is too far for decent stereo imaging (and decide NOT to stereo up in that case).
Grouping with another single Roam (eg by long press play/pause) could switch into stereo by default, with an advanced setting not to if the user so chooses when the speakers can hear each other (or a double long-press to indicate don’t stereo - but surely that would be rare).
A pair of stereo-upped Roams should separate if the other’s output can no longer be heard when the line level isn’t expected to be silent (eg a track is playing, volume isn’t muted and it’s not playing recorded silence).

You’ll need to continue the (somewhat kludgy) fixed stereo pairing for the Roam SL setups but if “smart” stereo-up was available it would simplify config and make setup so, so flexible.

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melvimbe

I bought my second Roam recently, to add the option of stereo playback but I must say I’m disappointed with how it works. These are portable rechargeable speakers and will spend a fair amount of time powered off - so with a mic built in (and trueplay++) there’s an obvious opportunity to stereo-up when the laws of physics suggest it makes sense, automatically.

This could be done intelligently:

If one Roam speaker is playing and another on the same system is turned on and can hear the track playing via the mic (you know it’s a Roam speaker and what it should outputting so can be sure it is the “other” Roam) it should switch to stereo pair automatically.

I’m not following this. You can setup Roams to work as a stereo pair over WiFi. I’m not sure why you want a Roam to ignore to your setup and pair with a different Roam than what you intended. It also wouldn’t need to use the mic to hear another Roam (how would it know it’s a Roam and not a different speaker?), it would communicate over WiFi...which is also where it would get the audio stream from.

If you’re referring to bluetooth audio, well Sonos would need to support a stereo pair over BT before supporting anything else.

You also know what volume it should be playing, so can judge if the distance is too far for decent stereo imaging (and decide NOT to stereo up in that case).

Not sure if auto trueplay already covers this, although it would not automatically break the stereo pair.

Grouping with another single Roam (eg by long press play/pause) could switch into stereo by default, with an advanced setting not to if the user so chooses when the speakers can hear each other (or a double long-press to indicate don’t stereo - but surely that would be rare).

I would not want this feature. I have 3 Roams, and two of them are defined as pair to form a single room. I don’t want Sonos deciding different speakers need to be paired instead of group for whatever reason. Even if I had two that were not paired, I would want them to remain as mono speakers, partially so that my predefined automations don’t get messed up, and partially because there are cases where mono is preferred.

A pair of stereo-upped Roams should separate if the other’s output can no longer be heard when the line level isn’t expected to be silent (eg a track is playing, volume isn’t muted and it’s not playing recorded silence).

Separate as in no longer be a pair? Again, create a separate Sonos room automatically like this causes issues. Sonos actually did this at first, when one speaker was powered off, and it was annoying to have re pair it each time. I would not opt to have the speaker automatically pair based on what it hears. However, if you want autotrueplay to switch from stereo to mono if it determines the paired speaker is too far away to do stereo pairing properly, that make sense to me.

You’ll need to continue the (somewhat kludgy) fixed stereo pairing for the Roam SL setups but if “smart” stereo-up was available it would simplify config and make setup so, so flexible.

I think setup is pretty simple already. From my experience, a lot of this automation ideas start to fall apart when you consider all the possible scenarios that can happen in a typical home, and the effort it would take to properly test them all

Danny

Ken_Griffiths

I’m happy with the way two Roams work together …and that a user can choose to use them ‘standalone’, ‘grouped’, or ‘paired’ …and when ‘paired’, they remain that way even when powered off/on again.

The various configurations work fine for me as they stand at the moment. I would hate it, if I had them setup ‘standalone’, say with one speaker located upstairs in my Home and another one downstairs and they suddenly auto-stereo-paired… that would make no sense. I prefer to see them work as they do now, which is perfect for my use-case.

‘Grouping’ options, by cycling through current playing rooms, and SoundSwap features, using the different play/pause button presses works well too, when I quickly need to use the Roam(s) ‘grouped’, or with my other Sonos Speakers …and using their Bluetooth pairing and/or BT (line in) grouped-playback (on WiFi) on other Sonos rooms too, means that my entire Sonos setup has many more audio sources that it can use aswell.

Personally speaking, I love the features of the little speaker and wish my Move had some of those new/extra features too. That said the larger Move speaker is still one of the best ‘portable’ speakers on the market for use both in and around the Home in the Garden etc. The Roam I find is great when travelling and going on Holiday.

S

senecanAuthor

Enthusiast I

There are a bunch of limitations with the dedicated stereo setup and then using a single speaker powered-on and hoping it will play again as a stereo “half” later. Also, I dislike the idea that I can use Google Assistant on one separate Roam and Alexa on another but if I pair them, I have to use only one voice assistant and I can’t think of a good reason.

I was describing being able to hear the other speaker and knowing that it’s close enough to benefit from being in a stereo pair. That means a bunch of obvious prerequisites, like:

Both speakers being Roam speakers, capable of working in stereo in the first place.
One speaker playing content and the other idle but ON.
Both speakers being close enough to work well in stereo, not one upstairs or in your neighbour’s garden shed.

The point is these are portable/battery-powered speakers that can easily be turned off; the mechanism for dedicating a pair of fixed, plugged-in, always-on speakers isn’t applicable and is too constrictive. They are designed to be moved around and have all the necessary hardware to be more reactive to each other and placement, like the ethos of Trueplay.

Ken_Griffiths

There are a bunch of limitations with the dedicated stereo setup and then using a single speaker powered-on and hoping it will play again as a stereo “half” later. Also, I dislike the idea that I can use Google Assistant on one separate Roam and Alexa on another but if I pair them, I have to use only one voice assistant and I can’t think of a good reason.

I was describing being able to hear the other speaker and knowing that it’s close enough to benefit from being in a stereo pair. That means a bunch of obvious prerequisites, like:

Both speakers being Roam speakers, capable of working in stereo in the first place.
One speaker playing content and the other idle but ON.
Both speakers being close enough to work well in stereo, not one upstairs or in your neighbour’s garden shed.

The point is these are portable/battery-powered speakers that can easily be turned off; the mechanism for dedicating a pair of fixed, plugged-in, always-on speakers isn’t applicable and is too constrictive. They are designed to be moved around and have all the necessary hardware to be more reactive to each other and placement, like the ethos of Trueplay.

Still not for me - I take my Roam’s ‘glamping’ and one might be inside the camper and another on the table outside the open window - I would hate them to suddenly ‘pair’ automatically, even though they could be in proximity of each other. I don’t want to just be listening to the left, or right, channel outdoors, or in, when the other speaker is perhaps not ideally placed.

I don’t use different assistants that often, so can’t really comment too much, other than to say I use Alexa and SVC mostly on both Roams now. (I have a small Google Home, but it’s dwindling).

I also use Alexa ‘enabled’ groups to auto-group/ungroup the Roams, but that’s only when I choose/need/want them to do that grouping/ungrouping and similarly SVC allows that too.

Unfortunately Google on Sonos is poor and does not support room grouping, so I set that aside when I discovered it didn’t work alongside SVC.

S

senecanAuthor

Enthusiast I

Thanks Ken_Griffiths - let me suggest another “use case”. You might still prefer no, but just as food for thought.

If you have two identically coloured Roams in a stereo pair and then one day take them out glamping, how do you know which is Left and which is Right? Wouldn’t it be nice if the speakers decided for themselves, based on a Trueplay-ish adjustment, which channel to play?

Alternatively, if you take just one of those speakers in a stereo pair outside into the yard in range of wifi, do you hear just the Left or Right channel? Wouldn’t it be nice if both reverted to a standard non-stereo group as they can’t hear each other, in a twin mono group?

Sure, some people might have their Roams in a fixed position (which, to me, isn’t exactly the point of a Roam) but wouldn’t it be nice if the speaker could optimise its role in a dynamic stereo pair, a bit like Trueplay detecting features of the environment and speaker orientation?

“Automagically” doesn’t mean the magic can’t be turned off in settings for a fixed pair.

Ken_Griffiths

Thanks Ken_Griffiths - let me suggest another “use case”. You might still prefer no, but just as food for thought.

If you have two identically coloured Roams in a stereo pair and then one day take them out glamping, how do you know which is Left and which is Right? Wouldn’t it be nice if the speakers decided for themselves, based on a Trueplay-ish adjustment, which channel to play?

Alternatively, if you take just one of those speakers in a stereo pair outside into the yard in range of wifi, do you hear just the Left or Right channel? Wouldn’t it be nice if both reverted to a standard non-stereo group as they can’t hear each other, in a twin mono group?

Sure, some people might have their Roams in a fixed position (which, to me, isn’t exactly the point of a Roam) but wouldn’t it be nice if the speaker could optimise its role in a dynamic stereo pair, a bit like Trueplay detecting features of the environment and speaker orientation?

“Automagically” doesn’t mean the magic can’t be turned off in settings for a fixed pair.

The price of the ‘little’ speaker would undoubtedly increase to cover such development costs and some perhaps already see it as quite an expensive product already, for its size/appearance.

Plus, when it comes to auto-sensing/selecting the left or right speaker - surely that depends on if I’m looking towards the speakers, or facing away from them? If I’m not sat at the ‘sweet-spot’ there’s every chance I would want to adjust their stereo balance too anyway.

I just personally think it’s sometimes best left to the user to choose these things for themselves and keep development costs to a minimum, particularly as I don’t think it would be a feature that I (and perhaps others too) would want to enable. I would rather see development costs spent on the devices ability to ‘roam’ (pardon the pun) seamlessly between mesh WiFi access points/bands/channels, compared to the current ‘stickiness’ to the AP when powered on, but that’s maybe a discussion for another day.

melvimbe

There are a bunch of limitations with the dedicated stereo setup and then using a single speaker powered-on and hoping it will play again as a stereo “half” later. Also, I dislike the idea that I can use Google Assistant on one separate Roam and Alexa on another but if I pair them, I have to use only one voice assistant and I can’t think of a good reason.

There isn’t a technical reason. Google simply doesn’t allow it. You can have Alexa and SVC, but not Google and Alexa, Google and SVC, or all 3.

Thanks Ken_Griffiths - let me suggest another “use case”. You might still prefer no, but just as food for thought.

If you have two identically coloured Roams in a stereo pair and then one day take them out glamping, how do you know which is Left and which is Right? Wouldn’t it be nice if the speakers decided for themselves, based on a Trueplay-ish adjustment, which channel to play?

First off, in your scenario, you’d have to have WiFi available, which I would think isn’t that typical for an away from home scenario.

Second, I’m not sure auto trueplay is sophisticated enough to tell whether the speaker is on the left or right side. To do so , it would have to know what direction it’s facing. Maybe that’s possible since it does know whether it’s standing up or laid on it’s side. It was also need to know which direction audio coming from the other Roam is coming from (and know that it’s a Roam). I’m not sure the mic(s) and related software on the Roam are that sophisticated. For one thing, the stereo pairing setup of the Roam requires you to manually identify which speaker is on left/right with a test tone. If the speakers can’t identify position with a test tone, I am doubtful that it can do so with any audio.

That said, the ‘sound sway’ feature can id the nearest Sonos speaker with an audio signal outside of human hearing, So maybe something can be done. I still can’t imagine I’d have a frequent use case for this where the manual pairing wouldn’t be just as effective.

Alternatively, if you take just one of those speakers in a stereo pair outside into the yard in range of wifi, do you hear just the Left or Right channel? Wouldn’t it be nice if both reverted to a standard non-stereo group as they can’t hear each other, in a twin mono group?

Why would you take just one? Since they are normally a stereo pair, I would assume they are near by each other and just as easy to grab both as they are one. And if you are only going to take one and stay on WiFi, then it would only take a second to separate the pair. Personally, if this was a common use case for me, I’d just leave the Roams as separate rooms.

Sure, some people might have their Roams in a fixed position (which, to me, isn’t exactly the point of a Roam) but wouldn’t it be nice if the speaker could optimise its role in a dynamic stereo pair, a bit like Trueplay detecting features of the environment and speaker orientation?

“Automagically” doesn’t mean the magic can’t be turned off in settings for a fixed pair.

I do have a pair of Roams set in fixed position, always plugged in. Their form factor and water proofing is ideal for a bathroom setup in my opinion. I get that it’s not typical, but it’s the best product for the job. The Ones are little too big, and overkill for the job. I would be happy if Sonos made a speaker the size of the Roam without BT capabilities and battery, but they do not. I have a 3rd Roam that I would use as if I need a small BT speaker, and as a general use SVC mic for rooms that don’t have that. I really don’t need a BT speaker much these days since I don’t travel that often.

The Move is generally the better speaker for BT for me, and I would use that over the Roam any time the size isn't an issue.. That neither here or there though. I really don’t think the tech can predict how you want to use a pair of portable speakers based on their location to each other via the mic. Sounds good in theory, but I just thinking there are too many scenarios over WiFi to handle

Danny

S

senecanAuthor

Enthusiast I

melvimbe wrote:
There isn’t a technical reason. Google simply doesn’t allow it. You can have Alexa and SVC, but not Google and Alexa, Google and SVC, or all 3.

Ah I didn’t know that. Hmmm… and yet I can “group” the two separate Roam 1 (with Alexa) and Roam 2 (with Google Assistant) and then ask Google to play something from Youtube music… and, yep, it plays on both. Now I ask Alexa to play something else from Spotify and both play that instead. So the only difference (between keeping a dedicated left/right pair with two different voice assistants, one per speaker) is that both speakers are mono in this “standard” group. Maybe someone should tell Google?

The glamping scenario was from Ken_Griffith’s use case, but I guess not hard to have a similar wifi setup in a campervan.

I’ll explain my scenario and why I think it would be a commonly useful feature to have portable speakers behave as standalone but “smarten up” when they detect another of their kind (especially with wifi connectivity, not bluetooth):

We have multiple family members, each with their own unique taste in music. Sometimes two of us like the same thing and/or are in the garden at the same time - it would be great to share that experience in stereo. And sometimes we are in different rooms or different sections of the gardens and listening to our individual choices, both at the same time.

I just don’t want to keep reconfiguring for stereo pairing via the app and/or re-adding the voice assistant each time I “break” the pair. These are portable speakers and have an environmental awareness in auto trueplay already, so this doesn’t feel like an impossible ask.

Ken_Griffiths

melvimbe wrote:

There isn’t a technical reason. Google simply doesn’t allow it. You can have Alexa and SVC, but not Google and Alexa, Google and SVC, or all 3.

Ah I didn’t know that. Hmmm… and yet I can “group” the two separate Roam 1 (with Alexa) and Roam 2 (with Google Assistant) and then ask Google to play something from Youtube music… and, yep, it plays on both. Now I ask Alexa to play something else from Spotify and both play that instead. So the only difference (between keeping a dedicated left/right pair with two different voice assistants, one per speaker) is that both speakers are mono in this “standard” group. Maybe someone should tell Google?

The glamping scenario was from Ken_Griffith’s use case, but I guess not hard to have a similar wifi setup in a campervan.

I’ll explain my scenario and why I think it would be a commonly useful feature to have portable speakers behave as standalone but “smarten up” when they detect another of their kind (especially with wifi connectivity, not bluetooth):

We have multiple family members, each with their own unique taste in music. Sometimes two of us like the same thing and/or are in the garden at the same time - it would be great to share that experience in stereo. And sometimes we are in different rooms or different sections of the gardens and listening to our individual choices, both at the same time.

I just don’t want to keep reconfiguring for stereo pairing via the app and/or re-adding the voice assistant each time I “break” the pair. These are portable speakers and have an environmental awareness in auto trueplay already, so this doesn’t feel like an impossible ask.

In the garden scenario mentioned - I would just personally press the play/pause button and group my Roam with the other ‘playing’ family members speaker - I wouldn’t want it stereo-paired, unless I was sat bang in the middle of the playing speakers, I would just ‘group’ them instead and it doesn’t get much easier than pressing the play/pause button to join a group. See this support link for ‘grouping and swapping audio’:

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/get-to-know-your-sonos-roam

…or of course I could just ask SVC to group the speakers together.

J

John B

It's hard to piss off all of the people all of the time, but this suggestion sounds like a recipe for pissing off nearly everybody with 2+ Roams at some point.

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