Downgrade to S1

Hi @chambolle, I think you’ve got the right mindset wrt an S1 downgrade. Beyond the importance of your playlists, you might discover that S1 is missing feature(s) you like.

Should you decide to take the S1 plunge, I’d suggest you downgrade a SINGLE speaker to S1 and live with that for a week or three ... then you can make an informed decision on the rest of your gear. And running S1 and S2 in parallel MIGHT open up a palatable avenue for migrating your playlists.

Yes and yes, almost like the software isn’t very reliable or something. 

I think it's important to understand that the S1 controller is alive today because at the first introduction of the S2 controller (now designated as the Sonos App since the May, 2024 refresh) the products below were still in use. Excepting the CR200 and some of the ZonePlayers. 

If you also had Sonos Products in the following list that were S1/S2 compatible the only way to avoid setting up a Split System was to downgrade those products to S1. However, doing so prevented those S1/S2 products from ever receiving any new updates/features that were specifically designed for S2 capable products. So essentially your system would be relegated to S1 specifications. 

The alternative for Sonos would have been to “kill” the S1 controller thus leaving those S1 products behind and possibly unsupported. That is the route most companies take when moving onto more advanced technology not supported by previous models.

Sonos, thankfully decided to continue support and allow users with a mix of S1 only products and S1/S2 products to continue to enjoy their Sonos. The only caveat being as previously mentioned is that all products would have to run on S1 to avoid setting up a split system.

I don’t have a crystal ball but logic would dictate that at some point Sonos will have to move away from the S1 controller/products. Here are a few reasons (IMO):

• Normal product attrition due to user moth-balling and/or operational ineffectiveness
• Relocation of financial resources for R&D
• Rethinking of the ROI for personnel to support S1

Those (my friends) are some of the hard choices tech companies; and businesses in general, make on a regular basis. To be clear I’m not naive enough to think that I’m immune to product/OS changes brought by Sonos. I just hope they're a loooong way off. 😊

@AjTrek1 : Understood. Planned obsolescence has been a thing with consumer products for a long, long time, from cars to washing machines to ‘smartphones.’ But I held on to my iphone 5 for about a decade before neither Apple nor my cellphone service would support it; and frankly it was still meeting my needs when I was compelled to replace it. Which ATT did, with a new iphone, gratis, to keep me in the fold and paying those monthly bills for 5G service I could never have used with my old 3G phone.

Sonos has handled ‘legacy products’ and system changes commendably for years. But that’s why it was all the more unexpected, disappointing and frustrating to wake up one day in May and find everything had been tossed into a blender with no explanation from Sonos… other than a number of prior press releases singing the praises of its soon-to-be-released, ‘easier to use’ app. 

Brings to mind that line from ‘Cool Hand Luke’ — ‘what we have here is a failure to communicate.’ And poor crisis management. 

@chambolle 

My response wasn’t focused on planned obsolescence; but more toward getting people to understand the consequences of downgrading to S1. In hindsight I probably should not have mentioned anything about what may happen in the future regarding S1 products.

I can see now what I fear most is that this post (since you honest comment ) has a potential to be taken in another direction. There are plenty of posts already complaining about the failed communication of Sonos upon launching the app refresh in May. We really don’t need another one.

I didn’t intend to ‘take your post in another direction,’ other than to observe that Sonos really has been extremely conservative in making model changes and uncommonly generous in its support of ‘legacy products’ in the context of the 21st century ‘consumer tech’ industry.

I vow to be more circumspect in the future.

I have downgraded my Play:1 from S2 to S1 to get it to work again. The new app is absolutely horrible with disconnects and lags. S2 in my Play:1 also was failing to stream properly, giving me ads every 5 minutes on TuneIn and even more often 10-15 seconds pauses with no sound at all. 

With S1, everything works again, although I had to use 1-2 hours to get WiFi going again.

And yes, I lost playlists and history, and I hate that, and because of that, I hate Sonos. I am not sure I want to buy more Sonos products. The reliability and trust is gone.

On android, app version released on 2024-08-02, cannot downgrade. My Play3 is recognised in the downgrade tool, but downgrading says that my mobile device couldn’t be connected to the product Play:3 and I should confirm it’s powered on. Yes it is, the app just found it like five seconds before.

Shooting in the dark here but maybe try hooking an Ethernet to your Play and the main router’s ports.

Are you seriously posting that?  My $5,000 worth of sonos stuff turned into bricks and the roll back means I get to MANUALLY RESET ALL OF IT TO FACTORY AND THEN MANUALLY START IT ALL OVER. I’m supposed to post something positive to THAT solution????  Is this the CEO?  Because that is the kind of stupid crap I keep getting from him in email. 
 

at least the app works to deliver his idiotic updates.