Sonos Roam - Stuck In Sleep Mode

Alternatively the Roam may be, to all intents and purposes, dead.

I have two Roams.  In the early days I had problems with battery life.  If left off the charger (and why buy a battery speaker if you have to keep it on the charger all the time), they would run down in a matter of 3-4 days even if just on standby/sleep.  Then I think Sonos did a software update to improve sleep mode.  One Roam improved hugely.  The other didn’t. It always seemed to need a charge whenever I needed to use it.    After almost 2 years the problematic Roam exhibited the problems as described here.  The wireless charger did not seem to do anything.  I could, but not always, get the charge light to glow solid orange on a wired charger.  But solid orange is not a recognised LED state.  The charge LED is supposed to glow orange and then go out after 10 seconds.  And as soon as the charger was unplugged the light went out and it was totally unresponsive.  Nothing from the status LED.  No tones.  No response to holding the power button for any amount of time.  No difference if I left the Roam on charge for a day.  

The eventual conclusion was that the Roam was faulty. 

Best open a support case unless one of the suggested ways of coaxing it back to life works.  The support desk will suggest much the same so you need to have tried that first.  That said the suggestions also included things that were clearly not going to work  (like power the Roam off by holding the power button until you hear the tone) but I guess they have to try the simple things first.  

I am inclined to believe that there was a design flaw lurking in there somewhere which means the Roam did not cope well with its battery being completely discharged.  Or there was a problem with a batch of batteries or charging circuits or something.  Or maybe, like all rechargeable batteries, they don’t last more than a certain period.  Perhaps because the problematic Roam was always being re-charged then it ‘wore down’ the battery.  That said even charging it every 4 days for 2 years should be seen as reasonable usage.  If I actually used it for 8 hours to play music on battery power then I would be charging it up even more often.  But I am sure Sonos knows exactly. 

Mine are two years old now.  My gut instinct is that if I bought a Roam today then I would not get the same battery issues.  

Equally if you have an older Roam and you still experience problems with battery life then beware.  You may well find it does not live as long as you would expect.  

So, here is the conclusion to my story.  My Roam was seen as faulty and fortunately just within warranty.  It was replaced under warranty once I had sent back the faulty product.  Annoyingly the returns process in the UK involves sending it to Poland and since UK is now out of the EU then it has to pass through customs.  My return got stuck in customs for 2 weeks and it was hugely frustrating emailed various people in the UK and Poland.  No one could tell me if there was a problem.  The returns process includes a pro-forma invoice to aid the customs process.  But as a failed product it really had minimal commercial value.  Then as if by magic the return left the customs warehouse and made its way to Sonos.  Within a day the replacement had been shipped and 2 days later I had my new Roam.  Setting it up was a breeze.  No issues with me calling it what the old one was which had of course inexplicably to the app become permanently offline.  This work has worked faultlessly.  It goes to sleep and so preserves the battery power.  That said my experience will mean I am not going to allow it to run fault and be left flat for any extended period.

Thanks for all the comments here. My Roam is also stuck in sleep mode. To be honest I haven’t used it much and mainly it has sat on the window sill on its magnetic charger, probably for about six months. I also have a Move that I carry around the house when I need a portable speaker so the Roam is more for when I’m travelling. Now I’m trying to get it working again and none of the solutions suggested seem to work.

• It isn’t charging on the magnetic base
• With a USBC cable connected the LED is permanent orange
• Holding the power button for 15+ seconds has no effect, regardless of whether on power or not.
• It isn’t visible on my WiFI network so I can’t check the battery status through a browser (I can see the Move)

Just about to log a support call. Wish me luck!