There’s been no forced upgrade. There’s certainly been a suggested upgrade, but no forced one. S1 systems continue to work as they have before.

You can not add newer hardware to them due to the fact that the software froze before the new items were added to the definitions file. New devices do require S2, but you can still run S1 and S2 systems side by side on the same network. 

It may be technically possible to run the two systems side by side but I haven’t been able to do that despite having reasonable tech capability.  The more important point to me is that the promise of simple operation (which was the key to my original purchasing decision) has been broken and with it my trust in the brand.

Understood.

There are many people who have had no substantial issue, or at best minor issues, based on their posts here in these forums. It appears, based on your post, that you’re not interested in any assistance, so I was just trying to clear up any misinformation that someone who came upon this thread might garner.

The purpose of this community is, in an ideal world, to assist those who are interested in resolving the issues that they’re experiencing, for whatever reason that is. At worst, it appears to be a great place to vent, and I would hope that the Sonos moderators pass on the information about issues that seem to be prevalent across the community to a Project Manager, or some such person who can effectuate change in a positive direction. 

No, Sonos isn’t perfect. But in 99% of the cases I’ve seen over the years I’ve been part of this community, there’s usually a solution out there. And even when Sonos has been at fault, they’ve been willing to make good in some fashion, even if it requires a software change. It may not be an immediate thing, but those of us in software development understand the process of identifying an issue, reproducing it, figuring out a fix, testing the fix, and finally distributing it via public channels. 

I agree, except with the last bit; one has the choice of not purchasing new Sonos hardware if one has enough invested in the old.

Sonos merely promised the existing hardware would continue to be supported and that still holds - there was no promise ever made that backward compatibility was forever guaranteed. 

Thanks Bruce and Kumar

I’m very fortunate to have four separate stereo systems running on 4 connects and one playbase which I purchased over several years.  I used to be able to run all four systems synchronised through the house. When S2 came in only the playbase and one connect run on it. The other three connects only run on s1.  I tried to switch the s2 compatible units back to s1 but found I couldn’t do that either.  The point is I actually bought Sonos for the very reason that it worked without having to have a software PhD to operate it.  I shouldn’t have to waste my time because Sonos stuffed up the forced upgrade so badly.

You both seem like keen supporters - “99% satisfied” and “no backward compatibility promises” - so very much like Sonos says.  But I’ve transitioned from ambassador to anti-Sonos campaigner over their appalling  greed/incompetence.

Regards.  Miles

If a solution for you would be to return alll your devices to S1, have you tried this to reset them and add them to your existing S1 system? Set up separate S1 and S2 Sonos systems | Sonos

If so: where does it go wrong for you in this process.

I resisted the bait of upgrading compatible kit to S2, so I do not have your problem and I don't know the exact solution. But, I do know it is possible to revert the S2 kit back to S1 so that all units play nice with each other as they used to before. Someone will hopefully post the detailed steps for that here, else Google is your friend.

I too am no longer a Sonos ambassador, though for different reasons. Unless one wants the ability to play the same music all over the home in perfect sync, Sonos is no longer the only game in town and others in the market are more value for money now, and perhaps more robust in not needing as strong a local WiFi network as Sonos seems to need.

But Sonos did what they did as a survival strategy and I get that. Even though I won't buy more Sonos kit to add to my 12 Sonos unit S1 compatible system that still works fine, augmented and improved via Echo Show 5/8 units.

PS: as a footnote to anyone else that reads this: I am also able to get album art on more than one Echo Show when all are playing the same music from Spotify etc. This is easily achieved by setting them all to play when any Show is commanded to do so by grouping them in the Alexa app. Music, when played via downstream Sonos line in jacks is in perfect sync. It is just that with Sonos, dynamic grouping and changes thereto, as well as volume control, is a more slick in its operation. On the other hand, Sonos needs a robust local WiFi network for groups to work, Echo units just each need a good connection via the cloud back to Amazon servers.

Again, not a forced upgrade. If that were the case, you would be writing this post a year ago when S2 was introduced.   You were not forced to upgrade then, you are not forced to upgrade now.  However, I would agree that Sonos messages encouraging people to upgrade is confusing and should be stopped.  With very few exceptions, people are surely aware and have made their decision to upgrade or not.  Personally, I think communication is the bigger problem, as it appears most would be content to stay on S1 if they properly understood that was an option.

As far as greed/incompetence, it sounds like you haven’t really thought about Sonos need to stay competitive in the market in order to stay in business, and how limiting themselves to functionality that has to work on out of date hardware would kill their business.  These assumptions of greed/incompetence have been made by many others before you without really taking all the facts into account. Corporate greed is always the easy answer when a corporation doesn’t do what you want them to do.  As is dismissing anyone who has a counter view than you as having subjective bias, while never recognizing your own bias.

Yes; and the ridiculous “brick if you want the upgrade discount” policy smacked of both greed and incompetence for the long time it took Sonos to reverse it. 

One hopes that people more senior than folks like Ryan were shown the door for perpetrating that fiasco. As to the latter’s layoff, I don’t think that this place has fully recovered from that lost presence here, and I refer to more layoffs than just Ryan.

I bought a ZP90 a while back just to fail the Upgrade test which worked well.

When I added my new Move recently (which would have shipped with S2) I shut everything down bar the ZP90 just in case..

After a factory reset the Move was added to my S1 system in under 5 minutes including a firmware "update" to S1.

I would keep 1 S1 Player on and try and add your S2 units back on 1 at a time with a factory reset of the S2 units.

Obviously you can't do this with S2 only kit.

Over to OP for comment after trying this...