Contributor I

Answered

Can you connect more than one Sonos Roam via Bluetooth

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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

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Corry PAnswer

Sonos Staff

Hi @Kh0annguyen

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

Thanks for your feedback - I’ve tagged this topic as a feature request and it will be seen by the development team (though you can assume it’s been suggested before).

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein

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I

ian.w

Lyricist III

I have mine working as a stereo bluetooth pair for the first time. They were set up as a stereo pair on my home sonos network. I then paired both to bluetooth and pressed play. Hey presto! Stereo bluetooth. Not sure if I can recreate it away from home or if I just fluked it. Anyone else get this to work? PS I also just downloaded updates.

You can do a stereo pair on bluetooth while you’re still connected to WiFi. Of of WiFi, you won’t be able to do the stereo pair. Seems likely that WiFi is doing the connection between the two speakers, rather than bluetooth or some other protocol.

Thank you. I’ve just unfortunately proved your point. It’s an astonishing oversight on Sonos’s part. I’m losing faith in the brand.

Ken_Griffiths

You can do a stereo pair on bluetooth while you’re still connected to WiFi. Of of WiFi, you won’t be able to do the stereo pair. Seems likely that WiFi is doing the connection between the two speakers, rather than bluetooth or some other protocol.

Thank you. I’ve just unfortunately proved your point. It’s an astonishing oversight on Sonos’s part. I’m losing faith in the brand.

Oversight - unlikely, more likely ‘by design’ as you can stream music up-to 16 stereo pair of Roams or 32 ‘grouped’ devices. That’s not achievable over the Bluetooth protocol, but is achievable over WiFi.

D

DominicFI

Lyricist II

I 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)

Ken_Griffiths

I 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.

D

DominicFI

Lyricist II

I 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.

Ken_Griffiths

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.

I don’t use 3rd-party WiFi connections, as I don’t like the security issues that may bring about, that’s just a personal thing however - Sometimes when travelling regularly, I tend to take one of these MiFi (travel) routers, which you will see mentioned in my earlier screenshot, listed as ‘MobileLink-5G’

It can handle more speakers than I can carry, either paired and/or grouped and of course there is the option to use the Sonos App, Airplay, API Casting or Bluetooth Audio sources from a phone and/or tablet and can access the Music library stored back Home using the Plex service on Sonos too.

R

rpr13

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?

106rallye

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.

Ken_Griffiths

Yes I’ve tried this with an iOS mobile hotspot and it works - both the other mobile phone (controller device) and the speakers need to be connected to the WiFi hotspot. No real need for bluetooth (if you prefer not to use it) as you can stream the music over the WiFi hotspot connection too.

R

rpr13

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.

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