End of Software Support - Clarifications

End of Software Support - Clarifications
Ryan S
Userlevel 7
Badge +26
  • Ryan S
  • Retired Sonos Staff
  • 12372 replies

We announced yesterday that some of our oldest Sonos products will be moving into a legacy mode in May of 2020. Our commitment is to support products with regular software updates for a minimum of five years after we stop selling them, and we have a track record of supporting products far longer. 

Here is some public information we’ve shared, gathered into one place to respond to some of your questions in one easy thread, so that people can find the correct information easily.

Beginning in May, software updates and new features from Sonos will only be delivered to systems with only modern products.

After May, systems that include legacy products will continue to work as before - but they will no longer receive software updates or new features. 

Sonos will work to maintain the existing experience and conduct bug fixes, but our efforts will ultimately be limited by the lack of memory and processing power of these legacy products.

We don’t expect any immediate impact to your experience, but access to services and overall functionality will eventually be disrupted, particularly as partners evolve their own services and features. 

 

Customers with both legacy and modern products have time to decide what option is best for them. You can continue to use your whole system in legacy mode - in this case, it will stop receiving updates and new features. 

You will also be able to separate your legacy products from your modern products, so that the modern products can still receive updates and new features, and legacy products can still be used separately. We’ll have more information on how to do this in May when you can take that action.

Another option available to all customers with legacy products is to take advantage of the Trade Up program, which allows you to upgrade older Sonos products to modern ones with a 30% discount. Trade Up will be open to customers at any time should they decide to upgrade. 

We recognize this is new for Sonos owners, just as it is for Sonos. We are committed to help you by making options available to you to support the best decision for your home.
 

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate with asking.

Update 2/22: A message from our CEO

We heard you. We did not get this right from the start. My apologies for that and I wanted to personally assure you of the path forward:

First, rest assured that come May, when we end new software updates for our legacy products, they will continue to work as they do today. We are not bricking them, we are not forcing them into obsolescence, and we are not taking anything away. Many of you have invested heavily in your Sonos systems, and we intend to honor that investment for as long as possible. While legacy Sonos products won’t get new software features, we pledge to keep them updated with bug fixes and security patches for as long as possible. If we run into something core to the experience that can’t be addressed, we’ll work to offer an alternative solution and let you know about any changes you’ll see in your experience.

Secondly, we heard you on the issue of legacy products and modern products not being able to coexist in your home. We are working on a way to split your system so that modern products work together and get the latest features, while legacy products work together and remain in their current state. We’re finalizing details on this plan and will share more in the coming weeks.

While we have a lot of great products and features in the pipeline, we want our customers to upgrade to our latest and greatest products when they’re excited by what the new products offer, not because they feel forced to do so. That’s the intent of the trade up program we launched for our loyal customers.

Thank you for being a Sonos customer. Thank you for taking the time to give us your feedback. I hope that you’ll forgive our misstep, and let us earn back your trust. Without you, Sonos wouldn’t exist and we’ll work harder than ever to earn your loyalty every single day.

If you have any further questions please don’t hesitate to contact us.

 

Patrick Spence
CEO, Sonos

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4256 replies

R
Userlevel 1
Badge

Like many other long time Sonos advocates I’m disappointed with the announcement and not inclined to consider staying with the brand.  I will be selling what I have for whatever I can get and looking to invest my money in an alternative.

 

Best 

J
Userlevel 2
Badge

I am so embarrassed. I spent so many years recommending (badgering) family and friends to go the Sonos route only to receive so many ‘OMG’ and ‘WTF’ emails from them yesterday. Makes me so sick… 

After May, no additional controllers (unless a legacy app is created and managed) and streaming services will begin to stop. Spotify et. al. will make a simple change to a security protocol and poof...gone.

Sonos should clearly stamp an End of Life date on each product. Set expectations and be straight with people.      

G

If you think I’ll ever buy another Sonos product after you orphan my system,  you misjudge.  

C
Userlevel 3

As I said earlier, “Legacy” devices currently stream from other Sonos units, so why shouldn’t they be able to in the future -- unless Sonos doesn’t want them to!  So any claim of potential technical issues with keeping Legacy players in the same network is 100% Bull$$$hit.

A

Like a lot of people I have invested heavily in older and newer Sonos products over a period of time to enjoy a great product for my whole house. Hopefully with all the responses on the forum they will use some common sense and provide an alternative approach for the many of us in the same circumstances.  

 

Sonos - don’t destroy your loyal and supported customers, without us Sonos wouldn’t exist!

W
Userlevel 2

I have 1 x Playbar, 1 x Sub, 4 x Play 1, 1 x Play 5 (Gen1), 1 x Connect Amp, 1 x Boost, 2 x One SL.

 

The Connect Amp I only purchased on sale Summer 2018 and is now legacy! Along with 2 others (5 and Boost) and potentially more to follow. FFS!

Then offered £30 to upgrade something I purchased for around £375 only 6 months ago! Kick me when I’m down, why don’t you!

 

I have been getting peed off with Apple and their attitude to older products, thinking its back to Windows on the next computer and now Sonos come out with this shenanigans. Now they move in this direction, will they too gradually force the degradation in performance with their products as Apple have been found to do previously?

 

I absolutely loved the wireless attributes and lack of cables particularly with hard floors through out my Condo and like others recommending it to everyone, but now ceiling re-work to install a wired system would appear to be a much cheaper option.

I can’t afford to keep investing and upgrading with the possibility of it all stop working because one day someone sitting in an executive office somewhere decides that is the end of it and I am not allowed to listen to music anymore through my purchased products. 

 

Another thing concerning me is I am now reading articles about I have only bought a licence. No-one selling me the speakers ever told me I was only buying a licence, otherwise I would not have bought any of them. I bought a speaker to listen to music through without the need for cables to replace my other wired speakers.

 

I can only be grateful I held off on buying 2 new play 5’s. Time to go back to a normal wired hi-fi for my listening pleasures and normal wired surround sound for movies. I will have enough left over to buy a tape deck, cd player and rebuild my entire music collection! 

 

Bloody angry but also excited about checking out resourcing and purchasing the hard wired equipment!

Rant over!

chickentender

I just wanted to put down this quote from the most-liked comment in the discussion section of this NYT article here…. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/07/technology/sonos-sues-google.html

It would be apropos that Sonos take a good long glance at the sentiment offered here… again, the most liked sentiment in the comments-wake of a piece which covers their current legal proceedings against Google. 

 

All the competing services coexist in the Sonos ecosystem. It's an old internet beauty of pluralism where you forge an independent path across multiple services listening for the perfect song or podcast. There are streamjng services if you want but there's old school channel surfing too. There was a pride in discovering a new artist that doesn't exist with algorithmically delivered music -- that wonder of discovery. Sonos has at it's core a clear-eyed mission that hasn't strayed; they do one thing right. They have kept on mission making fantastic smart speakers and supporting their old products. In stark contrast to Google, who has amnesia for last week's service or product. They are high-end speakers that play beautiful sound and work seamlessly and grow across technical generations without interoperability issues. I couldn't be more impressed. If Sonos goes under, despite having a better product, solid IP, and reasonable pricing, some big tech company will cannibalize them and make an inferior product that gets lost in their consuming vision and then later abandoned as a commodity. So you go get them, David! Goliath could be knocked down a peg or two.

-Chris, in Utah

inopinatus
Userlevel 4

This “clarification” just confirms everyone’s understanding, so things are not better.

You guys are just begging to get crushed by the ACCC, like every other product company that tried to pull a fast one.

It’s like you’ve never even looked at consumer protection law outside of the Santa Barbara enclave.

 

uncooked meat prior to state vector collapse
C
Userlevel 4
Badge +2

As I said earlier, “Legacy” devices currently stream from other Sonos units, so why shouldn’t they be able to in the future -- unless Sonos doesn’t want them to!  So any claim of potential technical issues with keeping Legacy players in the same network is 100% Bull$$$hit.

There is no rhyme or reason for this. Even to paint it as some hardware issue is wrong.

All devices are able to stream like they did since the start. If there are issues those are software related and if so desired there is a software solutions for it. 

It seems more like a bad marketing ploy to push new hardware to existing system owners

for a very bad discount

 

H
Userlevel 3

Create a Sonos “Lemon Law”?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_law

 

R

So i will just add to the dis-satisfaction, I invested heavy over $7k and in less than 5 years 30% isn't even close to supporting us loyal customers. Inside every Sonos product will be components, I’m sure if they cant come up with a software fix maybe a hardware fix is on the table, the power supply is still good, the actual speaker is still good, how do we change out just the CPU and memory.

Here's some advise Sonos...all your new products need to have the ability to change out the CPU and memory components, then in 5 years maybe for 15% of the original value I can purchase new upgrade components and keep my perfectly good device and speaker, now this would be a great innovation. Just send me my replacement as thanks for the idea.

Will not spend another $ until this is resolved and will definitely let everyone know the dissatisfaction.

Marketing 1o1 its cheaper to keep existing customers than acquire new ones, rethink your 30% slap in the face.

 

Neil

 

L
Userlevel 1
Badge

I have read through the posts & can only reiterate some of the comments. To upgrade all my “Legacy” products & basically just stay current would be a additional investment of AU$4000 & that is at the discounted price & on top of my SONOS purchases to date. Purchases to date would be upward of AU$5,500 so not happy. A grand total of AU$9,500 WOW!

I did think of creating a seperate account to keep old and new separate but if I can’t use them as linked output it would not be worth it. Apart from one AMP & a Play 5 all my other SONOS items drive a comprehensive Media room setup so they need to be in sync. 

I have a new Playbase, a pair of SONOS One’s Gen1 & a new Boost that I needed to upgrade to hook up the system to my router, the old Bridge was dropping out way too much. I don’t have too much of an issue as the bridges were a network thing & were offered at a low cost as really is the Boost. I did have three Bridges though & was only offered one Boost. It does work well now.

I did make some use of the trade offer to date for the newer items but it is not really 30% because there are always at least 10% discount options available through retailers. If I look at investment to date & that is not including speakers for the Three Connect Amps I have in my collection it is quite a spend. With upgrades running at over 70% of the initial investment who wouldn't review current alternative options.

With current trends there are now options that were not there in 2008/9 when I first purchased SONOS to replace my 30 year old QUAD/Nakamichi/Magneplanar system that still worked & was sold for around 30% of its original cost (after 30 years).

A pain to change now but I am seriously considering if I need to replace with current SONOS items. I guess on top of that what do I say to people that purchased SONOS because of my recommendations, I have always been a strong advocate of SONOS.

In engineering the simplest solutions always tend to be the best & for SONOS I am sure this needs to be thought out a bit more and a lot more to restore confidence in the brand.

As already stated in some of the posts “How long are the new items going to survive” before they become legacy items too.

I am hoping SONOS comes up with a better option to move forward that embraces the newer technologies without dumping the products & loyalty they have had to date.

Regards,

Len

M
Userlevel 2

Welcome to modern technology.  Anything that has a computer chip has built-in obsolescence.  This whole upgrade program just promotes and enables our “throw-away” society.  I will be interested to see how they will separate modern from legacy units.

I bought sonos so that I could have music throughout the house which means I have invested quite a bit into the Sonos brand. 

Most of the features that Sonos has included in their latest updates are useless to me as I only want to be able to play the music from my offline collection.  Streaming services come and go so the service people are subscribed to today can disappear tomorrow.  This means you don’t own your music but just the right to stream from these online collections.

 

Sonos, come up with a good solution for the customers who have invested heavily into your brand or risk losing a lot more.

M
Userlevel 2

Adding my name to this topic. Wtf are you thinking Sonos. You just rendered my $5000 investment in your ,at this moment , perfectly working products to obsolescence for no good reason. $5000 down the shitter and you want me to spend another $5000 less 30% (???) for more gear that will be rendered obsolete AGAIN in 5 years ?   Are you fkng serious ? Not sure if you’re aware or not, the competition has caught up. I’ll buy another brand / solution before spending another penny with Sonos. Man, I’ve been a customer since your product first came to market.  Built my system. Bought more and more over the years. This is how you reward loyalty to your brand. Some kind of bullshit Sonos. Remarkable. 

W
Userlevel 1

Same story as everyone else. Complete buyers remorse on supporting Sonos.  I will be sure to inform everyone I have recommended Sonos to of this information.  Unlike Sonos my reputation means something.

 

this is the problem with publicly traded companies.  Execs got their payouts and sail into the sunset while marketing and promotion idiots take the helm so shareholders can make a buck.

 

Regardless of where Sonos goes from here, I am done.  
With this type of stuff Sonos as a company will be gone in 5 years.

S
Userlevel 1

Ditto to most of upset comments concerning  the end of support announcement.  I was an early adopter, thousands of dollars in devices. The upgrade offer of 30% savings is a joke.  It was great while it lasted but now I’m done with Sonos. 

M
Userlevel 2

Funny thing is…..some of their ‘legacy’ stuff is better than the new gear. Play 5: with dual Ethernet for example. Amp same.  

K
Userlevel 1

I have spent in excess of £2k on Sonos products. I don't intend to spend a penny more until you show greater respect to your customers.

You are committing commercial suicide.

Who will now buy Sonos knowing you will fail to support the product over time? You seriously need to review this crazy decision.

Bricking perfectly good equipment to boost your sales is not a great look. Every future potential customer will look at your actions and turn to Bose.

This is a monumental mistake. Sort it out.

M

We announced yesterday that some of our oldest Sonos products will be moving into a legacy mode in May of 2020. Our commitment is to support products with regular software updates for a minimum of five years after we stop selling them, and we have a track record of supporting products far longer. 

Here is some public information we’ve shared, gathered into one place to respond to some of your questions in one easy thread, so that people can find the correct information easily.

Beginning in May, software updates and new features from Sonos will only be delivered to systems with only modern products.

After May, systems that include legacy products will continue to work as before - but they will no longer receive software updates or new features. 

Sonos will work to maintain the existing experience and conduct bug fixes, but our efforts will ultimately be limited by the lack of memory and processing power of these legacy products.

We don’t expect any immediate impact to your experience, but access to services and overall functionality will eventually be disrupted, particularly as partners evolve their own services and features. 

 

Customers with both legacy and modern products have time to decide what option is best for them. You can continue to use your whole system in legacy mode - in this case, it will stop receiving updates and new features. 

You will also be able to separate your legacy products from your modern products, so that the modern products can still receive updates and new features, and legacy products can still be used separately. We’ll have more information on how to do this in May when you can take that action.

Another option available to all customers with legacy products is to take advantage of the Trade Up program, which allows you to upgrade older Sonos products to modern ones with a 30% discount. Trade Up will be open to customers at any time should they decide to upgrade. 

We recognize this is new for Sonos owners, just as it is for Sonos. We are committed to help you by making options available to you to support the best decision for your home.
 

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate with asking.

Hi Ryan S

Thank you for providing additional clarity to Sonos Incorporated’s plan to intentionally move to a planned obsolescence business model.  To be frank this upsets me.

About 3.5 years ago I started to build my Sonos system as it was in my opinion the best WiFi System on the market. Most importantly the system was perfect for our needs worked flawlessly. up to about 6 months ago.  As of today we own (1) Boost. (1) Connect, (2) Play 3,  (3) Play 5, (1) Sub, (2) Ones.  Few weeks ago I purchased another Play 5...but have not connected it to my system as of today.

The following is my recent experiences with your company and why the new Play 5 is still in the box, along with our growing poor performance issues.

As mentioned about six months ago, the performance of our system began degrading.  After a few app upgrades we began noticing that the Music will drop off when all speakers were grouped.  As we added more speakers the performance continue to be reduced. as we switched services music stopped playing in some rooms and played delayed music in others.

After several chat sessions, conversations and reading multiple blogs on your website this matter is occurring on multiple user platforms.  Every user comments the problem is partially resolved by playing around with their router settings but none of them say it has been completely fixed.  About two weeks ago based on the conversation I had with the Sonos tech you recommended that perhaps maybe we should upgrade my router.  Last week I went out and bought a brand new Linksys V10600 Velop Neat Router.   One of the best on the market.

This did nothing or improved the music drop off problem.  This past week I’ve spoken with first level Techs, Level Ii techs and tomorrow I have a meeting with one of your engineers on a conference call.  The problem has not been resolved and has perplexed everyone of your technicians in your entire company. What’s puzzling me and shocking me is your recent disclosure concerning the dropping off of support for legacy products.  I believe you have a growing systemic problem. I also believe that the play 3’s which I own, (those you discontinued in January 2019) and other contributing factors are effecting my system performance. Quite frankly after the amount of money I spent on your system offering me a 30% discount to upgrade on products is an insulting gesture.

 

I certainly would like to get to a resolve my issues as well as Sonos stand behind your product for the long haul.  My entire family and I are dissatisfied and frustrated.  You have a good product...let’s not throw away what u have built.  If u do your stock will not be worrh much in the very short term.  Build up your customer base and do not destroy it.

 

Sincerely Matt F

 

 

E

Very disappointed Sonos! I was brand loyal but this type of move unfortunately forces a rethink! Does this mean the legacy and modern will be completely seperate? I am fine with legacy speakers not receiving updates but I want my modern speakers to get updates and new features. I expect to be able to group music between legacy and modern as I do today.

J

Like most customers, I paid top price for my Sonos components over the years as the Sonos system is a high quality system. The first sign of obsolescence was when the original expensive controller was made redundant. However the move to iOS and Android apps was a good move.

However the decision to no longer support software updates is very concerning. All my Sonos components are running under version 10.6.2 including my two Connect amplifiers.  Given the negative feedback from customers, I think Sonos software decision is environmental irresponsible, immoral and, in some countries, may be illegal .  (In Australia we have a “fit for purpose” government requirement which means that products but comply to reasonable expectations.).

As an example, Windows 7 was released in 2009 and support will only cease in 2020. 11 years after release, not 5 years !!!

However, let’s be honest. The Sonos components are speakers. Not multifunctional computers. While there is communications between the units, the main source of concern is the potential for streaming services to change their streaming protocols which would require updated software. Also Sonos does not have Bluetooth capability so the legacy speakers cannot be used standalone with phones etc. Thus it is in the interest of Sonos, its current/future customers and the environment, to prolong the use of these high quality speakers.

Sonos is considering an alternative to split the Sonos components on the users system between legacy and new. Has Sonos considered some other software alternatives? For example, make the legacy speakers dumb speakers and have the controller software convert new streaming protocols to a standard format for the dumb speakers? A newer Sonos device may also be able to perform this function. There must be some cleaver software solutions out there !!  

I have been a big supporter of Sonos and have recommend Sonos to many friends and family members who have purchased Sonos products.  Given the expense of the products, the lack of ongoing software support and the growth of Bluetooth speakers, I will no longer be recommending Sonos unless Sonos change their software policy.

 

C

We announced yesterday that some of our oldest Sonos products will be moving into a legacy mode in May of 2020. Our commitment is to support products with regular software updates for a minimum of five years after we stop selling them, and we have a track record of supporting products far longer. 

Here is some public information we’ve shared, gathered into one place to respond to some of your questions in one easy thread, so that people can find the correct information easily.

Beginning in May, software updates and new features from Sonos will only be delivered to systems with only modern products.

After May, systems that include legacy products will continue to work as before - but they will no longer receive software updates or new features. 

Sonos will work to maintain the existing experience and conduct bug fixes, but our efforts will ultimately be limited by the lack of memory and processing power of these legacy products.

We don’t expect any immediate impact to your experience, but access to services and overall functionality will eventually be disrupted, particularly as partners evolve their own services and features. 

 

Customers with both legacy and modern products have time to decide what option is best for them. You can continue to use your whole system in legacy mode - in this case, it will stop receiving updates and new features. 

You will also be able to separate your legacy products from your modern products, so that the modern products can still receive updates and new features, and legacy products can still be used separately. We’ll have more information on how to do this in May when you can take that action.

Another option available to all customers with legacy products is to take advantage of the Trade Up program, which allows you to upgrade older Sonos products to modern ones with a 30% discount. Trade Up will be open to customers at any time should they decide to upgrade. 

We recognize this is new for Sonos owners, just as it is for Sonos. We are committed to help you by making options available to you to support the best decision for your home.
 

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate with asking.

I have spent over $10,000 USD on Sonos equipment in 3 locations. Upon receiving your email I thought it had to be a Hoax or some Nigerian scam or something. I cannot believe a company would abandon their loyal customer or any customer for that matter and force them into purchasing new equipment and tossing a 30% off bone.. Just slap us in the face and then spit.  Is there some sort of Class Action they can avoid? Id be happy to be the first Plantif.  They have asked me to beta test for them as well.. SMH!!!!!

  1. Graft   monkeyjarhead1@yahoo.com 
A
Badge

I met Sonos in a friend's apartment who has 3 Play:5 and I was impressed, I immediately knew that when I had enough money I would buy my own Sonos, I loved visiting my friend to use his Sonos and talking with my friends that it was the best system .

In October I bought my first Play:1 (5 years of loyalty without even owning one) and just 1 day before they made this announcement I bought the second Play: 1, I was really very excited. 

When I bought them I thought they would last for a long time, but now I see this and I feel worried about how much longer they will support them, 3 years? It is obviously not something I expected and I am disappointed, when you buy speakers you expect to be able to use them until they are damaged, not that the manufacturer is the one who makes you stop using them.

I just lost my brand loyalty

6
Userlevel 2

Oh dear, you screw with your customers like this and you are done. Short and sweet, if you make my products obsolete you will never see me at the checkout again. Fine example of a company with its finger on the self destruct button. One small scenario `I’m thinking of buying a sono system 🤔’ Google search ‘buy Sonos and a perfectly good system will be made obsolete within a few years’ ‘Guess I won’t be buying that then’ really guys! Come on . Say sorry and do the right thing!

W
Userlevel 2
Badge

On the bright side, the amount of memory in the older devices (1/3 of my system is going obsolete) was the reason for the 65k song library size limit, so hopefully they will at least kill off that old limit, too. 

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