Aka daisy chain. Many cheap bluetooth speakers can do this so it would be disappointing if the Roam can't. I do know that two Roams will not do stereo in bluetooth but I can't seem to find anywhere if it even supports two Roams or more in mono.
Thanks
Best answer by Corry P
View originalI purchase 4 roams thinking it would be easy to use them outdoors via Bluetooth. I was surprised to find that I could only use one of the speakers. I thought with the name “Roam” that the speaker was designed to roam. My mistake at the tune of $850
I just picked up two roams for the purposes of being away from home and duel pairing them via Bluetooth for music. This thread is a year old, so I’m guessing an update isn’t about to drop. How disappointing. I’ll definitely be returning them now. Guess I’ll get some UE Booms.
I just bought two Roams and one Move to be able to connect them together outdoors. Think large hotel suites, beach parties or parties in the park. While testing, I was wondering why I couldn’t do that … that led me to this thread. And. What. A. Mess. 😮
Anker, JBL, Bose all have something similar … “Party Mode” where you can connect multiple speakers . Your phone connects to one speaker and from there the speakers mesh to work with the other 99 speakers. I don’t think anyone needs 100 speaker over BT but for Sonos, champion of multi speaker audio, to be at just … ONE? LOL!
This sucks because now I have to return the Sonos back to BestBuy and look for something that can do AirPlay 2 (at home, WiFi with other HomePods) as well as multi-speaker BT (at large places without WiFi).
I guess one could also simply carry a MiFi device in your pocket and use that to ‘pair’ and/or ‘group’ upto 32 Roams/Moves etc; that’s if you felt so inclined, plus all the speakers could play 24/48 better quality streaming (or locally held) audio too and maybe stream upto 60 million+ tracks, defending on the MSP being used. It also provides voice assistant control.
There are always various ways to get around these issues. I have such a device (see attached example), but mostly for convenience, I still tend to just use the one Roam only when travelling/camping/hiking etc; as the Roam sounds great all by itself, plus the Roam, controller and MiFi products can all use the same USB-C charger in my own use-case.
Bose have this featured in their Bluetooth speakers. Its called party mode or stereo mode and works flawlessly in stereo mode with 2 portable speakers connected over Bluetooth and content playing via their mobile phone app.
Sonos need to catch up and update the mobile phone app to accommodate Bluetooth playback or release a separate app called sonos portable.
I’m late to the party here. I bought a Move and then added a Roam. I assumed I’d be able to connect them both via Bluetooth (they are portables after all) and play audio through both when out and about. But the only way I can see to achieve that is to use two phones, set one as a hot spot for the other and the two speakers and use that. That sounds like a massive faff. Surely there’s an easy way?
You could use a device with dual BT audio transmitters. Here is one offering…
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bluetooth-Multi-Stream-Transmitter-Control-Long-Lasting/dp/B08CMRD4S6
I understand that some Android mobiles also support more than one BT connection too.
I’m late to the party here. I bought a Move and then added a Roam. I assumed I’d be able to connect them both via Bluetooth (they are portables after all) and play audio through both when out and about. But the only way I can see to achieve that is to use two phones, set one as a hot spot for the other and the two speakers and use that. That sounds like a massive faff. Surely there’s an easy way?
Many thanks for the reply and info. How would I group the two speakers over Bluetooth? Would they be playing in stereo?
The Bluetooth playing Roam can be connected to the local WiFi at the same time. Simply play the audio over Bluetooth and group the speaker with the other Roam by pressing the play/pause button for 2-3 seconds on the other Roam and the Bluetooth audio will play through both Roam devices. (You can also group them via the Sonos App).
Each speaker plays the Left/Right channels so it’s not stereo separation, but as mentioned, two playing speakers are better than one to listen to your Peleton Bluetooth audio.
Many thanks for the reply and info. How would I group the two speakers over Bluetooth? Would they be playing in stereo?
I would like to play sound from my Peloton bike (an android device) to my pair of Roam speakers in stereo. The speakers work brilliantly as a stereo pair over wifi but when I try to connect from the Peloton I can only connect via Bluetooth and then it will only connect to one of the two Roam speakers at a time.
Please Sonos can you add stereo pairing over Bluetooth to the Roam speakers. It would be a great feature and as the Peloton community continues to grow you will add more potential customers as the experience would be so much better than using the inbuilt Peloton Speaker.
You could perhaps simply group the two speakers, if you need the audio to play on both Roams - it just means a loss of channel separation, but it’s clearly better than playing on just the one device only. This is assuming you have a WiFi signal that the devices can access in addition to the Bluetooth connection.
I would like to play sound from my Peloton bike (an android device) to my pair of Roam speakers in stereo. The speakers work brilliantly as a stereo pair over wifi but when I try to connect from the Peloton I can only connect via Bluetooth and then it will only connect to one of the two Roam speakers at a time.
Please Sonos can you add stereo pairing over Bluetooth to the Roam speakers. It would be a great feature and as the Peloton community continues to grow you will add more potential customers as the experience would be so much better than using the inbuilt Peloton Speaker.
You have completely missed the point and are arguing against a beneficial feature. Looking at how many topics have raised a topic about this subject clearly a lot of people want this. I'd be double the price of the Anker for the Sonos to have this built in. Then I'd buy another Sonos to pair. Sounds like a win win for Sonos.
Most folk with Sonos systems at home can group/pair their roams anyway and play Bluetooth audio to two or more devices… it’s only when away from the Home WiFi this would be useful and most people tend to only carry the one speaker when out and about in most cases… plus there are portable Bluetooth transmitter devices with dual audio transmitters anyway to play to two or more devices without Sonos needing to do anything. So I don’t see this feature as being that beneficial, all things considered compared to the other features that the Roam offers…
You have completely missed the point and are arguing against a beneficial feature. Looking at how many topics have raised a topic about this subject clearly a lot of people want this. I'd be double the price of the Anker for the Sonos to have this built in. Then I'd buy another Sonos to pair. Sounds like a win win for Sonos.
How well does your Anker speaker communicate with other speakers when in WiFi mode?
Horses (and electronics) for courses. Just because one speaker is Bluetooth and has a feature doesn’t mean that all speakers that have Bluetooth have the same feature set. If that were the case, why bother making other speakers, the ‘one’ with all the features has already been made.
Sonos makes a network speaker that also allows Bluetooth, and has the capability to pass that Bluetooth connection to other WiFi connected speakers. They’ve chosen the electronics to match that function. What they haven’t done is make a clone of the Anker and the features of a merely Bluetooth speaker.
I'm guessing this feature still doesn't exist? Madness that my £10 Anker speaker can do this flawlessly.
Connecting multiple devices (eg. speakers) is a feature of Bluetooth 5.0
Bluetooth 5.0 announced 16th of June 2016
Dual Audio
Bluetooth 5.0 also enables a new feature that allows you to play audio on two connected devices at the same time. In other words, you could have two pairs of wireless headphones connected to your phone, and them stream audio to both of them at once, all via standard Bluetooth. Or you could play audio on two different speakers in different rooms. You could even stream two different audio sources to two different audio devices at the same time, so two people could be listening to two different pieces of music, but streaming from the same phone.
I sometimes carry a MiFi device with me instead - see attached. They can vary in price depending if you want a 4G or a 5G LTE connection. 4G works fine, but I recently switched to 5G (Amazon Summer Sale 
).
These devices seem to work well when out and about here in the U.K. (I’m using EE mobile network). You can of course simply use a mobile ‘hotspot’ instead if you prefer, but if using a phone’s hotspot, then a second phone is needed as a controller, so I prefer to use MiFi.
Anyhow I have added the MiFi’s WiFi network (MobileLink-2G or 5G in my case) to my two Roams and that means all will connect/run on its WiFi signal with my iPhone connected too as their controller.
That all means I can play music stored on my phone (over Airplay), or even stream music from online services (Spotify etc.) allegedly to upto 32 speakers paired and/or grouped (ooeerrr)!! .. I only ever use two Sonos speakers of course when travelling, but it works really well, I find …and it is a great alternative to ‘Bluetooth’ audio whilst out and about with Roams (or Sonos Moves).
So that’s another option to perhaps consider if wanting to play to multiple Roams/Moves, either ‘paired’ or ‘grouped’, outdoors.
Hi Ken, appreciate the response. I’ll have a look into that. I think the main interest is when I go away with friends and 2 or more people just so happen to have a Roam with them, we can connect them up on say, the beach or out and about, without having to pre-plan it. But that is useful to know none the less. Much appreciated.
There are dual-audio streaming BT transmitters on the market, like this example:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07J58KY3X
…such devices will ‘pair’ to two BT speakers and play the streaming BT audio in sync. I’ve tried this and they do seem to work okay - handy to play to two Moves or Roams at a remote location …and the device shown in the link above also has a built-in rechargeable battery that will last all day.
There are dual-audio streaming BT transmitters on the market, like this example:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07J58KY3X
…such devices will ‘pair’ to two BT speakers and play the streaming BT audio in sync. I’ve tried this and they do seem to work okay - handy to play to two Moves or Roams at a remote location …and the device shown in the link above also has a built-in rechargeable battery that will last all day.
I was just about to press “buy”, to add two Sonos roams to my collection, but then I read this thread. I’d assumed Daisy chaining multiple roams via Bluetooth would be a given, considering it’s common in competitors like UE. It would be great if Sonos could say if this is, or is not coming. If it is, when…..?
In my case WiFi only for the Roam has been a good thing given the (frustrating) lack of bluetooth stereo pairing. I was able to solve this with a travel router set to my home WiFi configuration. I even was able to use a universal WiFi adapter connected to the travel router and pull in my phone’s hotspot and use that for beach/picnic time goodness. Did need to bring a battery pack though to power the router and adapter.
Remote Stereo sound FTW!!!!!
FYI, Roam and Move cannot connect to Sonosnet like the other speakers.
Sure. This was just a comment, on the back of another suggesting that doing it over Bluetooth would require some whole new development effort. My point was solely that code already exists to do it over Wi-Fi protocols.
I don’t think there really are enough similarities between pairing in WiFi and pairing in bluetooth to conclude that there is little different in development between the two. I could be wrong, but I don’t the protocols of the two technologies are that similar.
You say Move (and Roam) doesn’t participate in Sonosnet, but do you know (and are you able to say) if that is a software or a hardware restriction (beyond a possible protocol assumption that the devices aren’t moving. Latency estimation, I assume)
As you found out, it’s more of a physics restriction and not at all a secret.
FYI, Roam and Move cannot connect to Sonosnet like the other speakers.
Sure. This was just a comment, on the back of another suggesting that doing it over Bluetooth would require some whole new development effort. My point was solely that code already exists to do it over Wi-Fi protocols.
You say Move (and Roam) doesn’t participate in Sonosnet, but do you know (and are you able to say) if that is a software or a hardware restriction (beyond a possible protocol assumption that the devices aren’t moving. Latency estimation, I assume)
ah. This Community Post answers my question.
FYI, Roam and Move cannot connect to Sonosnet like the other speakers.
Sure. This was just a comment, on the back of another suggesting that doing it over Bluetooth would require some whole new development effort. My point was solely that code already exists to do it over Wi-Fi protocols.
You say Move (and Roam) doesn’t participate in Sonosnet, but do you know (and are you able to say) if that is a software or a hardware restriction (beyond a possible protocol assumption that the devices aren’t moving. Latency estimation, I assume)
My own speculation is that Sonos is optimized for WiFi and includes complex logic for dealing with latency etc and that Bluetooth stereo pairing requires one of the speakers to act as both a receiver and transmitter
Or, use the Wi-Fi/Sonos Net facility that they’ve already developed, to sync the audio between the two devices.
(The only reason not to do it that way would be if the mobile devices are lacking some hardware to allow them to do it? The Move surely cannot be lacking the CPU power to do it)
FYI, Roam and Move cannot connect to Sonosnet like the other speakers. The ‘net’ part of Sonosnet expects the wireless devices to be stationary for the most part, which obviously doesn’t apply for portable speakers. Instead, the portables use your router’s WiFi directly. That doesn’t mean that they can’t be in sync with your other Sonos speakers. Also, whether connected by Sonosnet or WiFi, your home router is giving each speaker an IP address.
It’s the last part, the IP address, that would be a problem when your away from home, if you’re wanting to use WiFi protocols to do the syncing. Not saying syncing isn’t possible, just that it would have to done a different way.
As a sidenote, if you 2 phones/tablets, you could setup one of them as a hotspot, then connect the portables and the 2nd phone/tablet to the hotspot network. They you could use your speakers like normal without bluetooth.
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