Sonos Roam flashing red light on charging base

Are you sure it isn’t a flashing orange light? If it is flashing orange, the charger is experiencing a fault condition. You should contact Sonos Support.

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/226?language=en_US

Definitely flashing red.. I'll try to get a video of it.

Now that it's nearly charged on a different charger, if I move it back to the Sonos charger the charger no longer flashes red. I've seen this once before, and now wonder if it happens when the Roam battery is nearly flat.

Looks like I'll have to run it flat and try again to reproduce the issue.

ROAM’s bottom light will start flashing as the battery approaches full discharge. I would hate to be forced to differentiate between ‘Red” or “Orange” for the color of that light.

Experiment with rebooting the charger.

How does one ‘reboot’ a charger? The light is very clearly flashing red btw, easy to tell as the light on bottom of the Roam is orange or amber.

Remove the charger’s power.

I guess that I’ve never had an orange light at the bottom. I have seen orange at the top.

Maybe I'm not being clear enough. The red light is on the Sonos wireless charging base, NOT on the Roam itself.

Chargers must be different outside of the US. I’ve never seen any status lights on my charger.

It's strange because there are no visible lights on the outside of the charging base. This light shows ‘through’ the plastic on the front/middle of the base. 

Hi @twuk,

The red light will flash on the wireless charger if it detects something that it is unable to effectively charge. I’m able to trigger mine consistently by placing it upside down on top of my laptop, or any other metal surface. It may seem obvious, but are you sure the charging pad is in the correct orientation? The smooth plastic side should be face up, with the rubber side on the bottom. If it is correct, make sure the Roam is positioned correctly on the pad, not overlapping the side, and with the logo side of Roam facing away from the cable.

If this happens again, be sure to submit a diagnostic and either post it here or get in touch with our customer care team, and we’ll look into it further 

Your charger will also have this light, it’s just rare to see it activated 

It was definitely in the right orientation, as the charger is slightly convex on top the two don't ‘pair’ directly if upside down. Also the Roam charged fine on it after I charged it for a while on another charger. It was seated perfectly and on a wooden sideboard so no metal in sight.

Good to know. Please do submit a diagnostic if this happens again, as I’d like to check out why it was exhibiting that behaviour.

A thought… Is it possible the charging base is not getting enough power from the actual wall charger? I recall plugging it into a USB multi charger as there were not enough mains plugs in the cabinet in which it's wired. Can't seem to locate an originall Sonos mains plugs, but it could be in our storage with the box.

That’s definitely possible. Weak power could indeed cause the charger’s light to flash - I don’t suppose you know the make and model of the USB multi charger it was connected to?

One more request - if the light on the charger starts to flash again, please take a photo of the charger itself. The light could flash either Amber or Red, and we’d like to confirm the exact behaviour of your unit, should this reoccur.

Definitely red, can tell next to the amber light on the Sonos.

Also I've now fished the plug out of the cabinet, it's what appears to be an Apple Watch or iPhone (folding) rather than multi. I've swapped in an Anker PowerPoint 5 until I can retrieve the Sonos one from storage. 

PS sorry for the conflicting information. Might be helpful to put a warning/article on the support site confirming the required wattage and also what lights on charging base mean.

It's easy for this subject to get confused with the multiple lights on the speaker.

Thanks James.

I’m just running down the Roam now so I can try again later and hopefully confirm this was the issue. Strange that it's been charging happily on that since day 1, and only just complained. Maybe because battery was lower?

Indeed. If the battery was completely depleted, it can take quite a long time, and a bit more juice to get it back to 15% (the level at which it would power back on and become operational) compared to anything above that. 

Hi James

Tested further yesterday by depleting the Roam battery as low as possible (until its low battery indicator appeared), then placing on the charger using a more powerful power supply.  I didn’t see any flashing indicator on the charging base, so it appears that was the cause.

Thanks again for your help on this.

Great, thanks for letting me know! 

I am having the exact same problem. I’m using the Roam in my kitchen and the LED in the wireless charge is red. At lot. I am using the original charger (2.1A 10.5W) that came with the wireless charger. 

When the Roam is almost depleted, the red light appears. When I charge it via USB-C and another charger first the red light disapears. I have a sneaking suspicion the included charger is not powerful enough.

Or can anyone correct me?