The Sonos Roam is the latest wireless speaker from Sonos. The reason I bought this speaker was that I really like the sound of the Sonos speakers and I have several of them around my house but these are the Sonos Play Speakers I wanted one that was more portable.
Connecting
Unlike other Sonos Speakers that need to be on your wireless network, this speaker supports both wireless and Bluetooth. So, if I am using the speaker at home, I was on the Wi-Fi but if we were out and about, I used the Bluetooth. To switch between on/off, Wireless and Bluetooth is just the touch of a button it’s very easy, and since the device supports Airplay on iPhone this speaker is very easy to use in any mode.
The one thing that’s very nice is on wireless you can mesh this speaker with other Sonos wireless speakers giving you that functionality we have all come to love from Sonos.
Charging / Battery
The Sonos Roam supports USB-C charging which is great since we have so many of those chargers around the house because of my wife’s Android phone, iPad, and laptops I demo regularly. Sonos says the Roam has 10 hours of battery life I find that to be true if you use it regularly. If you are blaring it on max I found the battery life to be a little less but it’s still very good battery life for a small speaker.
Voice Controls
The Sonos Roam does support their Sonos voice control plus Google and Amazon Assistant giving you options depending on your home setup.
Build Quality
Just like all Sonos devices, the Sonos Roam feels premium. Since its portable, the Sonos Roam is waterproof (IP67) and drop resistant. Which made me feel a lot safer having this speaker by the pool while my kids were playing over the weekend.
The Sonos Roam is a lot more stylish than other Sonos speakers coming in 5 colors black (the one I got), silver, red, blue, and green.
Sound Quality
The sound quality is amazing for a small speaker I have tested out many small speakers over the years and the sound quality is amazing but again I expected that from anything Sonos sells. The device does come with Automatic Trueplay and Tuning like all other Sonos Speakers have and it sounds great for such a small speaker. It does not have the bass of the Sonos One but again it’s much small overall, I think this is the best-sounding small wireless speaker I have heard to date.
Price
The Sonos Roam is $179 I have seen them on sale at Best Buy and Amazon for $159 so keep your eyes open with the Fourth of July coming up I expect them to be on sale again. Sonos also has the 20% trade-in going on if you trade in a device, you get 20% off your purchase so that might be an option for you if you have a device you were looking to get rid of soon.
Dislikes
The Sonos Roam does come with only the cable no power brick I felt for $170 dollars they could have tossed in a cheap power brick but it’s not the end of the world. The cable they send is one side USB the other side USB-C for charging. When you buy the product online from Sonos they try to upsell you a carrying case. I felt a caring case for the device, cable, and power brick would have been nice but again not a deal-breaker. At the time of this writing, Hey Sonos does not support Spotify yet so you will need to use Google or Alexa if you want voice control for Sonos.
Final
I really like this device and have used it a lot since purchasing it for outside while I am doing work, watching the kids play, or standing online last week at an event. I think this is the best small wireless speaker much better sounding than most you will find on the market at a competitive price.