In your set up the Roam is depending on you wifi coverage , since  the Roam does not use the Boost. Can you tell us more about your wifi set up?

Thanks for the reply. I actually use Google wifi with 4 points. The wifi coverage and external download speed is excellent and with the four of us in the house we have no issues streaming films, music, iPads etc. 

it just didn’t occur to me that if I bought another sonos speaker (whatever that may be) that it wouldn’t connect to Sonos own network. I just find that concept mind boggling. I’m sure there are serious technical reasons for it but from a consumer perspective it left me confused. 

Hi @Wobind 

Thanks for your post!

I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team, who have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and what it reports.

It isn’t stupid.  If Sonos was stupid it wouldn’t be the inventor of (workable) multiroom wireless audio and a successful global enterprise.  That doesn’t mean Sonos gets everything right, and there are pros and cons for this issue.  I don’t know how the decision was taken not to allow the Roam and Move to connect to SonosNet, but one factor is that a desirable feature for a mesh network is that the configuration of the mesh nodes should not be constantly changing, which is precisely what you would be doing as you wandered round with your Roam.

Also, SonosNet is not actually a separate network.  When SonosNet is running there are three segments to your LAN - Ethernet, WiFi and SonosNet.  With a properly set up network data can flow as needed between the three segments. (Sonos mobile controllers all connect vis WiFI.)

Having said that, one of the cons of the Roam connecting via WiFi instead instead of SonosNet is thar Google WiFi has some features that make life difficult for Sonos.  As @Corry P suggests, Support needs to look at your system to find the most stable setup for your system.

Thank you to all who have commented - I have discovered a fix although not my preference. Because I use a turntable I have always kept the audio delay as short as possible so when the needle drops - I hear it drop. In setting the delay to the longest (2700 ms I think) the problem is obviously gone and the roam plays without dropout. The payoff is I ‘watch’ the needle drop and I ‘hear’ the needle drop 2 ½ seconds later…

Thanks again to all who replied. Robin

I understand the idea that they don’t want a mesh node moving around on SonosNet, causing the mesh to frequently change topology.  That makes reasonable sense.  What’s needed, and should be quite possible, is to allow the Roam & Move to connect to SonosNet as clients rather than mesh nodes.  If they are not participating in the mesh itself, connecting as a client should be the same as if they were connecting to a WiFi mesh network (i.e. just connecting to the strongest signal available from the SonosNet nodes).

How much effort would it be to rewrite the underlying networking layer for SonosNet? I have no idea if such a thing is possible. 

Sonos do seem to have taken a different route, since the new Era speakers also do not do Sonosnet.