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complaint about the End of Software Updates

  • 22 January 2020
  • 62 replies
  • 2844 views
D
Userlevel 3

I am absolutely incensed by the shear insensitivity and blatant Marketing effort under the guise of ‘End of Software Updates’ This is totally unjustified - the amount of software involved is minute compared to something like MS Windows and they manage to support £100 products for 10 years and TVs last just as long. My Connect:Amp is probably only a few years old and cost £400 and now you want me to upgrade for an insulting and derisory 30% off a hugely inflated price of £600!!!!!!!!!!!

I will NOT Upgrade and will now be actively looking for alternative products especially as it now obvious you are going to do this to all my other products in the expectation of dubiously getting even more money from loyal Sonos owners.

Until this moment I held your Company and products in high regard, now I am appalled by your behaviour and will NEVER buy any more. You greedy b*******s have shot yourselves in the proverbial foot.

I dare you to publish this.

 

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Best answer by Ryan S 22 January 2020, 21:10

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62 replies

bockersjv
Userlevel 7
Badge +21

I suspect another troll. This change was made in May and 3 months later this is the first post😳

N
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

Why not just continue with the S1 version of the app?   Your speakers will still work. No-one is forcing you to buy anything new, nor to stop using what you’ve already bought. The app is just a controller for the speakers. 

C

I am terribly disappointed that I cannot  use my speakers any longer due to the software up date . So unfair that I am pushed into getting new ones or do without music. If I need to buy new ones , sorry to say it won’t be Sonos. 

When the upgrade was offered why not tell it won’t work with my current system . I would not have loaded it .

E

Completely agree Cuhulin. No question the original announcement was boggled, but improvements in technologies improve life, but leave antiquated products in the scrap pile. Dolby Atmos wasn’t even a dream when the earliest Sonos products were released, how could they possible incorporate updates to these older products? Meanwhile, Apple  intentionally slow/destroy earlier products with “upgrades” and we give them a pass. 

C

Suggesting a lawsuit because someone believes they were conned is a little over the top!

The problem here is with Sonos’ messaging.  Instead of saying “your stuff is going obsolete, so buy our new”, which sounds threatening and “haha, we got ya”, Sonos should have said something about what they are going to be doing.  Examples: “Welcome to Sonos 2020”.  “These are the great new features”.  “This will work on our newer hardware, which includes….”  

That is what every other tech company does.

Instead, they talked of unknown future improvements, so there is no basis for understanding what is going on, and all that came out was negative.

I don’t doubt that this was done for good B-School reasons like avoiding the Osborne Effect, where announcements of future products tank current sales, but the answer for that is announcing close to market release and including a return window for recent purchases - which sounds generous and builds customer goodwill - rather than insulting your existing customers’ purchases.

J

 This old version of Sonos equipment was was still being sold by John Lewis staff until 9 months ago with Sonos badged staff. Do the customers they sold to realise they were being conned?

  

I can only assume you think that all Connects and Connect:Amps are legacy, which is completely wrong.  John Lewis isn’t going to have been sitting on Sonos stock for 4 years.  Are you seriously suggesting that, and what is your evidence?

Sonos should sue you for falsely suggesting that they were conning people.

jgatie

I do hope Sonos get the message. They are alienating a lot of loyal customers. I have spent about £1,200 on Sonos equipment over the last few years. I am not happy that it will shortly be junk. This old version of Sonos equipment was was still being sold by John Lewis staff until 9 months ago with Sonos badged staff. Do the customers they sold to realise they were being conned.

 

 

  1. Anything bought “in the last few years” are not legacy.  All legacy items were manufactured at least 5 years ago.
  2. They will not “shortly be junk”.  They will continue to operate as they do today, with updates for security and bug fixes.
  3. If John Lewis was selling old stock, your beef is with them, not Sonos.  Though I highly doubt that was the case.  Are you sure your items are actually legacy?  Connect models manufactured after 2015 are modern, despite having the same model names as those manufactured before then which are legacy.  

Unless Sonos come up with a better offer or continue to support my investment in them I will not be buying from them again and I will not be recommending them. I feel guilty for promoting Sonos to my friends and embarressed that they have also purchased on my recommendation. Sonos is going to loose alot of business by word of mouth. 

  

 

Blah,blah,blah. 

J

@Slayer69 .  Could you explain in what sense you are a loyal customer?

S

I do hope Sonos get the message. They are alienating a lot of loyal customers. I have spent about £1,200 on Sonos equipment over the last few years. I am not happy that it will shortly be junk. This old version of Sonos equipment was was still being sold by John Lewis staff until 9 months ago with Sonos badged staff. Do the customers they sold to realise they were being conned?

 

Unless Sonos come up with a better offer or continue to support my investment in them I will not be buying from them again and I will not be recommending them. I feel guilty for promoting Sonos to my friends and embarressed that they have also purchased on my recommendation. Sonos is going to loose alot of business by word of mouth. 

  

E

Sonos obviously created a public relations nightmare, but am I alone in believing this is much this topic is has been completely over blown both on this forum and with the press? I read an article where the author in attacking Sonos decision wrote, “Can you image if Apple stopped supporting early IPhones?” Hello! Apple stops supporting nearly all of their products after 7 years. Technologies change so fast, I don’t see where Sonos or other manufacturers have a choice in the matter. 

 

N
Userlevel 3
Badge +1

Not helped in the slightest but thanks for the effort. 

jgatie

Just posting what Sonos are telling me!

 

Well then I hope my posting of the actual plan has helped to clarify what the support people were trying to say and got muddied up. 

N
Userlevel 3
Badge +1

Just posting what Sonos are telling me!

jgatie

A CEO who has a novel way of trying to increase sales by making equipment obsolete after less than 4 years and offers a pathetic discount to get you to upgrade. Not my favourite company at the moment. 

 

Your feelings about the CEO and/or company does not negate the fact you were posting misinformation. 

N
Userlevel 3
Badge +1

A CEO who has a novel way of trying to increase sales by making equipment obsolete after less than 4 years and offers a pathetic discount to get you to upgrade. Not my favourite company at the moment. 

jgatie

Not what your support told me. 
I was informed by them that the two Amps would probably have to be in sepgroups if they cannot find a way for them to remain in the existing system. 

 

Not my support, I don’t work for Sonos.  Sonos employees are marked as such.  I’m just quoting the CEO, who put it in writing, unlike a second hand quote from a low level support person.  

N
Userlevel 3
Badge +1

Not what your support told me. 
I was informed by them that the two Amps would probably have to be in sepgroups if they cannot find a way for them to remain in the existing system. 

jgatie

They don’t have a plan for legacy devices. I have an email from them saying they are working to see if they can find a way to allow my Amp (less than 4 years Old) continue to work with my other Sonos devices. If not I will have to run two separate systems or upgrade my two Amps.

Customer Service. NOT!

 

 

More misinformation.  There is a plan for legacy devices, and it is spelled out here: A letter from our CEO: All Sonos products will continue to work past May

 

In summary: As of May 20, if you choose to keep your system as is, it will work just like it does today.  In the future it will receive bug fixes and security updates, but it will not receive new features.  

 

 

N
Userlevel 3
Badge +1

They don’t have a plan for legacy devices. I have an email from them saying they are working to see if they can find a way to allow my Amp (less than 4 years Old) continue to work with my other Sonos devices. If not I will have to run two separate systems or upgrade my two Amps.

Customer Service. NOT!

 

 

melvimbe

Well guess what Sonos Community, my PLAY 5 has been acting up since shortly after Mr Spence issued his assurance that his products would continue to operate “as they do today”. Well, today I was advised by Sonos Technical Support that the fault with my Play 5 is associated with the device memory and I have no option but to replace it or upgrade it! Seems a wee bit coincidental that, after many years of trouble free use, this Play 5 can no longer be supported and constantly drops off the mixed generation Group.

 

 

Think about this theory a little bit more.  If Sonos was going to subtly kill off legacy devices, why would they bother announcing a plan for legacy devices to stay on a legacy system version of Sonos?  How would they keep people from figuring out what’s going on?  If they can’t really keep people from figuring it out (because they wouldn’t be able to), why not just bite the bullet and announce that these devices would no longer work at all in May?  If every legacy device is going to mysteriously and intentionally fail in the next few months, what kind of workload are they putting on the tech support staff?  How worse of a PR nightmare would that be then what Sonos already has to deal with?

 

 

So my Connect:Amp, Bridge, and Connect might shortly start to suffer the same issues as the Play 5 so I will be left with 4 Play 1’s and a Boost that I might be able to reconfigure into a smaller system.

 

 

Not likely. 

 

Time to consider an alternative to Sonos which will cost thousands of pounds to replicate the configuration that I have/had!

It would be interesting to know if any other Play 5 users have experienced their Play 5 dropping off the Sonos network over the past 2 weeks!

 

Why just play:5 users, since your theory is that all legacy products have been sabotaged?  How many responses do you need before you can claim your conspiracy theory is true?

Danny
F

Well guess what Sonos Community, my PLAY 5 has been acting up since shortly after Mr Spence issued his assurance that his products would continue to operate “as they do today”. Well, today I was advised by Sonos Technical Support that the fault with my Play 5 is associated with the device memory and I have no option but to replace it or upgrade it! Seems a wee bit coincidental that, after many years of trouble free use, this Play 5 can no longer be supported and constantly drops off the mixed generation Group.

So my Connect:Amp, Bridge, and Connect might shortly start to suffer the same issues as the Play 5 so I will be left with 4 Play 1’s and a Boost that I might be able to reconfigure into a smaller system.

Time to consider an alternative to Sonos which will cost thousands of pounds to replicate the configuration that I have/had!

It would be interesting to know if any other Play 5 users have experienced their Play 5 dropping off the Sonos network over the past 2 weeks!

 

cheers

Brian

O
Userlevel 2
Badge +1

Sonos and  Denon settled out of court and HEOS continues to be sold.

Besides Bluesound, Sonos is also suing Google and has publicly stated that they will sue Amazon after Google. 

The lawsuits aren't surprising since Google and Amazon are reportedly out selling Sonos big time. 

There are a lot of reasons to not buy Bluesound but being sued by Sonos wouldn't factor too high for me, ymmv. (But TBH I would never buy Bluesound)

 

What would you but instead of Bluesound?

 

The other poster is correct in that Bluesound owners will suffer similar fate as Sonos when it comes to obsolescence.

 I'm going to go with something different similar to what is being described in the Pragmatic Brexit advanced discussion based around a server and cheaper smart front ends without vendor lock in that will still allow me to use my Sonos devices I already own.

 

 

jgatie

 

I am a working class person like most of the Sonos community. It sounds like every 4 years or so they are going to hit us with this upgrade. There is no way I can afford this. Looks like back to a reciever.

 

 

Another bit of misinformation.  Sonos has to support every device for 5 years after it stops being manufactured.  That is the minimum.  The legacy devices all have 32 MB RAM, and they made that 32 MB RAM last for 15 years.  Currently sold devices have 16 (non-voice) to 32 (voice enabled) times that amount, so support beyond the mandatory 5 years is well accounted for in the capability of the devices.  Not saying they are completely future proof, but with 16 to 32 times the RAM/storage as the original devices, it stands to reason that more than 5 years of use was spec’d into the devices. 

 

melvimbe

I have never seen such a crock before in my entire life! It took me years and thousands of dollars to build up my system throughout my house and now I am being told I have to do it again?

 

 

Come may, you’re existing system will continue to operate as it currently does minus regular updates.  If the system requires security updates or bug fixes, Sonos will provide that within the limits of the hardware.  So you do not have to replace your system.

 

You may already be aware of the above, but as there is a lot of misinformation and confusion going around, I’m repeating it here.

 

 

 

Danny
G

I have never seen such a crock before in my entire life! It took me years and thousands of dollars to build up my system throughout my house and now I am being told I have to do it again? I can tell you this, the community built this brand and we can take it down as quick as we built it! I tell all my friends about how amazing this system is and now I feel like I am being scammed! I don’t have the money to upgrade another $3000 for my house. Sonos needs to find a way to make this right. I promise you I will blast this company every chance I get if they don’t fix this!

 

Upset is a understatement!!!!

 

I am a working class person like most of the Sonos community. It sounds like every 4 years or so they are going to hit us with this upgrade. There is no way I can afford this. Looks like back to a reciever.

 

Absoluetly stinks!

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