Sonos can’t seem to catch a break. In the last few days, a number of first-gen Sonos Roam owners have reported the Bluetooth speakers are overheating and, in some cases, partially melting or setting on fire.
The company acknowledged the problem in a statement to Bloomberg while saying that there are a “very low” number of complaints that the company has “closely tracked.” The company is not issuing a recall at this time.
Sonos Roam: Melted and charred
The recent Reddit posts showed photos of the Roam USB-C charging port partially melted and charred. There are some older posts from a few months ago reporting similar problems. Some Redditors claimed that Sonos replaced their speakers which had similar problems.
This may be a known problem. A search on the official Sonos Community forums reveals a number of posts concerning melted, burned or smoking charging ports and cables from up to a year ago. Other indicate overheating in that area.
From what we can tell the Sonos Roam 2, released last year, does not seem to have this charging problem.
What Sonos is saying…
A spokesperson went on to say that environmental conditions may play a role but it wasn’t elaborated on. Additionally, they said that the company has taken “several proactive steps” to prevent the issue from occurring via software updates and hardware improvements.
What those steps entailed was not elaborated on. Tom’s Guide has reached out to Sonos for clarification on the conditions that could cause the issue and how it is “reducing the likelihood” of it happening.
It all comes after a period of relative quiet for the beleaguered audio company which couldn’t stop stepping on rakes in 2024, thanks to the release of a busted version of the Sonos app that outraged customers and eventually cost former-CEO Patrick Spence his job and delayed or halted a number of projects at the company.
Sonos only recently named interim CEO Tom Conrad as the official new head of Sonos in July.
Tom’s Guide has reached out to Sonos for more information on the Roam speakers and how it is addressing the problem.
Meanwhile, the Sonos Move 2 is excellent, and as far as we’re aware doesn’t suffer from overheating. It is twice as expensive though.
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