Enthusiast I

Some Musings on Roam

18 replies
483 views

I recently received my Roam and fired it up. Sound is good for what it is, no complaints there.

However I have to add my voice to the increasing complaints of the device turning itself on whenever the Sonos app is accessed, which subsequently drains the battery rendering it unusable until battery is charged for about 5 minutes (maybe more).

Advice of “just leave it on the charger” doesn’t work because it doesn’t come with the charger!!!! Said charger costs extra and is of course out of stock currently. Moreover, a simple phone charger (which charges my equally-if-not-more-capable Bose Soundlink Mini) charges the Roam at a snail’s pace!

Sonos you’ve dropped a bit of a clanger here - I would absolutely recommend a) not selling this device without its native charging dock b) NOT having the device turn itself on whenever the app is accessed.

I think a software update is needed quickly to prevent the above.

Lastly, turning the roam on and off requires placing equal pressure on the front grille to press the button. The grill seems somewhat fragile and I suspect this may indent after some time. We shall see.

Sonos Roam

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

Show previous replies

James L.

Retired Community Staff

@melvimbe

You also can use the wireless charger with roam in horizontal position, because it fits magneticaly. Sonos officialy mentiones this as a feature. ;-)

That’s how mine is charging right now! Also, we do mention it as a feature on our store page for the charger :wink:

Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.

T

twuk

Enthusiast II

Agree with this completely. Why not either:

Only wake the Roam if the user clicks on that speaker or attempts to group it in the app, or
Add a ‘wake’ button beside the Roam in the app, to allow it only to be woken when the user wishes to do so

S

sjw

Local Superstar

@James L. , to be very clear, if the Roam is switched off by holding the power button for the 5-7 seconds, is it intended behaviour for Roam to switch back on if you open the Sonos App and don't play music on the Roam? If so, how are users supposed to treat it as a battery powered speaker that isn't plugged in all the time and getting woken when you're not using it? There are many users complaining about the Roam's ‘Power Management' but none of the more ‘regular' forum members are. Either they aren't bothered by it, they are bothered by it but don't want to add to the fire or they don't have the problem. The answer to this would help gauge how ‘big' an issue this is.

James L.

Retired Community Staff

to be very clear, if the Roam is switched off by holding the power button for the 5-7 seconds, is it intended behaviour for Roam to switch back on if you open the Sonos App and don't play music on the Roam?

No, if you hold the power button for 5-7 seconds that powers the unit off, which is different from sleep mode. If you are 100% certain that you’re turning the Roam completely off, and you’re still seeing the unit wake up by foregrounding the app, I encourage you to submit a diagnostic and get in touch with support, who will be able to analyse the power state logs and see if the Roam was truly switched off.

Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.

S

sjw

Local Superstar

OK thanks.

I don't yet have a Roam due to all of the issues being reported with powering on and battery life. It was the same with the Move too.

If the unit is truly powered off after that long press I'd love to know why the battery is expected to still drain at 10% a day - although users don't appear to be even getting close to that.

C

craigski

Local Superstar

I wonder if those that are seeing an excessive battery drain on standby could be caused by other non Sonos ‘Smart’ devices on the network that keep waking the Roam?

C

caesar327

Prodigy I

OK thanks.

I don't yet have a Roam due to all of the issues being reported with powering on and battery life. It was the same with the Move too.

If the unit is truly powered off after that long press I'd love to know why the battery is expected to still drain at 10% a day - although users don't appear to be even getting close to that.

No -- if it is powered off, it shouldn’t drain at all (or very little). What is happening is that in sleep mode (not totally powered off), it is draining about 10% in 8 hours (over night). It should drain 10% per DAY (24 hours) in sleep mode to get the 10 days of battery life in sleep mode. My experiments show 7 to 10% battery drain over night (8 hours) while in SLEEP mode. Meaning about 21 to 30% per day -- which will give about 4 to 5 days MAX, in sleep mode. Which is half the time Sonos states.

J

JohnG666

Enthusiast II

All these different battery experiences have got me wondering about a few things so bare with me!

I’m not using mine in standby, I’m turning off between usage and seeing decent battery usage so far. There’s certain things I don’t use

I don’t have any voice control at all on any of my sonos units
I never use the My Sonos tab
I haven’t turned on the ‘recently played’ option

I do remember that I had to get rid of my mp3 playlists because every time I went into a view in the app that contained these playlists, it would fire my NAS drive up from sleep and I didn’t want that to happen. So that made me wonder if any of the above is causing the Roam to be turned on by the app? Does the recently played option (for example) poll the individual speakers to get this list?

Anyway I’m just putting a few ideas out there because it seems to me that people leaving their Roam in standby are experiencing different battery usages.

Sign up

Login to the community