Why No Bluetooth Stereo on Move and Roam?

I just received my pair of Roams. I excitedly opened them, realized I need to upgrade to Sonos 2 to use them, which means begrudgingly sending my Play 5 to an early retirement. I reluctantly proceed. After getting one Roam added to my system, I was neutral in my reaction to the sound. I opened and setup the second Roam, set it up as a stereo pair on my home SONOS wifi system and was mildly impressed - until the right channel kept dropping. I need to turn it off then on then setup as a stereo again, then again get about three minutes of stereo listening before it does it again. Figuring maybe it would work better as a stereo over Bluetooth (which was the main reason I bought them) I quickly learned that wasn’t even an available feature? WTH..??!! If I want to use this Roam as a portable Bluetooth speaker, I’m stuck using just one, in mono? As others have mentioned, there are cheaper options that offer this feature. Hell, my single first gen Jambox has stereo sound on its own. I am utterly shocked that SONOS didn’t make stereo pairing over Bluetooth an option. I’m probably going to return these, and revert back to the SONOS 1 system so I can keep using my expensive Play 5. I am so disappointed by this who experience.

Yep, you’re preaching to the choir on the lack of stereo pair in Bluetooth.  Or even pair in Bluetooth, and each of them play in mono.   Can’t imagine it was an oversight, just not sure why they would decide to not include it as a premier feature. 

Let’s see… we’re going to market and release a portable Bluetooth speaker that has the ability to stereo pair with another speaker… but not when you are using it as a portable Bluetooth speaker…  

Yep. It’s truly shocking that the brand that seems to be leading the space would fail on such an important and expected feature.
 

And I find it even more shocking that after months of countless devoted customers expressing frustration over this issue, that SONOS hasn’t even shown the consideration of acknowledging and addressing the big question – Will this EVER be a feature. I find it insulting and inconsiderate frankly.

My speculation is that this feature is coming. They have built the capability into the Sonos app to view Bluetooth devices, which is new. Stereo devices over bluetooth requires streaming to one device, which then streams one of the two audio channels to the other bluetooth device.

There is lots to go wrong in this process, and I am assuming that they have been having difficulty making this super reliable. They concluded there is value in the devices being sold without this capability while they iterate on making this feature reliable, and will release it through a software update once they get to that point.

It’s also worth noting where Sonos is coming from: at their roots they’re a software company that only recently shifted their focus to high quality hardware. Just a few years ago, their device tear-downs show how they effectively were reselling low quality audio components in a custom designed casing, and their differentiation was how the devices worked together over wifi. Competition led to them needing to compete in the acoustic space (which is why I am now a fan of them). However, my speculation is that this has led to a focus in acoustics and less in software capabilities.

For background: I work in tech in a leadership position and have been part of this type of decision making for new product releases.

Thanks for your perspective.  This is one of the more helpful and seemingly knowledgeable posts I’ve seen on this forum.  

I sure hope you’re correct that the feature is coming soon! 

I bought the 2 Roams fully expecting to stereo pair on Blue tooth .

I am very disappointed it can’t be done.

Surley this could be achieved with a software update .

A comment from Sonos would be nice, we are your customers after all.

I am an idiot. I have bought 2 Sonos Roams and stupidly thought that they would be like my other portables - ieUE Wonderbooms and pair on Bluetooth easily, but no. Very surprised at Sonos for releasing Bluetooth speakers without the capability that every other vendor in this category would not dare to release without. I have gave my Wonderbooms to my daughter, I think I may ask for them back. Come on Sonos - give us an update! 

Curious as to how the Wonderbooms achieve this. Is it a single signal to the first one, and then the speaker sends a second Bluetooth signal to the second speaker? Or is there some special software that allows your device to send two disparate Bluetooth channels, one to each speaker?

This is the worst speaker i ever bought….. 

my frist one was the first UE boom i think 2014 and still running and stereo !!

What are sonos doing with this S..T !!!  I lost my money with this ridiculous speakers 

Roam, and Move to a lesser degree, IS advertised as speakers for people “on the move”! Defending Sonos for not supporting stereo “on the move”  is quite appalling and bordering on being fixated in fandom. I am a big Sonos fan and I have a lot of their devices (Arc, Sub, One, Play 1, Play 5 (2nd), Move, Roam etc) and they are great for home usage. When they run videos where you use the Roam in the woods I expect them to be equally good there! I have 1 Roam and its amazing for its size but I would buy a second one in an instant if stereo was supported as the sound is so much improved. The arguments about needing so much development to support bluetooth stereo etc is from people with no technical knowledge/feeling a need to defend Sonos. It is quite frankly a strange oversight by Sonos, no less, no more.