The Sonos Brexit and pragmatic ways past it

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
January 23, 2020
570 replies
22878 views

I will start this thread with a few caveats:

First, this thread is not for rants. There are plenty here for those, and there is no bar on opening new ones.

Second, the thread is directed for the subset of users that have a large investment in legacy products, and are content to see their Sonos systems as music systems that offer stable streamed music from either a NAS or from the net, and have no expectation of more bells and whistles - just that things continue to work as they are working today. I happen to be in this boat as well, as someone that has three out of six zones running very well on legacy products that I simply cannot afford to jettison until the hardware dies.

Third, this thread is based on facts, some of which have been coming to light only over the last 48 or so hours. It is therefore incomplete to an extent, and may even be wrong in places. Feel free therefore to clarify/correct/add as necessary - and I specifically invite @Ryan S to do so. But, no rants please - they have a place, but this is not it.

All that said, this is the solution I intend to proceed with and recommend here:

Opt for a legacy system operation in May, that will run legacy and modern products, exactly as these run today; no faffing around with two networks. No more enhancements, but expecting Sonos to honestly fulfil their recent promise of all bug fixes that the legacy products can accommodate. Ditto for what needs to be done to accommodate changes driven by at least the mainstream service providers.

By a happy coincidence, all legacy products have line in jacks. So if something even happens at the streaming service end that cannot be accommodated in legacy products, I am confident of finding some device that can be wired to the line in jacks of these, that will still allow streaming from the culprit service to work including in grouped mode with all other products in the system.

The streaming from the local NAS will not have any issues in this mode, other than hardware failures including that of the NAS, and a key assumption here is that NAS changes will not need a Sonos software update.

Although Sonos has said that new products can be added to such a system, I do not see how this is possible once new products come installed with versions that are beyond the frozen legacy system one. Unless Sonos is not going to sell any new products in future with versions beyond the 2020 legacy one - I doubt that. And once a product comes with the latest version, adding it to a legacy system without rendering legacy products inoperable is going to be tricky because it will involve first separating the one system into two; I also admit to being a little fuzzy with this bit. In my case, this is all moot; I have no need for another zone. As an aside, I am someone therefore that is not of much interest to Sonos!

I also assume that if anyone at any time in the future wanted to jettison legacy products for any reason, all they will need to do is leave all such products powered off, invoke updates and the result will be a Sonos system updated to the day they do the invocation. The concern here for me is different - I need to have an ironclad way of NOT updating my system before I am ready to separate or jettison legacy products, and this needs more insights into how things will work on this front in future.

I am pretty sure that this way ahead will work in my use case and I suggest it will also work for many that are heavily invested in Sonos legacy products, that do not want to write it off or to trade up to new products just to retain all existing functionality.

Yes, it involves losing future enhancements/features, but once we accept that these essentially are music boxes that will keep doing all they do today, that should be an acceptable trade off, I suggest. It is to me, for sure.

So this way, this event will be just a minor inconvenience, and I expect to be able to use all my existing products till the hardware fails.

What this event has convince me though is to now look at/recommend smart systems that are truly modular in the sense that the smart bits can be periodically replaced at low cost, while the core “dumb” electronic hardware can be of such build/after sales support, that it justifies the higher investment in the consequent price, if better sound quality is also needed than what the smart front ends can alone provide. But that's for the future.

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C

coupster

I am enjoying the conversation, but another stupid question has been raised in my paranoid noggin.

It has been said here (or least inferred) that if you add a used (maybe new too) unit to an older installation (in my case 7.4), SONOS will install that firmware version to it to provide compatibility and the ability to join the existing installation. Does anyone have direct personal experience with that actually happening? I vaguely (very) recall the last time I added a SONOS refurbished unit to my system, the entire installation was upgraded to the latest version (at the time, which is how I ended up at 7.4) I’ve got an old Play 5 that I’d like to take out of storage but I can’t chance screwing up the existing installation and I haven’t figured out a way to sandbox the process without exposing a unit needed by the existing installation.

They are out to get us, you know.

K

KumarAuthor

@John76 https://www.facebook.com/Phonos.application/photos/a.915560425121335/2764433836900642/?type=3&theater

I cannot vouch for its correctness, but it sounds ok and ties in what I have heard Sonos staff say.

@coupster As far as I recall, if you add something new, everything will be brought to the latest version.

I suggest waiting for the legacy app and associated workflows to be released by Sonos before any attempts. Even then...no, I still see issues. Get into a PM conversation with @Ryan S at the appropriate time and then do this based on his advice. And then pray.

C

coupster

Thanks Kumar. That’s what I thought and with the amount of misinformation and ‘company-line’ assumptions coming out of this debacle, I’m going to just sit back with my popcorn and watch like I’ve been doing - at times it better than the nightly news.

K

KumarAuthor

Here's the detail.

https://audioengineusa.com/shop/adapters/b1-bluetooth-music-receiver/

Review here..

https://www.kenrockwell.com/audio/audioengine/b1.htm

The review is from 2014, and has been obsoleted by Echo. For a lot less money, get a Echo Dot or Input, and wire it to your line in jacks. In addition to voice, Echo devices can also receive bluetooth music streams from paired devices. You can even leave the mic permanently off and use it this way. I have used mine to convert my desktop Sonos to a computer speaker, connected to my Mac via bluetooth. Via Sonos line in jacks.

K

KumarAuthor

at times it better than the nightly news.

If you ask me, it’s a full blown soap opera with twists and turns.

Ken_Griffiths

I see the Play:3 has double the memory of the devices earmarked to move into legacy mode.. it ended production July 2018. So by all accounts that Speaker should keep going as s 'modern device' at least until 2023 and then probably some years after that in legacy mode… I think that seems reasonable. Better still if you perhaps first purchased that speaker in July 2011 when it was first released.

M

Meezer

Lyricist III

I don’t know the CR200, never had it. But before responding to anything else, I have to stop you at the quoted, because this is something that goes completely against what I know about Sonos. I will have to ask someone else to step in to confirm what you say because according to me, this is impossible, for two versions to coexist.

If you look in the CR200 threads, you will find they still function correctly with old 7.4 version software. I’m sure you can find corroboration from other users. In our house we use either the CR200 or the latest Sonos app depending on what phone, tablet or controller is closest.

When an auto update occurs, the CR200 is left alone at version 7.4 and all other components are automatically updated to the latest and greatest. I have been using auto-update since introduction of the feature. Everything works. I am not a techie, I just know it works.

And if they do, explain to me how they do and why this is different from what Sonos now says isn't possible.

I can’t explain to you how it works but I, like you, don’t understand why this is any different and assume there is a combination of engineering and marketing issues involved. Just a guess on my part. My personal opinion is that the marketing group at Sonos have simply done a terrible job of rolling this out to the public and much of the angst involved could have been avoided.

C

coupster

at times it better than the nightly news.

If you ask me, it’s a full blown soap opera with twists and turns.

Come on over to the good ole USA. Politics is our ever tangling soap opera. Although ratings have said that more of us are watching the day time soaps than the wailings and knashings of Washington.

K

KumarAuthor

@Meezer - my request to be explained how this works was not directed at you, if you see what I wrote.

I have alway believed, and in the last few days have had it dinned in to my head that on one system, all Sonos products need to be of the same version. There are people that have held back their entire systems to the older versions necessary for the CR 100 to keep working. So this 200 thing is an anomaly.

Does this mean there is a similar way to get all legacy products to stay on the legacy version, while modern ones keep moving ahead, while on one system? Because if there is, it goes head on against what Sonos and user experts here have said is impossible. In very strong terms.

Perhaps the 200 can do it because it is a controller. But then why can’t the 100?

All mystifying is all I can say. But I don't agree with your limiting this debacle to marketing’s doorstep. I hold Spence responsible, along with product management and marketing. This was always too important a subject to be left for just marketing to manage; Sonos has known it was coming a few years ago, so that makes this mismanagement of it to be just as much a mystery.

K

KumarAuthor

I see the Play:3 has double the memory of the devices earmarked to move into legacy mode.. it ended production July 2018. So by all accounts that Speaker should keep going as s 'modern device' at least until 2023 and then probably some years after that in legacy mode… I think that seems reasonable. Better still if you perhaps first purchased that speaker in July 2011 when it was first released.

I seriously doubt that. Agreed it has double that of the present legacied lot, but this is still nothing compared to 1024 of the latest products. Sonos developers have to have been champing at the bit to use much more than just 64 from that, and I can't see them being restricted to 64 for long now; not with Sonos threatened on so many competitive fronts that unless there are ground breaking innovations very soon, this crisis will be replaced by another one.

But all this is moot if the management of the transition of the present legacy products succeeds and their line in jacks are retained in the system as back ups. Even if the play 3 is then culled in late 2020, why would that be a big deal?

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