I’m rather optimistic about the future.  Sonos is still support all of it’s original ZP players and have stated they will continue to support as long as they can.  I consider the trade up program to be a positive since it’s a nice discount  to replace something I rarely use anymore.

Sonos has shown that they will add new features to exiting products if they can.  Alexa and GA integration are good examples.    Sonos came out with 3 new products last year (Move, SL, Port) plus 2 with ikea and 3 passive speakes with Sonance.  Good reason to believe there will be more products released next year.  Sonos just bought the voice assistant company Snips, which seems likely to mean they’ll be coming out with their own voice assistant in the future, filling in gaps to control Sonos that Alexa and GA don’t do.

Yes, I’m optimistic too. All the Sonos original Players are still working for me. It’s appears to only be the old controllers and older accessories that are not quite standing the test of time. 

Over a comparable period, I seem to have set aside more phones, tablets and video products, than Sonos products. 

This is just technology marching forward and I guess we just have to try to keep up with it, if we wish to continue with the road ahead. I find that so much better anyway, than just standing still and trying to use some of the older 'out of date’ products.

I’m actually thinking now of selling-on my older Play:1’s and replacing them with the newer speakers, as I think the newer ‘Ones’ sound better and they have a few more features that I’m now finding useful.

So I will just keep advancing forward with the technology. 

That popped in my mind too when I saw that the Ones and One SL were on sale.  All my  Play:1s are doing surround sound duty, so there isn’t much to gain expect aesthetic appeal.

Until the trade-up deal my Sonos were in trickle-down mode and when I got a new bigger one the smaller one went to a location I was too cheap to fill with a new one. (1 → 3 → 5)

While the new stuff is good I don’t see enough difference (for my use) in a Play 1 or One, or the Gen 1 and 2 5s to be worth replacing the old one.

Some interesting points of view that have made me think a bit more.

My main point however was that as it is almost certain that older equipment will progressively become obsolete is it better to sell it now while it has some value. Prices on eBay are still good for things like ZP120’s but appear to be softening slightly whereas the 30% trade in deal is hopeless. Why would one accept £150 trade in on a £500 amp when £250 is easily achievable on eBay. To make a trade in worthwhile it would need to be at least 60%.

The fact that trade ins are being offered is the surest sign that Sonos knows much more obselescence is around the corner; the bit I am not sure about is how soon to jump before being left with a load of useless equipment. 

Personally, I think Sonos will be much more circumspect about obsoleting player hardware than is assumed in some of these threads. By ‘obsoleting’ I mean rendering them inoperable rather than simply not adding features. Without wanting to downplay the disappointment felt by their owners, the devices obsoleted so far (CR100, Dock) have been niche, non-player products with easy workarounds.

Once the first player products are obsoleted, it will be a major red flag for purchasers of new equipment. They’ll know that instead of purchasing a product they can expect decades of use from (as I expect from my audio products), they’re instead buying something ephemeral.

Note that there is no hard technical reason why Sonos needs to obsolete any older players. It’s quite feasible for older players to continue to operate using versioned protocols, as is the case in many distributed systems. The older players won’t suddenly stop being able to stream music or to participate in Sonos protocols: it would be Sonos’s choice to stop them. 

Fair comment, but after the CR100’s were rendered obsolete it took a while to work around it. In fact no solution was ever found to substitute them. Eventually I came to terms with having to use an iPad and also purchased (on Sonos’s recommendation) an Amazon Fire 7. I was told that the Sonos App could be pinned open so as to always be available. This turned out to be incorrect and in fairness to Sonos, they did reimburse me for the unit. As I said in my opening post the iPad has now been rendered obsolete as it is unable to support the latest Sonos updates and Sonos have also told me that my Desktop has probably less than a year left to support updates. 

All I am left with now is my wife’s iPad air 2 which would seem to be good for while but its day will certainly come. 

I do admire the positivity of members here but because of the CR100 issue, I am not convinced Sonos are at all circumspect and remain sceptical about the reasons behind trade ups!

Note that controllers present a rather different problem from players. A controller has to work with the full current range of players and new features.

That’s not to say that I’m uncritical of Sonos’s inability to provide separate, ‘legacy’ versions of their controllers for use on older controller devices and OS versions, even if some features are unavailable. However, to some extent there are low-cost third party options that fill this gap, such as Sonopad.

I interpreted the trade-up programme as being about sales generation rather than preparing for obsolescence. If there is any player obsolescence in future, I’m certain it would be accompanied by a similar (or better) trade-up programme, so I have no intention of obsoleting any of my devices.

Thank you, your last paragraph has set my mind at rest, at least for now

To clarify, the trade up program isn’t 30% value on the item your trading in, but on the item you end up buying.  So if you bought a playbar, you’d get 700*.30 = 210.  A Sonos One would be 200*.30 = 60.  I believe you can also use this on speaker sets.  So depending on what you are buying, what you could sell for, as well as ebay’s fees and shipping costs, the best choice financially is going to vary.  Personally, I don’t want the hassle of having to sell on ebay, so I’d even pick trade in even if it’s remotely close.

I think the other thing to consider is...if not Sonos, what else? Talking about getting selling off your Sonos as a solution doesn’t make sense unless your willing to just not have multiroom audio anymore, there needs to be something you move over to.  I don’t think there’s a perfect system  out there from what I’ve seen.  Denon, Bose, Bluesound, etc...all have their weaknesses and concerns about how long they will support their smart products.  I would think Amazon and Google are going to do better, but we still don’t know how long they will support their products and the sound quality is generally not as good.   Perhaps a more stable system would be have a more ‘dumb’ amp/speaker  system with Alexa or GA just for control, since dots and mini’s can be had for cheap.  Of course, that has it’s limitations as well.  Again, not a prefect system.

I have read this, left a few days, and re-read it.

Oddly I’d have been happier with obsolescence of players than I would with controllers. If I could just shunt in a new piece of hardware and have the right control I’d be happy. I think the last time I physically interacted with a piece of hardware was in 2013 when we moved house. Half of them I can’t even see.

Instead we are left with apps that some seem to like, but more seem to dislike, voice which some seem to like and some dislike, and a mish mash of controllers via varying bits of hardware (phones, laptops, desktops, that seems like managing quicksand.

You can buy hardware to configure as a dedicated controller but you are at the whim of both apple/sonos as to when that controller will be deprecated. So buying versions that aren’t the latest is a risk, and buying the latest versions is expensive, and a waste of a tablet on a simple control.

I’d certainly agree the competition don’t deliver a step-change in functionality so ripping out multiple zones looks challenging.

And Sonos have a battle on their hands maintaining functionality due to changes in sources (streaming from iPhone, BBC on TuneIn, etc). This will suck resource. 

The smaller systems 1-2 zones is probably where the volume is and the real benefit of Sonos is at its weakest. They are competing against £80 bluetooth speakers that sound good and connect directly to phones.

So what do I think the future holds:

• More services with sudden functionality loss as outside of Sonos control
• A more confusing landscape with different functionality between App, Computer Control, and control via third party service (Alexa, Spotify etc)
• Less differentiation between an £80 speaker and a £multi-thousand whole house audio system

Looking further down the line (10+years) and I see the home integration scrap eating Sonos’s lunch. Without a slick interface I am not sure they can fight the tide of Amazon, Echo, Apple. It will just be easier to have a wider integration.

We have Ring for doorbell, UniFi for WiFi, CCTV from Dahua, Dots from Amazon, music from Sonos, many of those provide cross functionality e.g. both Ring & UniFi could do CCTV. 

With Amazon owning Ring, and the higher quality Echo. I could see if purchasing from scratch today I may well be Ring for bell/CCTV and Echos for Music, or a similar play with Google hardware as it can cover WiFi. It will become easier to accept a much lower quality sound system because it builds on the integration eco-system.

It’s a much tougher path ahead for Sonos than the one they have travelled. So far they have ‘only’ had to defeat all comers in the whole house audio market. But the fight is becoming much bigger, this brings much bigger players.

I’m not sure Apple can play as its too Apple-centric. I see much more likely a scrap between Google/Amazon for domination of the home tech market.

One thing is sure, there is a lot of new products to come.

That makes sense to me.  Sounds like cost is less important to you as is the convenience of having a controller than you’re comfortable with and know how to use well, rather than having to consider a different means of control for whatever reason.

I can’t agree on the like/dislike of controllers.  The forum is naturally going to see more complaints that compliments just because people don’t often make the effort to say they like something.  The phone/tablet/PC/mac market is all over the place though and changing all the time, which creates havoc for customers.  I don’t think this is a Sonos only issue though,  but an app developer/smart home issue.

Yes.    I personally don’t see a ton of a value in a dedicated controller.  However, I’m the primary user, so my phone is always on me and ready to use, and we use voice controller rather liberally.   I can see where other household with different lifestyles would find greater use for a dedicated controller, and would have the issue you describe.

I think Sonos has done the best they can in this regarding, by making APIs public and free of charge.  For the most part any content not available on Sonos is due to decisions and issues on the streaming services side, not Sonos.  Doesn’t mean customers won’t blame Sonos and won’t have to spend time doing something about it.

The number of speakers per home sounds about right if I remember Sonos quarterly statements correctly.  However, many of these are soundbars or Amp/Port, which wouldn’t be comparable in any way with bluetooth.  They are also competing with echos and google assistance for those who want voice control smart speakers.  There  are those that are deciding between bluetooth options and Sonos, but I wouldn’t say this is exactly the demographic Sonos is targeting.  You are right though that Sonos is a stronger, better system the more products you own.  No doubt about that.

I don’t think there will be more.  As Sonos sells more speakers, services will have greater need to maintain service to Sonos.

Again, not seeing this. Less difference between a single speaker and a BT speaker perhaps, but not a whole house audio system.

I don’t know what scrap means in this context.  And Amazon/echo don’t really have an interface, unless you mean voice, where Sonos effectively has the same in terms of controlling music.  I don’t know Apple’s but do know it’s limited to Apple services.

Agreed on this.  An Amazon whole house system makes sense if you want ease of use, don’t care as much about sound quality, cheap, don’t care about integrating TV audio, other streaming services, or higher multiroom functions.  That actual fits quite a large group of people, evidenced by the massive sales.

Yes, it most certainly could be.  Sonos does have some patent advantages and such to keep them ahead in certain aspects and has remained relatively service agnostic.   I think Snips takes that even further if Sonos get their own voice assistant.  Perhaps surprising, the much bigger players have not tried to push much into higher market speakers with their systems.   Not sure if they just aren’t interested, want to maintain some semblance of partnerships with Sonos and other speaker makers or just don’t see a market for it.

Apple seems to be throwing in the towel on the smart speaker side of things and backing Amazon in a fight against Google.  At least for now.

Yes, most definitely.

It’s now possible to use Echo devices as Logitech Media Server speakers - the same Echos have voice control with a very extensive list of commands (95 intents versus the rather restricted set offered via Sonos).  The Shows also have metadata display.

The recent 50 euro offer on the Show 5 provides a rather neat speaker/display which integrates nicely into the LMS ecosystem.

Sonos hsve a way to go.   I don’t think a speaker lamp for over 150 euros is such a bargain in comparison.   

Squeezebox?  I don’t see how that has much impact on the competition that echo speakers offer to Sonos.  I’m not saying echos aren’t competition, they absolutely are. Just that LMS isn’t likely to move the needle that much.

I agree that for many ‘squeezebox’ is a lost cause, probably because its versatility at so many levels is so overlooked. 

Or because the brand doesn't actually exist anymore, because it ceased selling products many years ago?

Could be that also.   A massive fail by Logitech management which started with the ‘new’ so-called ‘smart’ UE radio.

Fortunately, the radio itself could easily be repurposed as the original Logitech radio and can still be found on e-bay at reasonable prices.

Meanwhile the players continue on in various guises based on the almost ubiquitous Raspberry Pi (many with the addition of various DACs).   Or, you can even use various Sonos devices …. !

Danny,

I’m going to say I agree with pretty much everything you put. And any minor quibbles are probably more nuances than a difference in opinion.

For instance I’m aware that the dislikes of app features are more heavily voiced than the likes or passives. My thoughts are we have had numerous changes of the apps over the years, a number that seemed to offer little benefit than a new GUI to learn. But the functionality differences between desktop apps and phone/tablet apps just seems there to confuse people. You know what you want to do, you know it does it, but you can’t find it. Then eventually realise it won’t do it in the desktop version, or on the controller, or its done differently in the app. Other than Dev cost there is rarely a reason why the Desktop can’t do all the things the App can (TruePlay, the EQ thing, being a rare exception). Simple and consistent is good.

Since we locked down to keep the CR100s I have zero internal support cases from wife/kids as they know how it all works, and it hasn’t changed. It’s primary function play music, is met. (This may change as daughter wants a music streaming service so may have to unlock yet). And it's still the best tech product I have had. 15-years+ and stuff still in use daily. We use the alarms a fair bit to set stuff running, so daily does mean daily.

I think the higher end sound quality is just too small for the big boys to go after 1st round but we have seen improvements in Amazon devices and they are starting to look at higher quality devices. That said I am not certain the Amp/ZonePlayer market may ever really feature i their line-up as the markets are just too small.

I wonder if we will see a much larger ‘whole house piped music market’ sub Sonos standard but good enough and a return to dedicated systems for the enthusiasts. Sonos crossed the line to enthusiasts enough that only the enthusiastic enthusiasts could be bothered not to have the integration. I am less fussed about music than movies, so Sonos Amp stuff is more than good enough for music. But the Playbar relegated to kids playroom and dedicated home cinema still rules the lounge. But in order of price magnitude it is probably 5 times the price of playbar/sub/play1 set-up. Music in the lounge is slightly cumbersome as you have to go and turn the amp on, and change the input, whereas a playbar would be slicker. But it just doesn’t do the SPL of big speakers & big subs.

And the home integration stuff is growing fast. OK we may be ahead of the curve but we have something like 150+ IP connected devices at home ran across 4 VLANs everything from windows, heating, doorbells, cameras, PV systems, the car, TVs etc. Your average joe is going to need an ecosystem to handle this for them. They can’t be expected to put in place VLANs, to manage security but just like home routers have added guest networks (effectively a VLAN) they will need a ‘things LAN’.

I suspect there are at some point going to be some expensive losers in this game both for consumers with redundant systems and for corporates who lose the battle for the ecosystem.

Dave,

FYI Napster still works fine on 8.4 and can be controlled with the CR100…..

Also I recently added Google play music. Whilst it appears as a source on the CR100, it throws an error when you try to access it. However it works fine through the Sonos app or desktop controller.

Cheers

I am clearly not as ‘techy’ as the other contributors on here and a lot of what has been said has gone over my head. However, I have picked up from a couple of threads that people are still using their CR100 controllers: is this the case because mine both became obsolete upon the installation of an update some time ago. Is there any way they can be ‘undone’ for want of a better explanation?

No, those users froze their system at the previous version, some going so far as to blacklist the Sonos update sites in their router’s firewall.  

The TLDR is: No.

The longer answer is only if you are running version 8.4 and locked yourself down so the controllers, players, and apps didn’t upgrade. Stopping the apps upgrading was the hardest as would require turning off the automatic app upgrades on iPhones (and not having a new phone either). But switching to Sonophone (an alternative Sonos app) and using CR100s avoided this. So we don’t have anything with a Sonos App. The upgrade path is blocked at the firewall, and everything remains on version 8.4.

Sonos have never allowed downgrading of versions on units so for completeness you can’t reverse.

The downside is we don’t have any new features since version 8.4 and in theory we could loose TuneIn or other streaming service if they instigate a change at the service end (TuneIn/Spotify etc). So far TuneIn and Amazon Prime Music is still operational.

One of the other posters may give you chapter and verse on the massive list of benefits that I have missed out from the latest updates. But I can upgrade if I want to.

Amazon did go into the Amp/zoneplayer market last year with the Echo Link and Echo Link Amp. Two products I thought were interesting, but have heard almost nothing about it since.  And Amazon came out with Echo Studio this year.  Feels like they are dropping their toes in the water a bit but not quite sure where they want to go here.    I don’t think they can really be serious about high end sound though until they have a soundbar or something resembling a home theatre setup.  But I imagine that will make several partners unhappy, and right now, Amazon has no way of playing non-streaming sources on their speakers  in multiroom audio.

I get what you’re saying regarding the smaller market, but there seem to be several companies that are doing just fine living in the space.  And Amazon/Google are less interested in making profits from product sales as they are in controlling the ecosystems.  It might be because they don’t need to be in higher end audio to control the ecosystems.

Not really disagreeing with your points, just adding to the conversation.

I tend to think the open concept architecture of modern homes doesn’t lend itself as well to the dedicated systems.    And of course, ease of use is going to continue to be a driving factor for sometime now.  I think we will see (I hope anyway) the gap between ease of use and high performing since diminish in time, but there isn’t the market for it right now, as you pointed out earlier.  There’s a reason why Sonos came out with the Beam and not a massive new home theatre setup.

I’m not sure if people really get the value of whole home audio systems yet.  Some do for sure, but most don’t think about buying a system as much as buying speakers for a room.    In a lot of ways, voice assistance are giving people a taste of what you can do  after buying a couple echos/mini’s.  Then they’ll upgrade from there. 

The smart market is crazy right now.  So many players with tech changing so fast, all trying to integrate in a non-confusing way.  So much of it stuff that sounds useful on the surface, but not so much when in practice, or the tech isn’t good enough to really be useful yet.  

Yes, definitely agree on both points.  

Aah, that would imply they knew what they were doing; guess I am even less tech savvy than I thought. To be candid, the reason I feel quite bitter about the relatively rapid obsolescence of my equipment is because I simply bought into a fabulous system and experience at not insignificant cost, and am finding that it is all slowly be taken from me due to constant updates that I have no control over. People have commented on the CR100’s but no one seems bothered that my early iPad has already become useless and my desktop is soon destined to become useless for controlling Sonos.

How do all the people on here control their systems? Say for example a forgotten alarm setting starts playing music at 3.00am in the morning in your bedroom; how do you turn it off? I used to lean over and hit the CR 100 controller; now I have to have an iPad in the bedroom, pinging emails all night! I have to open it, load the Sonos app and then switch off the music; it is totally unacceptable. I even tried purchasing a Sonos one with Alexa but that was more than useless and Sonos admitted that it was unable to link zones or do very much at all that it was also returned for reimbursement. 

Cheers John,

In the Spotify free app I could see my Sonos controllers under the devices tab but marked as premium only, and the SkyQ boxes as available. I have started a trial on Spotify Premium prior to committing to the full family plan, and giving Spotify for Christmas (Alice if you are reading sorry for ruining the surprise). And can set things to play on Sonos in the Spotify App, listening now. Now I certainly had the two connected when it first came out but personally wasn’t bothered at the time so no idea if I could link a new account without a Sonos App.

I can’t search music on Spotify via Sonophone/CR100 and looking under Services it just says Spotify 4. But once a playlist is running I can pause/play/skip on both Sonophone/CR100.

Or use the Spotify app to control all including the volume. Grouping zones seems to want to call the Sonos App. But can link in SonoPhone and then play via Spotify. Can also play from App on Mac (and if it did Radio would be a fix all solution).

Spotify would be cool for us as the car includes Spotify, and whilst it does have a premium account belonging to Tesla you can use your own and have all the playlists carried over. And if paying for one then might as well as pay for family and have 6 connections (younger sister etc)

So looks like for the time being I can retain the status quo and deliver banging Christmas presents (and surely I can gift Spotify every Christmas going forward).

Hope all good with you, and CR100s are still holding up. 

Dave