Sonos Roam Speakers Are Overheating — and Melting USB-C Ports
If you’re selling audio gear with a Sonos logo, things might be feeling a bit hotter than usual—literally. And if you’re a customer who owns one of the company’s Roam Bluetooth speakers, you might be experiencing that heat in a much more direct, and dangerous, way.
According to a recent report from Bloomberg, Sonos has acknowledged that a small number of customers have reported serious overheating issues with their Roam speakers. In some cases, the excessive heat has caused the USB-C port to melt. While Sonos hasn’t issued a recall, the company says it’s closely monitoring the situation.
Despite Sonos characterizing the problem as affecting only a “small number” of units, the implications are concerning. A quick scroll through the Sonos subreddit paints a more alarming picture. One user shared a photo of their Roam speaker with clear signs of heat damage, describing how it began to overheat and burn even though it hadn’t been touched in months. Fortunately, the user was home at the time, noticed the smell, and managed to unplug the device—powered by a Sonos-supplied cable and an Apple charging brick—before anything worse happened.
And that’s not an isolated case. Several other posts on the subreddit from earlier this year describe similar overheating problems with the Roam. While none of those incidents reportedly led to a fire, they do raise legitimate safety concerns. It’s hard to ignore the potential fire hazard these devices could pose.
These overheating reports come at an already turbulent time for Sonos. The company has recently been through a series of missteps, including a messy app redesign last year that triggered product delays and customer frustration—issues serious enough to eventually lead to the resignation of then-CEO Patrick Spence. His replacement, Tom Conrad (formerly of Pandora), stepped in during a moment when the brand badly needed stability. But it looks like his tenure isn’t getting off to an easy start either.
To be fair, Conrad likely inherited this particular problem, and it’s not necessarily a reflection of his leadership. Still, for the sake of Sonos’ customers—and the company’s long-standing reputation in audio—it’s crucial that they get ahead of the issue.
In the meantime, if you own a Sonos Roam, you may want to unplug it as a precaution, regardless of how “minor” the company claims the problem is.
