Ability to Add Sonos Roam to Multiple Sonos WiFi Systems?



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How about plugging the ‘sticky’ AP into a smart plug so you can power it off for a few seconds while the Roam connects to the nearer AP, without your leaving your chair?

Yes I know this is pretty desperate, and not something you should want or need to do, as there are obvious downsides.

@SarahN . Like most people on this thread you are confusing using the Move on a different WiFi network with using it as part of a different Sonos system.

You can use it as a WiFi speaker on the other network. You would be using your own Sonos system and account. 

You cannot add a WiFi network to your account.  You can add it to your Move.

 

The answers are all here on the forum, if you can just take the time to read them, instead of complaining about something you are misunderstanding about the Sonos ecosystem and how it actually works.

Absolutely right, Ken. The confusion in the thread title between networks and systems is at the root of this,  and I think this thread sets new standards in muddled thinking and incomprehension.

@lifely 's post is just the latest for which that is true.

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So the problem in this case is the Roam will connect to wifi but not to a another household.

The Roam should definitely be able to join another Sonos Household as a guest speaker. I just brought it to my girlfriends house and had to do a factory reset. 

My buddy also has a roam on his boat and it was quite silly that we couldn’t pair them on his wifi network when we went out for a sail. You are hurting your sales of this product. How can I recommend to friends when they don’t come together like Voltron. Huge network effect your are missing out on that is hurting your stock price.

 
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I agree on getting this feature, have a separate Wifi and media server and want to use a Roam or Move between the RV and home. I can’t justify having to buy separate Roams or Moves for each location.

Hopefully this comes soon!

Unfortunately, “the image can not be loaded”….

Thanks @Airgetlam …I’ve posted it again - hope it’s working now? Not sure why this seems to happen occasionally🤔?

It can now. :)

"I am an engineer" is another one that guarantees garbage will follow. (Not because the poster is an engineer, but because he thinks saying so is worthwhile.)

Yes tbere is a way to implement this trivial improvement - fundamentally restructure the Sonos system at huge expense and risk. Only a moron could think that was a good idea. 

Hopefully others will understand the arguments so my time won't have been wasted. 

You should be able to setup the Roam and Move to multiple different WiFi networks.  If I remember correctly, they store 7 different SSID and passwords.  That said, I’m not exactly sure how that’s done and don’t see any support documents on it.

The original question was different wanting Roam and Move to be able to belong to multiple Sonos systems, not WiFi networks.

 

Exactly, if I was ever invited to @lifely’s home, (or parents home, for that matter) - I guess I won’t be, but …as long as they’re happy to provide the local WiFi network credentials, I could have my Roam setup on their local network in a jiffy, with no factory reset of any Sonos speaker and have all my music services, playlists and settings intact, ready to use in its Sonos Household - the original Sonos HH in fact that the Roam was added to when I first set it up many many months ago.

I can’t recall ever factory resetting the device and it’s certainly been used on a good many different networks since covid lockdown was lifted. I’m just not in the habit of adding my speakers to other Sonos Households, particularly if the HH’s belong to someone else.

If I wanted to use other peoples systems, like @lifely’s parents Sonos speakers for example, then I would just use the Sonos (remote controller) App to connect to their system - but my Roam would remain in its own HH when running on their local network. I just don’t see the point in factory resetting a Roam device to add it to someone else’s system, particularly if it’s the one and only device in a Sonos Household… that’s just too much bother if you ask me, but would happily consider it, if the original Sonos Household remained available elsewhere, like back at my own Home, for example. 

@Ken_Griffiths 

I think you misunderstand me, you and you're wife, as well as John are clearly invited over barbecue and beer next time you stop over France.

We can have a heated debated and agree to disagree over good food and conversation.

 

If you bring your sonos, I doubt you’ll be able to use them other then mine w/ the limited internet we have though.

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Hi @GottSeattle 

Hi @GottSeattle 

The Roam is designed to be added to your Sonos system and work with it just like another Sonos speaker - and then use Bluetooth individually while away from the home system. It was not designed to jump from one system to another without need for reconfiguration - this is systemic to how Sonos Households operate.
However, it is not outside the realms of possibility that we may be able to add a feature whereby a Roam could jump from one Sonos system (Household) to another which is why I have tagged this thread as a feature request. 

So then you can’t use voice assist on the run...just saying. Should easily swap between wifi networks. Not a hard thing to design and deploy.

 

The Roam can and will connect to multiple WiFi networks - so you can connect it to WiFi while out-and-about.. What this thread is about, and what the Roam won’t do, is be part of multiple Sonos systems ie. jump seamlessly from one Sonos system on one network to another Sonos system on another network. This would require a factory reset. A workaround would be to create the second system starting with the Roam which had already been set up on the first. This is not recommended (especially if you make use of Voice Assistants) or supported, but would work. This way, the two systems would see themselves as being of the same Sonos “household” and the Roam would not need to be reset to be able to switch between being part of each.

I have a similar interest. At home, I have four speakers (3 Play:1 and Sonos 1 and my Roam) that I play using a computer-based music library (118 GB). I maintain copies of that music library on two laptops and my car via thumbnail USB drives. I’d hoped to use my Roam with my laptop when on the road at hotels over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. When I launch my phone or laptop app away from home, it can’t find my system (which makes sense) and wants to set up my new router/IP. Can I set up a second instance of the App on either device to use the laptop-based library when I’m traveling? I could forgo connecting my Roam to my Home system if I had to.

 

This is not the same as the original request.  You should have no problem connecting your Roam to your laptop via bluetooth.  If you want to connect your laptop and Roam via WiFi, it has to be a WiFi network that allows peer to peer connection, which isn’t typical for hotel WiFi.    I have been able to configure a Move to use WiFi away from my home, however I needed one phone to setup a hotspot, an a second phone to use connect to that network, and use the Sonos app to set the Move on the new network.  Once done, the Move will remember and connect to the new hotspot network.

Hi @GottSeattle 

The Roam is designed to be added to your Sonos system and work with it just like another Sonos speaker - and then use Bluetooth individually while away from the home system. It was not designed to jump from one system to another without need for reconfiguration - this is systemic to how Sonos Households operate.
However, it is not outside the realms of possibility that we may be able to add a feature whereby a Roam could jump from one Sonos system (Household) to another which is why I have tagged this thread as a feature request. 

So then you can’t use voice assist on the run...just saying. Should easily swap between wifi networks. Not a hard thing to design and deploy.

 

WiFi networks and Sonos systems are not the same thing.  You can bring your Roam or Move to a new WiFi network and use the voice assistant.  You just can’t have it join a different Sonos system than what is was originally setup under (in order to group with the speakers in that Sonos system) without doing a reset and starting over.

How is this not the number one feature? It’s called ‘roam’. The PM on this one messed up big time. 

I feel like I was frauded and bought 2 roams to travel with and is just trash

Welcome to the forum. Please read the thread and engage brain.

The Roam can join and remember multiple WiFi networks. It only takes a one minute reset to enable it to move between Sonos systems and that is the cleanest way to do it.

The feature already exists.

@jongirard  - are you having problems getting this approach to work?  I have my doubts about this approach, but I’m open to persuasion.  Step 3 seems potentially problematic to me, depending on how the two systems were set up in the first place.

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@controlav I’m attempting to go through the listed workaround here. Did you ever get a chance to try this out and can you confirm whether or not you were successful with the steps?

I did not try this out, no, sorry.

If I remember this correctly…

  1. When at Home ‘A’ (WiFi = Localnet-PC), I simply added my mobile Hotspot (WiFi = Kens-iPhone-XR) to my setup via ‘Update Networks’ in the Sonos App Network settings.
  2. Then transported Roam to Home ‘B’ (WiFi = MobileLink-2G) and connected my controller (an iPad) and the Roam to mobile Hotspot (WiFi = Kens-iPhone-XR)
  3. Next asded the Home ‘B’ WiFi to my setup via ‘Update Networks’ and all worked on its WiFi (MobileLink-2G)
  4. Rinse and repeat for any other WiFi networks that you come into contact with and want to use… 

It wasn’t that difficult to do.

Thanks Ken

When you originally set up your home B Sonos system, did you do so using a speaker from your home A system, or do a completely new system setup with a new (or factory reset) speaker?

That’s a good question John… I will try to explain simply what I chose to do…

I have several Sonos Households here at Home ‘A’.

  1. An S2 System (which runs on SonosNet) that I use for the majority of my Home Sonos Devices.
  2. An S1 System (on local WiFi) (on different HH/ID) (just because I have a few older devices)
  3. Another S2 System (on same local WiFi) (different HH/ID obviously) with 4 portable products 2 x Move & 2 x Roam .. these are the devices that I take with me to Home ‘B’ (MobileLink-2G/5G) and I take them too when ’glamping’ about the U.K. in the camper van (using ‘MobileNet’ - A Huawei MiFi device).

So it’s the same S2 system, but different WiFi connections. I just chose to separate out a few devices for travelling purposes, but it’s not necessary to have them in a separate Sonos Household.

Hope that assists… and whilst I mention "it wasn’t that difficult to do", I do think there are some areas here where it could perhaps be made easier for users to setup.

Sorry I missed the word (‘not’) in the penultimate paragraph in my post above - I’ve just edited/corrected that.

So Home B has no permanent devices? You just use the 2 x Roam and 2 X Move there? 

So Home B has no permanent devices? You just use the 2 x Roam and 2 X Move there? 

In my case Yes, it’s a 2 bedroom holiday bungalow. I do sometimes leave the Sonos devices there - there’s also no reason why we couldn’t add other (non-portable) Sonos devices to that Home setup and leave them there permanently.

In fact there are/were some plans to do that, but we’re currently considering selling the Home to other family members, who will likely use it much more than we tend to do these days.

I mostly visit it for a few days just to keep the gardens tidy and general maintenance, so the Move/Roam speakers are rather best suited for that purpose… we tend to travel there in the camper van and sometimes move onto other places/campsites in the south west region

The Sonos App automatically switches between each S2 Sonos system as we connect to each Home/Mobile WiFi systems. It just shows the Sonos devices that are connected to the same signal.

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OK, I reset my Roam and opened up S2 and it detected the Roam and I added it fine.  It’s the only speaker in the App.

I then want to allow it to connect to another network and found myself in the previously mentioned loop….

i.e.

I connected my phone to a different SSID and opened the S2 App - I’m presented with this:

I select the Update Network Settings Option - and get this screen:

I select Find System - and get this screen:

I select Continue and get this screen:

I can swipe to the left and it shows my S1 speakers (on another network!).  I think this is stored in the App though (?) as these were also seen when I was trying to do the setup on holiday.

I hit ‘Select’ when on the Roam screen (above) and it takes me back to the second image above - to ‘Find system’ - where again, it finds multiple Sonos systems and I’m in a loop.

How do I allow it to connect to a different WiFi network without resetting it?

Please note the last sentence in the post immediately preceding yours. This includes not only progress, but indeed what features Sonos is considering. We usually find out when the new feature is released.

Please can you advise if and when this feature will be added to Roam?

 

The post above you is from a Sonos support staff member that states they can’t share that information.  From my experience, they only Sonos talks about future features is when it involves working with other companies or it’s a big feature that would have an impact sales.

One additional complication with this feature would be the likelyhood that the two Sonos systems are owned by different accounts.  Perhaps it would be possible if the two systems (households) were under the same account, but with different owners, you’re asking the device to store the service logins, etc, from two completely different customers.  Even under the same household, you could have different services setup.

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