This speaks to the philosophy that Sonos has regarding the Roam, which makes it easy to use both at home and outside the home. The Bluetooth speaker market is already pretty busy, ”said Maxime Bouvat-Merlin, the company’s senior VP of hardware development, in an interview before the launch event. ‘For us, when we enter this particular market, we had to do more than just Bluetooth and excellent sound in these products. We thought very carefully about how to bring the Sonos experience from home to the outside of the home. ”
This is the inspiration for things like the new “Sound Swap” feature. If you are playing music on the Roam and want to play it back to another Sonos speaker, hold the nearest speaker by pressing the Play button and send the music afterwards. The idea is to make the music flow from house to house.
Sound Swap uses intriguing technology. “By pausing / interrupting, the other players signal to emit an ultra-high frequency sound that only Roam can hear,” Hadley Simmons, Sonos’ product marketing manager, explains to Engadget. ‘Roam can pick up the chirping with its microphones and locate the nearest speaker. It’s basically an easier way to move music through your home without going back to the Sonos app and sorting through your different rooms. In the same way, if the Roam plays music via Bluetooth, you can hold the play button, and it will automatically stream the music to other Sonos speakers and effectively turn the Roam into a Bluetooth connection on the rest of your system.
Sonos
The technology for Sound Swap comes from the Sonos advanced technology group, a team that has come together over the past few years. “In the past, we would try to innovate in the product development process, but this is the worst place to try to do it if you have a specific schedule and deadlines in front of you,” Bouvat-Merlin said. “So I created a special, independent group that works two, three, four years further.”
All of these features are meaningless if people do not want to take the Roam with them, which means that the physical design here is probably more important than with standard household speakers. Based on what we’ve seen so far, the Roam looks compact and easy to move. It weighs less than a pound, and Sonos described it as about the size of a water bottle. The idea is that it is small and light enough so you do not need to take it with you; it just becomes a habit. I’ve not used it yet, but I can definitely imagine it’s the kind of thing I’ll throw in a bag when I leave home, whether for a quick trip or a land flight (when it’s anyway feasible).
As usual, there are some clever Sonos flowers here. The speaker can be used vertically or horizontally. It determines how it is positioned and adjusts the sound accordingly. It is compatible with all Qi wireless chargers, or you can use the included USB-C cable. Sonos makes its own magnetic wireless charger, but unfortunately it’s an extra $ 50 instead of something contained in the box.
Sonos
The Roam is also IP67 rated for dust and water resistance. In fact, it can be immersed in up to one meter of water for 30 minutes and still work. The Move has excellent resistance to temperature fluctuations, but it can not be immersed in water. Since other companies have speakers that can even float in a pool, the fact that the Roam can survive an underwater trip is crucial.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the Roam should sound good – no small feat, given its small size. I did not listen to it, however. Simmons said users should expect the sound quality comparable to the larger Sonos One speaker, though without the same maximum volume. But the bass presence is much larger than you would expect from a small speaker. Of course, we’ll have to wait to hear it for ourselves, but given what companies like Amazon, Google, and Apple have done with their own relatively small speakers, I hope Sonos has worked his magic on the little Roam.
As usual for Sonos, the Roam has a number of custom internal components, such as the so-called “racetrack” mid-woofer. Since a traditional circular design would not work in the slim, long frame, Sonos grew with this oval shape to maximize size. It also has a dedicated tweeter and two Class H amplifiers. Fitting a tweeter and a mid-woofer into the Roam rather than using one multipurpose driver should make a significant difference in sound quality.
Sonos
Sonos also included the “Auto Trueplay” speaker voice technology that it built into the Move for the first time. This means that the speaker will use its built-in microphone range to listen to the output and optimize the sound for wherever it is placed. Trueplay has been available for Sonos speakers since 2015, but they require an iOS device to set up the device manually. Not so for the Move and the Roam, and the Roam takes things a step further this time. It can configure itself, even if you are not using WiFi, using profiles built directly into the speaker hardware.
The Roam is entering a crowded market, but it is competitively priced, even though it is still more expensive than many Bluetooth devices. It offers many features if you are already a Sonos user, but the low price also makes it a gateway to the Sonos ecosystem if you have never tried their products. We’ll have to listen before we can judge whether Sonos gets the point, but from what we know so far, it looks like a compelling option in the category of ultra-portable speakers. Pre-orders for the Roam are now open on the Sonos website and the speaker is available on April 20th.