Lose the mic, but save some bucks
Last year, Sonos introduced its Roam portable speaker, and while we loved how it sounded, it was pretty pricey to start with — a situation that only got worse with a $10 post-launch hike the company blamed on the semiconductor shortage. Maybe to help atone for that, Sonos has now launched another version of the speaker that ditches the built-in mic and manages to shave off a few bucks in the process.
Dubbed the Sonos Roam SL, this model’s hardware is largely identical to the original Roam, with the lack of a microphone being the sole difference. Its design is fairly compact and looks like your average portable Bluetooth speaker, with a triangular-cylindrical body. Streaming over both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi is supported, and the speaker can also be configured as part of a Sonos multi-room audio system.
No microphone means that you lose out on a few features here. The loss of voice assistant support is the obvious one (no Google Assistant nor Alexa), but the portable speaker also drops support for Trueplay — the system Sonos uses to automatically tune its EQ based on environmentally conditions. Finally, Sound Swap goes unsupported, so you won’t be able to hand over playback to another nearby Sonos speaker with the touch of a button.
Everything else on the SL looks to be the same – another 18Wh battery for up to 10 hours of playback, and the IP67 waterproof rating is still present. Preorders for the product have started already for $159 and deliveries are scheduled to start going out March 15th.
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