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Hi All,


Just wanted to post my experience as I just received my roam yesterday, and finally got it setup so I can use it as a portable bluetooth speaker outside, at the beach, golfing, etc... the sound quality is awesome and it gets quite loud, is very clear and has great range, great sound out of the little package!

 

I currently have an S1 system of AMP, Play3, Play5, and I have zero plans to upgrade these to S2 as we all know these speakers are not cheap, and I'm not really a fan of this approach they took.  I'm an embedded engineer and programmer, and they could have done better.  Already discussed heavily here on these forums, so I'll leave it at that...


The ROAM won't do anything until you 'set it up in a system' using the SONOS app.  The setup that worked simplest for me was install the S2 app on my phone (after removing S1 app, or use another mobile device that never had any Sonos app), AFTER unplugging ALL of my S1 devices so they are completely powered off.   You CANNOT have any S1 devices discoverable or the S2 app will not continue...


Your mobile device needs to be on your home Wifi before starting, once you launch the app it will find your ROAM device, even though it's not yet on your wifi.  Once it's discovered, the app will prompt you for your wifi password (unless it's open with no password), and will join the wifi your mobile is on.

At this point the app will notify there is a firmware update for your roam, and update it's firmware.  Once that's all done, you will go into the S2 app, and you can adjust your roam EQ, etc, as usual from the App.

Once this firmware is complete, you can now use the ROAM as a standalone bluetooth speaker, and you no longer need to use the S2 app.  Power it on normally, give a minute or two for it to boot up, then you hold the power again for a few secs to go into 'bluetooth mode'... ie blue LED flashing.


I have to agree with others, the 'rubber' power button on the back is quirky.  You can't always tell when it's pressed, and sometimes you will turn it on/off when trying to get into bluetooth mode, and sometimes you think you are holding the button, and nothing happens... just a sub-par design, this should really be re-engineered..


** This initial 'setup' I found quite annoying, having to 'discover' this unit first via your home wifi (and having to avoid the collide with S1 devices) seems quite silly.  The device supports bluetooth, would be so much esier to do the initial setup just pairing it via BT to your mobile device, and then configure it from there.  

**


I never had any plans to use this with my S1 system since currently they don't allow any such setup.  So all I ever intended anyhow was to use this as a nice small portable via BT... going through the wifi setup above was annoying to just get the thing to work as a portable BT speaker... but currently this speaker out of the box boots up in the 'green flashing', ie waiting for setup.

you MUST do their initial setup before you can even use it via BT.

 

Also, I was able to install both the 'S1' and 'S2' app onto my laptop, so if I need to go into the S2 app for some reason (to adjust my roam EQ or whatever), just have to unplug ALL of my S1 units, then launch that app.  It may ask to 'reset' the system, as there can be cached info from the S1 setup, but it will work and find your roam.

Then I can close that out, power back on my S1 devices, and launch the S1 app and it's fine.  So at least you can sort of 'co-exist' with both... but currently no way to have them work together.......

 

I think what you’ve done is setting up the roam as a separate S2 system.

 

Set up separate S1 and S2 Sonos systems

Known limitations with separate S1 and S2 Sonos systems

Yes.. that’s essentially all you can do if you already have S1 devices…

 

I just wanted to mention it for anyone that picked up this roam and wasn’t quite aware of the need to ‘set it up as a system’ before you can even use it standalone as a BT (bluetooth) speaker...

Hi All,


Just wanted to post my experience as I just received my roam yesterday, and finally got it setup so I can use it as a portable bluetooth speaker outside, at the beach, golfing, etc... the sound quality is awesome and it gets quite loud, is very clear and has great range, great sound out of the little package!

 

I currently have an S1 system of AMP, Play3, Play5, and I have zero plans to upgrade these to S2 as we all know these speakers are not cheap, and I'm not really a fan of this approach they took.  I'm an embedded engineer and programmer, and they could have done better.  Already discussed heavily here on these forums, so I'll leave it at that...


The ROAM won't do anything until you 'set it up in a system' using the SONOS app.  The setup that worked simplest for me was install the S2 app on my phone (after removing S1 app, or use another mobile device that never had any Sonos app), AFTER unplugging ALL of my S1 devices so they are completely powered off.   You CANNOT have any S1 devices discoverable or the S2 app will not continue...


Your mobile device needs to be on your home Wifi before starting, once you launch the app it will find your ROAM device, even though it's not yet on your wifi.  Once it's discovered, the app will prompt you for your wifi password (unless it's open with no password), and will join the wifi your mobile is on.

At this point the app will notify there is a firmware update for your roam, and update it's firmware.  Once that's all done, you will go into the S2 app, and you can adjust your roam EQ, etc, as usual from the App.

Once this firmware is complete, you can now use the ROAM as a standalone bluetooth speaker, and you no longer need to use the S2 app.  Power it on normally, give a minute or two for it to boot up, then you hold the power again for a few secs to go into 'bluetooth mode'... ie blue LED flashing.


I have to agree with others, the 'rubber' power button on the back is quirky.  You can't always tell when it's pressed, and sometimes you will turn it on/off when trying to get into bluetooth mode, and sometimes you think you are holding the button, and nothing happens... just a sub-par design, this should really be re-engineered..


** This initial 'setup' I found quite annoying, having to 'discover' this unit first via your home wifi (and having to avoid the collide with S1 devices) seems quite silly.  The device supports bluetooth, would be so much esier to do the initial setup just pairing it via BT to your mobile device, and then configure it from there.  

**


I never had any plans to use this with my S1 system since currently they don't allow any such setup.  So all I ever intended anyhow was to use this as a nice small portable via BT... going through the wifi setup above was annoying to just get the thing to work as a portable BT speaker... but currently this speaker out of the box boots up in the 'green flashing', ie waiting for setup.

you MUST do their initial setup before you can even use it via BT.

 

Also, I was able to install both the 'S1' and 'S2' app onto my laptop, so if I need to go into the S2 app for some reason (to adjust my roam EQ or whatever), just have to unplug ALL of my S1 units, then launch that app.  It may ask to 'reset' the system, as there can be cached info from the S1 setup, but it will work and find your roam.

Then I can close that out, power back on my S1 devices, and launch the S1 app and it's fine.  So at least you can sort of 'co-exist' with both... but currently no way to have them work together.......

 

Timely post, much appreciated.

The initial post here seems such a long winded way to go about things. As anyone with an S1 HH can just install the S2 App and simply create a brand new S2 HH and setup/add the Roam to it. It won’t affect the existing S1 system because the S1 devices have a different HouseholdID. You would not be connecting the S2 App to the ‘existing’ system in this type of ‘split’ setup.

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