Ability to Add Sonos Roam to Multiple Sonos WiFi Systems?


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Is it possible to add a Sonos Roam to multiple Sonos WiFi systems?

I recently purchased a Roam and took it with me on a road trip. My in-laws have a Sonos system and I wanted to add my Roam to their system so I could get all of the benefits of using Roam over WiFi instead of Bluetooth. 

However, the only way I could get the Roam to connect to their system was to reset it to factory and set up the Roam as a new speaker in their Sonos system. When I came home I had to repeat the process by resetting to factory and adding it back to my Sonos system.

The feature I’d love to see is the ability to add a Roam to a second Sonos system over WiFi without having to remove it from an existing Sonos system. Ideally, after initial setup, the switch between Sonos systems would be done automatically based upon the connected WiFi network.


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It is very disappointing that this is not a feature of both the roam and the move.   It’s seems like being able to move from one system to another should be built into a mobile system like this.  I probably would not buy another one until it’s added.  Would really like Sonos to consider it. 

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Hi @GottSeattle 

Hi @GottSeattle 

The Roam is designed to be added to your Sonos system and work with it just like another Sonos speaker - and then use Bluetooth individually while away from the home system. It was not designed to jump from one system to another without need for reconfiguration - this is systemic to how Sonos Households operate.
However, it is not outside the realms of possibility that we may be able to add a feature whereby a Roam could jump from one Sonos system (Household) to another which is why I have tagged this thread as a feature request. 

So then you can’t use voice assist on the run...just saying. Should easily swap between wifi networks. Not a hard thing to design and deploy.

 

The Roam can and will connect to multiple WiFi networks - so you can connect it to WiFi while out-and-about.. What this thread is about, and what the Roam won’t do, is be part of multiple Sonos systems ie. jump seamlessly from one Sonos system on one network to another Sonos system on another network. This would require a factory reset. A workaround would be to create the second system starting with the Roam which had already been set up on the first. This is not recommended (especially if you make use of Voice Assistants) or supported, but would work. This way, the two systems would see themselves as being of the same Sonos “household” and the Roam would not need to be reset to be able to switch between being part of each.

I'm thinking to buy a Roam for my daughter, but the difficulty/inability to connect to two Sonos systems may be a sticking point. We have one Sonos system at our weekend place, and am building another Sonos system at home. Until/unless the feature is introduced, can you confirm that the Roam set-up on system A could be used in location B as a stand-alone speaker (including on Wi-Fi) but would not be able to connect to system B? Would Voice Assistants work at location B?

Or if both WiFi networks had the same SSID and password, would it be able to connect to Sonos system B? 

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@Corry P Any update from the product team on feature prioritization/timeline?

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Hi @danjrichards 

Apologies - I don’t know why I didn’t see your question before now.

Yes, if the Roam knows the WiFi password, it will operate independently of system B on the same network - with one major caveat: the Sonos app is not written to cope with finding two Sonos systems on one network and will simply communicate with the first one it finds, which may change randomly. Voice Assistants would likely work on both, as long as different voice service accounts were used for each system. I’d recommend using Google on one and Alexa on the other, just to minimise the chance of issues, as I’m not sure how two Alexa\Google accounts on one network would behave as this would be an unsupported setup.

Yes, the networks could have the same credentials, but it’s not necessary; Roam will store multiple sets of WiFi credentials. It may make things easier though, as in order to teach Roam the new credentials the app would have to be connected to that network and be unable to find any Sonos system, so the existing system there would need to be turned off for the time it takes to teach Roam the credentials. It only needs done once, however.

 

Hi @j_roc 

I’m afraid not - they don’t share progress on feature development.

Please can you advise if and when this feature will be added to Roam?

Please note the last sentence in the post immediately preceding yours. This includes not only progress, but indeed what features Sonos is considering. We usually find out when the new feature is released.

Please can you advise if and when this feature will be added to Roam?

 

The post above you is from a Sonos support staff member that states they can’t share that information.  From my experience, they only Sonos talks about future features is when it involves working with other companies or it’s a big feature that would have an impact sales.

One additional complication with this feature would be the likelyhood that the two Sonos systems are owned by different accounts.  Perhaps it would be possible if the two systems (households) were under the same account, but with different owners, you’re asking the device to store the service logins, etc, from two completely different customers.  Even under the same household, you could have different services setup.

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I agree on getting this feature, have a separate Wifi and media server and want to use a Roam or Move between the RV and home. I can’t justify having to buy separate Roams or Moves for each location.

Hopefully this comes soon!

I agree on getting this feature, have a separate Wifi and media server and want to use a Roam or Move between the RV and home. I can’t justify having to buy separate Roams or Moves for each location.

Hopefully this comes soon!

This can be done right now with a Sonos portable speaker (Roam/Move) and what you’re asking for is a completely different scenario to the earlier point raised in this thread, which was asking for the Roam to connect to multiple Sonos Systems or Households… that is an entirely different thing to allowing the Roam to attach to multiple WiFi networks.

I have a Roam that automatically attaches itself to my Home network (Localnet-PC). It works too in the Camper van when we travel the U.K. and attaches to its network (MobileNet) …and then when we stay at the Holiday Bungalow, it will switch and attach to its WiFi (MobileLink), plus if we’re camping, the Roam can be made to switch and link to a mobile Hotspot (Ken’s iPhone XR) when required outdoors and away from all other WiFi connections.

You simply need to add the WiFi networks through the Sonos App network settings. See screenshot attached.

Unfortunately, “the image can not be loaded”….

 

Unfortunately, “the image can not be loaded”….

Thanks @Airgetlam …I’ve posted it again - hope it’s working now? Not sure why this seems to happen occasionally🤔?

It can now. :)

The problems with this thread start with the title.  If only it made sense.  If only the OP had used either:

  1. Ability to connect Sonos Roam to multiple WiFi networks

OR

  1. Ability to add Sonos Roam to multiple Sonos systems

Instead, these two totally different concepts were conflated. 

The answer to 1 is ‘you can already do this”

The brief answer to 2 is:

“The concept of the Sonos system, with its unique identifier, is fundamental to Sonos’ design.  A system at any one time will comprise a particular set of speakers, playlists, favourites, settings, music services, voice services, music library, whether it is S1 or S2, firmware version number, and much more besides.  Moving a speaker between two different systems (without a reset) would have to somehow work out how to resolve any conflicts between these elements.  And then resolve them again when the speaker is moved back.

The reset allows the speaker that is being moved to adopt all the features of the system to which is now attached”.

The posters on this thread who claim this feature would be easy to implement, or should clearly have been included from outset, are merely demonstrating their lack of understanding of the Sonos system.  Factory resetting the speaker and adding it to the existing system each time takes about a minute and ensures no conflicts or inconsistencies.  So I would say the answer to question 2 is “You can already do this simply and quickly, and in a way that ensures that there are no unpredictable changes to any of your Sonos systems”.

 

 

 

Yep, thanks melvimbe, this is was a good workaround for me and probably everyone with two locations.

1. Set up the Roam regularly at home (location A) 

2. Go to location B and take your Roam and your phone or laptop with you. Create a Hotspot at B that has the same SSID and Password as the WIFI in A. Your Roam will connect automatically. 

3. Connect your Sonos devices from B to the Sonos system of your Roam (so they're all connected to your Hotspot) 

4. Still at B, add manually, through the Sonos app, the native WIFI of B to the settings of all devices, including your Roam.

5. You now have one singe Sonos system for location A and B together and you could bring any device from B to A and it would work right away. However, A and B are not linked over the internet and will feel like they're separate. 


I think this is quite the most brilliant thing I have seen posted here in a long time. Can’t wait to try this with my Roam (from A) when I next travel with it to my location B.

@controlav I’m attempting to go through the listed workaround here. Did you ever get a chance to try this out and can you confirm whether or not you were successful with the steps?

@jongirard  - are you having problems getting this approach to work?  I have my doubts about this approach, but I’m open to persuasion.  Step 3 seems potentially problematic to me, depending on how the two systems were set up in the first place.

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@controlav I’m attempting to go through the listed workaround here. Did you ever get a chance to try this out and can you confirm whether or not you were successful with the steps?

I did not try this out, no, sorry.

If I remember this correctly…

  1. When at Home ‘A’ (WiFi = Localnet-PC), I simply added my mobile Hotspot (WiFi = Kens-iPhone-XR) to my setup via ‘Update Networks’ in the Sonos App Network settings.
  2. Then transported Roam to Home ‘B’ (WiFi = MobileLink-2G) and connected my controller (an iPad) and the Roam to mobile Hotspot (WiFi = Kens-iPhone-XR)
  3. Next asded the Home ‘B’ WiFi to my setup via ‘Update Networks’ and all worked on its WiFi (MobileLink-2G)
  4. Rinse and repeat for any other WiFi networks that you come into contact with and want to use… 

It wasn’t that difficult to do.

Thanks Ken

When you originally set up your home B Sonos system, did you do so using a speaker from your home A system, or do a completely new system setup with a new (or factory reset) speaker?

That’s a good question John… I will try to explain simply what I chose to do…

I have several Sonos Households here at Home ‘A’.

  1. An S2 System (which runs on SonosNet) that I use for the majority of my Home Sonos Devices.
  2. An S1 System (on local WiFi) (on different HH/ID) (just because I have a few older devices)
  3. Another S2 System (on same local WiFi) (different HH/ID obviously) with 4 portable products 2 x Move & 2 x Roam .. these are the devices that I take with me to Home ‘B’ (MobileLink-2G/5G) and I take them too when ’glamping’ about the U.K. in the camper van (using ‘MobileNet’ - A Huawei MiFi device).

So it’s the same S2 system, but different WiFi connections. I just chose to separate out a few devices for travelling purposes, but it’s not necessary to have them in a separate Sonos Household.

Hope that assists… and whilst I mention "it wasn’t that difficult to do", I do think there are some areas here where it could perhaps be made easier for users to setup.

Sorry I missed the word (‘not’) in the penultimate paragraph in my post above - I’ve just edited/corrected that.

So Home B has no permanent devices? You just use the 2 x Roam and 2 X Move there? 

So Home B has no permanent devices? You just use the 2 x Roam and 2 X Move there? 

In my case Yes, it’s a 2 bedroom holiday bungalow. I do sometimes leave the Sonos devices there - there’s also no reason why we couldn’t add other (non-portable) Sonos devices to that Home setup and leave them there permanently.

In fact there are/were some plans to do that, but we’re currently considering selling the Home to other family members, who will likely use it much more than we tend to do these days.

I mostly visit it for a few days just to keep the gardens tidy and general maintenance, so the Move/Roam speakers are rather best suited for that purpose… we tend to travel there in the camper van and sometimes move onto other places/campsites in the south west region

The Sonos App automatically switches between each S2 Sonos system as we connect to each Home/Mobile WiFi systems. It just shows the Sonos devices that are connected to the same signal.

Thanks Ken, that all makes sense.

My problem with step 3 in the process set out by @VonAlphaBisZulu is that it sticks Sonos speakers from two different Sonos systems together without factory resetting one set of speakers.  I think that will only work reliably if the two systems in fact already have the same HHID, which will only be true if one system was originally ‘seeded’ using a speaker from the other system.

@John B,

Yes in my own use-case the System Setup/Household ID remains the same - I rarely (if ever) factory reset a Sonos product. I only switch between WiFi networks and I also switch the ‘Sonos Skill’ to connect Alexa between Home ‘A’ Sonos Household - and the Home ‘B’ Sonos Household - that just means I am able to use the same Alexa voice/music services, calendar, reminders and other related things at each location, or whilst travelling.

There should be no need to reset a Sonos device normally, once it’s setup in a Sonos Household, that’s my own philosophy, at least … and just to add (for completion here) its even easier to transfer non-portable Sonos speakers to another home network as the switching of WiFi networks can often be done simply over a SonosNet wired link in most cases.

I do understand the origins of this thread however, where some users want to be able to switch their devices between ‘systems’ or ‘households’ (rather than the WiFi network) without factory resetting them, but a factory reset for that type of ‘occasional’ switching scenario is still not the most difficult of tasks anyway, particularly if the new Sonos System/Household ‘exists’ already… I can happily do that within a minute or two, but I’m happy to add a ‘+1 to that suggestion, if Sonos wish to make it even easier to switch devices between existing Households/Systems.

How is this not the number one feature? It’s called ‘roam’. The PM on this one messed up big time. 

I feel like I was frauded and bought 2 roams to travel with and is just trash

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