I am traveling and brought my Sonos Roam. I connected my smart phone to my hotel’s wifi, and assumed my Roam would communicate with my phone via Bluetooth. When that didn’t work, I attempted to connect the Roam to the hotel wifi to repeat the Bluetooth pairing process. To connect to the hotel wifi, the end user must complete two separate fields: last name, and room number. The Sonos S2 software provides a single field for a password, so my Roam remains linked to my home wifi and I can’t renew the Bluetooth pairing. I disconnected my phone from the hotel wifi in hope that would make the bluetooth connection work. Oddly enough, my phone does appear to be paired to the Roam, but I can’t play music or connect to a service. How can I fix this?
Answered
Connection Conundrum while Travelling with SONOS Roam
Best answer by John B
It is fine to have your phone connect to the hotel WiFi in order for you to use their bandwidth to stream from any music service to which you subscribe (assuming the hotel doesn’t block that activity). Or you could use your own mobile data. Or play music files stored on your phone. As
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+21Have you set up your Roam on you home wifi yet?
You need to use the Sonos app to do the first set up or you won’t be able to connect via BT. However once set up the Roam will not be able to use the Hotel Wifi as it will have restrictions applied to prevent such usage.
Yes, I set it up at home and it worked fine. I suspect the bluetooth connection would have worked if I hadn’t connected my phone to the hotel wifi. Now that I’ve done that, I can’t switch back to my home wifi since I’m out of town. I tried disconnecting my phone from the wifi, but that didn’t help. It seems my Roam won’t work at all until I’m in a place where I can connect it and my phone to the same wifi network to redo the setup.
Yes, I set it up at home and it worked fine. I suspect the bluetooth connection would have worked if I hadn’t connected my phone to the hotel wifi. Now that I’ve done that, I can’t switch back to my home wifi since I’m out of town. I tried disconnecting my phone from the wifi, but that didn’t help. It seems my Roam won’t work at all until I’m in a place where I can connect it and my phone to the same wifi network to redo the setup.
You don’t need to be connected to WiFi for your phone to connect to the Roam over Bluetooth.
Go to your Bluetooth settings on your phone, select the Roam, and select Forget this Device. Go ahead and reboot your phone too.
Reboot the Roam by following these steps:
- Disconnect Roam from charging cables and remove it from wireless chargers.
- Hold the button on the back of Roam for at least five seconds until you hear the power-off tone and the light above the Sonos logo turns off.
- Wait 10 seconds.
- Press the button on the back of Roam to turn it back on.
Then pair your phone with the Roam following these steps:
- Press and hold the power button on the back of Roam for two seconds, then release. You will hear the pairing tone and the status LED on the front will start flashing blue.
- Go to your device’s Bluetooth settings and select Roam from the device list.
- When successfully paired, you’ll hear another tone and the status LED will change to solid blue.
Assuming you didn’t factory reset the Roam it should be able to connect to the phone’s Bluetooth, regardless of WiFi.
Which phone app are you using? It is producing sound through the phone when Bluetooth is off? Note that you can’t of course use the Sonos app.
It is fine to have your phone connect to the hotel WiFi in order for you to use their bandwidth to stream from any music service to which you subscribe (assuming the hotel doesn’t block that activity). Or you could use your own mobile data. Or play music files stored on your phone. As
Thanks to all three of you - I’m all set now. I hadn’t done a factory reset so I was able to re-establish the bluetooth pairing with my phone. I had never used the bluetooth connection before, and didn’t realize you don’t use the Sonos app with it. I opened a music player app on my phone and it showed a connection to the Roam so I selected some music and it works fine. When I’m home the Sonos app gives me the option of playing music that’s on my phone as well as from my NAS. It seems odd that the Sonos app would be completely wifi dependent.
Thanks again for your help - much appreciated!
Richard
I'm glad it's sorted. The Sonos app is a remote control for the Sonos system. It has no meaning without a system. It is not a music player at all.
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