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twinsdad
Contributor I
November 9, 2021

Why can't Sonos Roam work for phone calls? I want an answer.

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.

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    EowynCarter
    Contributor I
    November 19, 2022

    Add my voice to "it would be a cool feature and it seams it could support it hardware wise."

      JarrodS
      Lyricist I
      January 4, 2023

      have to agree with @twinsdad I was looking at roam for just this feature. Its a bluetooth capable speaker with a mic. has the hardware required to act as a high quality speaker phone for work travel and small conference calls and it would be very nice for such trips both during meetings and in a hotel room for after work music and TV/movies.

      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.

        anki_89
        Lyricist I
        March 31, 2023

        Has anyone able to figure out how can we make phone calls using Sonos Move?

        controlav
        controlav
        Lead Maestro
        March 31, 2023

        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.

        Author of the leading independent Sonos apps for Android, MacOS, iOS, Windows and Xbox.
        melvimbe
        melvimbe
        March 31, 2023

        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.

        Danny
        controlav
        controlav
        Lead Maestro
        April 1, 2023

        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.

        I haven’t tried it, no, I gave up with Alexa for anything other than timers and IMDB type questions a while ago.

        Author of the leading independent Sonos apps for Android, MacOS, iOS, Windows and Xbox.
          JJM2023
          Lyricist III
          April 4, 2023

          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??? 

            JJM2023
            Lyricist III
            April 4, 2023

            @twinsdad

            Not to be rude … (and @Ken_Griffiths did an excellent job  to address your RANT) but no where on the Sonos website does it say the Roam can be used for phone calls. Duh??

            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. 

              JJM2023
              Lyricist III
              April 4, 2023

              @twinsdad

              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:

              1. Keep the speaker
              2. Return it and buy what you want

              Your complaining about your mistaken buying decision is fruitless. Take @Ken_Griffiths advice and submit a request for a feature enhancement. That’s all that can be done. 

              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!

                JJM2023
                Lyricist III
                April 4, 2023

                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.

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