Sonos Roam - Battery drain

Sonos just released the 13.3 update today, and it’s supposed to improve the Roam’s power management to help extend the battery life when it’s not actively being used.

Roam battery sucks! I’m experiencing the same issues, so I contacted technical support. After days of testing which actually took weeks, ultimately Sonos Support determined that the diagnostics I submitted showed nothing was wrong. They literally told me there was NOT a problem..Ummm how about the fact that the Roam dies in 4 days on sleep/ standby mode and it is supposed to last 10 days. THEY DON”T CARE that their product doesn’t work as advertised. Someone needs to sue them and get their attention for false advertising.

If you feel that strongly about it, contact a lawyer, and start up that suit. Don’t be that person who sits on the side waiting for someone else to do it. 

Assuming you can find a lawyer to take the suit, of course. 

But they didn’t fix the one thing that will REALLY help extend battery life in sleep mode.  Simply using the Sonos App for other speakers should NOT wake your Roam from sleep mode.  It still does with 13.3.   

The App should only wake the Roam from sleep, when you want to actively use the Roam, to either play by itself or group with other speakers.   Now, it wakes regardless.  So simply checking your music library or using any other Sonos speakers wastes Roam’s battery.  (How hard would it be to put in a software selection in the App -- “Wake My Roam”)?

So I’m in my office all day, using my app to control my office Sonos speakers -- it wakes the Roam constantly.  This is THE biggest problem  -- not fixed.

I know Sonos thinks that it is a feature (it isn’t, it’s a bug).  

Sure, I could power it OFF completely.  Then I have to go upstairs and physically use the power button to turn it back on.  Not an ideal solution.

If Sonos added a “Wake My Roam” feature, wouldn’t this add an extra step for users who want the Roam to wake up automatically from sleep mode when they use the app?

Perhaps -- but it seems like saving the battery power is a more important issue than users having to take one more simple step in software.   

And I don’t know of any users clamoring for this “feature” -- where Roam wakes automatically upon ANY opening of the App.  It seems like a “feature” designed by a marketing person for those users with ONLY Roams, and not a more complex system.   Yet Sonos is designed to be a whole home system, not just a Roam system.   So configuring/playing other speakers (not just Roam) is certainly a normal use case.

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!! 

If the Roam is shut off completely, the battery should only deplete 1%-2% per day. How exactly are you turning off the Roam?