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In addition to risks for humans, electronics in general may have some issues, particularly battery operated equipment. While the equipment might not instantly destruct, extended operation at elevated temperatures will impact long term reliability.

At some point batteries will become a fire risk. Some Li-ion batteries will shut down charging above 45°C. Certainly, keep your battery operated items out of direct sunlight.

Below are some SONOS specific specifications:

Maximum operating temperature:

ROAM: 95°F 35°C

MOVE: 113°F 45°C

Other products: 104°F 40°C

I’ll note that interpreting these specifications is slightly vague in one respect:

Are the portables “operating” if they are simply sitting on their charger or in standby?

While I don’t think that many users would “operate” for extended periods at these maximums, the  portables could be thrown in a backpack and carried for a while.

 

Hi @buzz 

Thanks for your post!

When charging and in standby, portable units are considered to be operating. If the ambient temperature exceeds these recommended maximum levels, Roam and other Sonos products will protect themselves by shutting down automatically if required. In cases of extreme heat, we recommend removing the device from the charger and turning it off to avoid the product having to shut itself down. For more information on charging of Roam and charging of Move, please refer to these support pages and take note of the effect that heat can have on the battery life:

Charging your Sonos Roam or Roam SL

Charging Sonos Move

I hope this helps.

I have noticed today and yesterday (I’m in the UK), that my 2 Roams that are sat on charging bases, don’t quite charge as they should, if I take them off to use them. They don’t seem to want to get back up to 100% and with one of them, I even charged up to 100% using a cable, then put it on the base and it maintained that for a while, but now has gone down to 97%. I’m guessing it is just the heat as they live in my kitchen which is the warmest room in my house.  I’m not too worried as I’m guessing this is due to the heat here today. Set to be cooler tomorrow so hopefully they will go back to normal.

Even if nothing is connected to a battery, its charge will slowly leak away. The leak rate accelerates at higher temperatures. On the other end of the temperature scale the total energy that you can extract from a battery decreases at low temperatures. Near 0°C the run time of a connected device will diminish.

At temperature extremes a battery might catch fire or freeze and suffer physical damage.

Don’t worry too much about the difference between 97% and 100%. I don’t know the exact thresholds, and they could easily vary somewhat with temperature, but the charger might not be activated until the level falls below 97.00% and the “97” displayed could be rounded between between 96.50% and 97.49%.

I don’t have any of the battery equipped Sonos units, so I can’t speak to those but this EU heatwave is just standard temperature in an Indian summer, and my Sonos kit has survived more than a decade of it. Even with plus 40 celsius out of doors, inside the home the ambient rarely crosses 35 and that does not trouble Sonos electronics.

I suspect humans will struggle a lot more if not accustomed to these temperatures. Indoors or out.

You can get a little more detail about battery charge by going to http://x.x.x.x:1400/status/batterystatus. x.x.x.x is the IP address of a battery operated unit. You can view IP addresses in Settings → System → About My System

There is no documentation regarding what all of this means. I have noticed that, even at reasonable room temperatures, a ROAM placed on its wireless charger might register as “HOT” and pause the charge for a while as it approaches full charge after it has been deeply discharged .

 

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