Sonos has finally made the perfect entry point into its ecosystem with its tiny new ‘Roam’ speaker.
This small speaker borrows some of the key features from the larger Sonos Move, including automatic ‘Treuplay’ and its rugged design, and shrinks the speaker down to make it more affordable and appealing to people on the go. Since the Roam is ultra-portable, Sonos has added automatic Trueplay to work even when the speaker is playing music via Bluetooth. Sonos is also bringing auto Trueplay over Bluetooth to the Move through an upcoming software update.
Like the Move, the Roam connects to Wi-Fi, allowing it to work as a smart speaker and co-exist with other Sonos speakers. On Bluetooth, you can connect it directly to a device and play audio anywhere. Sonos says the Roam will switch between Wi-Fi and Bluetooth seamlessly, which sounds very smooth on paper, but I’ll have to see how well it works when I test it.
Sonos says that the speaker lasts 10 hours on a charge and can live in sleep mode for up to 10 days. The Roam can be recharged via USB-C or Qi wireless charging. Sonos says it’s selling a specific charging dock for the speaker that uses magnets to secure the roam while charging.
The speaker also features an IP67 water and dustproof rating that allows it to be submerged in shallow water and handle a day of sand at the beach. That said, Sonos hasn’t mentioned if the Roam floats like UE’s popular Boom line of speakers.
Beyond automatic Trueplay over Bluetooth, the other new feature pioneered with the Roam is ‘Sound Swap.’ This allows users to transfer whatever your Roam is playing to the rest of your Sonos ecosystem by holding the play/pause button.
The speaker also lets you send the music that you’re playing via Bluetooth through the Roam to your existing Sonos speaker setup.
Speaker tech
Inside the Roam, there’s a single tweeter for high frequencies and a custom square-shaped mid-woofer to handle the mid and low end audio.
Each Roam has its own tuned class-H amplifiers to ensure that the two speakers can get the most out of the speaker’s audio architecture.
Overall it will be interesting to see how much sound the company has been able to pack into this little speaker. The Roam is available now for pre-order on Sonos.com. Units will begin arriving at customers’ homes on April 20th, says Sonos.
The Roam comes in either ‘Lunar White’ or ‘Shadow Black’ and costs $229. The charging dock isn’t included and costs $69.
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