SONOS S1...S2....Sonos Move and Sonos Roam

I received the SONOS Roam today.

Try for a brief explanation:
a. I have two systems, one at the office, one at home.
b. Both systems contain many SONOS products incl. amp, legacy S1 components etc.
c. The office is only legacy products but insisted on updating to S2. Works fine but was odd in light of:
d. Home contains many many old products as well as the MOVE and ROAM. It has run fine on S1, but:
e. The SONOS Roam would not join the S1 app and insisted that I download S2 and run the ROAM separately.

This is a first world problem; hardly essential, but I am confused as to why S1 runs the MOVE but will not run ROAM and the office runs all the old products but insists on using S2.

Strange happenings to me.

The Move was available just before S2, which means it will originally be delivered as S1 ready (if purchased before) whereas all new device’s come configured straight as S2.

I had a new Move last week which was S2 when delivered as is the Roam that arrived today.

Btw I really like them both, and the Roam is coming traveling with me tomorrow

Or I could be misunderstanding what you were saying, if you meant the Move integrates with both systems

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Thank you; that makes sense. What do you make of my office system requiring S2? These are all old devices.

It’s a strange one, have you updated any of them?
What devices do you have in the office?

So my office is one ZP100 (S1) and home is Play 1s, Play 3s, Amp plus new device’s so was an obvious upgrade to me.

As long as no play 5s or older ZPX devices then S2 upgrade to me seems good decision.

Thank you for responding. Here is what we have:

Office (automatically went to S2)

4 Play 1 (last gen)
1 Pay 3

Home: (S1 only accepted)

6 Play 5 (last gen)
1 new SONOS amp
1 old SONOS Connect (last gen)
1 SONOS Move
1 SONOS Beam

Also at home

1 SONOS Roam (but accepts only S2)

No problem a lot of people have had this issue.
OK that makes more sense now, as the Play 5s and the Amp will not update, so you’re only option is to split them between S1 & S2 in the same environment and have 2 Sonos’s set up or stick with S1.
I didn’t think you could then use the the Roam then, so what you have seems right.

You can move the Amp, Move and Beam to an S2 environment to use with your Roam, but then you would not be able to link it to Amp and Connect in multi room mode.
It really depends on what you need to do.

Personally I switched mine to S2 and then took the old equipment to work or traded it in for the 30% discount and bought a Move and a Roam for the house. But I have friends who have 4 or 5 Play 5’s and really don’t want to do that.

Given this is a Roon community, I assume you use Roon?
In which case, through using Roon as an interface/controller means that it’s not a big deal when splitting the system into S1 and S2 as it works with both.
PS. Got my 2xRoam devices yesterday and am pleased so far!

A new difficulty is that the Roam (I have it set to a new alarm (music) q2 hours). However, it almost always stops playing any music after about an hour.

If you mean it stops playing from being instigated from an alarm - check the alarm duration in the alarm setting.

Dr. A I am traveling for the next three days, so cannot check this sorry
Looks like Paul is picking it up.

Thank you. I do understand alarms and duration. For some reason the Roam stops playing the alarm (music). Not a world crisis; just curious.

Hmm…indeed, curious.
Have you tried experimenting with a different source of music (eg., a local playlist that is over an hour or an Internet radio station)?
I’m assuming it’s nothing to do with a sleep timer.

I had not tried anything but Pandora at this point. Roam is the only SONOS doing this. I do not think it is alarm related.

Pandora is our no-brainer music source for background, but sonos radio would be a good test. Thank you.

I know that the free Pandora has an inactivity timeout, but I think that’s about 4 hours (and 24 hours for the premium?)

We have two full annual subscriptions, one home and one office. Creates a nice sonic atmosphere for noncritical listening…we think of it as low-fi, 24/7 at the office and same at home except when playing the stereo system. It was a good diagnostic thought though. Appreciated.

How did you get on with a different source of music Dr. A? Any difference?

Sorry, I did not follow “different source of music”. Were you referring to different sources with SONOS? (I only use Pandora with SONOS). I tried to use Qobuz but the wifi demand from Qobuz causes speakers to recurrently cut out.

Ummm…is the Roam on battery power (when it stops playing after an hour from the alarm)?
One possibility is that it’s going on standby due to it not detecting it’s doing something (for whatever reason). I think the default setting is to go on standby (while running on battery) after 3 minutes of no audio/requests, but if it is running on battery it might be worth running from mains as a means of problem elimination.

Ref: ‘different source of music’ - Go on - humour me.
Please try changing the alarm to play a local playlist that is over an hour long.
Am itching to see if there’s a difference or whether is still stops after an hour…

The Roam is in the charger when it stops.

Hi Dr. A,
Just want to check - is Roon in the mix anywhere in your system?
Sounds to me as not, and if so, then I’m thinking you’ll get better mileage raising with Sonos support, given that this community is (mainly) focused on Roon…