Contributor I

Sonos Roam - Battery drain

278 replies
49468 views

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 !

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R

Razorhog

Enthusiast II

There might be a software problem that causes battery drain issues, but it is exacerbated by uncommon power button functionality, a poor website, and poor communication. Even the “essential guide to the roam” (https://blog.sonos.com/en-gb/guide-to-roam) doesn’t mention the standby/power functions. I mean come on Sonos, it’s the essential guide, don’t you think it should mention the standby/off functionality and how to use it?

The roam “setup” page doesn’t mention this functionality either: https://support.sonos.com/s/article/4994?language=en_US

The official Roam product page doesn’t mention it either: https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/roam.html

There is a “user guide” section in the official product page, but it just has a link which points to a broken page: https://www.sonos.com/support/en-us/sonos-user-guide/sonos-user-guide/roam/roam.htm

The Sonos website is slow, the font is WAY TOO BIG, and it is hard to find information. It took a very specific google search just to find the sonos article describing the power button functionality. https://support.sonos.com/s/article/5029?language=en_US

Pressing once for sleep and 5 seconds for off is not intuitive (to me at least). Especially since the Roam makes a sound and the lights go off when pressing it once. To me, (and possibly every other human being) that means the device is off.

Edit: they should add in voice prompts like many other bluetooth speakers. If you press the button once it should audibly say “Now entering sleep mode”. When pressing it for 5 seconds it should say “powering off”.

D

DAZZ2000

Lyricist I

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 !

Hi, I was having the same issue and spoke to someone at Sonos, it was because I was only putting it in sleep mode which still connects to WiFi and checks for updates etc so will drain the battery. Hold the off button for five seconds which will power it off. I did this last night and the battery was still on 99% this morning. Hope this helps.

Also anyone managed to get it to work with the Sonos App while out and about? It seems that this functionality and Alexa are confined to when you’re at home and connected to your WIFI only - bit of a shame that.

Sonos App = WiFI. No Wifi -- use Bluetooth and your bluetooth device (phone) controls.

I get that, obviously.

Stands to reason that you’d drop back to bluetooth and use your device controls - otherwise might as well call it the Sonos Stationery.

Still it would have been a nice capability nonetheless. The main job of playing music is ticked by bluetooth.

C

casig

Lyricist I

Anyone successfully returned Roam and received a refund?

I thought mine was defected as I was charging mine constantly!

Only to find out that there are other users that have the accelerated battery draining issue.

Totally unacceptable.

J

JimmyJet77

Lyricist III

Crutchfield finally posted my review!

Wanted to be fair here and revise this post to say Crutchfield finally posted my one star review - confidence in the system restored.

J

JimmyJet77

Lyricist III

Crutchfield In Bed With Sonos

Just to let you know that last week I submitted a one star review on Crutchfield where I purchased the Roam from and described the battery drain issues, and guess what? It never got published on their site. However, they have since published six 5 star reviews and one 4 star review. So, that’s how the system works...

They finally posted my one star review. So I retract my previous statement.

G

GuitarSuperstar

Lead Maestro

@JimmyJet77 I see that 10 of the 13 reviews for the Roam on Crutchfield are 4- and 5-star reviews. Seems like most Roam customers are satisfied.

"Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you." - Rashi

B

BatM

Contributor I

There might be a software problem that causes battery drain issues, but it is exacerbated by uncommon power button functionality, a poor website, and poor communication. Even the “essential guide to the roam” (https://blog.sonos.com/en-gb/guide-to-roam) doesn’t mention the standby/power functions. I mean come on Sonos, it’s the essential guide, don’t you think it should mention the standby/off functionality and how to use it?

The roam “setup” page doesn’t mention this functionality either: https://support.sonos.com/s/article/4994?language=en_US

The official Roam product page doesn’t mention it either: https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/roam.html

There is a “user guide” section in the official product page, but it just has a link which points to a broken page: https://www.sonos.com/support/en-us/sonos-user-guide/sonos-user-guide/roam/roam.htm

The Sonos website is slow, the font is WAY TOO BIG, and it is hard to find information. It took a very specific google search just to find the sonos article describing the power button functionality. https://support.sonos.com/s/article/5029?language=en_US

Pressing once for sleep and 5 seconds for off is not intuitive (to me at least). Especially since the Roam makes a sound and the lights go off when pressing it once. To me, (and possibly every other human being) that means the device is off.

Edit: they should add in voice prompts like many other bluetooth speakers. If you press the button once it should audibly say “Now entering sleep mode”. When pressing it for 5 seconds it should say “powering off”.

I’ve spent 35 years design/mfg from nuclear, turbines, healthcare imaging, and microprocessing… I overwhelmingly agree with you. Let’s go Sonos… fix it ASAP.

M

MarkS2021

Lyricist I

Same issue. Only used it a couple of times. Only played music for a couple of hours. Fully charged it, thought it was switched off, came to use it a few days later and it was completely dead. Takes ages to come back to life.

Also think it is really mean that it doesn’t come with a charging plug - finding one with the correct charge rate is virtually impossible. And it’s not made very clear that a standard USB will not charge this device.

Very disappointed - I think it might be going back...

B

BatM

Contributor I

Understand. When most people have issues, Sonos needs to get more responsive. Even if they just improve their communications would go a long way.

After searching Sonos, you need the stronger 10-12Watt charger. I found solid source on Amazon that I also now use in iPhones for faster charging (Apple ok’s).

H

heinsmit

Lyricist I

This new update seems to have done nothing to help the issue. As a test I charged both my roams at the same time, enabled assistant on only one. That one is already down to 72% while the other is on 98

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