My ONE YEAR OLD can play his favourite music by just pushing the button over and over again. My 7 year old will now PESTER ME CONSTANTLY to use my phone whenever he wants to listen to Harry Potter (which is ALL THE TIME)
My parents in law - NEITHER OF WHOM OWN SMARTPHONES will now have to go downstairs and switch on their PC in order to listen to the audiobooks and radio programmes I've given them. They don't use all these 'services', but Sonos is amazing so we built it for them, at great cost for the convenience of having the controller.
My wife won't be able to roll over in bed and hit the volume without blinding us all with your WHITE app in the middle of the night (swipe tap tap tap vs reach and push a button?????)
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DON'T DO THIS SONOS!!!!!
My Children and in-laws are going to HATE me for this.
DO NOT criticise our choices not to use smartphones, or Alexa, or Spotify. Why should we buy new things to make your system work?
PLEASE don't take away the ability to connect we are happy with basic controls?
What am I going to do now? Tell me WHAT?
Best answer by Ryan S
I want to provide more detail about exactly what will happen in the coming months and why. In early April, we will release a software upgrade that will no longer support the aging CR100. Here are your options:
- Accept the upgrade, understanding that your CR100 will no longer connect. This is our strong recommendation for two reasons: 1) due the age of the battery in the controller, it has the potential to overheat when left charging for extended periods of time 2) you will continue to receive the latest features, bug fixes, and security updates. This is a far better solution for safety and performance reasons, but we realize you’ll need to transition to a new controller. We have resources available to help you get set-up on an alternate controller and are offering a coupon code to sonos.com to help make the transition easier (amount varies regionally, one per household).
- Ignore future upgrades, leaving your Sonos system on its current version. We do not recommend this option. If you do go this route, you are acknowledging the risk of the aging lithium ion battery in your controller. Additionally, opting not to update means you will not receive any new features or future security patches for your entire system – not just the CR100. For example, being on an unsupported version means that you might lose connectivity to music services, as is already the case for Google Play Music on the CR100. It is necessary to configure your system in advance to avoid future updates. Any update applied to the firmware and/or to the app, even unintentionally, is irreversible.
Please reach out to discuss your specific situation and solutions with one of our team members, or if you’d like to better understand how to get set-up on an alternate controller. You can contact us directly at https://sonos.com/contact.
The CR100 can be disposed of at any local e-waste processing center in accordance with all local laws and regulations. To claim your coupon code or if you’d like a hand disposing of your CR100, please see here: https://www.sonos.com/cr100submit.
Updated March 23rd:
We appreciate the concern and your love of the CR100, and the team has been listening to your feedback here. We’ve tried to keep our reasons for making this decision clear.
The CR100 is a unique Sonos product as it has an internal lithium ion battery, which was never intended or recommended to be replaceable. Additionally, the hardware of the CR100 has aged. As you know, it already can’t keep up with new features. For these reasons, the best course of action for CR100s is to safely dispose of them.
We strive to keep products working with core functionality for as long as possible and we’ve worked to keep the hardware running for almost a decade since it was last available for sale. We have no plans to disconnect any of our legacy players, although in the future they may not get some new features that become available on newer Sonos products.
We always encourage Sonos owners to stay up-to-date with software upgrades, but ultimately this choice is yours. If you do choose to take steps to ignore future software upgrades, skipping the update in April that will disconnect the CR100 from your system, you will no longer be able to add speakers, and you will not receive new features or security patches. Additionally, opting not to update means you are acknowledging the risk of the aging lithium ion battery in your controller. Whichever you choose, we’re here to help and answer questions.