Hi @hanajohnson878,

I can assure you that the issues you mentioned are not common, nor should they be expected. I’ve asked that your open case with our support team get escalated to a senior agent. You should receive a response from them in the next day or so.

Update on this - Sonos acknowledged that there’s a fault and agreed to replace the Roam. We got our replacement this morning and it worked straight out of the box - no problem connecting, system sounds working, no problem with the top buttons, plays continuously, super responsive.

Sooooo if you’re having problems with your Roam, you might have got a faulty one like us...

@Sonos @ SonosStaff

I have had similar, albeit fewer issues, with my Sonos Roam products.

I purchased 2 units with the intent of using them in a smaller space as a stereo pair. 

Oddly, I had initial issues with the setup. No scratching or volume issues as listed above, but connectivity to my existing Sonos system was problematic. Sonos recognizes the new speakers in the mobile app, but fails to configure them properly (would not show up in the devices list, etc.).

Additionally, when set up as stereo pair, I noticed one of the speakers would intermittently stop playing. The device remained listed in the speaker list on the app. Furthermore, the app indicated that the device was playing/active. This issue seemed to move intermittently between the left AND right channels.  

I have also noticed issues with the power button and the speaker control buttons. They don’t seem to respond a well or as quickly as my other speakers. 

Lastly, I have these speakers set for auto Trueplay. I’m unsure if this feature is working. I’m not sure how to tell. Along these lines, the EQ setting is resetting to default (bass = 0, treble = 0) settings. 

Overall the experience has been mixed and mediocre.

I have checked wireless configurations, rebooted my router and wireless extenders (which are using a Gb/s backhaul connection to the main router), Sonos settings, and all of my other speakers. I have a number of other Sonos devices connected to my network. I uploaded support diagnostics; 289096592. 

When these s
I have had very good experiences with my other Sonos products. I’m confident these issues will be resolved. thank you for your time and attention to these matters.

Hi @berniebaker, thanks for raising this with the Sonos Community.

After looking at your diagnostic, it seems that the left Roam is hanging on to a weak 5GHz connection, potentially causing your issues with audio dropping out. We’re looking in to an issue where the Roam should be reconnecting to the strongest AP after being moved but isn’t, and are hoping to have a fix for this in an upcoming update - in the meantime, when being moved around a location with multiple access points, we recommend fully rebooting the Roam to force it to connect to the strongest AP (Power off by holding the power button for 5 seconds, and then power back on again).

I don’t have the Roam or Move myself, but from what I’ve heard from colleagues who do have one, the Auto-Trueplay effect can be quite subtle.

Let us know if you have better performance from the Roams after fully rebooting :)

Thank you. I’ll leverage your suggestions and apply the update once it is published. 

I’ll keep you posted should I uncover additional issues.  

I am also experiencing the same issues with my Roam. And it will reboot itself and then the battery light flashes Red.

I’m on the second call with support hopefully they will authorize a replacement.

I’m having similar problems with my new Sonos Roam. Very frustrating as it routinely won’t operate. On/Off button is also poorly engineered. Need help to fix, a refund or a replacement. 

It’s perhaps best for you to contact your local Sonos Customer Support/chat online to Staff via this LINK. HTH

Thank you. Much appreciated.

I too am having issues with Sonos Roam. It seems to work inside the house but when I take it in the garden it struggles to connect to WiFi. When it does connect it frequently disconnects. My phone has a decent wifi signal outside but there is no way of checking the signal on the roam. I connected via Bluetooth and it made no difference. 

I have a BT wifi mesh network which has been solid for years.

It annoys me that companies sell products that are not finished, and then fix them via software updates. It makes for a very bad customer experience.

I’m having exactly the same problems….very frustrating. Return Roam to Sonos tomorrow. I hope my next unit is not defective.

I have also had a nightmare experience with Roam and Sonos. 
•first roam failed right out of the box. After wading through Sonos extremely customer unfriendly CRS phone tree (I want to talk to a person!!) for 20 minutes, I then spent another 30 minutes with a tech who tried everything including a factory reset before pronouncing it DOA. I could a) ship it back and wait 5 weeks for a replacement or b) buy a replacement, have it shipped ASAP, and get my $184.00 back when they received my first one back. 
•I chose b) thinking this would be the most efficient path. Credit card billed another $184, new roam arrived, setup no problem, worked great for 3 days, then roam 2 fails, S2 app sez I need an update. OK, update process fails twice. I decide to wait overnight before diving back into customer service hell. Update works third time yay! Only now the unit is completely malfunctioning - unit turns off within 30 seconds, randomly changes Spotify music selection mid-song, turns on (solid white light) without me touching it. Factory reset failed. Clearly ANOTHER malfunctioning unit. 
•so now it’s been 14 business days since I returned the first unit, still no refund. I decide to call. All I want now is my money back on the first unit before I return the second unit (I don’t trust Sonos customer service to handle two simultaneous refunds). I get handed off to 4 different people! No one can help me. I’m on the phone an hour. Last guy says be patient your refund should arrive today. Nope. 
•to summarize, I paid for 2 roams, neither worked, and have not been refunded although one has been returned. I’m done with Sonos all I want is my money back. BTW, I have Bose and UE2 Bluetooth speakers that work fine on my network so don’t go there. 

Agreed. I am on my second sonos roam. 

The first one never connected as bluetooth or to my system. I returned it to best buy. Best Buy then offer to order me a new one… so I figured it would give it a try.  The second one worked as a bluetooth speaker until i tried to connect to my home sonos system. Now it will not work on my system OR as a bluetooth speaker.  I am going to factory reset and give it one more try then i am DONE.

Sounds like they gave you an open box device. The Bluetooth function can not be used until such point as the Roam has been set up on the Sonos software. 

I’d highly recommend that you do a factory reset of that device, before attempting to add it back to your existing Sonos system. 

I’m having so many problems, just like you. My Roam is basically an overpriced paper weight. What a frustrating product!  At least yours connected.  About to throw this thing into the ocean. Stick with a more traditional Bluetooth brand (JBL, Bose) for portability, SONOS has some work to do. 

My roam simply doesn’t make any sound (both music and chimes). I can see that a song is playing. Any idea what to do?

I love my Sonos speakers, all 5 of them, which is why I purchased the Roam.  Well, that was a mistake!  I wasted hours yesterday trying to get the damn thing to connect to my WiFi and Bluetooth - NEITHER would work!!  I have a free crappy little Coors Lite Bluetooth speaker that connected in 5 seconds.  No excuse for you guys!  Especially since you already have experience with the all-too-expensive Move speaker.  The unit is being shipped back today for refund. 

Clearly, there is a Quality Assurance problem and you need to get on it and recall the bad batches instead of letting your customers suffer and lose faith.  Stop selling defect products before Sonos goes the way of Sony.  Customers expect a quality product from you, not a headache!

As a side note, I’d suggest you add an ethernet port so we can at least connect to get any firmware updates before wasting time trying to connect to our WiFi.

I am having issues with toggling between pairing stereo with roam, then when put in ‘everywhere’ mode they drop off stereo and one of them disconnects?   Also, instructions for setup is not very clear.    Roam roll out was not done well.   Come on Sonos, we pay for excellence.  I have 12 sonos devices…. Don’t get me started on S1 vs S2!

The best message to send Sonos is a returned product.  That’s what I did with the Roam.  That hits them right in the pocket.  Maybe then they will realize that lowering product quality to improve the bottom line won’t work.

How were you able to get Sonos to exchange your Roam?  I spent a half hour on the phone with CS and got to a point where they wanted me to reconfigure my wifi system.  I have several other Sonos speakers and they work fine.  When I first got the Roam a few weeks ago, it worked on my system  I was out of town for a couple of weeks and when I returned, I have been unable to connect my Roam to my Wifi and also unable to use the bluetooth function.  I have followed every step to reset it and it doesn’t work.  All I wanted was to have my Roam exchanged and I am being told they won’t because they think my wifi system isn’t configured correctly.  Everything else connected to it works other than my Roam.  Appreciate the help.

If the Staff believe a ‘product-exchange’ will just result in the same outcome until you perhaps reconfigure your setup to meet the system requirements, perhaps that’s their reasoning, but you haven’t explained the actual network issue in your post?

Is it a QOS, Airtime Fairness, Multicasting, DHCP server, or some other issue? The fact other devices work, maybe irrelevant, particularly if they are running on SonosNet (which Roam doesn’t use), or are setup on S1 HH, or your router is having difficulties leasing IP addresses, for example etc. etc.

No point CS sending you a replacement device if you just then face the exact same issues you have now? What was the actual issue with reconfiguring your setup to accommodate the product?

What were you being asked to change to get the device onto your system?

More information is needed to really comment further about the matter.

You have 45 days to return your Roam.  https://support.sonos.com/s/article/5030?language=en_US

Free shipping as well.  

If your other Sonos speakers work fine, it is not your system that is at fault, it is their product.  

The above statement is not entirely accurate, as the ‘other’ Sonos Speakers could (just as an example here) be running on their SonosNet signal - whereas a portable device, like the Roam, does not use the SonosNet mesh, for obvious reasons, and so if you were to add it to say a UniFi WiFi network in your home with multicasting switched off, then it’s likely not going to work correctly with your ‘other’ existing products. That’s just one of probably many reasons why Roam (or numerous other devices for that matter) may not play nicely together. These things though are usually fairly easy to fix, but no point exchanging a product, as you just end up in the same predicament. The answer is usually to sort the local network environment in most cases.

Sonos claims it will work independently as a Bluetooth device or with your other Sonos speakers as part of your system.  This product does neither properly.  That is a product issue, not a setup issue.  My iPhone could not even connect with it as a simple Bluetooth speaker.  Lemons happen, this is one.  The Product Manager responsible for the Roam didn’t do his/her job, simple as that.

I’m trying to reconcile your statement with the fact that thousands of folks, including Ken, are using the product without issue. The conclusion I come to is that Ken is correct, either you have network issues to resolve, or, and significantly less likely, that there is an actual problem with your individual device. 

There are some questionable decisions taken in my mind, and some small portion of users seem to be having issues with the difference between asleep and off, but there do appear to be many that continue to use the device without any problems.