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Initializing SONOS Roam without WiFI

  • November 4, 2023
  • 9 replies
  • 7077 views
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I recently had a frustrating experience with my SONOS Roam. I took it travelling, and by mistake, when trying to turn it off, I reset it. I was not on my home network and in a hotel, and there was no way to initialize it again. I looked on help forums, and they all talked about using two devices and connecting to one device and hotspotting to another. I tried this at length (and I am comfortable with troubleshooting), and NOTHING worked. 

The fact that I have a Bluetooth speaker that cannot be set up and used solely as a Bluetooth speaker is so frustrating.  Why not have a setting where, out of the box, you can use it on Bluetooth alone -- I am now carrying around a paperweight, and I can do nothing until I am back at home. Please HELP!

Best answer by Airgetlam

Not sure why hotspotting didn’t work. You should be setting up the hotspot as the internet device/source, and the second device runs the Sonos controller which connects to the hotspot. You would set up the Roam following the normal process, using the S2 controller, as if it were new,  to connect to the hotspot’s WiFi signal. Once that is done, it is ’set up’ and you can use it again as a Bluetooth speaker. 

And please, don’t use the factory reset process on any speaker unless directed by a Sonos employee. It causes enough issues, as you’ve found out on your Roam

You haven’t really given us any detail on which to build suggestions, though. So the above is merely how the process should normally work. And, you can easily use a travel router as well, since it also generates a local WiFi network that you can connect both your phone, and eventually the Roam to.

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9 replies

Airgetlam
  • Airgetlam
  • 42988 replies
  • Answer
  • November 4, 2023

Not sure why hotspotting didn’t work. You should be setting up the hotspot as the internet device/source, and the second device runs the Sonos controller which connects to the hotspot. You would set up the Roam following the normal process, using the S2 controller, as if it were new,  to connect to the hotspot’s WiFi signal. Once that is done, it is ’set up’ and you can use it again as a Bluetooth speaker. 

And please, don’t use the factory reset process on any speaker unless directed by a Sonos employee. It causes enough issues, as you’ve found out on your Roam

You haven’t really given us any detail on which to build suggestions, though. So the above is merely how the process should normally work. And, you can easily use a travel router as well, since it also generates a local WiFi network that you can connect both your phone, and eventually the Roam to.

Bruce
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  • PC747
  • Contributor I
  • 5 replies
  • January 6, 2024

Roam design is trash.

I have just spent 3hrs tech supporting my gf in a hotel room trying to get the roam birthday gift I bought her to just play some goddam music off her phone. It worked at home. It should always work as a Bluetooth speaker, whatever the goddam hotel WiFi is like.

It played briefly, then her phone ran out of charge. It has been blinking green since then and nothing will make it functional.

Pretty sure I will refund this product. A roam product that can't roam is trash. Products should make our lives better not ruin a precious evening.

Please reconsider the value to your company of dev Muppets who demand your home goddam WiFi or whatever for a travel product.

FFS. Sort yourselves out. Seriously reconsidering my investments in Sonos.

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    Fugwit
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    Temp568
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  • PC747
  • Contributor I
  • 5 replies
  • January 6, 2024

In case this isn't clear enough.

Claiming this is a Bluetooth speaker is false advertising. It should leave the factory as a Bluetooth speaker. Nothing should EVER stop it being a Bluetooth speaker. Not this trash design.

Asking your users to go reconfigure the hotel router before you are allowed to use a Roam speaker via Bluetooth. What bucket of crystal meth are your Devs smoking?

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Ken_Griffiths

My young grandson setup a Roam that I gave him, whilst away on a camping trip - He just used a friends mobile as a WiFi hotspot and setup/registered the Roam to a Sonos account, apparently with no issues.

Once it was registered/added to the S2 App, he then used the Roam over Bluetooth for the remainder of his trip with his own phone and a ‘free’ version of the Spotify App.

Airgetlam
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  • Airgetlam
    Airgetlam
106rallye
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  • 106rallye
  • 6233 replies
  • January 7, 2024

Has your girlfriend reset the device or is she trying to play using the Sonos app (that is not used for bluetooth)?

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  • PC747
  • Contributor I
  • 5 replies
  • January 9, 2024

We were jamming music together using Spotify to the Roam while on call. Her phone ran out of charge. The Roam then had a tantrum & refused all the suggestions here and elsewhere in the forums to work until returned to the home WiFi.

It played tones. It said it was connecting or configuring multiple times, but never became a music playing device again until returned to home WiFi.

Roam should leave the factory as a Bluetooth speaker. Nothing should ever remove it's ability to be a Bluetooth speaker. Messages to reconfigure your hotel WiFi show the lack of design thought. Roam should actually have a separate dedicated button to Be A Bluetooth (+discoverable for some minutes).

Ken_Griffiths
PC747 wrote:

We were jamming music together using Spotify to the Roam while on call. Her phone ran out of charge. The Roam then had a tantrum & refused all the suggestions here and elsewhere in the forums to work until returned to the home WiFi.

It played tones. It said it was connecting or configuring multiple times, but never became a music playing device again until returned to home WiFi.

Roam should leave the factory as a Bluetooth speaker. Nothing should ever remove its ability to be a Bluetooth speaker. Messages to reconfigure your hotel WiFi show the lack of design thought. Roam should actually have a separate dedicated button to Be A Bluetooth (+discoverable for some minutes).

FWIW - other Sonos users in this user-community have put these suggestions to Sonos Staff in the past and Sonos have stated they have put them forward for consideration by their engineering team, so I’m sure your remarks here will be noted and added to that request.

Sonos however do not announce their development roadmap, so it’s a case of waiting to see if these suggestions are implemented, or not. It’s a worthwhile suggestion though and as another user it’s +1 from me.

That said, I’m not overly bothered about these issues personally speaking, as I tend to travel with iPhone/iPad and a MiFi (LTE mobile router) so it’s not an issue to quickly re-setup a factory reset Roam, but I appreciate that may not be the case for everyone who are perhaps out and about with just a single phone etc.

Airgetlam
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  • Airgetlam
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  • Fugwit
  • Lyricist I
  • 1 reply
  • January 25, 2024

What a POS, this is NOT a bluetooth speaker, having to set up an account, email address, yada yada just to hook up to my phone to play music???

And like others I bought this out whilst travelling and cannot get it to work using the hotel wifi, what an utter f…. joke piece of trash, if the shop was still open I’d take it back…

As PC747 says, this should work out the box on bluetooth and for those that want to connect it to their sonos systems at home, fine go configure on wifi..

Totally pissed off purchaser, I might just head back to the shop tomorrow and get my money back - POS!!!!!!!!!!!!

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    PC747
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  • Gommit
  • Lyricist I
  • 1 reply
  • April 6, 2024

I’m just here to pile on the frustration of this absurd product design decision.

Sitting in my new flat doing construction work alone and ready to blast the new Black Keys album. Just to find out that my daughter seems to have reset the Roam.

It’s not a resolution having to find a person to hotspot a wifi to initialize a speaker through a bloody app. Just enable bluetooth and let me listen to my music. This is a consious decision by some muppet that has no empathy or tried to use their own product outside their controled environment.

This is also the reason I won’t be buying more Sonos products in the near future. It’s a shame as they sound fine. I’ve had a similar crap experience trying to initialize one of many sonos speakers at work. Step up your game and fix your UX.

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