Create S2 system for Roam but keep S1 system with S1 and S2 compatible items

Check out this article:

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/4845

thanks, but that is about removing S2 compatible products from my S1 system and creating an S2 system with them in. I just want my S1 system to stay as it is, with S1 and S2 products, and create a separate S2 system with only the Roam.

Yes, you can do that. The Roam will then be controlled via the S2 controller version. Your S1 and S2 products will continue to work as they do today, via the S1 controller. 

But this may be tricky long term because once you have the S2 controller on the phone, you may inadvertently end up moving the S2 products to the S2 software version and you have to guard against that.

With both systems powered up, is it easy to inadvertently upgrade the S2 compatible units to S2 via the S2 controller, thereby breaking the S1 system?

Running the compatibility checker tool and thus actively telling the Sonos system that you don’t want to upgrade the existing S2-compatible devices seems. anecdotally, to reduce (eliminate?) this risk.

In any case, I don’t think any upgrade is going to take place without something being pressed to confirm (although I suppose that might be done inadvertently).  If units did get upgraded, they could be rolled back provided there is still an S1 system, which there would be.

There are all sort of ways that these things seem to happen in the world of Sonos users and I have found that my peace of mind is assured where my S1 system runs S2 compatible units is to make sure that the S2 app isn't in my house on any device.

Thanks for that suggestion. I’ll try it out.

I’ve never had any trouble at all running S1/S2 systems side-by-side. The chosen course taken a couple of years back was to create separate Sonos Households for the S1/S2 Systems (with different Household ID’s) and so ‘never the twain shall meet’.

Both setups have been working fine ever since… the initial setup was fortunately quite easy, as I create and keep most of my playlists/favourites stored in the subscribed MSP services, plus my locally-held library and its .m3u playlists (on a NAS box) are obviously easy to import/index into both HH’s.

Most of the old S1 devices and a few older Play:1’s have now been handed on to our children/grandchildren at their Homes and they too now run S1/S2 systems side-by-side. They each use separate S1/S2 Household ID’s and they’ve been working fine aswell.

Can you point me to information on setting up the S2 system with a different Household id?

You just create a ‘new’ system from a reset or newly installed Sonos App using a factory reset compatible Sonos speaker.

What many folk used to do when the ‘S1/S2’ split was first announced, was to partly ‘upgrade’ their existing S1HH to an S2HH and leave some older devices like a Play:5 gen1 for example on their S1 setup and move their newer devices like Sonos One’s across automatically to the auto-created S2 system - both then had the same HouseholdID which arose from following the App upgrade path. 

Its a case then of taking the plunge and resetting all the devices in one of the systems back to factory and creating a brand new HH - in my case I opted to reset the older S1 devices and the S1 App to start a brand new HH (and Household ID) for that older system. I would suggest resetting/creating the system that has the least amount of devices.

I think in your case you could simply power off your S1 devices (as a precaution) install the S2 App and create a brand new HH with the Roam and then simply go forward from there.

@Weetang,

Once you have the Sonos Roam in place on a new S2 system - you might first want to setup that App with your music services, playlists etc; then if you decide you then want to move your Play:1 or other compatible devices to that S2 system you can just factory reset the device and add it to the new S2HH via ‘Settings/System/Add Product’ in the S2 App.

In a similar manner you can downgrade it back to you S1HH by taking the same steps but via the S1 App. (Note however a Sonos One SL cannot be downgraded once it’s been put onto any S2 system).

Effectively you leave the S1 system alone exactly as it stands now and then just reset a ‘compatible’ S1 player to move it to the (now) separate S2 system.

This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever run into!!!

Unistalled and reinstalled S2 and S1 over and over just to get the Roam to work! Absolute Garbage!

So much for my old Sonos system! Im not going to go out and invest $1,000's again on S2 system only to see a few years down the line when S3 comes out.. when it will be time to waste more Money! I'm throwing up my older Sonos Speakers on eBay, returning my $199 sonos Roam and will shop for a better alternative!

I don’t understand the part where you mention that you uninstalled and reinstalled S2 and S1 over and over just to get the Roam to work!

I simply chose to power off my S1 System, then installed the S2 App and added the Roam to that App.

When I was done with its setup, I then powered on the S1 setup and both systems happily co-existed with no issues.

I actually didn’t need to power off the S1 system, but just thought it best to do that, so as not to confuse anything. It wasn’t that difficult, all things said and done.

I don’t recall having to uninstall anything to make the setup work🤔?

I set an S2 system up for my Daughter (just a Play:1), mainly so she wouldn't accidentally upgrade my Household S1 system.

She has her own NAS folder as well, separate to our main house one.

Oddly enough, my Spotify App sees this Play:1 even though I don't have S2 installed on my Phone.

Yes, same here, but I think it’s possibly ‘by design’ because Spotify ‘connect’ picks up the Sonos devices on the same LAN subnet as the App, which is what applies in the case of Apple Airplay too.

Is there a way to add a Roam as a separate system without powering off all of the other speakers?

When I try to ‘Set up new system’ and sign into S2 App it then sees the other speakers (some of which are not S2 compatible) but doesn’t let me continue to add the Roam as a new system using the S2 app (although one of the available options of continuing is to ‘Set up a new system using the Sonos S2 app.’

I’d rather not power off all of the speakers as it means saving all of the queues (I really don’t know why Sonos can’t make queues persistent through power cycles - they survive upgrade reboots) - and for some reason I’m getting an error when I try to save a queue as a Sonos playlist - ‘Sonos doesn’t have enough free space left to save the queue.  Remove old playlists or queues in other rooms and try again.’  I probably have around 40 Sonos playlists, a few of which have a couple of hundred songs and the rest much less.

Splitting the system isn’t an option as Sonos does a factory reset of the S1 system afterwards but that’s the main one I’ll use and need previously mentioned Sonos playlists.

So is there any way of connecting the Roam to my router and creating a new system with only that in it - with the other speakers still powered on?  Or will I need to connect it to a hotspot first and then add my router WiFi details too?

I also can’t believe there is no explanation of the button on the back of the Roam in the Guide that comes with it.

EDIT: I removed the ethernet from S1 speaker which effectively removes it from the network obviously - Roam connected now.

Playlists don’t disappear when speakers are powered off.  Do you mean the queues?  If so then save the queues as playlists first.

Edit - sorry just reread your comments regarding problems you are having saving queues as playlists

No, you’re right, I did mean queues in some places - edited slightly to make it clearer. 👍🏻

To try to assist @sjw, I just reset the S2 App here, just as a test and after stepping through the opening screens and T&C’s etc. it takes me to the ‘attached’ screen, which allows the creation of a new S2 HH.. to which I would then add a factory reset Roam - I didn’t go onto do that, but that’s the route to take if you don’t want to switch off your S1 HH - the new System you create will have an entirely different Household ID too.

HTH.

I got to that screen Ken - but the next screen is the one I mentioned where it then connects and sees the non-S2 compatible speakers and won’t go any further regarding a ‘new system.’

Give me a minute and I will try it here with a factory reset Roam and post back what screens I see. I have an S1 system on the network (and an S2 HH which is irrelevant) but I will leave all devices powered on and create a third system with just the Roam only.. I will post back shortly.

OK - I’ll be really interested if you can do it as previously described - I went around in circles for a while but couldn’t get there - even though on the next screen it said one of the options was to ‘Set up a new system using the Sonos S2 app.’

Okay after the screen referred to in my earlier post, the App invited me to sign in with my account credentials (which I did) and there was an invite to join the existing system with this screen below. Clearly it sees the system on the network. I dismissed this screen and simply closed/reopened the App, See my next post…

On reopening the App I was greeted this time with this screen… and I am about to choose to add the factory reset Roam. I won’t choose to join the system detected nearby.