Skip to main content

I got my Roam pair today and they sound great.  However I have had a lot of issues keeping them synced as a stereo pair - when I had them outside one of them would keep switching off, and when I turned it back on, it would show as a separate speaker. 

 

Later I took them in and plugged them in, did not see the turning off issue while they were charging.  When I manually switched one off and then on again, it lost the pair again though, and I had to manually repair them. 

 

Anyone else seeing this?  Any ideas?

I don’t understand all these pairing issues with ROAMs as an issue.  They are not intended as a fixed stereo pair, they are meant to walk away with you and ROAM.  If you make a new configuration, you have to go to the app and set it up and it is meant to go back to baseline when the end of the scenario is detected and become a singular ROAM.  Maybe there should be a save and recall configurations function, OK, but there are endless configurations many people may have included breaking the link to use bluetooth in the car or your phone at a party or pairing with friends ROAMs at a party or something.  There is not really a good way to predict in software how anyone really wants to roam around with their ROAMs without decreasing their capability to roam.   Many of these things I am reading seem to be about not wanting to buy other SONOS equipment to satisfy their specific needs or disliking the go back to baseline scenario because they have to go back to the app.  The ROAM seems to have more capability and control for any number of situations and still go back to being a singular roaming around speaker.  These are just my opinions as a SONOS  user.


There was a software update yesterday which deals with this some, have you installed that?

Installed the update ….. doesn’t seem to have fixed the issue though. Very frustrating!


same issue here.  Hope they come up with a fix soon.  It’s easy enough to pair, but the fact that my Moves stay paired with no issue makes this very perplexing and frustrating. Am I far off base thinking one could simply copy/paste the code modules used for pairing in the Move and apply to the Roam?  Confused….


Getting worse. Now, they pair but only one plays. The other is silent. I have factory reset and reinstalled multiple times and no resolution. I own about every Sonos product and am a huge advocate. As a founder of a software company, I consider Sonos a Gold Standard in quality and customer experience. It’s a new product and I am hopeful fixes will follow. For now, running unpaired I suppose. 


Just picked up a pair of Roam and my issue is a bit different.  I don't mind so much that they unpaid, though my play 1s never had this issue.  My issue us even when I pair them as stereo, app seems to play as stereo but one of the two will not have sound.  This appears to be random as sometimes it works sometime doesn't.  I end up just playing both and that's more reliable, as stereo pair doesn't always work for me.

 

Bummer as I like how small they are and playing both fills the room very well (though still lacks base).  If I cannot reliably connect both, they are going back...


Putting trueplay off seems to help here. Does anyone else have the same experience?


 They are not intended as a fixed stereo pair

 

When I bought my pair of Roam’s, pairing was a specific feature that they supported.  It still says pairing is a feature on the product page today.

The thing that is not stated is “unlike any other Sonos pairing, you must go and re-pair your Roam’s every time you want to use them because they separate from the pair each time they go to sleep”.

I bought Roam because I can take them with me when I want, and also have them live most of their time in my study as a pair.  If I did take one away with me, and needed to re-pair, fine.  But thats not whats happening.

 


So why not submit a diagnostic, and call Sonos about it?


 They are not intended as a fixed stereo pair

 

When I bought my pair of Roam’s, pairing was a specific feature that they supported.  It still says pairing is a feature on the product page today.

The thing that is not stated is “unlike any other Sonos pairing, you must go and re-pair your Roam’s every time you want to use them because they separate from the pair each time they go to sleep”.

I bought Roam because I can take them with me when I want, and also have them live most of their time in my study as a pair.  If I did take one away with me, and needed to re-pair, fine.  But thats not whats happening.

 

This is what the Staff have said about the Roam stereo pairing features (off its charger):

Obviously they always stay stereo paired when on WiFi and placed on a charger and work great when on the Sonos magnetic Qi charger base.


They not stay stero paired, as it's impossible to pair them in the first place. You can pair them, but only one plays music after this "pairing".

The stereo pairing for Roams used to work for me a couple months ago, seem like Sonos "improved" the firmware in the meantime.

This is the case of over ambitious project (do everything) crippled by hardware savings (why just one button with several use functions - I had to print and glue to my speaker short manual how to turn on the BT, go to sleep, shut off). The designer assumed the software will work flawlessly and all will happen automatically, the device will always guess the user needs. But the flawed overly complex software is not cooperating :(

So I decided for old phone and two BT speakers- it works all the time, no issues, no tinkering, no firmware updates, no decoding of blinking LEDs, no repairing. Simple and works.

It even allows me to listen in stereo in hotels, where Sonos refuses to connect to WiFi at all, so stereo pairing was never possible.

The sound of Sonos is great, but to get it I spend more time tinkering vs. listening. Beautiful product destroyed by poor software quality control.

Initially I was impressed by Sonos sound, especially in stereo. Now the stereo pairing capability is broken, and the product is useless.


Same issue for me.

I removed bluetooth pairing from my phone, disabled the battery saver option, checked my unifi dream machine log and my roam get great DB, tried to change 2.4 channel. Nothing helps so far, unfortunately sonos have an issue here. Roam isn't a speaker you can set up in stereo pair and forget about it. Seeing this thread is 9 months old with no resolution makes me think there won't be one. Very bad as it's misleading advertising 


The sad thing is that it worked previously, they broke something in one of the updates and now they just ignore us.

Overcomplicated product, this happens quite often with the development teams overwhelmed by their own creation.


The sad thing is that it worked previously, they broke something in one of the updates and now they just ignore us.

Overcomplicated product, this happens quite often with the development teams overwhelmed by their own creation.

I didn’t know this option was working before, if you go to Sonos site you can’t miss the fact that the Sonos Roam is a lead product for them and they do advertise the stereo pairing option, let’s hope some day they will decide to deliver.


New firmware updated on my two Roams, stereo pairing stil impossble. It was working ca. 6 moths before, now it’s brokem and seems Sonos doesn’t care at all :(


With Sonos support I identified that the problem (only one Roam playing in stereo pair) is linked to my Orange Funbox 6 router (pretty moderm, with Wifi6, actually manufactured by Sagecom), in 5GHz only (it works with 2.4GHz with Orange router and with both frequencies on my other TP-Link router). The Orange Funbox is not supported by Sonos (how convenient for them) but I have to use it as it handles my 600 Mbps fibre Internet provided by Orange. Some recent (last 6 months) FW update by Sonos broke the compatibility with Orange Funbox :(
But at least now I know where to look for the issue.


Same issue here, my Sonos Roams don’t play well with the new ASUS AX-86U WiFi 6 router. I tried both 2.4G and 5G with WiFi 6 turned on and off, same result! The Roam as the left channel works for a while, then out of nowhere stops producing sound, the Sonos app will show the Left channel as “Offline”. All the other Sonos speakers on the network work fine.

@Sonos, this is NOT Okay, we customers stay with Sonos because of your ecosystem and “supposed to be hassle free” experience. FIX THIS!!


@Sonos, this is NOT Okay, we customers stay with Sonos because of your ecosystem and “supposed to be hassle free” experience. FIX THIS!!

Consider the possibility that it’s not Sonos which needs to “FIX THIS!!” sic], but ASUS. 

Did you disable Airtime Fairness as recommended?


Consider the possibility that it’s not Sonos which needs to “FIX THIS!!” Ssic], but ASUS. 

Did you disable Airtime Fairness as recommended?

Execuse my ranting comments, don’t usually use tones like that, trying to be the solution not the problem. I was frustrated after talking to the support rep for over an hour, we tried turning on and off some features on the Router, even switched between 2.4G and 5G with a fixed band, the problem persists. I have to point out though, Sonos’ support reps in China were very helpful, well trained and knowledgable, he tried his best helping with the problem. I submited the diagnostics from the app, unfortunately the rep couldn’t locate any problem except quoting that one Roam somehow fell “out of sync” from the other. 

Airtime Fairness was disabled the whole time, the first thing I tried. And I have an complete Sonos Arc + One + Sub setup running on the same network that works flawlessly.


Same issue here, my 2 Sonos Roams are paired, both working and stereo is playing.

Next day the pairing is gone, need to pair them again, sometimes it works , sometimes they won't pair until the next day. After using sonos for a long time (Play-1's, Bar, Sub) very happy with them, this is really disappointing.

What is the fix Sonos?


My use case is two Roams in the bathroom, one plugged in and the other on a Sonos charging base so I can pick it up and take it into the shower, then put it back on the base afterward, so both are left always on.

I had the same issues as above when one Roam was allowed to go into standby, or if one was taken away from the other as I did when I got them and was trying them out - which I sort of understand and can definitely live with.

I soon discovered that leaving both powered on and on charge so they don’t go into standby solved the issue - until the past week or so. Now the stereo pair breaks after around an hour of the speakers not playing even when they are both left untouched and powered up, just like they have been for the weeks since I got them on launch day. It’s nothing to do with Bluetooth, using Alexa or any other of the theories above as it happens when the bathroom is unoccupied and the speakers are not touch or interacted with in any way.

I have zero interest in a portable Sonos speaker - I just wanted a waterproof one so I could take it in the shower with me to listen to audiobooks without having to have the volume up loud enough for neighbours to hear through the open window, and bought a pair so I can hear the book when I move out of the shower, and so it sounds better when my wife uses it for music.

The behaviour of losing stereo pair when on standby was a bad enough experience (I couldn’t leave one speaker in the shower except when charging as I had planned to do), but regressing to breaking the pair regardless of what I do pretty much has me regretting buying the Roams - and that as a happy Sonos user of over eight years with 13 other Sonos products.


Same issue here. It used to work (upon release date) but some update broke it for sure. Now IF the pairing succeeds I get only one speaker to work, and breaking the stern pair enables the other speaker. Yup, strange. But then when I change the volume from the source it only becomes effective on 1 speaker since it doesn’t have a stereo pair.

 

It just doesn’t work, also not in my other house (with different WiFi obviously) so that can’t be the issue. I’m going back to old school receiver and cabled speakers and play from CD. That always works since there aren’t any software updates.

 

Phil


I have a stereo pair of Roams which work perfectly in every way apart form when started by Sonos alarm. Every morning I have to press the volume up button on the RH speaker which immediately brings it to life (and increases the volume to the LH speaker slightly). Left on standby permanently and start as a stereo pair in all other circumstances.

Sonos seem to have become lazy at dealing with known issues which is disappointing.

As the owner of ~25 units in two houses I expect better engagement than I get.


I also bought a pair of the wireless charges so I could keep the roams charging while playing on the deck and they still seperate pairs. I don't find those chargers work all that well 


I bought a couple of Sonos Roams to use outside in our patio, under cover, but next to the pool. I experienced some strange behaviour, similar to what was previously mentioned in the thread, like the stereo pair splitting and only one speaker playing in a pair.

 I spoke to Sonos support and potential issues included:

  • each speaker connected to a different satellite in our mesh network. Make sure they’re on the same satellite. This seems to be the biggest issue, and it’s mostly related to AirPlay2.
  • one speaker connects at 4.4GHz, the other at 5Ghz (although it sometimes works, but intermittently)
  • Network settings supporting 20Mhz/40Mhz coexistence

It was also confirmed that stereo pairing won’t be retained once powered down. This is a potential deal breaker for me. I got them for their wifi and weather resistant capabilities (it’s right next to the pool), but it also needs to be user friendly. As I’m planning to store them away after use in any case, I might as well get two HomePod minis and be a bit more pedantic about keeping them safe. It’s not in direct sun and potential rain.


It might be time to call Sonos Support directly to discuss it.

When you speak directly to the phone folks, they have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and network.