Hi everyone,
I received my Sonos Roam yesterday and I am quite concerned by the battery drain on standby mode.
My roam is losing about 10% every hour on standby, which brings us to 10hours but I was expecting 10 hours in playing mode.
Should I be concerned by those stats are it was the expected consumption?
Thank you 
!
Thanks for your comment, my understanding of how this worked was different. Given this information I have a question. Am I only getting a 3 minute saving by stopping music by pressing the button to put in sleep mode as opposed to turning off music via Alexa? Remember I have a power bank connected, does the fact the roam is effectively plugged in (as long I have have charge in the power bank) make it act differently? I need to check again but I thought I witnessed the Roam emptying the power bank pretty quickly when it was turned off by Alexa rather than put in sleep mode.
Thanks for your comment, my understanding of how this worked was different. Given this information I have a question. Am I only getting a 3 minute saving by stopping music by pressing the button to put in sleep mode as opposed to turning off music via Alexa? Remember I have a power bank connected, does the fact the roam is effectively plugged in (as long I have have charge in the power bank) make it act differently? I need to check again but I thought I witnessed the Roam emptying the power bank pretty quickly when it was turned off by Alexa rather than put in sleep mode.
This is my understanding…
If you use the Roam, such as playing music on the device and then ask Alexa to stop the audio, then at that point, the mic (& LED) stays on, for further voice instructions. Note the mic is also ‘on’ anyway if Auto-TruePlay is enabled.
Then after 30 minutes of inactivity when off its charger, (important) …it then goes into sleep-mode. At this point the mic (& LED’s) all switch off - leaving a low-power state for the WiFi adapter to receive a WOL packet to bring the device back to life.
If the App is then opened it sends a WOL request to the Roam and it wakes up fully (mic aswell) for 3 minutes waiting to see if you require the device, if not, it goes off to sleep again.
If you play/use the speaker after waking it up, off the charger, then it stays awake for 30 minutes after inactivity - so it then falls asleep, or you can manually put it to sleep using it’s power button.
The Roam can be moved to sleep mode by a quick press on its rear power button - but (importantly) please note that when the Roam is connected to any charger Qi, or USB, it is designed to always stay awake in those circumstances and not sleep at all - some Qi or power bank chargers though may power themselves off when the Roam has reached a fully charged stated and ‘some’ will power back on automatically when it’s charge falls.
Thank you again Ken. Re. the last paragraph, if you quick press the rear button when connected to a power bank all the white lights go off on the Roam which I thought was indicating a sleep state despite being connected to a charger. So the white lights can be off despite the Roam being awake? If so then what are the white lights indicating when on?
Thank you again Ken. Re. the last paragraph, if you quick press the rear button when connected to a power bank all the white lights go off on the Roam which I thought was indicating a sleep state despite being connected to a charger. So the white lights can be off despite the Roam being awake? If so then what are the white lights indicating when on?
It does go to sleep if you press the button whilst on the charger, but if the Roam wakes up - it will stay awake whilst the charger is connected - you might have to test that though, but as mentioned some chargers will auto-power off themselves too when some devices reach full charge. Generally speaking if the lights are off then it’s in sleep mode. Also generally speaking if the Roam is left connected to a charger it should stay awake with status/mic light on etc.
Understood, I’ll keep an eye on it. This information is very helpful. Many thanks.
I didn’t read the entire topic but I think the battery of the Roam is a nightmare.
In my use, it last not more than 2 days.
Basically, when in stand by, it drain too much battery, I am aware that is always with wi-fi on, waiting to be waking up by the app, but for my use, the battery drain too soon.
Especially for my night use, I usually fall asleep (with the sleep-timer on), while listening to the unit, so it stays all night in stand-by. This mean that the battery last is very poor in my case.
Hi everyone,
I received my Sonos Roam yesterday and I am quite concerned by the battery drain on standby mode.
My roam is losing about 10% every hour on standby, which brings us to 10hours but I was expecting 10 hours in playing mode.
Should I be concerned by those stats are it was the expected consumption?
Thank you !
First, I really my Sonos products. But I’m unsure about the Roam. I’ve noticed significant battery drain as well; unlike my regular portable Bluetooth speakers. I experimented, charging the Roam to 100%. Left it unused for 4 days. It is not sync’d to any voice activation. After 4 days I “turned it on”. The battery was 63%. This should not be the case for a portable speaker. If I was to take it camping and did not have a power source, I could not rely on this speaker.
+21
If you want the Roam to not discharge you can turn it off completely by a 5 second long press of the power button, there’s a tone initially followed by a power down tone after the 5secs. Otherwise if you leave it on standby you should think of placing on a wireless charging pad.
I don’t need mine to be on standby so I just power them off completely.
Hi everyone,
I received my Sonos Roam yesterday and I am quite concerned by the battery drain on standby mode.
My roam is losing about 10% every hour on standby, which brings us to 10hours but I was expecting 10 hours in playing mode.
Should I be concerned by those stats are it was the expected consumption?
Thank you !
First, I really my Sonos products. But I’m unsure about the Roam. I’ve noticed significant battery drain as well; unlike my regular portable Bluetooth speakers. I experimented, charging the Roam to 100%. Left it unused for 4 days. It is not sync’d to any voice activation. After 4 days I “turned it on”. The battery was 63%. This should not be the case for a portable speaker. If I was to take it camping and did not have a power source, I could not rely on this speaker.
This is odd. If you left it on standby/sleep mode (by tapping the power button) the Roam drains about 20-25% battery per day based on most people’s anecdotal experiences. If you left it powered off (by holding the power button for 5s) it should be negligible drain, closer to 1% per day.
So either your standby battery life is puzzlingly excellent (and actually in line with what Sonos advertised), or you should call support to diagnose if you have a defect
If you want the Roam to not discharge you can turn it off completely by a 5 second long press of the power button, there’s a tone initially followed by a power down tone after the 5secs. Otherwise if you leave it on standby you should think of placing on a wireless charging pad.
I don’t need mine to be on standby so I just power them off completely.
Thank you Bockersjv, obviously I need to read the manual more fully. I’ll be sure to “completely turn off” the speaker. I suppose leaving it on standby easily allows us to directly play music to it from the app, but the trade-off is battery drain. Thanks.
I have a similar issue, but perhaps worse… I turned my Roam OFF, thinking I would use it for rehearsal at a theatre. It was fully charged according to the app. I didn’t need it for four days and when I tried to turn it on, it was dead.
Is it expected behavior for a device that is literally turned off and experience battery drain in less than a week with zero use?
I have a similar issue, but perhaps worse… I turned my Roam OFF, thinking I would use it for rehearsal at a theatre. It was fully charged according to the app. I didn’t need it for four days and when I tried to turn it on, it was dead.
Is it expected behavior for a device that is literally turned off and experience battery drain in less than a week with zero use?
How exactly are you turning off the Roam?
I have a similar issue, but perhaps worse… I turned my Roam OFF, thinking I would use it for rehearsal at a theatre. It was fully charged according to the app. I didn’t need it for four days and when I tried to turn it on, it was dead.
Is it expected behavior for a device that is literally turned off and experience battery drain in less than a week with zero use?
Sounds very much like you put it into ‘standby’ rather than powering it off.
Not that I’m aware. It does certainly sound like instead of turning it off completely, you put it to ‘sleep’ instead, where both the WiFi and Bluetooth antennas would remain energized, looking for a ‘wake up’ signal, and draining the battery much more quickly than the full ‘powered down’ state,
+12
@cpking You should return your device. Even if you put it in standby and not fully off Sonos says standby battery should last 10 days.
@cpking You should return your device. Even if you put it in standby and not fully off Sonos says standby battery should last 10 days.
From Sonos:
“When not in use, Roam switches to sleep mode to conserve power, and the battery can last UP TO 10 days.”
We don’t know how many times @cpking accessed the Sonos app during those four days while the Roam was asleep which would cause it to wake up and drain the battery quicker.
+12
I mean the poster says they turned it off. 10 days vs 4 is ridiculous IMO even if it was on standby and even if the support says “up to 10”.
I got 2 days using standby and I listened to it for 30 minutes.
I think Sonos need to review the 10 day claim. If this claim is still supported then I have a faulty Roam or there is something in my set up causing excessive battery drain. However, I have not read a single post where someone has achieved 10 days. It seems that people use the Roam by either using the ‘full off’ or keep it on a charger.
Worse is that when I turn my Roam back on my system loses it (it is present as offline in the app when it’s off but disappears when I turn it on.)
It is really frustrating because there is a good product blighted by battery (and in my case, connectivity) issues.
I have a similar issue, but perhaps worse… I turned my Roam OFF, thinking I would use it for rehearsal at a theatre. It was fully charged according to the app. I didn’t need it for four days and when I tried to turn it on, it was dead.
Is it expected behavior for a device that is literally turned off and experience battery drain in less than a week with zero use?
How exactly are you turning off the Roam?
I held down the power button for five seconds. Got two chimes and the indicator went off. I don’t have a voice assistant installed on it.
After you turn off the Roam, does it turn on automatically when you open the Sonos app or does it say it is offline or not listed on your system?
Feature Request - I’d like to see a toggle in the hardware area at the bottom of the Sonos app for the Roam to turn Wi-Fi off completely. For those times that I’m going to be away from home for an extended period of time, would rather not have the battery drain of it searching for my Wi-Fi all the time.
After you turn off the Roam, does it turn on automatically when you open the Sonos app or does it say it is offline or not listed on your system?
It says it’s offline.
After you turn off the Roam, does it turn on automatically when you open the Sonos app or does it say it is offline or not listed on your system?
It says it’s offline.
You must have a defective Roam. I shut off my Roam last night when the battery was at 74%. 12 hours later I turned it back on and the battery was at 73%. So you should only be losing about 1%-2% each day with the Roam shut off completely. Losing 100% in four days is not normal.
+12
It says it’s offline.
Return it and let them know why.
How exactly are you turning off the Roam?
I held down the power button for five seconds. Got two chimes and the indicator went off. I don’t have a voice assistant installed on it.
Still sounds like you were in ‘sleep/standby mode’ to me, as there are two separate tones followed by four tones (descending) from a powered on state…
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