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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MikeOinToronto

Lyricist III

To me it is useful only as a reinforcement to an assurance that even if Sonos were to go belly up, line in equipped Sonos hardware would keep going on. Supplied by devices like echo that would also do things like grouping multiple units. Trade up isn't available in India and I do not expect it ever will be and I don't have any strong feelings about that - if any, these are of being happy it will never come, we have enough issues with trash management.

Amazon would cut the cord in that case, just as any other service currently available on Sonos would.

Except the line in on the sonos would be agnostic to any service. It would just play what was coming out of the line out of the echo/google home/cd player etc. (an electrical signal of a specific voltage?)That is, of course, as long as the sonos could boot up and use it's line input.

M

MikeOinToronto

Lyricist III

I think more and more I am heading in the direction of replacing my sonos/amazon echo environment with an Amazon echo only environment with dumb amp and speakers and cheap echo dots as the "smarts".

I currently only have 3 modern sonos products which I could still sell for a reasonable return. I already have 5 echo dots which I paid a total of less than 200 dollars for so if Amazon pulls a similar move, I am not worried about the expense and I can just replace again with another competitor.

I can remove the sonos connect from my vintage audio system and connect an echo dot line out to my receiver.

The one area I have to figure out is in the living room. I have a pair of play ones on either side of the tv which I just use for music. They sound pretty good and I love the compact size. I don't want large speakers there. I am thinking if I could find an absolutely dumb sound bar with similar sound qualities to a pair of play ones I will likely make the move. I want dumb as in no WiFi connection, no web site and no accounts required. Amp and speakers in the simple form of a sound bar that can sit under my tv. Would connect to an echo dot via line in and added bonus of an HDMI input for the tv. No idea yet what product that will be.

The echo environment doesn't play locally stored music but I am getting more ok with that as well. Just as Netflix has replaced my DVD viewing, streaming has replaced my local albums on my nas.

I am becoming more and more ok with all of this. I no longer see a reason to pay premium prices for Sonos. Just got to find a dumb sound bar with good enough sound quality for music listening.

K

KumarAuthor

@Smilja you don't get it; Amazon would not even know what their echo device is wired to.

@MikeOinToronto all presently available information and logic says it would boot up.

Smilja

Except the line in on the sonos would be agnostic to any service. It would just play what was coming out of the line out of the echo/google home/cd player etc. (an electrical signal of a specific voltage?)That is, of course, as long as the sonos could boot up and use it's line input.

When the actual loudspeaker is no longer working, how would you hear/receive Alexa’s voice output? Remember, Sonos players in Recycle Mode are no longer able to establish a connection to the Sonos system; re-directing the output via the Autoplay feature to another unit will be impossible.

»And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space, Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.« (›Windmills Of Your Mind‹ [1967]. Music by Michel Legrand ; English lyrics written by Alan & Marilyn Bergman)

C

castalla

Local Superstar

The echo environment doesn't play locally stored music but I am getting more ok with that as well. Just as Netflix has replaced my DVD viewing, streaming has replaced my local albums on my nas.

It does if you install the MyMediaforAlexa skill ...

It's the courageous bee's knees - all 6 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝. - - - - - Make Sonos Great Again - - - - -

J

johngolfuk

Enthusiast II

I’m gonna stick my 2 penneth in here, and I will state these are all suppositions on my part.

I also apologise if this has been covered before as I have not fully read this thread but…...

Let’s take the Play 5 for example - in modular form it’s some woofers and tweeters, an amp, and a CPU and Ethernet / WIFI board.

In ‘normal use’, to use the line in, the CPU detects a signal and then the user has an option in the Sonos controller to select that input.

I would guess that any Play 5 by default (whatever state its in) will not play anything from that line in source unless it is part of a Sonos system.

I think the trade up program stinks - yes, there’s lots of talk of recycling responsibly but who knows what happens once the ‘defunct’ Play 5 is dropped at the local recycling centre. Or, who knows whether some users can’t be bothered and chuck their old Play 5s in to the bin for landfill / incineration?

To me, the elegant way out of this for Sonos is if that Play 5 is put in to recycle mode, simply send a code change that allows it to act as an active speaker for users to connect a phone / cd player / Echo or whatever via line in and keep using it or pass it on to people who can use it - but it will no longer be part of the Sonos system.

Smilja

@johngolfuk, come May, ‘legacy devices’ will no longer receive firmware updates apart from bug fixes/security updates, but they will continue to work as they do today. The trade-up offer is optional.

»And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space, Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.« (›Windmills Of Your Mind‹ [1967]. Music by Michel Legrand ; English lyrics written by Alan & Marilyn Bergman)

K

KumarAuthor

Except the line in on the sonos would be agnostic to any service. It would just play what was coming out of the line out of the echo/google home/cd player etc. (an electrical signal of a specific voltage?)That is, of course, as long as the sonos could boot up and use it's line input.

When the actual loudspeaker is no longer working, how would you hear/receive Alexa’s voice output? Remember, Sonos players in Recycle Mode are no longer able to establish a connection to the Sonos system; re-directing the output via the Autoplay feature to another unit will be impossible.

To clarify for anyone else reading the quoted:

We are not talking about players in recycle mode. We are talking about Connect Amps that have stopped receiving any support from Sonos - no bug fixes, and even if Sonos goes belly up and its servers go offline. Even then, where a Connect Amp has been configured to be a dumb speaker with a Echo Dot as its brain and music source, it will continue to work if it has been set to Autoplay Line In before any calamity, till the hardware dies.

And if two such Connect Amps/Connects/5 units have been set up, wiring a Echo to each will allow all to play music in perfect sync by using the Alexa app to set up the Echo devices as multi room groups. That bit, I have tested and found that it works as well as Sonos multi room music play, with some features that are lacking but some that Sonos lacks. But the basic function works as well as it does via Sonos controllers.

My probing towards testing the Line In on recycled players was to get an assurance that what I have written above is possible. I have now received that assurance. For me personally, using recycled players even as paper weights isn't possible, I have no access to such units in India.

K

KumarAuthor

In ‘normal use’, to use the line in, the CPU detects a signal and then the user has an option in the Sonos controller to select that input.

I would guess that any Play 5 by default (whatever state its in) will not play anything from that line in source unless it is part of a Sonos system.

I think the trade up program stinks - yes, there’s lots of talk of recycling responsibly but who knows what happens once the ‘defunct’ Play 5 is dropped at the local recycling centre. Or, who knows whether some users can’t be bothered and chuck their old Play 5s in to the bin for landfill / incineration?

To me, the elegant way out of this for Sonos is if that Play 5 is put in to recycle mode, simply send a code change that allows it to act as an active speaker for users to connect a phone / cd player / Echo or whatever via line in and keep using it or pass it on to people who can use it - but it will no longer be part of the Sonos system.

@johngolfuk - Caveat: I am as tight as any Yorkshireman.

To your first, the controller can be used to set the Line In on any unit to Autoplay. Once that is done, the music play is automatic as soon as the Line In senses a signal. Even if all other units in the system are missing, Sonos net is off, and WiFi is off. All that is needed is mains power to the Sonos unit and the signal at the Line In jacks.

I agree 100 % with your remaining points.

I will only expand your last paragraph. What you have suggested is part of my suggestion to Spence in an email to him a week ago. The other part of the suggestion was to keep the 30% discount, but discard the “send to recycle after bricking” stunt - I see that as hot air and sales promotion hidden under a feigned care for the planet. So I told him: dump that bit going forward.

Obviously, that will rile people that fell for the promotion and got their units to die prematurely - it is the human thing around something that satisfied you in the past leaving you feeling like you were robbed because others are now getting a better deal. In the larger picture of what a revision in the scheme will do for rehabilitating the lost Sonos reputation and more importantly, for the environment, the gripes of these folk are trivial. The problem for them with your last elegant bit is - the units are no longer with them!

K

KumarAuthor

Thought for the day - a thread title elsewhere in the community, copied verbatim, thanks to @Komobo , the thread starter.

Obsolescence doesn't have to mean obsolete.

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