Sonos Roam 2 Arrives For Portable Multi-Room Audio On A Budget

It's been three years since Sonos entered the world of compact, portable Bluetooth speakers with the launch of the Sonos Roam. When launched back in 2021, the company touted it as the most affordable product from its lineup. Priced a shade under the $200 mark ($179, to be precise), it was positioned well above the company's other offering in the portable audio space — the $399 Sonos Move.

Despite its diminutive size, the Sonos Roam was loaded with features, including multi-room integration with other Sonos speakers, support for Amazon and Google voice assistants, and support for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. The Sonos Roam was also IP67-rated for water resistance, and claimed up to 10 hours of music playback.

Three years on, Sonos decided it was time the Roam received an upgrade, which eventually resulted in the arrival of the Sonos Roam 2. This second-generation portable speaker from Sonos builds upon the success of its predecessor. It features marginal feature improvements over the first-gen Roam, but largely sticks to the same old design and feature set. Among the most notable changes to the Roam 2 include improved controls and a simplified, shorter setup time. The rest of the features — including the hardware and the external looks — remain identical to the first-generation Sonos Roam.

Like its predecessors, the Sonos Roam 2 gets two Class-H amplifiers that the company claims are tuned to suit its unique acoustic architecture. The speaker uses a single woofer and tweeter combination to ensure adequate separation between lower and higher frequencies. The Roam 2 joins the first-generation Roam, as well as the larger Sonos Move and Move 2 speakers, to add support for the company's Automatic Trueplay technology — which optimizes sound output based on the audio content and the environment the speaker is in.

The Sonos Roam 2 gets a comprehensive set of buttons on the top and left side of its body using which users can control various facets of the speakers — ranging from play, pause, and skip to volume adjustment and mute/unmute. The speaker also gets a dedicated Bluetooth button for fast pairing. Then there is the power button, that also doubles up as the sleep and wake up button. Besides the buttons, the Sonos Roam 2 also gets telltale LEDs to display connection, microphone activity, and mute status.

On the connectivity front, the Sonos Roam 2 is as loaded as its predecessor, and can connect to Wi-Fi networks while also supporting Bluetooth 5.2. Sonos has also thrown in support for Apple AirPlay 2. The inbuilt 18Wh battery claims 10 hours of music playback. The speaker is also wireless charging compliant and can be charged using any Qi-certified wireless charger.

The Sonos Roam 2 comes in five color options — Olive, Sunset, Wave, Black and White — and is on sale globally starting May 21, 2024, for the same $179 MSRP in the U.S.