Hi everyone,
I received my Sonos Roam yesterday and I am quite concerned by the battery drain on standby mode.
My roam is losing about 10% every hour on standby, which brings us to 10hours but I was expecting 10 hours in playing mode.
Should I be concerned by those stats are it was the expected consumption?
Thank you 
!
Hey, I just received my Roam a few days ago and I seem to be having better luck with battery longevity in standby mode. I’m seeing battery drain of around 1% per hour when in standby. For my purposes, this is perfectly acceptable. I don’t know if my experience is due to my network (no issues with random waking) or if there is just variability in the hardware. Either way I wanted to post my experience because I almost cancelled my order after reading these posts and I thought others would benefit from knowing at least one person is getting better results.
I ran a test on my pair of Roams on battery on standby (i.e. unused for music playback). Oddly they did not drain at exactly the same rate but even allowing for this they lasted for a little under 5 days.
Absolutely no way they would last 10 days on standby. I could not have done anything to make the battery life last longer.
Powering the speakers fully off to preserve battery life is not really the concept of ‘standby’.
Also, although it may be obvious to some, the Sonos wireless charger base is a lot slower to charge than the actual power cable. I would say don’t bother with the wireless charging base unless you have one per Roam and keep your speakers on them when you don’t need portability.
Just echoing what everyone else is experiencing.
I got my Roam two days ago and yesterday I was surprised that the battery was down to 10% when it had just been on standby during the day and I was sure that the battery level was 100% when I disconnected the charger.
Today I did a couple quick battery checks while using it and when I’ve had it on standby. I started on 100% when I took the speaker off the charger.
So the battery consumption while playing music is less, or at least equal, to the battery drain when the speaker is idle and on standby. Also the battery drain on standby appear to come in waves, it’s not an even drain, at least not for me.
Just during the 12 minutes it took me to write this (with the speaker on standby) the battery dropped from 84% to 82%, that’s equivalent of 10% per hour.
I’ve got Google Assistant turned on (and I won’t disable it. 
)
My Roam played for 8 hours and 30 minutes. That's okay with me due to the 10 hours it should manage.
Different issue - you are talking about #1 only, of the following 2 issues (many in the thread are more concerned about #2):
So sad-making.
Not only do I own around £3000 in Sonos tech, I am also invested in their stock, which has for the most part performed well the past year.
I really want the Roam to succeed. Early adopters and dedicated fans are the last group you want to disappoint.
Please guys, sort it out.
+2
I noticed my Roam battery drained also...but i had to switch the plug I was using because it was not charging properly...i used an amazon plug that came with my old Alexa and now its fine and charges correctly. I wish they would of just included the proper plug. I started using an apple plug and that didnt work. Other than that issue ...i love this thing….i was using it to turn on the rest of my system with a push of the play button...pretty cool.
J
Usually I just lurk here, but this is maybe the third time I’ve been turned off of a Sonos product after googling for known issues, finding this community, and seeing major problems completely ignored by Sonos.
Would it kill y’all to have a mod or dev pop in occasionally and at least make me feel like device-breaking functionality will get addressed eventually?
This is my first Sonos purchase and introduction to the Sonos line of products. I have to say, I’m kind of disappointed.
I’m experiencing all of the same battery drain issues everyone else is experiencing.
A family member has a Move and Roam and told me that he said the battery drain via Airplay isn’t as bad on the Move. I’ve been trying this on the Roam on Airplay and noticed that the battery drain isn’t as awful. However, isn’t that the selling point of the device is that it’s a portable Sonos bluetooth speaker? It’s awful that I can only really enjoy the speaker in Airplay mode without it draining insanely fast.
Plus, I’m using Airplay via a laptop through the Spotify Desktop app...so, if I try to adjust the volume from my keyboard, it doesn’t work (i.e. it will adjust my laptop volume). I need to click back to the app every time to adjust volume on the Roam, which is a pain. I can go into “preferences” and set my audio output to Sonos Roam via Airplay, but it’s really buggy, very delayed in responsiveness (if it works at all), and defeats the purpose of using the “Connect A Device” feature in Spotify. Not sure if the latter part is a Spotify issue or Roam issue, but either way..I wouldn’t have to deal with this if I could simply connect via Bluetooth without drainage issues.
Also, why can’t I see the Roams charging percentage if I turn the device off completely? I get the device needs to be recognize by the app in order to locate the device to give you battery percentage, understood there...but if I have the Roam on my wireless charger, there’s no constant indicator light on the device itself that shows when it’s charging (orange) and when it’s completed (green). That seems like the simplest of functions. Instead, I need to turn the device back on (because we have to turn it off due to battery drain) just to see the percentage?
On top of it, the wireless charging dock has sometimes been a bit buggy too. For example, the Roam won’t show it’s charging in the app if it’s sitting right on the charger.
I was highly considering getting a home system from Sonos but after this experience, I’m not so sure.
Is it worth getting the Ones, Arc/Beam, Five, and/or Sub -OR- are these products just as buggy. Is it all smoke-and-mirrors?
Someone on Reddit claimed that the battery life is better on Bluetooth when Wi-Fi isn’t connected? This is because Wi-Fi uses more battery power than Bluetooth does - can anyone prove or confirm this?
If the Roam is connected via Bluetooth, would it override the amount of power being used if it were only connected via Wi-Fi? My guess would be “no” since the device is still being displayed in the Sonos app.
If you turn off the Wi-Fi on your mobile device and the Sonos app it says “WiFi Isn’t Connected,” does that mean the Roam is no longer connected to Wi-Fi? (note: I do not have any other Sonos devices)
SONOS: can’t you add an option within the app to disable the Roam’s Wi-Fi?
I feel like this is a no-brainer solution to fix some of the battery issues...at least for those users trying to use the device as a portable speaker. God forbid that I try to use something that’s marketed as a portable speaker as a portable speaker 
I received my Sonos Roam yesterday. Same issue here. Very disappointed.
Google assistant is now disabled. I’ll check if this solves the issue.
My Roam went from fully charged to dead in about 40 hours. I listened to it for 30 minutes within this period. Surely this is a faulty Roam or Sonos’ claims about 10 hours standby is simply incorrect? I know there are factors like temperatures and how often you use the Sonos system but I’m getting <20% of expected usage. Despite thinking the speaker is great I think a return is unavoidable. My use for this would typically be to charge it and then use in occasionally. However, unless I keep charging it it will be dead (like this morning) every time I need it. I’ll see how I get on by using the clunky switch off process but I’d like some feedback from Sonos about whether this is expected or it is worth trying another unit. I don’t want another charger plugged in 24/7.
Google assistant is now disabled. I’ll check if this solves the issue.
It didn't for me.
I find the deafening silence on this from Sonos pretty disappointing. Really surprised they are ignoring this.
Also curious how none of the launch reviews mention this rather major issue, not suggesting a cover up but how could this not be seen during reviews, yet we see it within a day.
I chatted with Sonos Support. 2 things:
Hope this helps.
At the very least, can’t we have an option to automatically have the Roam turn itself off after 3 or 10 or X minutes of inactivity? I use it as a shower speaker and when you’re getting out and wet it’s damned hard to remember to do it manually. It’s a real bummer to realize I forgot to turn off a fully charged speaker and have it already dead the next day.
Regarding the previously posted comments regarding shutting down and all the various turn off modes, including the four descending tones, yes I’m well aware of that, but the main issue here is the horrible, fuzzy, implementation. Sometimes I get the 4 tones, sometimes it goes into Bluetooth pairing mode, sometimes I get one tone, sometimes nothing, etc.
I get they can’t have a click switch that gives positive feedback because it’s partly made to be stuffed in a backpack or your pool bag because it’s “portable”, but technology wise it would be simple to implement a “power switch customization mode” in the app with choices such as standby or full power down, etc.
My biggest concern is Sonos not admitting they have a serious design flaw, keeping silent, nor planning a firmware update. That’s why I sent mine back to Crutchfield for a full refund.
The crazy thing is Sonos Support just blah blah the same story, as above. Saying Roam has to occasionally connect etc. But whenever I turn it off, want it truly off and want it to stay charged, it depletes the battery by about 20-30% every 24hrs. This is totally useless when I don’t need it connected. After all, I’ve purposefully switched it off!!
+18
Hi
Adding my frustrations with the Roam. Battery drain is fast, but in addition, USB charging is super duper slow. Mine’s been charging for maybe 15 hours and has gone from 12% to 45%.
This is unacceptable and a total embarrassment for SONOS.
That there are this many people with the same issue and only a token attempt to respond is pitiful.
The description of your problem sounds like it may be one of the times we need to fully investigate your Roam to confirm that there is a fault with it - if there is, we’ll gladly replace if for you. While hardware faults are rare, they are not unheard of, and no amount of advice given or followed will make any difference.
The chat saying that there are agents available means agents are currently working and being assigned chat cases. When you opt to join one, you are put in a queue (after going through the help supplied by the Sonos Assistant chatbot) and when an agent finishes with an existing chat, they will then be assigned the first chat in the queue. If you do not wait long enough for the agent to start chatting with you, we will get a transcript of your conversation with the chatbot and we will investigate the situation and email you assistance as soon as we can (generally within a day). For your particular case, however, I recommend a phone call.
While we can give as much help and advice as we can here on the forum, sometimes we just need to you to get in touch directly to move forward. You may think this is something that’s happening a lot because you see a few people posting here, but this forum covers support for 3 continents (plus literally anyone on the planet who speaks English) and we have sold many units.
Google assistant is now disabled. I’ll check if this solves the issue.
It didn't for me.
I find the deafening silence on this from Sonos pretty disappointing. Really surprised they are ignoring this.
Also curious how none of the launch reviews mention this rather major issue, not suggesting a cover up but how could this not be seen during reviews, yet we see it within a day.
I suspect that none of the reviewers are using in a Sonos system that has other speakers and so their Roams are not constantly being brought out of sleep when other Sonos speakers are being used.
A lot of them will also just charge it up and then run the speaker and see what battery life they get out of it and won’t check for standby battery life.
I just power mine off completely between uses as I only use the Roam once a week so I can confirm that it only loses about 1% per day when completely powered off. On the other hand, if I didn’t do this then the Roam would not be fit for purpose given the very poor standby times.
I have the same issue and mine is going back. Lasts a couple of days max on standby due to the fact it keeps waking up.
Those hoping for a fix any time soon should look at the move which has had this issue for over a year and is still not fixed.
Hi Ken, I honestly believe you, really no need to do any of that. My point really is that I think Sonos does ‘other things’ even when supposedly ‘off’ as even 1-2% is way above what I would expect from a Li-Ion battery.
The article you linked to suggests an expected discharge rate of .35%- 2.5% per MONTH - whereas you appear to get approx half that per DAY. Approx 20 times worse than the upper expected rate.
Ah I see, I thought you were suggesting the battery discharge was more than 1-2% when the Roam was powered off - my mistake
I have seen somewhere online that the Roam should remain charged for 70 days when powered off - as usual I can’t find where I saw that, but that is around the level of the battery discharge-rate I’m seeing, admittedly though, I haven’t tried the full 70 days to see if that is the case. If it lasts two months when powered off, then I’m happy with that to be truthful.
Some users though seem to say they get just days of battery, even when the device is ‘off’ and all I try to highlight is the differences between ‘standby mode’ and the ‘powered off’ states.
Great summary of the experience. I was thinking of an app settings option to make a single power button press a choice between putting the Roam to full power off or to standby.
Hi everyone,
I received my Sonos Roam yesterday and I am quite concerned by the battery drain on standby mode.
My roam is losing about 10% every hour on standby, which brings us to 10hours but I was expecting 10 hours in playing mode.
Should I be concerned by those stats are it was the expected consumption?
Thank you !
Same. I turned the power off and it still drained. What gives? Disappointing to see no response from Sonos.
…..
Is there any way, whilst charged, to fully power these devices off without them continuing to drain the battery?
You can fully power off by holding the power button for 5 seconds. That reduces battery drain but not tested how much.
I do fully power off but the units still automatically switch themselves back on
Hi everyone,
I received my Sonos Roam yesterday and I am quite concerned by the battery drain on standby mode.
My roam is losing about 10% every hour on standby, which brings us to 10hours but I was expecting 10 hours in playing mode.
Should I be concerned by those stats are it was the expected consumption?
Thank you !
That’s about right. Standby doesn’t really work that well, because if you use the Sonos app for OTHER Sonos speakers you may have, the Roam will come out of standby temporarily. Over time, and if you use your Sonos system a lot, this will further drain your battery. Standby does not really work that well, except in very limited situations. I have asked that they apply a software fix, so that the Roam doesn’t come out of standby every time you use the app - but only if you WANT the Roam to engage. Haven’t heard the status of that though, or even if it is feasible.
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