Hands-On With the New Sonos Roam Speaker

[dmfresco]

We have Sonos throughout our home and I still find this hard to justify purchasing, and honestly a little scary that this was Sonos big announcement recently.

Does Sonos really feel they have nowhere else to go and are moving to portable Bluetooth speakers?

I am replying here since you identified yourself as a Sonos user, but welcome the input of anyone who uses Sonos or knows their functionality.

We have HomePods, but I am intrigued by this speaker for the ability to use it in places like our backyard. May I ask to hear your experiences pairing Sonos devices within HomeKit? If I add a speaker like the one described in this article to HomeKit, will I be able to say, Hey Siri, Play xxxx on Sonos? Or Hey Siri, play xxx in the backyard? Any guess to how well such a speaker might work over WIFI when outside? Our router is placed in a room near the back of the house.

Oh one last question: If the Sonos speaker is powered on and on the home network, if I ask Siri to play everywhere, will the Sonos speaker start playing as if it were one of the HomePods?

 

[steevn]

I am replying here since you identified yourself as a Sonos user, but welcome the input of anyone who uses Sonos or knows their functionality.

We have HomePods, but I am intrigued by this speaker for the ability to use it in places like our backyard. May I ask to hear your experiences pairing Sonos devices within HomeKit? If I add a speaker like the one described in this article to HomeKit, will I be able to say, Hey Siri, Play xxxx on Sonos? Or Hey Siri, play xxx in the backyard? Any guess to how well such a speaker might work over WIFI when outside? Our router is placed in a room near the back of the house.

Oh one last question: If the Sonos speaker is powered on and on the home network, if I ask Siri to play everywhere, will the Sonos speaker start playing as if it were one of the HomePods?

I don’t remember the specifics of adding Sonos to HomeKit, but I do remember it was very simple.

Sonos doesn’t have the same controls in the Home app as the HomePods do, such as seeing what is playing and changing the song, but honestly that isn’t important as I only really use the Home app to change/add settings or devices, and not to control any of the devices.

We also have a few HomePod minis so it will work in the way you describe, you can tell Siri to play music(Apple Music only right now) to whichever speakers. So if you tell Siri to play everywhere, then it will play on all of your HomePods and the Sonos, and you can tell Siri to play music to specific speakers also.

It seems like you are aware but I also want to mention that the Sonos speaker doesn’t have Siri, you tell Siri on your phone, iPad, HomePod etc to play music on the Sonos speaker.

 

[treehorn]

sigh. never mind

 

[pauloregan]

I have just bought one of these for use in the hall where there is no power socket. It can also be used as the garden speaker. All my other speakers are HomePods and HomePod minis.
My initial experience is the sound is good for the size. I was in the kitchen and said 'Hey Siri, play Radiohead in the Hall" and it did. It also plays in sync with other HomePods.

It charges on the qi charger I have. The only misbehaving I have seen is when it is on the qi charger. It disappears from the Airplay 2 speakers available list during this.

I shall play with it some more.

 

[dmfresco]

I placed an order on May 1 for this speaker and learned it was back ordered until June. I see that Sonos charged me for the order today, but see no new tracking information. Has anyone had their orders fulfilled recently?

 

[allseeingi’s]

Agreed 100%. We are a full-blown Sonos household - Ones in almost every room, Beam, Sub, Roam on order, and our whole family loves the ecosystem and how it works perfectly for our needs.

Yet I have kept our Soundlink Mini II as a stand-alone solution for outside and the garage because the Move is stupidly priced and I suspect that as awesome as the Roam will be, the bass response and overall sound quality will be inferior compared to the Soundlink Mini's. I'm no Bose fanboy, but they knocked it out of the park with that particular product. Hope it continues working for us for many years to come.

Sound quality would be an interesting comparison between these two. I think the Soundlink Mini would win. Of course, technology and user-friendliness is a completely different story and that's why I'm looking forward to the Roam. I just wish Sonos hadn't priced the Move so stratospherically because it's probably the outdoor speaker solution many Sonos families want, but refuse to buy based on priceI

I concur with the points you have made , we too have Sonos products around our home and also have a Soundlink Mini 1 which still functions perfectly. I did look at the Roam but just that , not at all tempted right now but would like to hear one just compare the sound to the Minilink .

 

[Arran]

Just realized: 50 extra bucks for the magnetic charging stand? Come on... make the bundle 199€ and iˋm okay with it

Costco is doing that bundle right now for $200 US. I picked up a pair for stereo last week.

These are keepers.

 

[Arran]

I've been looking for a while for a good mini speaker, but I've gotten leery of reviews. When they say "good sound quality" it often means "big bass", which is not at all what I need. I want clarity and resolution and being able to hear everything clearly separated and not muddy. I miss my old Sonic Impact iPod player.

You mean the "clamshell" video player that held a 5th gen iPod video as if it was a single unit?

Yeah, that was an incredible package. I grabbed one in Target when they went on clearance. Awesome portable sound for its size.