Sonos Roam - Battery drain


Userlevel 3

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 🙂!


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Minor update:- when I powered it down today (3 separate times) by holding down button at rear (for at least 5 seconds) the unit switches off (makes audible noise and all status lights go off) and “sonos roam” room disappears from sonos app. Shortly thereafter is reappears in sonos app with status of offline. This has happened repeatedly after full power down. 

This YT video helps explain the difference between sleep/standby mode and actually powering off the Roam… just need to hear those 4 descending tones when powering it off.

https://youtu.be/GDf4CUvmLmo

As mentioned earlier, when I power off both my Roam devices, their battery-level reduces by approx.2% per day. So it lasts weeks in that state - as with all li-ion batteries though this depends on the surrounding environment temperature, but I would not expect the battery depletion to exceed 7% per day anyway when in the fully ‘off’ state. 

Regarding the previously posted comments regarding shutting down and all the various turn off modes, including the four descending tones, yes I’m well aware of that, but the main issue here is the horrible, fuzzy, implementation. Sometimes I get the 4 tones, sometimes it goes into Bluetooth pairing mode, sometimes I get one tone, sometimes nothing, etc.  

 

I get they can’t have a click switch that gives positive feedback because it’s partly made to be stuffed in a backpack or your pool bag because it’s “portable”, but technology wise it would be simple to implement a “power switch customization mode” in the app with choices such as standby or full power down, etc.

 

My biggest concern is Sonos not admitting they have a serious design flaw, keeping silent, nor planning a firmware update. That’s why I sent mine back to Crutchfield for a full refund. 

Returning mine. sounds great and love the Sonos environment, but power is just a disaster with this little speaker. So many options for SO much cheaper!

This little speaker is a huge disappointment with the battery life.  I wish I'd bought another UE boom.  It really is terrible.  I love the rest of the Sonos gear I have so went for the roam when UE boom battery started draining quickly after 5 years.  It turns out it is still better than the Sonos.

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 🙂!

Hi, I was having the same issue and spoke to someone at Sonos, it was because I was only putting it in sleep mode which still connects to WiFi and checks for updates etc so will drain the battery. Hold the off button for five seconds which will power it off. I did this last night and the battery was still on 99% this morning. Hope this helps. 

 

Consider yourself fortunate then. I fully powered mine off last Sunday and it had easily 2/3rds charge. Tried powering it on just now - completely dead. I’m going to re-test this but if it does the same again I’m tempted to send it back. It’s not what was described / advertised.

Annoyingly I had to migrate to Sonos S2 app to get it to work too…

Also anyone managed to get it to work with the Sonos App while out and about? It seems that this functionality and Alexa are confined to when you’re at home and connected to your WIFI only - bit of a shame that.

Suffering same issue. I have just recharged the Roam and have turned it off. I will see how long it holds a charge by checking every 24 hours. Hopefully I am wrong but it seems to lose charge even when off in a unusually short span of time. Also somewhat annoyed that my system (S5, Sonos 1 x 3) won’t work on the same app. 

What app? All those devices should absolutely work on the Sonos controller. Assuming you meant a Sonos Five, and three Sonos Ones.

They all work on the controller and the original app for ios. But the Sonos Roam only works on the newer app, and you cannot sync it with the older ones (1’s). I have several “Connects” as well, which are too old to run in sync with the roam.

I got mine at launch and battery is worse than ever.

 

Do you think sonos would exhange it for a sonos play one if i pay the diff.

 

I really hate this speaker. I bought it as a portable but as mentioned before i bought the base too and its on there pretty much all of the time. Wish i got another play one instead of this

I got mine at launch and battery is worse than ever.

 

Do you think sonos would exhange it for a sonos play one if i pay the diff.

 

I really hate this speaker. I bought it as a portable but as mentioned before i bought the base too and its on there pretty much all of the time. Wish i got another play one instead of this

I would perhaps just sell it and buy the One, that seems to me to be the easiest solution. 

I mostly only use the Sonos Qi charger for overnight charging - otherwise I use the same power adapter with the USB-C cable that came with the Roam, instead of the Pad, as that fast-charges the speaker. 

I get approximately 10 hours of playback from each full charge.

If I power off the speaker (not standby) it loses about 1% or 2% per day on average, which is the going rate for a li-ion type battery.

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I know you like your Roam Ken and certainly get more life out of it than most/any but 1-2% drain per day on a powered off li-ion device is way higher than normal (and most seem to get more drain than that).

If I fully power off my tablet it will be on 99 or 100% a week later. Always.

Funnily enough I just bought a battery ‘boost' thing for the car as it struggled to start sometimes through lack of use.  They claim it should be on 70% after 12 months.

I know you like your Roam Ken and certainly get more life out of it than most/any but 1-2% drain per day on a powered off li-ion device is way higher than normal (and most seem to get more drain than that).

If I fully power off my tablet it will be on 99 or 100% a week later. Always.

Funnily enough I just bought a battery ‘boost' thing for the car as it struggled to start sometimes through lack of use.  They claim it should be on 70% after 12 months.

Unfortunately I’m away from Home for a family Birthday party tomorrow night and my Roam is not fully charged at the moment, but what I will do next week, when I get chance @sjw is I will charge my Roam to 100% take a screen-grab showing the time/date and power it off and will switch it back-on 24 hours later and take another screen-grab showing its battery loss - you’ll just have to take my word that I haven’t charged it in-between. My experience when I first had the Roam and did that test was I was losing on average 2% per day  …and I have no reason to lie about the battery-loss I saw in those tests.

The self discharge rates are mentioned in this Wikipedia article and this of course is dependent on environment temperature…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery

i will just leave my powered off Roam on a table in the Dining Room, but you’ll just have to wait till I get a chance to be at home to do this.

Userlevel 7

I know you like your Roam Ken and certainly get more life out of it than most/any but 1-2% drain per day on a powered off li-ion device is way higher than normal (and most seem to get more drain than that).

If I fully power off my tablet it will be on 99 or 100% a week later. Always.

Funnily enough I just bought a battery ‘boost' thing for the car as it struggled to start sometimes through lack of use.  They claim it should be on 70% after 12 months.

@Ken_Griffiths isn’t the only one. I also get 1%-2% battery drain per day when the Roam is completely shut off.

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Hi Ken, I honestly believe you, really no need to do any of that.  My point really is that I think Sonos does ‘other things’ even when supposedly ‘off’ as even 1-2% is way above what I would expect from a Li-Ion battery.

The article you linked to suggests an expected discharge rate of .35%- 2.5% per MONTH - whereas you appear to get approx half that per DAY.  Approx 20 times worse than the upper expected rate.

Hi Ken, I honestly believe you, really no need to do any of that.  My point really is that I think Sonos does ‘other things’ even when supposedly ‘off’ as even 1-2% is way above what I would expect from a Li-Ion battery.

The article you linked to suggests an expected discharge rate of .35%- 2.5% per MONTH - whereas you appear to get approx half that per DAY.  Approx 20 times worse than the upper expected rate.

Ah I see, I thought you were suggesting the battery discharge was more than 1-2% when the Roam was powered off - my mistake @sjw (sorry) 🙏.

I have seen somewhere online that the Roam should remain charged for 70 days when powered off - as usual I can’t find where I saw that, but that is around the level of the battery discharge-rate I’m seeing, admittedly though, I haven’t tried the full 70 days to see if that is the case. If it lasts two months when powered off, then I’m happy with that to be truthful.

Some users though seem to say they get just days of battery, even when the device is ‘off’ and all I try to highlight is the differences between ‘standby mode’ and the ‘powered off’ states.
 

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 🙂!

HI there. You will find that when you switch your sonos off,  you have to hold the button for at least 10sec for it to turn off completely.  When you just hold for 2 or so seconds it switches off but on standby mode

I’m having the same issue. I’ve hardly used it and the battery is down 50% in 24 hours. I thought standby mode was up to 10 days? This is not even close. Something is obviously wrong.

Hold button for 10 seconds. You will hear a different tone. Then it's switched off correctly. 

 

 

I am having the same issue.  I hold the power button and make sure its off and its still drains.  Ive owned it about 5 months and im disappointed on the battery drain.  

 

 

 

I am having the same issue.  I hold the power button and make sure its off and its still drains.  Ive owned it about 5 months and im disappointed on the battery drain.  

Holding the power button until you hear what? - You should hold it until you hear the 4 ‘descending’ tones - I suspect that’s ‘perhaps’ where your issue may lie.

 

 

I am having the same issue.  I hold the power button and make sure its off and its still drains.  Ive owned it about 5 months and im disappointed on the battery drain.  

Holding the power button until you hear what? - You should hold it until you hear the 4 ‘descending’ tones - I suspect that’s ‘perhaps’ where your issue may lie.

I respectfully disagree.  I know how to hold the button till I hear the sound that its completely off. I even check the app to make sure the speaker is not showing on the available speakers...and the battery still drains.  Love the sound but someone overlooked the battery drain. 

SV

Userlevel 7

Sonos just released the 13.3 update today, and it’s supposed to improve the Roam’s power management to help extend the battery life when it’s not actively being used.

 

Roam battery sucks! I’m experiencing the same issues, so I contacted technical support. After days of testing which actually took weeks, ultimately Sonos Support determined that the diagnostics I submitted showed nothing was wrong. They literally told me there was NOT a problem..Ummm how about the fact that the Roam dies in 4 days on sleep/ standby mode and it is supposed to last 10 days. THEY DON”T CARE that their product doesn’t work as advertised. Someone needs to sue them and get their attention for false advertising.

If you feel that strongly about it, contact a lawyer, and start up that suit. Don’t be that person who sits on the side waiting for someone else to do it. 

Assuming you can find a lawyer to take the suit, of course. 

Userlevel 5
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Sonos just released the 13.3 update today, and it’s supposed to improve the Roam’s power management to help extend the battery life when it’s not actively being used.

 

But they didn’t fix the one thing that will REALLY help extend battery life in sleep mode.  Simply using the Sonos App for other speakers should NOT wake your Roam from sleep mode.  It still does with 13.3.   

The App should only wake the Roam from sleep, when you want to actively use the Roam, to either play by itself or group with other speakers.   Now, it wakes regardless.  So simply checking your music library or using any other Sonos speakers wastes Roam’s battery.  (How hard would it be to put in a software selection in the App -- “Wake My Roam”)?

So I’m in my office all day, using my app to control my office Sonos speakers -- it wakes the Roam constantly.  This is THE biggest problem  -- not fixed.

I know Sonos thinks that it is a feature (it isn’t, it’s a bug).  

Sure, I could power it OFF completely.  Then I have to go upstairs and physically use the power button to turn it back on.  Not an ideal solution.

Userlevel 7

But they didn’t fix the one thing that will REALLY help extend battery life in sleep mode.  Simply using the Sonos App for other speakers should NOT wake your Roam from sleep mode.  It still does with 13.3.   

The App should only wake the Roam from sleep, when you want to actively use the Roam, to either play by itself or group with other speakers.   Now, it wakes regardless.  So simply checking your music library or using any other Sonos speakers wastes Roam’s battery.  (How hard would it be to put in a software selection in the App -- “Wake My Roam”)?

So I’m in my office all day, using my app to control my office Sonos speakers -- it wakes the Roam constantly.  This is THE biggest problem  -- not fixed.

I know Sonos thinks that it is a feature (it isn’t, it’s a bug).  

Sure, I could power it OFF completely.  Then I have to go upstairs and physically use the power button to turn it back on.  Not an ideal solution.

If Sonos added a “Wake My Roam” feature, wouldn’t this add an extra step for users who want the Roam to wake up automatically from sleep mode when they use the app?