I learn after I buy the product and start using it that for some unfathomable reason it won’t work on phone calls. The product has a good mic on it. Every other bluetooth speaker can do this. There is no mention anywhere of the lack of capability. I feel completely misled and wasted my money. I demand an explanation for why the company chooses not to allow this use case. And don’t close this topic for comments just because you don’t want to hear from more customers about this issue. I WANT AN ANSWER.
Why can't Sonos Roam work for phone calls? I want an answer.
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Personally, I wish that callers would not use an external microphone/speaker when calling me because they usually become hard to understand.
It’s not advertised by Sonos as a telephone speaker, it’s perhaps better described as a wireless-multiroom audio speaker with Bluetooth and Airplay built-in, whose microphones are used to auto-TruePlay and tune it’s audio-output to its surrounding environment. The mics allow the user to converse with the built in voice assistants for playback/control of the audio and adjust its volume.
The Bluetooth built-in, in some respects is unlike any other, in that it acts as a line-in/pass-through for the Bluetooth-playing audio, which in turn allows the Roam to be ‘grouped’ over WiFi with other Sonos speakers (with or without Bluetooth) to playback that streaming audio to multiple rooms.
The little speaker has these listed features (not an exhaustive list):
- Waterproof
- Auto-Trueplay
- Apple Airplay
- Wireless Audio
- Sound Swap Audio Transfer to compatible Sonos products
- Bluetooth (with pass-through/line-in to Sonos wireless connected devices)
- Stereo pairing & grouping.
- 10 hour+ battery life
- Built-in mic with voice assistant (Alexa/Google?)
- Available in Black/White colours
- Wired/Wireless charging
…but a mobile telephone speaker, it isn’t (not yet at least), nor as it ever been advertised as such.
a clear explanation, but hardly the point. The vast majority of similar products allow mobile phone use as a speaker. It is a spectacular oversight at minimum. The other question here is, why not just enable it???
Not to be rude … (and
I would suggest you do better research before you buy a product. Maybe you should have hoped the thread would be closed for comment. Had it been…my (this) post exposing your lack of common sense when buying a product would have never seen the light of day.
Farcical response. It is clear oversight by SONOS and the car analagy is perfect. Why dont they just enable it? we purchased 2 of these at Christmas and have hardly used either because of this lack of usability.
Look…man-up, woman-up or whatever sexual orientation you identify with and STOP blaming others for your mistakes. Take responsibility for your actions. Learn from your mistakes and hopefully you won’t make the same mistake again. Your rational to justify your actions is that of a two year old and not that of a responsible intelligent person (or adult if you’re of age). So you have two choices:
- Keep the speaker
- Return it and buy what you want
Your complaining about your mistaken buying decision is fruitless. Take
Now that said…Do you have a technical issue this community can address? If not…well…you know the answer.
very poor response, Im new to these sorts of forums but have been forced to join the conversation because I am also stunned by this huge oversight. Suggest YOU stop defending the company and instead turn your efforts getting the feature included. As it currently stands, it is similar to purchasing a new mobile phone (not reading the fine print) and then discovering the microphone is only to be used for a predetermined list of phone numbers! insane. Surely the consumer can decide what the mic and speaker do? Especially given there seems to be no technical reason for not including the feature!
I’m not sure about the relevance of the post immediately prior to mine - I wouldn’t expect it to work as a phone speaker in Wifi mode - but in pure Bluetooth Mode, it’s baffling to me why this functionality wouldn’t be there.
For the Roam, entering bluetooth mode does not exit ‘WiFi mode’. The speaker is still connected to your WiFi and the other speakers in your system which allows you to share any BT audio with the rest of your Sonos system. So the scenario where described regarding how the system should operate when a phone call is received is valid. I’m not saying that this features makes receiving phone calls technically impossible, just that the feature would be implement in a way that many surely would not find idea.
I laughed at the comment above about people defending the lack of the feature being the kind of people who write insurance exclusions. Exactly my thought. Not having that functionality would be like picking up my new car only to find it has manual door locks and the dealer stating “well, the X1As trim level you selection never claimed to have power locks or keyless entry”. Some things are so universal and so basic they don’t even merit advertising. I really can’t even think of a single other BT speaker I’ve purchased in the last 5 years that didn’t allow pass through for phone calls - and I’ve probably bought a dozen.
It’s been stated already before, but how many of the BT speakers were also WiFi speakers? I think echos can (or maybe only older gens) had a BT mode where they can be used as dumb speakers, not connected to Alexa or able to stream music directly. That’s not how the Roam works, as already mentioned.
As far as the car analogy, Ford F150 XL still has manual locks, no keyless entry. It would be a bad assumption. However, I think it would be better to compare an EV to regular gas engine vehicle for your example. They both do basically the same thing, but there are some difference, and you can’t assume the EV does everything that the gas vehicle does, in addition to the additional features it offers. Likewise, you can’t assume that the Roam does everything a BT speaker does plus all the WiFi speaker features.
Like I said before, I understand where the assumption comes from. And honestly, if you need a device to act as phone speaker/mic more than you need it to connect with the rest of your Sonos system, then Roam is not for you. I had a need for a portable speaker with an aux input, so I didn’t get Sonos since they didn’t offer that at the time, and still don’t.
I’m no engineer, but it seems like this is something that could be added in via a software update. Not holding my breath, but it would be wonderful if Sonos actually improved a product after release. Other than that minor lack of functionality, I’ve been pretty darn pleased with my Roam (and my Move).
Software changes always appear ea sy when we don’t know much about how it’s coded. Usually very different in reality. And Sonos improves products after release whenever possible. It’s why every product that had the hardware to handle it got upgraded with airplay, high res audio, Sonos Voice control, etc.
I just took for granted
You shouldn't have done that. Always keep thinking by yourself, or you'll get into trouble. As you did.
Mostly it collect dust on my shelf.
Don't dust it off. Sell it.
have to agree with
Roam is quite small and a portability design with waterproofing. Clearly meant to be taken out of the home and where Wifi and a home theatre system aren’t available.
It would be very nice to have this feature as this product is likely worlds better than a little jabra speaker.
First off thanks for being conversational and not a jerk. Those are ALL great points. I think for the money we pay for sonos surely they could come up with a way that would allow it to have dual function in this way.
My main reason for bringing these up is just to illustrate that many features seem easy before you dive into the details of how it should work in different common situations. I doubt that I’ve covered them all, and some probably are easily discovered to you actually do hands on testing.
When on wifi and used in the sonos ecosystem it should function as home audio speakers do and just work as sonos has always worked.
i see no need at all to have it connected to the phone through bluetooth but grouped with other wifi speakers. If there is i’m open to people pointing that out but for now lets assume if it is connected through wifi it works like normal. BUT if I connect to it through bluetooth, NOW it is either 1. AWAY from my other wifi speakers, beach, board room, campsite, etc. and now i could have phone call capability. 2. if i am at home and i’m on a conference call and want to hear it while getting ready or doing breakfast or even working out etc. then i would have it connected through bluetooth and it would disconnect from wifi and NOT be grouped almost the same way the soundbars ungroup when the tv plays.
The Roam and Move 2 currently can connect to bluetooth and WiFI, share bluetooth audio with the rest of the Sonos system and it is highly desired feature from consumers. The typical uses are to allow guests to play audio on your system without giving them access to the network, play audio on your android phone that isn’t a streaming service Sonos can play directly (airplay works for Apple users), or to play audio from a TV or any other source that can transmit audio. The original Move works as you describe, in that it could not be connected via bluetooth and WiFi at the same time, and it was considered a drawback to the product.
You are correct that Sonos could put in a setting to automatically ungroup when receiving bluetooth audio, the same as a soundbar disconnects when it receives TV audio. Well, I think that would work as I’m not sure that bluetooth audio can be sensed in the same way.
there could be software that we go in to the app (just like we do when we group speakers) and tell the speaker to only connect through bluetooth or only through wifi and just toggle this off. I could see it being a button combo or done through the app.
I get what you’re going for here, but I just don’t see that being a popular feature. I think people don’t want to switch back and forth depending on when they are expecting a call or not. And I don’t think the switch will activate and switch to bluetooth right as you are getting a call. I think the expectation will be that it stays fully connected to both bluetooth and WiFi and smartly plays the audio depending on what you likely want at that time.
i love the scenarios you came up with because it’s that type of thinking that helps develop the products we need. I feel like my solution for it being a regular sonos product while used in wifi would allow it to work like all our other sonos products have and then when you use it bluetooth it would disconnect from the wifi system and function as a media/phone audio speaker like other bluetooth devices do.
is there ANY reason you would want to use it on bluetooth and group it with other wifi speakers? or is that even possible…..if not we are that much closer to adding speakerphone functionality!
Yes, I went over that already. On a pair of Era 300s, I use the bluetooth to connect to a TV and share the audio with other rooms as my personal use case. And that’s another point, we are just talking about the Roam here, but portability is really the key feature, it’s the combination of speaker, mic, and bluetooth, which several Sonos products have right now.
You may want to ask your question on a more generic forum, rather than one dedicated to support for Sonos.
Not to be rude … (and
I would suggest you do better research before you buy a product. Maybe you should have hoped the thread would be closed for comment. Had it been…my (this) post exposing your lack of common sense when buying a product would have never seen the light of day.
Where’s the downvote button?
If something is listed as “bluetooth” and “built-in mic”, then in my opinion it needs to explicitly be listed as not allowing for phone calls. Because I’m willing to bet 100% of other portable speakers with “bluetooth” and “built-in mic” support phone calls. It’s like a car that has an accelerator pedal and a “Drive” mode but doesn’t support actually moving forward.
The devil is sometimes in the detail I guess and it’s what a device will actually do - not what you think it will do. Sonos has never said the Roam will work as a speaker for phone calls over Bluetooth - the mic, as I’ve attempted to explain, is used to speak to the built in voice assistant and for continuous auto-TruePlay tuning of the speaker, as you move it about to different listening environments.
What you perhaps need to do is contact Sonos Customer Support and submit your requirements as a ‘new feature request’, then see if the Sonos developers can perhaps go onto include that in a software update at some point in the future. Here is the link if you wish to chat/speak to Sonos Support:
https://support.sonos.com/s/contact
Hope that helps…👍
By the way, my car has ‘wings’, but it doesn’t fly (joke) … ha ha 😀
Hope this helps…
Has anyone able to figure out how can we make phone calls using Sonos Move?
Userlevel 7
+23
Has anyone able to figure out how can we make phone calls using Sonos Move?
Configure it for Alexa, and use that to make calls. Amazon just added support for T-Mobile to their phone calling Skill.
Has anyone able to figure out how can we make phone calls using Sonos Move?
Configure it for Alexa, and use that to make calls. Amazon just added support for T-Mobile to their phone calling Skill.
I don’t think that will work. This sounds like a variation of Alexa’s pre-existing calling feature, which didn’t work with Sonos speakers. Have you tried this out on Sonos?
Also, this obviously would not work over bluetooth.
Personally, I wish that callers would not use an external microphone/speaker when calling me because they usually become hard to understand.
I think it all boils down to personal preferences. I prefer to use external device, particularly for conference calls. It helps keeping hands free for other work, easy for multiple people to listen in and contribute, and clarity is so much better compared to putting phone on speaker.
Userlevel 5
+15
I learn after I buy the product and start using it that for some unfathomable reason it won’t work on phone calls. The product has a good mic on it. Every other bluetooth speaker can do this. There is no mention anywhere of the lack of capability. I feel completely misled and wasted my money. I demand an explanation for why the company chooses not to allow this use case. And don’t close this topic for comments just because you don’t want to hear from more customers about this issue. I WANT AN ANSWER.
Not to be rude, but I am 100% am glad it is NOT a Bluetooth speaker. I had one and it’s annoying as all get up.
This would of course be a nice to have feature on the Roam and the Move. But having an unsecured bluetooth speaker for use as a hamnds free carkit does not look like a good idea to me. A dedicated hands free kit is a better idea for that purpose. Take a look at these for example: https://www.jabra.com/in-car
completely irrelevant, he can use it wherever he wants to. Use as a speaker phone would be assumed by almost all consumers, and the big question here is, why not just enable it? Its a portable speaker after all! and it would be very handy to use this feature when not on the home network… or at home for that matter.
I am completely supportive of twinsdad’s perspective here. A Bluetooth speaker with a mic and does not support phone calls is completely ludicrous. Since every speaker with a mic can do a phone call - that’s what they are there for since they communicate with your f’n phone - it’s completely logical to expect this feature without having to read fine point to confirm an illogical expectation.
For those of you who believe this as a lack of research, you must write insurance policies exclusions for a living.
well said. Just got off the phone with SONOS support, they have no plans to upgrade the software to allow this feature. direct quote “phone wont transfer the audio to the speaker” “it may sound too soft” after giving the customer service person the chance to retract that clearly insufficient response, he politely declined and offered a refund on my 2 x SONOS roam speakers. (which I will accept) WOW.
Userlevel 7
+17
This would of course be a nice to have feature on the Roam and the Move. But having an unsecured bluetooth speaker for use as a hamnds free carkit does not look like a good idea to me. A dedicated hands free kit is a better idea for that purpose. Take a look at these for example: https://www.jabra.com/in-car
i understand where twinsdad is coming from i also get where everyone else is coming from telling him to research first buy second, and how sonos doesn’t advertise this.
With that being said, i have sonos all throughout the house garage and sunporch…….the roam is a great speaker to take on the beach or into a breakfast area with a work team. I do a conference call everyday at work and wanted the roam to play the conference call loud enough i could get in the shower walk in to the closet brush my teeth etc and still be able to hear the whole call. Because it doesn’t have the much needed feature i would have this blue tooth speaker for beach pool etc and i have to carry another with me for when i have 10 people in a meeting room listening to the same call or if i’m in the shower and want to listen to that call on something louder than the phone………...i think THIS was twins dads point …...just give us the feature and a way to turn it off…..
example. on an android phone i used to go in to the bluetooth settings of the phone and i could select phone audio or media audio toggled on or off if i wanted to. Sonos could give us this feature….
its better to have and not need than to need and not have.
great for audio -- yes…...will it replace the functionality of other bluetooth speakers --no. so either carry two bluetooth speakers OR BUY SOMETHING ELSE…..hope you’re listening SONOS…..ironic if they weren’t good listeners ;)
Maybe Bose portable smart speaker has the old feature as of make and the calls. Looks that in the marketing. This is a must for me, to automatically answer calls on samsung phone when connected via bluetooth speaker.
i understand where twinsdad is coming from i also get where everyone else is coming from telling him to research first buy second, and how sonos doesn’t advertise this.
With that being said, i have sonos all throughout the house garage and sunporch…….the roam is a great speaker to take on the beach or into a breakfast area with a work team. I do a conference call everyday at work and wanted the roam to play the conference call loud enough i could get in the shower walk in to the closet brush my teeth etc and still be able to hear the whole call. Because it doesn’t have the much needed feature i would have this blue tooth speaker for beach pool etc and i have to carry another with me for when i have 10 people in a meeting room listening to the same call or if i’m in the shower and want to listen to that call on something louder than the phone………...i think THIS was twins dads point …...just give us the feature and a way to turn it off…..
example. on an android phone i used to go in to the bluetooth settings of the phone and i could select phone audio or media audio toggled on or off if i wanted to. Sonos could give us this feature….
its better to have and not need than to need and not have.
great for audio -- yes…...will it replace the functionality of other bluetooth speakers --no. so either carry two bluetooth speakers OR BUY SOMETHING ELSE…..hope you’re listening SONOS…..ironic if they weren’t good listeners ;)
It is clearly reasonable to assume that the majority of people would want this feature, or are indifferent, with only a handful of people not wanting the feature. I can’t imagine that Sonos isn’t aware of this and would implement ASAP if it was as simple as flipping a switch in the firmware.
In your examples, you’re using the Roam as a standalone speaker, not considering that it’s actually part of a multiroom audio system over WiFi. So when your Roam is currently grouped with other speakers in your home, and you receive a phone call, what should happen? Should the phone call audio play for the whole group or should the Roam disconnect from the group to take the call? If it stays grouped, are you expecting every mic in the home to be listening? Are you going to be ok with the buffered audio delay inherent in Sonos? If it disconnects from the group, are you going to be annoyed if you don’t want to take the call, and your group got disconnected for nothing? Should the Roam only “take the call” if it’s currently playing bluetooth audio? Maybe it should be disconnected from WiFI to take calls? Can you group the bluetooth audio after taking a call? Do you think Sonos should provide the user with options on exactly how they want it to operate in these situations?
I do suspect Sonos is looking at these issues, as there rumors that Sonos will be release headphones later this year. Ability to take phone calls is surely an even more desired feature in headphones, even over the ear, than in portable speakers. Although, it’s far from a given, and I wouldn’t be surprised either way. There is also a rumor, though much more vague, that an update Roam will be coming out too. If these features require a hardware change, it makes sense that new tech in the headphones would be port over to a “Roam 2” if it could benefit from the same features. Again though...very far from a given and just speculation.
First off thanks for being conversational and not a jerk. Those are ALL great points. I think for the money we pay for sonos surely they could come up with a way that would allow it to have dual function in this way.
When on wifi and used in the sonos ecosystem it should function as home audio speakers do and just work as sonos has always worked.
i see no need at all to have it connected to the phone through bluetooth but grouped with other wifi speakers. If there is i’m open to people pointing that out but for now lets assume if it is connected through wifi it works like normal. BUT if I connect to it through bluetooth, NOW it is either 1. AWAY from my other wifi speakers, beach, board room, campsite, etc. and now i could have phone call capability. 2. if i am at home and i’m on a conference call and want to hear it while getting ready or doing breakfast or even working out etc. then i would have it connected through bluetooth and it would disconnect from wifi and NOT be grouped almost the same way the soundbars ungroup when the tv plays.
there could be software that we go in to the app (just like we do when we group speakers) and tell the speaker to only connect through bluetooth or only through wifi and just toggle this off. I could see it being a button combo or done through the app.
i love the scenarios you came up with because it’s that type of thinking that helps develop the products we need. I feel like my solution for it being a regular sonos product while used in wifi would allow it to work like all our other sonos products have and then when you use it bluetooth it would disconnect from the wifi system and function as a media/phone audio speaker like other bluetooth devices do.
is there ANY reason you would want to use it on bluetooth and group it with other wifi speakers? or is that even possible…..if not we are that much closer to adding speakerphone functionality!
I think this is the main reason why I never recommend anyone to buy the Sonos Roam.
This is a feature my old Bose Soundlink mini II had, and I just took for granted that this function where, there when I bought it. Yeah, Sonos never market that function, but neither do other companies that sell speakers and headphones with Bluetooth where this function is available. The funtion has always been there so you take it for granted.
When it wasn’t, I thought that this would be added further down the road. It ca’t be used together with the computer connected with USB-C, also something you take for granted when you see an USB-C port. Sinca e it can’t work as speaker for phone calls, you can’t use it for video conferences neither. (This was also a product released while the pandemic was going on and the demand was high for this kind of products.)
The Roam is probably the worse portable Bluetooth speaker you can buy. The sound delay if you connect it to your iPad or computer with Bluetooth is so noticeable that you can’t watch any movies with it. It just has one function that other Bluetooth speakers lacks, it is compatible with the Sonos eco system. But that is all. Mostly it collect dust on my shelf.
I think this is the main reason why I never recommend anyone to buy the Sonos Roam.
This is a feature my old Bose Soundlink mini II had, and I just took for granted that this function where, there when I bought it. Yeah, Sonos never market that function, but neither do other companies that sell speakers and headphones with Bluetooth where this function is available. The funtion has always been there so you take it for granted.
When it wasn’t, I thought that this would be added further down the road. It ca’t be used together with the computer connected with USB-C, also something you take for granted when you see an USB-C port. Sinca e it can’t work as speaker for phone calls, you can’t use it for video conferences neither. (This was also a product released while the pandemic was going on and the demand was high for this kind of products.)
The Roam is probably the worse portable Bluetooth speaker you can buy. The sound delay if you connect it to your iPad or computer with Bluetooth is so noticeable that you can’t watch any movies with it. It just has one function that other Bluetooth speakers lacks, it is compatible with the Sonos eco system. But that is all. Mostly it collect dust on my shelf.
Buy one more thing, its waste sooner or later, so if sonos think of climate, integrate bluetooth conference call.
Anyone knows any other brands who have all that roam has and the blutooth call function? Seem maybe bose has a portable speaker doing it.
No it seems you cant use bose expensive thing either to phone calls, incredible stupid to buy another speaker just for that.
Can you make phone calls with the Bose Portable Smart Speaker?
You can make phone calls with the Bose Portable Smart Speaker, but it’s not via your mobile carrier. According to Bose, as long as you use Amazon Alexa and the person you’re calling also does on a compatible product, you can place calls using the speaker. This only works over Wi-Fi, and it doesn’t work with Google Assistant. I could not test this feature, however, because I do not know anyone who also has Amazon Alexa.
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