Sonos Roam 2 Review: One for the Sonos faithful

The Sonos Roam 2 is a capable enough portable speaker, but it’s only recommended if you’re already using other Sonos speaker products.

Score: 3/5

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In this review

Sonos Roam 2 Specifications
Sonos Roam 2 Design
Sonos Roam 2 Performance
Sonos Roam 2 Battery
Sonos Roam 2 Conclusion

Sonos’ best known products are its in-home speakers and soundbars, but in recent years it’s branched out into more portable fare, from the Sonos Ace headphones to its larger Sonos Move speakers as well as its smaller Sonos Roam.

Full disclosure here: I didn’t actually test out the original Sonos Roam – that job fell to others at publications I’ve previously worked for, so I’m not addressing this so much as an “update” product in this review.

The Sonos Roam 2 is a decent inclusion in the Sonos ecosystem if you’re already invested and can see the value in a smaller, bag-friendly speaker for on the go audio, though it’s not inexpensive, and there’s plenty of competition in portable, IP-rated Bluetooth speakers if you’re not specifically after Sonos integration.

Also read:
Sonos Ace Review 

Design

The Sonos Roam 2 is a triangular portable speaker suitable for either horizontal or vertical placement. At 168x62x60mm and 430g, it’s an easy enough speaker to pick up and move around with you at will, which is entirely the point of any portable speaker.

With portability in mind, it is IP67 rated for water and dust ingress. As a quick reminder, that does not mean that it’s ready for you to take it scuba diving without incident, but it should mean that it can handle outdoor rain without too much trouble.

The Sonos Roam 2 is available in five colour choices -- Black, White, Sunset (red), Wave (blue) or Olive (green) – and the model that Sonos loaned me for review was the black variant.

Black is a good and reliable colour for speakers, because like so many fashion choices, it basically goes with everything without necessarily standing out. If you didn’t want the Sonos logo on the front to massively stand out for some reason, it would be the model to buy… but this also points to a relatively simple problem I’ve encountered while I’ve been testing it.

The Sonos Roam 2 has two sets of control buttons. On the back of the speaker, there’s a USB-C port for charging, a thin power button and a Bluetooth pairing button. As I understand it, the original model opted for just the one button here, so having a dedicated Bluetooth control is definitely a physical upgrade.

These controls are simple enough, and while I did have to get used to having no startup sounds, just a small light on the front to indicate that it was actually on, I had larger issues with the volume, microphone and playback controls on the Sonos Roam 2’s left hand side (or top if you’ve got it placed vertically).

They’re simple rubber buttons, but on the black model, they’re genuinely hard to see indoors. We’re in proper Disaster Area Sun Ship territory here unless you’re looking directly at it in bright sunlight. While I guess the idea is that you’re going to roam with the Sonos Roam 2, it’s still less than optimal. A quick look at the images of the other colour choices suggests that it’s far less pronounced as an issue on any other colour.

Performance

The Sonos Roam 2 is a Sonos product, so it works natively within the Sonos ecosystem, as well as being a standalone Bluetooth speaker for anything that can handle up to Bluetooth 5.2.

I can’t imagine that too many buyers would opt for it unless they already had other Sonos gear to hand, but if you want to, you could just use it as a basic Bluetooth speaker and never go near Sonos’ apps and services at all.

Not that long ago, Sonos updated its apps and changed much of the UI, and the Sonos Roam 2 really doesn’t benefit much from those changes. Because it’s a portable speaker that (unlike the Move) lacks a dedicated charging base, unless you’re leaving it plugged into a wall socket, it’ll power itself down when not in use. That’s smart for battery preservation, but it did mean that all too often, I’d want to play some audio through it, only to see everything else in my Sonos system but the Sonos Roam 2.

It is worth persevering with the Sonos App, however, as it provides access to features such as Trueplay for more accurate room audio tuning, as well as a quick glance capability for its battery status.

As with many Sonos products, it’s designed to be simple and easy to configure, and that’s true right up until it isn’t. On both iOS and Android I had few issues, but for whatever reason the Mac Sonos app wants to update itself literally (and yes, I’m using that term correctly on the internet for once!) every single time I’ve used it to interact with the Sonos Roam 2.

The Sonos Roam 2 is a smaller Sonos speaker, but one that can deliver some relatively impressive audio regardless. The delicate opening of Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” presented well without losing any of the deeper tones of Armstrong’s voice, while the complex guitar dynamics of The Beatles “Helter Skelter” sounded solid until I pushed the volume to maximum.

There the lack of weight behind the low tones did start to become a little more evident, but that’s also going to be the nature of just having a smaller audio enclosure; few small portable speakers are going to handle bass tones all that well dynamically.

It includes support for voice control via either its own inbuilt voice assistant or Amazon’s Alexa if that’s your home assistant of choice. There’s no inbuilt Google Assistant (Sonos and Google don’t really see eye to eye) or direct Siri control, though Apple’s AirPlay 2 is supported as long as the Sonos Roam 2 is actually powered on.

Voice assistants aren’t enabled by default for either Sonos or Alexa, and you’ll have to set them up through the iOS/Android apps only. I’m not entirely sure why Sonos has desktop apps that don’t allow you to configure their speakers, really, but that’s the choices they’ve made there.

Battery

Sonos’ claim for the Sonos Roam 2 is that it’ll manage up to 10 hours of battery playback. Based on a couple of weeks of testing, it can mostly manage that, though that’s only at moderate volumes. If you push it at maximum volume all the time, you can expect it to last a little less time, as you’d expect.

Sonos doesn’t provide a charger in the box, just a USB-C cable, but it’s capable of charging at up to 15W from a compliant charger, or via Qi if you place it vertically on a standard charger.

That could be one way to integrate it into a home environment, matching it up with a Qi or Qi2 charging plate to keep it slowly charging up when you’re at home and ready to rock when you’re out and about.

Sonos Roam 2: Alex’s Verdict

The Sonos Roam 2 is certainly a capable portable speaker, but it’s not inexpensive and it does exist in a category where there are plenty of quite capable small Bluetooth speakers.

As such – and at its asking price of $299 – it’s a tough one to recommend if all you want is portability and you’re not already in the Sonos ecosystem for other speakers.

If you do already have Sonos gear, it’s a decent enough accompaniment to them at a premium price, though I could wish that Sonos’ App experience was a little more streamlined and stable.

Sonos Roam 2: Pricing and availability

The Sonos Roam 2 retails in Australia for $299.

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