Sonos Roam - Battery drain

No, I don't think powering it off is the best solution or intended use of the product.  That means you have to physically engage with the Roam to turn it on --  but you should be able to wake it remotely (from another room in the house - like using other Sonos speakers) but ONLY if you want to (not as it is designed now -- where it happens every time you use the Sonos app -- even if you are not intending to use the Roam at that moment).  Some people have many Sonos speakers in various rooms -- not just a Roam.

This design “feature” of waking with App use, was intended by Sonos so that you always had the Roam ready to direct music to, when you want to.  But the miscalculation is that some people (or many per the posts here about the Roam), have systems where they may engage with the Sonos App often throughout the day FOR OTHER SONOS SPEAKERS, but only using the Roam for brief periods (maybe while in the bathroom).   So the waking of the Roam by use of the Sonos App has the unintended effect of prematurely draining the battery. 

So to balance the “ready to use” design, without unnecessary battery drain, it seems the best solution is to have a software button/toggle that you engage in the App to purposefully wake the Roam from sleep mode when you actually want to use the Roam (yes, its one more click, but better than always waking it and draining the battery needlessly).  And for those who don’t mind the always waking the Roam upon using the app -- they could have a toggle to have that switch always on (or something like that).   Always Wake (sleeping) Roam when using App   vs.  Wake (sleeping) Roam when I tell it to via the App

Simple -- get to work on my solution Sonos engineers.  I’ll take just a few pennies per unit as my royalty.   Seems like a fairly easy algorithm to implement.

I’ve been reading the numerous battery issues as I am disappointed with the battery performance of the Roam.  It’s still not clear to me if anyone is getting anything like the advertised (up to) 10 days in sleep mode?  It seems that the only way to get near this is to go through the rather clunky ‘power off’ procedure.  Surely that isn’t what Sonos intended?  From the specs it reads that it should provide the 10 days without powering off.  From the FAQs:

What is the battery life of Roam?

Roam offers up to 10 hours of continuous playback on a single charge. When not in use, Roam switches to sleep mode to conserve power, and the battery can last up to 10 days.

I haven’t recorded actual times yet but I’ve had to recharge many time and only used the Roam for a few hours. There is no chance that it would last for 10 days.

This is a shame because everything else about it is great (other than putting too many functions onto the power switch).

The whole ‘10 days on standby’ is a rather silly claim as I'm not sure of any real world case you would ever get it.

As it stands, if it is in range of your Sonos system then you won't get even close to it as it will forever be waking up.

And if it's while travelling you may as well switch it off completely to then get close to the life all the other similar speakers give by default.

The irony of the ‘workaround' of keeping your battery powered, portable speaker on charge surely isn't lost on many.

I’m seeing what looks like maybe 4 to 5 days (MAX) on standby -- even IF Sonos app not engaged during that time.  Less, if Sonos App is engaged (causing the Roam to wake up periodically).

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):

1.  total playback time once fully charged
2.  how long it will last in sleep mode once fully charged (no playback)

I have not experienced battery drain in standby mode because I turn mine off.   However,   even turned off,  the battery was completely drained after 4 days .. to the point where i had to let the Roams charge for 20 minutes before they even turned on..  There must be some kind of background drain even when supposedly turned off ..   I suspect that ‘off’ is not really off but has some kind of process running in the background .. or there’s a bug in the soft ‘off’ switch function.  

RETURNING TO CRUTCHFIELD - Charged unit to 100% and played it for 20 minutes - battery life now  shows 77%!  That’s 1% of life per minute!  So you can play up to 100 minutes! Yay! Brilliant design Sonos! Your dev team are geniuses! Congratulations on this triumph of the 21st century!

I think others, like me, are experiencing severe battery drain with the Roam turned off (ie. power button held for 5secs.  Out of curiosity, can I ask what you use to charge yours?  I wonder if it's the method of charging that’s having an effect here?  Thanks.

I used the original SAMSUNG charger and cable for my old Galaxy S8+ to charge the ROAM… When I charged it for the first time when I have received it, it started at 66% and it took probably around 20 minutes to fully charged.