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SONOS Move Battery Level on Bluetooth

  • 25 September 2019
  • 44 replies
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Is there a way to see the Move's battery life while in Bluetooth mode?
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Best answer by Ryan S 25 September 2019, 23:30

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44 replies

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The battery life is only shown in the Sonos app. If you're connected to Sonos with WiFi, the Sonos app will show you the battery charge by the name of the room in the room screen or at the bottom of the app. Over Bluetooth, if you open the Sonos app, when off of the wifi, you'll see a new screen with the product image, it's name, and the battery life left.

You'll also get an amber LED indicating when the unit is very low on power (15% or under), but no battery life is displayed outside the Sonos app.

The  battery level show only on Bluetooth if the data on your phone are switch on, 3g or 4g. There is no battery status if you will connect a WiFi network when you play over Bluetooth. Strange decision from the engineers. 

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When I am connected to WiFi, there is no battery indicator for the Move speaker in the app.  It says “Offline” with a red dot next to it.  How do I check the current battery level, since it does not seem to be lasting very long :thinking:

When I am connected to WiFi, there is no battery indicator for the Move speaker in the app.  It says “Offline” with a red dot next to it.  How do I check the current battery level, since it does not seem to be lasting very long :thinking:

 

Was your Move also switched over to WiFi mode?

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I was listening to the Move in Blue Tooth mode while in the house.  So no, the Move was not on WiFi at the time.  

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But my Sonos app is connected to the WiFi in my house...

I’m not sure if I’m in the minority but I have no idea of my battery status when using the Move via Bluetooth.  This is SOOOOO annoying and for the price point, I think this should be standard.  My Bose Mini has a green light showing me the status and yes, maybe I was used to that but I have to be on Wifi to see the battery status?  Silly in my opinion.  I wish I knew all of this before purchasing...otherwise, I wouldn’t have bought this unit. 

 

I’m not sure if I’m in the minority but I have no idea of my battery status when using the Move via Bluetooth.  This is SOOOOO annoying and for the price point, I think this should be standard.  My Bose Mini has a green light showing me the status and yes, maybe I was used to that but I have to be on Wifi to see the battery status?  Silly in my opinion.

 You might want to read Ryan’s post above again as I think he addressed your concerns.

In reading Ryan’s response again, this is NOT true for me. 

I am on bluetooth right now to the Move, playing music.

I’m not on wifi (wifi is down / power is out due to power grid maintenance) so I’m only on 4g cellular and bluetooth to the Move and when I open the Sonos app, I ONLY get a screen that says “you need to turn on your wifi to use Sonos”.  Zero place where it shows any product image or new screen.  Simply a screen telling me the app will not work without wifi.  (btw running the latest Sonos android app on Android 9 on a Samsung Galaxy S9+)

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The battery life is only shown in the Sonos app. If you're connected to Sonos with WiFi, the Sonos app will show you the battery charge by the name of the room in the room screen or at the bottom of the app. Over Bluetooth, if you open the Sonos app, when off of the wifi, you'll see a new screen with the product image, it's name, and the battery life left.

You'll also get an amber LED indicating when the unit is very low on power (15% or under), but no battery life is displayed outside the Sonos app.

THis is not true regarding Bluetooth (at least with an iPhone). If you are on Bluetooth , there is no battery level indicator anywhere. Which is dumb

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In reading Ryan’s response again, this is NOT true for me. 

I am on bluetooth right now to the Move, playing music.

I’m not on wifi (wifi is down / power is out due to power grid maintenance) so I’m only on 4g cellular and bluetooth to the Move and when I open the Sonos app, I ONLY get a screen that says “you need to turn on your wifi to use Sonos”.  Zero place where it shows any product image or new screen.  Simply a screen telling me the app will not work without wifi.  (btw running the latest Sonos android app on Android 9 on a Samsung Galaxy S9+)


You are correct. On Bluetooth there is no way to see battery level.

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Guys I hate to break these news to you, but what Ryan said above is 100% correct. 
Place MOVE in Bluetooth mode, put your phone in Bluetooth mode and pair the two. Switch off WiFi on our phone and play some music via Bluetooth to the MOVE (not via the Sonos App, use your normal music App… Apple Music, Deezer or whatever).

Then open the Sonos App while you’re playing. Click on the instruction that is shown at the top… and, you will see a screen like the attached screenshot - which shows that my MOVE is at 100% battery level.

It works.

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You are correct. You literally have to be off Wi-Fi on your whole phone. Which is kinda dumb. 

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I don’t know about dumb… to me it makes perfect sense:-)

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Not an argument. But curious. Why does it make perfect sense?  Every other Bluetooth device I use I can see the battery level whether I’m on wifi or not. 
Like, who would think they have to turn off their wifi to see the battery level? I just don’t understand the logic of that. 
im guessing that because it can run either on Bluetooth or wifi the software guys have no other way? 

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Because Sonos needs to be able to manage two distinctly different modes:

When your device is on WiFi, Sonos expects to find a Sonos system on that WiFi net. So it will expect that the Move will be part of this.

When your device is on with WiFi AND Bluetooth, Sonos can not distinguish a Bluetooth paired Move since it expects to find a Sonos system within the WiFi.

Basically, WiFi is the overarching backbone that Sonos expects initially as a default for all their systems.

 

Mine is blank. Strange

All my Bluetooth speakers report battery status via Bluetooth. No app, no turning off Wifi on my phone (sorry that’s really bad UX).

I gotta say I agree with others in this thread about having battery level report to the phone. My headphones and other bluetooth speaker devices all do this and it is really convenient. Or at least have the Move report battery life when Wifi is connected, so that you don’t have toggle that off to check it in the app. It makes sense as to why you have to do that, but in use it is counter intuitive. I know so many people who leave there Wifi on even when they’re out and about on 3G/4G.

This is a dubious implementation of dubious requirements.

 

I am in a chalet with a wifi network I connect to for everything else than Sonos wifi -> email, spotify, Netflix, name it.

Then the move is on Bluetooth because it makes no sense to reconfigure the wifi and have to do it all again when we will be back home!

So turning wifi off to see battery left is just plain stupid and that exposes a design flaw.  Just broadcast the damn battery level as everyone else does.  

What an embarrassment!

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I’m completely off WiFi and the Sonos moves is on Bluetooth. I’m playing music from Apple Music. When trying to check how much batter I have left, I can’t get the porcentaje. Please see the attached the picture. Can you help me out?  Thank you 

 

 

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I'm having the exact same problem with both my Moves. No battery percentage showing. Would be loveiof someone from Sonos could address this.

 

The second post in the thread, marked as the ‘answer’, is from a Sonos rep. What other ‘addressing’ are you looking for?

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Well it's not the answer. Since it's not working. There is no battery level. Only a picture showing and empty battery and no number showing how much is left. So no, the second answer is not the answer to my problem.

I’m unsure about how much more clear this can be: The battery life is only shown in the Sonos app.

I understand you want a different answer, but that is the one given by a Sonos rep.