The Sonos Brexit and pragmatic ways past it

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
January 23, 2020
570 replies
22877 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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M

Muddybum

Contributor I

I have a question that I cannot see answered, or if it has been, I’ve missed it (entirely possible).

Some time ago on my “legacy” system I lost the ability to stream from my iPhone directly to my system. I the future legacy landscape that is promised, if I add in a new product in ‘legacy’ mode, will I be able to stream with Airplay to the grouped speakers or not?

Great thread by the way, best I’ve seen yet. :)

Cheers

Simon

jgatie

I have a question that I cannot see answered, or if it has been, I’ve missed it (entirely possible).

Some time ago on my “legacy” system I lost the ability to stream from my iPhone directly to my system. I the future legacy landscape that is promised, if I add in a new product in ‘legacy’ mode, will I be able to stream with Airplay to the grouped speakers or not?

Great thread by the way, best I’ve seen yet. :)

Cheers

Simon

Since you can do this now, and the current functionality is what will become “legacy” in the future, I can’t see why not.

M

Muddybum

Contributor I

Agh cool, I din’t know for sure that popping a more modern device in amongst my system would allow Airplay or not. Presuming the speakers all need to be grouped for this to work?

Cheers

Simon

Airgetlam

Yes, to that device. To get the AirPlay 2 stream to play on other devices, you would indeed ‘group’ them.

I do this rather frequently ;)

Bruce

pwt

Virtuoso

I will freeze my Sonos installations in May, to permit my complete Sonos systems to continue to operate as one, per one of the key original selling points of the Sonos system (‘whole house music’). I’ll keep these systems running, even if I eventually have to use AirPlay and/or Line-In for everything, as streaming services become incompatible with the Sonos firmware.

I will make no further Sonos purchases. Whole house audio systems are not a throwaway purchase.

A minor point, but I don’t want to have to switch off iOS automatic updates for all of the 100+ apps on my iOS devices, just to prevent the Sonos app from updating. Sonos needs to provide a legacy iOS app, separate to the one which is acquiring new features.

Frankly, though, if Sonos is losing customers like me, they’re in really deep trouble.

4 x P:5 | Sub | 4 x P:1 | 3 x Connect | 2 x Boost | Connect:Amp | 2 x One | Amp | Move | Port | Era 300

N

NeedSleep

Renowned Enthusiast I

I have a question that I cannot see answered, or if it has been, I’ve missed it (entirely possible).

Some time ago on my “legacy” system I lost the ability to stream from my iPhone directly to my system. I the future legacy landscape that is promised, if I add in a new product in ‘legacy’ mode, will I be able to stream with Airplay to the grouped speakers or not?

Great thread by the way, best I’ve seen yet. :)

Cheers

Simon

Hey Simon, consider that in the future Apple could roll out an Airplay 2 update to your Apple devices that could impact your ability to use them with your airplay2 compatible Sonos devices in legacy mode.

S

Snikom

Lyricist III

My current plan is to run as legacy for as long as possible and then use the line to one of my play 5’s for any music over the internet when services start to fail.

I haven't tried but I am assuming/hoping I can just group the line in player with other units and play as I would normally.

Options are either amazon or google, as I have an echo dot in a hallway I will probably stick that in a play 5 for now and see what I think to quality.

I do have some concerns given the cynicism of the current sonos position. For instance will you be able to add to a legacy system or if your everything falls over altogether will you be able to create a legacy system from scratch.

L

Loose Moose

Lyricist II

Thanks for the helpful post. I have 8 Connect:Amps for whole house audio. Does anyone know (@Ryan S) if Sonos has or will commit to maintaining basic functionality as long as the hardware is operational? More specifically, the ability to connect a cheap audio streamer to the line input, and play that input *with the ability to group zones*. (I’ve only used line input on a single zone so I don’t even know if grouping is a current function using the line input as audio source)

Sonos would not have to ensure that 3rd parties software is compatible. All they have to do is make sure is future versions of the Sonos interfaces (iPhone, Android) still communicate with the device and maintain this functionality. I don’t want an app update on my iPhone bricking the Connect:Amps.

Furthermore, if the hardware dies, the ability to replace with a modern sonos AMP and maintain the above functionality (would a new device require a firmware downgrade?) I don’t need bells and whistles or voice etc, I just need to be able to internet stream to multiple zones. I could maybe handle swapping out my connect:amps with the newer amps if the hardware dies slowly one by one over the course of 5-10 years. But the financial and environmental cost of doing that all at once not an option, especially if the hardware is perfectly functional.

jgatie

Thanks for the helpful post. I have 8 Connect:Amps for whole house audio. Does anyone know (@Ryan S) if Sonos has or will commit to maintaining basic functionality as long as the hardware is operational? More specifically, the ability to connect a cheap audio streamer to the line input, and play that input *with the ability to group zones*. (I’ve only used line input on a single zone so I don’t even know if grouping is a current function using the line input as audio source)

Sonos would not have to ensure that 3rd parties software is compatible. All they have to do is make sure is future versions of the Sonos interfaces (iPhone, Android) still communicate with the device and maintain this functionality. I don’t want an app update on my iPhone bricking the Connect:Amps.

Furthermore, if the hardware dies, the ability to replace with a modern sonos AMP and maintain the above functionality (would a new device require a firmware downgrade?) I don’t need bells and whistles or voice etc, I just need to be able to internet stream to multiple zones. I could maybe handle swapping out my connect:amps with the newer amps if the hardware dies slowly one by one over the course of 5-10 years. But the financial and environmental cost of doing that all at once not an option, especially if the hardware is perfectly functional.

If you stay on legacy software, are not using outside music sources, and only streaming from your local library or a Line-in, your system should work just as it does today until the hardware fails.

chickentender

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.

…..

Great thread, Kumar. Needed.

You and I and many are in this same boat and your thoughts and conclusions mirror my own over the past 2 days. I intend to leave my “legacy” system in place as well. I’ve been looking into a number of options that will feed the line-in of a now-legacy Connect to provide future operability, albeit a bit kludgy with two apps being required for many operations, but c'est la vie. I’ve been examining most closely the Bluesound NODE 2i and the Ayrlic S50 Pro as options for such a streaming service gateway, which would as well provide other modern tech enhancements and connection options, most of which are strangely absent from the new Port (which is out of the question anyhow since this device will need to be autonomous and silo’d away my legacy Sonosnet). I’ve also been considering moving to the Tidal service for streaming (though a part of me abhors that idea) only because it’s natively supported within PLEX which I use extensively.

There is a path forward, not an ideal one, but a liveable one.

We do have options.

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