I’m in the same boat as many other legacy Sonus customers.  The lack of integration of new products like Roam and Move with our legacy S1 products is a betrayal of those loyal Customers that helped make the company successful.

I could understand Sonus developing S2 to take advantage of additional features that may not be available for S1 compatible equipment, but to not make them backward compatible at some basic level is either lazy or incompetent - the alternative, suggesting this by design smacks of a company seeking to generate future revenue from planned obsolescence rather than innovation.

Only option for me at this point is to take both the Roam devices back to the store and no longer consider myself a Sonus Customer.

The S1/S2-split was unfortunate but unavoidable. The fact all new products introduced after may 2020 are S2 only is not a secret. If there's one company that can not be accused of using "built in obsolescence” it is Sonos, still supporting devices sold in 2006 (though not to the standard you would like).

By the way - the company you're complaining about is called Sonos…….

And covered is excruciating detail here and here.

Typical Sonos rip off. Nice sound, when it works, but appalling way to treat customers (and the environment), making products which need to be entirely replaced every few years. I think it’s disgusting.

And they’re not the only ones at it, too! Manufacturers of cars, computers, refrigerators, TV’s; they all do it. Must be a conspiracy.

Sending mine back: my partner isn’t techy, and doesn’t understand why it won’t just work with the £1,000s of Sonia kit we have already.  Explained that, for it to work, we have to renew every bit of Sonos kit in the house.

and frankly, if I’m going to do that, why would I buy Sonos again?

I am not sure what you want Sonos to do.  The whole point of creating the S1 / S2 split was to allow product developments that were held back by needing to operate with the oldest products.  if the Roam had to be compatible with the ‘legacy’ devices, it wouldn’t be the Roam.

You cannot group the Roam with your existing devices but you don’t need to get rid of them.  Which Sonos products do you have?

I won't get a roam for this reason, I understand that old devices can't run on the new system but the opposite is a bit strange and prevents people from buying the most recent Sonos products… just waiting for some of the equipment to let me down and move to a different system. Any suggestions welcome!

Most (almost all) of the Sonos products listed in your online profile here are S2 compatible - so what you’re actually stating here doesn’t make much sense.

Changing all my connect amps is still too much for me at the moment so I'll stay with S1... And I still makes sense to be frustrated that new products are not compatible with the old system, and looking at the thread it seems like it irritates lots of people... 

But it seems you have already begun to do the switch, as your profile also lists the new Sonos Amp? That seems to contradict your earlier post too - you could easily split the C:A’s off to S1 and run everything else alongside on S2 and perhaps over-arch both setups with Airplay by leaving a ‘One’ in the S1 HH, at least until you migrate all to S2 - it’s probably far cheaper too than starting-over with a completely new system from a different manufacturer.

Thankfully I bought my Sonos roam from Costco - will take it back in 80 days.

Not worth the effort to upgrade to S2 when I have 3k invested in S1 products.

BTW - Sonos can fix this if they put customer satisfaction above the bottom line - my Sonos PlayBars is backward comparable on S1…just sayin.

Then explain how my move is on S1???

Move was released before  the S1/S2 split., Roam was created after. What you get on S1 with Move is only what was capable at the time of the split, with  no feature improvements that came with S2. As well, Move and Roam do not have same set of features.

According to your profile, you have quite a few products that only work on S2, not just the Roam. 

Because S1 actually knows what a Move is.  Roam was created after S2, so there is no way S1 knows what it is, and since S1 can’t be added to due to memory restrictions on the old devices, there’s no way of adding the Roam to S1.  

My original Roam works perfectly fine in my "legacy system" with the S1 controller.  I have just received a Roam SL...this apparently will not.  I am pretty hacked off that Sonos have (in their opinion) updated a system such that those early adopters and supporters are now deemed legacy users.  I shall request a refund on return of this (to me) useless product.  I will of course never purchase a Sonos product again...nor, when the system finally conks out, will I replace it with another Sonos system.  So disappointing

Addendum to above...I mean my original Sonos Move, (I referred to it as a Roam)

When the S1/S2 split occurred Sonos announced that all new products would be for S2 only - this was posted clearly on this forum, online and by the reporting media. There’s also this Sonos support document to show what works with S2, S1 or both Apps…

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/4786

The Sonos Move was manufactured/released prior to the S1/S2 split and so works with both Apps

The Roam was manufactured/released after the S1/S2 split and so works with the S2 App only. It also highlights this fact in the Sonos.com shop.

I would just either install the S2 App and run it alongside your existing S1 setup, which is what I do and use it as a portable speaker, or I guess you could perhaps return it to its place of purchase (if within terms/date), or sell it on, if you prefer to do any of those things instead.

Thank you Ken....you are of course correct, I should have made myself aware of this by accessing this information rather than relying on Sonos to highlight this prominently on their sales promotion for the SL.  Sonos being rather poor in their valuation of, you know, their customers.  I will be returning this product for a refund.  I will use the money to buy a decent blue tooth speaker from, probably, Bose

I’m just a user like yourself,  but I really don’t see the point in exchanging the Roam for a ‘poorer sounding’ Bose portable speaker, which will also just work separately from your S1 Sonos system anyway. That’s not achieving anything other than cutting off your nose to spite your face.

It makes more sense to return the Roam and forget having a portable speaker altogether or just stick with the Roam running on S2 alongside your S1 system.

You would only need to add an Airplay2 capable device to your S1 system to be able to stream audio to both S1/S2 - and these things collectively make the Roam far more appealing than switching to a Bose portable speaker. 

Anyhow the decision is yours. 

What else could Sonos do? Longer term users are inevitably those with devices that cannot keep up with the most recent features.  'Legacy users' can still do everything they could when they bought the products, and more.  But this is all discussed ad infinitum in other threads.

As @Ken_Griffiths says, you .must do as you wish, but there is zero sense in your posts.

Thank you John for sharing your opinion...

I had to retire a perfectly functional Android phone because the service providers are turning off the cell towers that support the phone. Regardless of the tower situation I would have retired the phone anyway because it could not be updated to run applications that I need for work. I’ve had similar issues with older iPads not being able to run current software needed for work. And I had to retire functional computers because they did not have enough resources to run newer operating systems and programs.

The public accepts, appreciates, and demands the feature and performance upgrades of the newer technology.

The attitude is completely different for audio equipment. Here it is buy once, stay compatible between new and old, and play forever. 

It’s also generational. For the young generation those old audio “boxes” are ridiculous old artifacts used by their parents and grand parents -- music belongs in the pocket. For the audio equipment producers those older people will never be customers as long as their “box” continues to function. It’s a tough business selling forever “boxes”. Most of the traditional audio companies from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s are gone or have transformed into something else.

We’ve had technology revolutions before. Leaded gasoline faded away, glass TV picture tubes and the supporting broadcast technology have faded away, VCR’s faded away, generations of business and personal computers have faded away, only audio technology is forever.

Sorry ...android phones retired!....leaded gasoline!!!!

Is this some sort of Sonos excuse company?!?

Really rather amusing to read