The Sonos Roam, the company’s smallest smart speaker ever, is now available for preorder

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Sonos’ latest actually-portable smart speaker is here, the $169 Sonos Roam. The battery-powered speaker weighs just under a pound, and you’ll be able to play it anywhere you want.

The smallest speaker Sonos has ever made, the Roam comes with one tweeter for the highs, and a “custom racetrack” mid-woofer for the mids and lows.

Unlike many portable speakers, the Roam isn’t a 360-degree design which is okay because most of those sound terrible.

READ MORE: New Sonos Sub Mini fits anywhere and doesn’t break the bank

You can also link two Roam speakers together for stereo pairing, but only over WiFi, which does reduce the usability somewhat.

Here’s what to know about the latest speaker from Sonos:

• Automatic Trueplay: Yes, even the cheapest Sonos speaker has Auto Trueplay audio tuning, which uses the two in-built microphones to tweak performance based on your surroundings
• Use Bluetooth and WiFi at the same time: Link any Bluetooth source to the Roam, and you’ll be able to blast music out over your whole house (assuming you have other Sonos speakers to take advantage of multi-room)
• Sound Swap: Picture this, you’ve just come through the front door and you want to continue listening to your jam on one of your bigger Sonos speakers. Simple, just hold the play/pause button on the Roam and it’ll hand off the music it’s playing to the closest Sonos device in your home
• IP67 weatherproofing: Dunk the Roam in water, it’ll shake it off. Well, at least if it doesn’t go under more than 1m of water for 30 minutes

READ MORE: Sonos is reportedly releasing its own voice assistant

If you don’t like the capacitive buttons on every other Sonos device, you’re in luck. The buttons on the Roam are all physical, due to the silicone end caps that provide part of the weatherproofing. You can preorder the Sonos Roam right now for $169, with a shipping date of April 20.

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Editors’ Recommendations:

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• Sonos is refreshing its speaker lineup with a new soundbar, sub, and speaker

Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.