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Sonos Roam seems completely dead - no LEDs at all

  • 23 January 2023
  • 5 replies
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Hi,

So i had bought two Sonos Roams about one and a half year ago. One I use daily myself, the other one was for my wife and she basically never used it. I bought a portable projector last week and was going to hook up the unused Roam to it. What I thought would be easy turned out be not working at all as the Roam seems to be completely dead. If course it was empty when I got it out of the closet so I charged it a bit, removed the charger and tried to turn it on. Didn’t work and when I plugged the charger back in I noticed the static orange light wouldn’t come on at all anymore. I tried the factory/hard reset but nothing.
What else can I try or do I have to write it off? Does the Sonos support do exchanges for these kind of cases after warranty ends? Thanks forum.

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Best answer by buzz 23 January 2023, 05:33

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There is another reset to try: After ROAM has been on the charger for an hour or more, remove ROAM from the charger and hold the power button for 15 seconds, then place on the charger.

Are you sure that the charger you are using is appropriate and functional?

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One of my Roams has always had a problem holding its charge. It finally died. My other Roam seemed to happily sleep and so preserve its battery. The now dead one always seemed to be needing charge every time I wanted to use it. 

Problem is I could go days or a week without using either. One was happy. One was always flat. With hindsight I should have raised a support issue back then. 

Eventually the problematic one refused to charge. Raised a support ticket which made a few suggestions- most of which were impractical as involved things like ‘hold down the power button until you hear the tone’. Well that only works if it is already on. Mine was totally unresponsive. No lights no tones.  It was under warranty so was replace
 

I think the lesson learned is use the Roam frequently or at least wake it up every couple of days to check the battery is not too low. Not sure why one coped with being left and one didn’t. Maybe just a poor batch of batteries or a faulty charging circuit and I got unlucky on one. 


 

 

Thanks for your feedback. That worked and brought it back to life right away. Why is that not described anywhere? Thanks so much again.

Lithium batteries are a pain. If they are fully discharged, there can be a fire hazard when connected to a charger. As a precaution, the batteries are locked out after being discharged too far. This is true for all products, not just SONOS.

In general, a product using Lithium batteries should not be allowed fully discharge. I keep track of my Lithium products and If I’m not using them regularly, I’ll make a point of charging them occasionally in order to prevent the lockout.

I ran into this problem as well; all of the information in this string was very helpful in getting me back on track.  The key appears to be being patient after the dead unit has been plugged back in to wait for it to “wake up”.  I plugged mine in for two hours, then did the 15 second power button hold (suggested by Buzz).  Eventually, I saw the orange light illuminate and within another hour or so, the Roam became findable on my Sonos app.  I let it continue charging overnight, and this morning, it appears to be good to go.  Again, patience appears to be the key.

It would be REALLY nice if Sonos mentioned this issue about Roam (in materials included with the product, which are very annoyingly limited) and offered some easily accessible guidelines regarding how to resolve the problem for owners who encounter it. I was lucky to have found the “Sonos Community” which I will keep in mind as/if I encounter other issues with my Sonos products.

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