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 bought a pair of Roam speakers from a Sonos reseller thinking/assuming that they would (of course) work as a pair. The assistant didn’t point out the flaw in my thinking!
I found out that you can create a pair on a Mac via MIDI and such like but this is disappointing and doesn’t work from my iPhone… and adds a nail in the coffin for me and Sonos. The initial products were great, but why pay a premium price for something that doesn’t quite hit the mark?!
(I have 2 Sonos Move - that I have found out do not work on SonosNet and do not work properly on my mesh network - another pair of nails for products that lack detailed information before buying and only work within a limited set of parameters)
Where have you been the past few years then, since these products were launched. There’s been quite a few discussions about the things mentioned here and elsewhere online - oh and you can stereo pair the Roams and group Roams/Moves together, wherever there’s an accessible network/WiFi connection and play Bluetooth audio to all - I tend to use a mobile hotspot to pair/group them (an iPhone XR in my case) and control/play to all from my iPad App and it’s Bluetooth - only one device needs to be BT paired, even when playing to all.
Clearly I have been listening to sales people in shops when I should have been digging in to community forums. :D
Try buying a pair of Sonos Roam when you are staying in a hotel. Getting a WiFi network to register the products before I could use them was great fun and Blutooth was the only option for playing music. The lack of decent documentation is always a problem. I hadn’t seen anything about mobile hotspots… one for the future perhaps.
Can you guys clarify the mobile hotspot option for me?
Let’s say my wife and I are both on the beach with no wifi connection. Are you saying I can connect to her iPhone’s mobile hotspot (with her cell only receiving a cellular signal), and my iPhone will see that as a “Wifi” connection which will allow me to Bluetooth stream to my stereo paired Roams in stereo?
+17
When the speakers are also connected to this wifi, then yes. I’ve not tried to connect speakers to a phone wifi though. Also Sonos does not support connections via cell networks - but that does not mean it wil not work.
You can find the hotspot function in the wifi settings of her iPhone.
Thanks guys, this sounds pretty easy and this tip should allow us to listen to good music in stereo in the beach without lugging my much larger JBL Extreme Bluetooth speakers.
Sonos really needs to address this shortcoming, just no excuse for such a limitation with a higher end product like the Roam when much cheaper options have no issues streaming stereo over Bluetooth. Anyone willing to pay Sonos prices does so because they have a deep appreciation for SQ, and most anyone in that portion of the market will typically be less than satisfied with mono. It’s really inexplicable that they still haven’t addressed this at this point.
Many thanks for the workaround.
Man this is frustrating. So I’m at the beach and don’t have the second cell phone on me so can’t do the hotspot workaround. All I’m trying to do is to get both Roams to play a mono signal. Holding the Play button on the second Roam does nothing.
I’m assuming I need to trudge back up to the rental house, find wifi again, separate the previously established stereo pair between these two speakers (which you can’t do when not connected to wifi), and then the Group function will work?
Since I’m on a different wifi (rental house) I don’t even know if that will work.
They should have called these Roam speakers NoRoams…
Man this is frustrating. So I’m at the beach and don’t have the second cell phone on me so can’t do the hotspot workaround. All I’m trying to do is to get both Roams to play a mono signal. Holding the Play button on the second Roam does nothing.
I’m assuming I need to trudge back up to the rental house, find wifi again, separate the previously established stereo pair between these two speakers (which you can’t do when not connected to wifi), and then the Group function will work?
Since I’m on a different wifi (rental house) I don’t even know if that will work.
They should have called these Roam speakers NoRoams…
If you don’t have the right kit with you, then there’s little anyone can do to assist. It’s been mentioned here in the community ‘many’ times, to either use a dual Bluetooth transmitting device (some android mobile phones support this), or a mobile hotspot, or MiFi device. If you don’t have any of those with you, then you can only play the Bluetooth stream to one Roam only. Anyone of the things mentioned will allow you to play to two Roams (or a good many more speakers in some instance).
No, you’ve missed the point, according to prior posts on this thread you’re supposed to be able to group two Roams and play mono Bluetooth signal to both without any additional transmitting devices. If this is not correct than prior posts above are incorrect.
I’ve looked back over the thread and the Staff put it forward as a feature request and the rest of the thread is mostly about pairing/grouping and playing back the Bluetooth audio to all when on WiFi or mobile WiFi .. that’s how I read things, at least. I don’t think I’m missing the point here.
No, you’ve missed the point, according to prior posts on this thread you’re supposed to be able to group two Roams and play mono Bluetooth signal to both without any additional transmitting devices. If this is not correct than prior posts above are incorrect.
‘grouping’ only occurs over a WiFi connection.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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'm guessing this feature still doesn't exist? Madness that my £10 Anker speaker can do this flawlessly.
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.
Many thanks for the reply and info. How would I group the two speakers over Bluetooth? Would they be playing in stereo?
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.
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?
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 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 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 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 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
huh? The name “Roam” made you think that you would be able to connect 4 of them to a single bluetooth source? I’m not following that logic. You can return them if they are not what your looking for. A Move sounds like it might be a better fit for you, if you want bigger sound/volume and still be connected to the Sonos system.
I 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
Use a mobile WiFi Hub/Access point outside too, then you can use all Roams ‘grouped’ or ‘paired’ with ANY audio source including Bluetooth. I often take two Roams ‘paired’ when glamping outdoors using a d-link dwr-2101 mobile WiFi, but there are dozens of ‘cheaper’ options too that will work just as well.
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