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Not a question - just some major gripes - Return/get a refund if possible

C

The Sonos Roam is constantly dropping from my home PC and iPhone. Yes, it’s set up properly via wifi with the Sonos app. Yes, I follow the instructions on the Sonos site (incl. factory reset). Yes, it’s fully charged. Etc, etc. I even get it to work sometimes (for several consecutive days)...until it doesn’t (dropping randomly with me doing absolutely nothing).

I have looked in several Sonos community threads to investigate and a lot of feedback is not helpful (things I already did repeatedly) and usually condescending (the equivalent of “try ctrl-alt-del you dolt”).

My gripes -

  • Why does my Roam keep dropping randomly when using Bluetooth (on my phone or PC) - Actually, don’t answer this - I give up.
  • Why does the Roam not have a Bluetooth button if it is intended to be primarily a Bluetooth device (using the on/off button to pair the device is an idiotic design flaw in my view)?
  • Why do I need to link it with my wifi to get it started in any case (few if any other Bluetooth-enabled speakers require this)?
  • Why can’t a I simply use this as a ‘wired’ speaker with my PC as that would be an option - albeit a costly option - to get around the Bluetooth issues I am having?

Alas, I had extensive experience with Sonos speakers and systems years ago when it first came out (bridges, multiple speakers in different rooms and outdoors), and it worked fine. I eventually stopped using it in favor of using Bluetooth enabled devices in each room (long story short, it’s much easier to manage kid/wife expectations that way).

I do not have the same opinion of this product, and I cannot recommend the Sonos Roam at all.

DO NOT BUY (or return it before it’s too late and save hours of lost of time).

 

 

 

 

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Best answer by Ken_Griffiths 7 January 2023, 17:07

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31 replies

N
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

Speedtest, and any variations of similar apps, measure merely the speed between one device, and the end point for that app. What they don’t do is check for communication in your local LAN between devices, the speed thereof, or even for potentials like duplicate IP addresses. They’re great apps for that one thing, they’re not very good at the things that Sonos itself uses much more robustly than any other network device. 

 

I get your point, but in this case, my Roam is the only Sonos speaker that I have, my network, and any standard Wifi environment should be suitable for playing content on this speaker without a hustle    


But it’s not, for some reason. And since you can’t/won’t change your network setup your problems will continue. 
 

In various threads you say you’ve had two replacement Roams. Three different speakers, and you claim they’re all faulty. That now seems very unlikely. 
 

It’s time: sell your Roam, as you’ve been saying you will for several months now. 

M
Userlevel 3
Badge +5

Speedtest, and any variations of similar apps, measure merely the speed between one device, and the end point for that app. What they don’t do is check for communication in your local LAN between devices, the speed thereof, or even for potentials like duplicate IP addresses. They’re great apps for that one thing, they’re not very good at the things that Sonos itself uses much more robustly than any other network device. 

 

I get your point, but in this case, my Roam is the only Sonos speaker that I have, my network, and any standard Wifi environment should be suitable for playing content on this speaker without a hustle    

La discapacidad visual no es ningún impedimento, a disfrutar Bros
buzz

I recommend selling the ROAM. Obviously, your present network configuration cannot provide the support that ROAM needs and your network cannot be adjusted. Replace ROAM with an inexpensive, simple Bluetooth speaker.

Ken_Griffiths

@Ken_Griffiths, ok, I might have a network problem but Here we go again. 

1: I’ve tried to contact Sonos Mexico   Tech Support  many times, they’re quite unresponsive and unhelpful, nobody answers the calls and the chats get disconnected. 

2: I’m a person with vissual disabilities and it’s difficult for me to look at the printed manuals on my router to set it up, I live with 6 family members and everyone uses the network, so they don’t let me to touch the router, a simple reboot doesn’t makes a difference, and I’m not a technissian to sort out network issues. 

If your family members won’t let you or anyone else change your local router/network settings, then you will likely continue to have the same issues spoken about many (many) times in the past - there really isn’t anything anyone here can do to alter your situation. So as I mentioned earlier, just sell the Roam and get something else instead, like you keep saying you are going to do. 

M
Userlevel 3
Badge +5

A sticky wifi antenna?

Yes, a sticky Wifi antenna, as it might make the music stop randomly even with the greatest Wifi connection of the planet, when an Alexa Echo 4th gen plays without issue in my same location, in my same Wifi, in the same environment 

 

La discapacidad visual no es ningún impedimento, a disfrutar Bros
M
Userlevel 3
Badge +5

A sticky wifi antenna?

 

La discapacidad visual no es ningún impedimento, a disfrutar Bros
Airgetlam

I’ve got zero problems with my Sonos Roam, either in Bluetooth mode, or on Wi-Fi. 

Bruce
J
Userlevel 1

The Roam is a POS.

Not really much to bicker about there.

M
Userlevel 3
Badge +5

@Ken_Griffiths, ok, I might have a network problem but Here we go again. 

1: I’ve tried to contact Sonos Mexico   Tech Support  many times, they’re quite unresponsive and unhelpful, nobody answers the calls and the chats get disconnected. 

2: I’m a person with vissual disabilities and it’s difficult for me to look at the printed manuals on my router to set it up, I live with 6 family members and everyone uses the network, so they don’t let me to touch the router, a simple reboot doesn’t makes a difference, and I’m not a technissian to sort out network issues. 

3: I’ve took a look of other threads of people having the same issues and nothing seems to effectively work, not even reducing wireless interference. 

4: I bought my Roam to enjoy my music happily, not to study networking and get frustrated because my music keeps stopping randomly. 

5: I’ve asked for help very nicely to fix my Roam but this is what I get, everyone had yelled at me to fix my network, I’ve been told that I’m a troll,  and many disgusting comments; I deserve respect. It’s not fair, stop treating me like this        

     

La discapacidad visual no es ningún impedimento, a disfrutar Bros
Ken_Griffiths

@Manu84,

As Bruce mentions, that’s all irrelevant to the SSDP multicast ‘device’ discovery issues that you were experiencing across the LAN segments and the intermittent audio dropouts due to interference from overlapping WiFi channels and unnecessary channel-width.

If you continue to choose to leave things as they are, your issues will persist. The advice you have been given in the past has apparently been completely ignored by yourself …and simply quoting network upload/download speed is (still) never going to fix your local network issues.

jgatie

🤐

Airgetlam

Speedtest, and any variations of similar apps, measure merely the speed between one device, and the end point for that app. What they don’t do is check for communication in your local LAN between devices, the speed thereof, or even for potentials like duplicate IP addresses. They’re great apps for that one thing, they’re not very good at the things that Sonos itself uses much more robustly than any other network device. 

Bruce
M
Userlevel 3
Badge +5

 I have multiple devices at home that work, just, fine. I have many evidences that  my Network is robust, many; SpeedTest:  

 Video playback, Buffering 0%, 2160p resollution, 961ms download time, suitable for playing content on big tablets, big computers and big smart TVs. Here’s a picture      

 

La discapacidad visual no es ningún impedimento, a disfrutar Bros
Ken_Griffiths

"It’s time to return mine, I think."

If I had a £1 / $1 for every occasion you have mentioned that you’re going to return/sell your Roam @Manu84 in all the various threads here in the Sonos community I think I would be a rich man.

The advice you have been given by the many (many) Staff and experienced users here on how to resolve your local WiFi/Network issues continues, it seems, to fall on deaf-ears… my suggestion is perhaps to not ‘think’ about it, but just simply sell your Roam and move on. It will never solve itself with you not heeding the advice you’ve been given so many times in the past.

M
Userlevel 3
Badge +5

I want to take my Roam to a place where someone can replace its Wifi Antenna to a better one 

La discapacidad visual no es ningún impedimento, a disfrutar Bros
106rallye
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

A sticky wifi antenna?

M
Userlevel 3
Badge +5

Music stoppages are not tolerated, and if the music keeps stopping randomly because the Wifi antenna is sticky, then it’s a hardware issue. It’s time to return mine, I think. That’s Pritty sad, a great sounding smart speaker should work entirely errors free, this is not the case for my Roam and other threads reporting the same. It’s a shame          

La discapacidad visual no es ningún impedimento, a disfrutar Bros
K

Will try that - thanks

Ken_Griffiths

Not sure if I helps anyone - but I have this issue. The fairly consistent solution I’ve found is to reboot the router. Without any intervention on the Roam it just magically re-appears. I have to do this daily. If I get see the Roam in Sleep Mode or ‘Offline’ there’s no recovering it without a factory reset or rebooting the wi-fi router. I have 2x wifi routers linked by a cable to provide more coverage in my house. Just thought I’d share in case we all have a similar set up causing the issue.

What might help is when you lose the Roam in your app and it’s not discovered, to go onto switch your controller to your other router and then close and reopen the App to see if the Roam then appears. If it does, then simply blacklist the MAC address of your Roam and mobile controller device on one router only and the problem will then ‘most likely’ resolve itself. 

K

Not sure if I helps anyone - but I have this issue. The fairly consistent solution I’ve found is to reboot the router. Without any intervention on the Roam it just magically re-appears. I have to do this daily. If I get see the Roam in Sleep Mode or ‘Offline’ there’s no recovering it without a factory reset or rebooting the wi-fi router. I have 2x wifi routers linked by a cable to provide more coverage in my house. Just thought I’d share in case we all have a similar set up causing the issue.

Ken_Griffiths

I had to walk down the garden (60ft +) to get the Roam to switchover to the 2.4Ghz band, but here’s the evidence that the Roam will use either WiFi band and will switch as necessary dependent on strength of signal, admittedly the adapter is sticky when playing, but otherwise has no difficulty switching - it remains the case the issue often lies with the router/AP’s and their handling the SSDP multicast packets correctly for device discovery… that’s certainly not a Sonos issue.

(Screenshots from our mesh router interface)

Ken_Griffiths

Firstly I am surprised you purchased another Roam after buying the first one! Lol! However I just wanted to say I have spoken to a telecoms professional and they tried to get my Roam working and they couldnt. They have said the Roam has probably a defective adapter or software. Also, not being able to differentiate between 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz is old technology software and means that the software in all Roams is outdated. No wonder the price of Roams in the UK is falling dramatically.

The Roam adapter is WiFi-5 (802.11ac) compatible, so not sure where you are coming from when you say it cannot differentiate between a 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz band - it will use either band? - The only problem im aware of, arises if the router you are using has difficulty passing the SSDP multicast ‘discovery’ packets between those two network segments - such as the documented issue with some BT routers in the community here.
 

In that case where the controller device is on a different band to the Roam, the device discovery is intermittent - but this only happens with a very few router products. Most routers work flawlessly. The Roam will work fine on either WiFi band, so whatever the telecoms professional told you in regard to this then I’m sorry but they are wrong - the 802.11ac adapter in the Roam works fine, but of course that does not ever exclude the fact that an individual Roam may develop a faulty adapter - as that can happen in the case of any electrical product. However, generally speaking, the many hundreds of thousands of Roams sold worldwide, work just fine on either WiFi band. The band used of course depends on the strength of signal between the Roam and access point.

I

Firstly I am surprised you purchased another Roam after buying the first one! Lol! However I just wanted to say I have spoken to a telecoms professional and they tried to get my Roam working and they couldnt. They have said the Roam has probably a defective adapter or software. Also, not being able to differentiate between 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz is old technology software and means that the software in all Roams is outdated. No wonder the price of Roams in the UK is falling dramatically.

J
Userlevel 1

I have multiple Roams and they lose WIFI connectivity all the time.

I initially thought I had a defective unit, which is how I ended up buying a few more.

Roam is the only Sonos product I've been truly disappointed with after many years of buying Sonos products.

I

I have the same issue. My Sonos Roam keeps on being dropped from the App and my IPhone can never find it to connect to it. I have no issues with the Sonos App for my Sonos Play speakers and have no issues with headphones which need to get to connected to IPhone. I rang up support today and they couldn’t even connect it after trying a factory reset. I have asked for a refund but I am out of my warranty period. Well I will see how that goes!

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