With the Roam, Sonos introduces its cheapest speaker so far. For 179 euros you get a wireless speaker for indoor and outdoor use, which works well with the Sonos ecosystem via WiFi but just as easily plays music via Bluetooth. In this Sonos Roam review you can read whether it suits your use.
Sonos Roam
Price: € 179, –
Connections: Bluetooth 5.0 or WiFi 2.4 or 5.0 GHz
Streaming services: Spotify, Apple Music, TIDAL, Deezer, JUKE, Napster, TuneIn, Sonos Radio and more
Format: 16.8 x 6.2 x 6 centimeters
Weight: 430 grams
Colors: Black and white
App: Sonos S2 for Android and iOS
Website www.sonos.com 8.5 Score 85 
- Pros
- Rugged design
- Sound quality
- Can charge wirelessly
- Features and Sonos Integration
- Negatives
- Not the best battery life
- No 3.5mm port
- Battery status only visible in the app
The Sonos Roam has been for sale since the end of April for a suggested retail price of 179 euros. You can buy the speaker in black and white and a Sonos charger to charge the speaker wirelessly costs 49 euros. Sonos sent me a black speaker with wireless charger for a review. After three weeks of testing, you can read my experiences here.
Packaging and installation
Sonos ships the Roam in a cardboard package with a USB-C cable. A charging adapter is missing, but you undoubtedly already have one. The Roam requires at least a 7.5 Watt adapter (5V / 1.5A) and charges the fastest with a 15 Watt adapter (5V / 3A). You can also use a wireless Qi charger that delivers at least 7.5 Watts. Later I will come back to Sonos’ wireless charger.
Design
The Roam is the smallest Sonos speaker ever and that is very noticeable. It is the size of a 500ml drink bottle, weighs 430 grams and fits in your trouser or jacket pocket with some effort. It takes up little space in a bag. Compared to the Sonos One (SL), the Roam is really a lot more compact. And also more mobile, because the Roam works on a battery. So you can use it anywhere. The design has been adjusted accordingly. The speaker has a plastic and rubber housing that can take a beating, although it is not as drop and shock resistant as some competing speakers. However, the Roam is water and dust proof with an IP67 certificate. This means that the speaker has to survive in the water at a depth of one meter for half an hour.
Although the design seems made for all weather conditions, the speaker does not like extreme temperatures. Sonos warns that the Roam operates between 5 and 35 degrees. If you put it in the sun for a long time on a hot summer day, the speaker can turn itself off to prevent overheating.
The Roam has four pressure sensitive buttons on the top. Those buttons control the volume, turn the voice assistant on or off (more on that in a moment) and pause or resume your music. By pressing the pause button several times quickly, you go to the previous or next song. If you hold down the button, you activate the multi-room audio function or Group Swap (if available) – more about that later.
The USB-C port and on and off button are placed on the back of the speaker. The on and off button could have given more feedback from me. I also miss an indicator that shows the battery level. Many portable speakers light up LEDs for a quick glimpse of the battery, but with the Roam you have to open the Sonos app to check the battery level. Big absent on the speaker is a 3.5mm jack for wired music listening. A pity, especially since some competing speakers do have it. However, they are not suitable for listening via WiFi, a useful function of the Roam.
Connection and voice assistants
The Sonos Roam supports WiFi on the 2.4 and 5 GHz frequencies and Bluetooth 5.0. That makes it nice and complete. What’s cool is that the speaker can automatically switch between WiFi and Bluetooth, so that your music does not pause when you leave or come home. The Bluetooth connection with your device remains active in the background, which consumes little power.
The speaker can – via WiFi – also handle Apple AirPlay 2, for which you need a suitable iOS device. In apps like Spotify, the Roam appears in the list of Wi-Fi speakers, so you can easily stream music. Sonos has also provided the Roam with microphones and compatibility with the voice assistants Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. Alexa is not that useful because it does not speak Dutch. The Google Assistant did, but during testing, the speaker still had a bug that drains the battery quickly when the Google Assistant is switched on. Sonos is working on an update to fix this, but when asked, can’t tell me when that update will be available.
Sound quality
A portable speaker scores points with a good design and all kinds of possibilities, but in the end it’s all about its sound quality. Sonos blows high from the tower over the audio qualities of the Roam. After three weeks of testing, I am positively surprised, but with a nuance. Because although the Roam sounds nice and clear and balanced, there are certainly speakers in this price segment that sound just as good. The Roam has enough bass, but remains a small speaker with no room for a serious woofer. You notice this especially in comparison with larger portable speakers from brands such as JBL and Ultimate Ears, which produce more bass. The larger Sonos One is no match for the Roam either. Is that bad? I don’t think so, because the Roam works fine and is certainly suitable for providing an office, roof terrace or picnic with matching music.
In the Sonos app you can adjust the bass, treble and volume of the Roam via the equalizer. A nice extra that is missing on some Bluetooth speakers.
Handy Sonos functions
The Roam is a pleasant-sounding speaker for indoor and outdoor use, but comes into its own even better in combination with other Sonos speakers. Do you have one or more Sonos speakers at home? Then you can use the new Sound Swap function. If you’re playing music on the Roam and hold it near another Sonos speaker, press the pause button until the music switches to the other speaker within a second. This works seamlessly.
If you want to hear your music from all your Sonos speakers, you can use the multiroom function. To do this, press and hold the pause button for a moment and then release it, and your favorite song will sound from all Sonos speakers in your house. This function also works properly and without delay.
The Bluetooth support of the Roam also introduces an ingenious new possibility in the Sonos ecosystem. Because if you connect the Roam to a Bluetooth record player via Bluetooth, the Roam can send that music to other Sonos speakers via WiFi. So you can listen to music on all your Sonos Wi-Fi speakers via Bluetooth, I suddenly realized when I de Volkskrant read.
Conveniently, you can link two Roams as a stereo pair. Nice if you put them a few meters apart, so that the sound really comes from left and right. Since I have one Roam, I have not been able to test this function. Incidentally, you cannot connect the Roam as a stereo pair with another model Sonos speaker. You can adjust the settings of the Roam in the Sonos S2 app. It is clear, user-friendly and supports more than a hundred streaming services.
Battery life and charging
The battery life is a less strong point of the Sonos Roam. When listening at an average volume, the battery sings it out for about nine hours. That in itself is long enough for a party or day by the sea, but it does mean that you have to charge the speaker more often than competing (bluetooth) speakers. They usually last for fifteen to twenty hours.
The Roam does impress with its charging options. With the right USB-C charger, the battery is full again in an hour or two. Charging for half an hour means that you can listen for a few more hours. As mentioned, charging can also be done wirelessly via a Qi charging mat with an output of at least 7.5 Watt. That can be a wireless charger for your Android smartphone or iPhone. Sonos also sells a nice wireless charger that clicks magnetically onto the bottom of the speaker. At 49 euros, that charger is pricey. I would buy a flat 10 or 15 Watt charger from a renowned brand for two bucks.
Conclusion: Buy Sonos Roam?
The € 179 Sonos Roam is a surprisingly complete and good-sounding portable speaker for indoor and outdoor use. It does exactly what it promises and is even more interesting if you are already in the Sonos ecosystem. Sonos makes a good impression by providing the speaker with extras such as wireless charging, which make the Roam more versatile than the average speaker in this price segment. On the other hand, such (bluetooth) speakers last longer on a battery charge and more often have a 3.5mm port. But bluetooth speakers are less interesting for home because you always have to set up the connection and they do not work well with other audio equipment. The Sonos Roam does this much better and is therefore definitely worth considering if you are looking for a compact speaker for at home and on the road.
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