Review: Sonos Roam 2

I liked the original Sonos Roam enough to give it a 9/10, WIRED Recommends. And now, I fall on my sword in front of everyone who bought one based on my advice. I had one complaint, which was that my review unit's battery—along with the batteries of many other units belonging to people I know and work with—had weird drain issues long-term. My first-gen model was unusable by the time I came back to compare it to this new model.

With the Roam 2, quietly released alongside Sonos’ new Ace over-ear headphones (8/10, WIRED Recommends), Sonos has remedied those battery problems. The company also added a button to make Bluetooth pairing easier and more instant when you're not at home.

It's not precisely an engineering triumph, but I do like to see brands update products to fix what's broken rather than reinvent the wheel. Functionally, the Roam 2 looks and acts identically to the first model. This one just aims to last longer than a couple years, and it comes with an easier Bluetooth pairing button. I still like it, and I'll like it even more if long-term testing shows that the battery (and the device itself) will last.

Photograph: Amazon

Roam on the Range

Sonos’ whole deal used to be that you couldn't get Bluetooth in its products, but that has changed over the past several years.

The Roam was the first dedicated portable device that Sonos decided should get Bluetooth (there not being much Wi-Fi in the middle of the woods or at a lake) so that listeners could snag a single Sonos product for both their kitchen and knapsack.

At home, it connects to Wi-Fi and shows up in the Sonos app on your phone. When you're on the go—or a friend wants to play some music real quick—just pair to Bluetooth and play. It’s an excellent party trick for those of us with other Sonos speakers.

I keep my Roam 2 in my bathroom or bedroom when I’m not taking it with me outside. At home, it acts like another speaker in my Sonos ecosystem. When I want to pop out for some beach time, or bring some of my favorite tunes outside, I just grab the speaker and go, then pair it to my phone (or reconnect it, in most cases) for easy listening where it otherwise doesn’t have an internet connection.

Photograph: Amazon

Still The Best

Using the Roam 2 (which looks identical to the first Roam, save a much-needed Bluetooth pairing button and a few different colorways) is as simple as it gets. Connect phone, select music, play said music. At home, via Wi-Fi, things can get a bit more complicated, thanks to a much-maligned new Sonos app and its woes with setting up (or sometimes even seeing) new speakers.

I’ve managed to connect mine to my home system with relative ease, connecting it to the other Sonos speaker I have paired in my office in a detached garage, in case I want to play the same music inside and out. It works flawlessly for this purpose, and if I had a larger Sonos system at home I am sure that I’d enjoy it even more.

Functionally, it works great, with nice beefy bass and balanced treble and midrange that makes the speaker good for both podcasts and pop music. It’s not loud or large enough to fuel a full-on dance party in the woods, but it does get surprisingly loud for its size.

Photograph: Amazon

The Roam 2 is really easy to put places. If you tilt it on its side, it can easily fit in cupholders or be strapped to a bag or pack, and it has little rubbery nubs on the bottom that act as feet if you want to set it down hotdog style. It is waterproof, and thus super easy to rinse off if you get a little sand on it at the beach, or dirt on it on the disc golf course. One thing I wish were a bit better is how smudgy, and now scratched, the matte black exterior of my review unit has gotten over my monthish of testing. It's not a huge deal, but other high-end speakers don't have this problem.

Still, the first Roam achieved what Sonos needed it to achieve, minus the fact that the battery was pretty awful for a lot of folks who bought one, and that it didn't have an easy Bluetooth pairing button.

In every test, my Roam 2 didn’t have the same battery problems, though I haven’t been able to test how long the battery itself will last in terms of repeated usage since I’ve had the thing for only about a month at this point. Still: So far, so good. At the same price, and now with better features, I can easily call this the best Sonos-enabled Bluetooth speaker. The only other option, the Move 2 (8/10, WIRED Recommends), is so much larger that it's laughable to call it portable except by car or bike; you're not popping it in your pack.

As far as the only game in town goes, the Roam 2 still brings a pretty great one. If I were a dedicated Sonos fan who wanted something to take with me on my adventures, it's absolutely what I would buy. Sometimes repetition isn't actually boring.