Contributor I

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How to determine the end-of-life (EOL) for each Sonos product?

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
January 22, 2020
58 replies
31304 views

Now that Sonos have announced that their products have an end-of-life (EOL), sometimes in as little as 5 years from purchase, can they please clarify their expected EOL projections for all products? Classifying them as “modern” or “legacy” does not help and is far too simplistic. Products can move status overnight without warning.

It would be useful to know that a Sonos product bought today for several hundred pounds is expected to be viable for, say, 5yrs. If Sonos wishes to be a software company, they will need to embrace a more mature approach to this issue, and offer an SLA within each product sale to set customer expectations.

For example, the Windows 10 support life-cycle has a five-year mainstream support phase that began on July 29, 2015, and a second five-year extended support phase that begins in 2020 and extends until October 2025. Microsoft manages this level of expectation management and costs a fraction of the cost of a home speaker system.

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Best answer by Ken_Griffiths

He also clarifies things here…

https://en.community.sonos.com/announcements-228985/introducing-sonos-move-brilliant-sound-anywhere-6829500/index9.html#post16395469

As I read it, Sonos look to provide customer support/updates for their products for 5 years or so after they actually stop manufacturing them and even then they will just step back to what we can perhaps now call 'legacy unsupported' mode and remain in that mode until they give up their ghost. Whilst in legacy mode the devices will simply not receive any further software updates.

As a customer myself with a large number of their (old/new) products, that all sounds very fair to me, but it’s each to their own I guess.

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DK_Madsen

Enthusiast II

The play 1 was discontinued in 2017,

I assumed that when they brought out the Play one, they stopped making the play 1.

I agree that the Play 1 is still for sale, but i have also found atleast 1 dealer in my country that has a Play 5 gen 1 for sale “new” right now.

N

NeedSleep

Renowned Enthusiast I

The play 1 was discontinued in 2017,

I assumed that when they brought out the Play one, they stopped making the play 1.

I agree that the Play 1 is still for sale, but i have also found atleast 1 dealer in my country that has a Play 5 gen 1 for sale “new” right now.

The Play1 had a silent hardware refresh in 2017. These are still widely sold.The newer hardware is version 1.20.x, you can check in your about my system page in the app.

This hardware refresh is the same as what is in the Ikea speakers (Ikea got airplay 2 but these play 1 owners didn't unfortunately). I would guess the pre 1.20 play1 will be legacy when they push the Play3 too (64 mb Ram iirc)

More information here:

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DK_Madsen

Enthusiast II

The play 1 was discontinued in 2017,

I assumed that when they brought out the Play one, they stopped making the play 1.

I agree that the Play 1 is still for sale, but i have also found atleast 1 dealer in my country that has a Play 5 gen 1 for sale “new” right now.

The Play1 had a silent hardware refresh in 2017. These are still widely sold.The newer hardware is version 1.20.x, you can check in your about my system page in the app.

This hardware refresh is the same as what is in the Ikea speakers (Ikea got airplay 2 but these play 1 owners didn't unfortunately). I would guess the pre 1.20 play1 will be legacy when they push the Play3 too (64 mb Ram iirc)

More information here:

I have 4 Play 1’s

2 with hardware 1.20.1.6-2

2 with hardware 1.8.3.7-2

Are you saying that they dont have the same ram/flash amount ?

This just makes it even worse, that i have 4 “identical” speakers and they might brick 2 and not the other 2.

R

Rob NYC1

Enthusiast II

While I agree that SONOS needs to communicate EOL dates; I think that it’s awful for any company to turn a consumer product that typically had a very long useful life (I have speakers from the 1970s that work fine) and turn it into trash as little as 5 years after its manufactured.

This is an inexcusable money grab by SONOS that not only negatively impacts the wallets of its customers; but, its giving a middle-finger to the environment.

Airgetlam

Just curious, how much RAM and what CPU are in those speakers from the 70’s? What OS are they running?

Bruce

jgatie

While I agree that SONOS needs to communicate EOL dates; I think that it’s awful for any company to turn a consumer product that typically had a very long useful life (I have speakers from the 1970s that work fine) and turn it into trash as little as 5 years after its manufactured.

This is an inexcusable money grab by SONOS that not only negatively impacts the wallets of its customers; but, its giving a middle-finger to the environment.

Best not to stray outside the cesspool of the main announcement threads. We actually know what we are talking about here.

Stanley_4

Grand Maestro

I have 4 Play 1’s

2 with hardware 1.20.1.6-2

2 with hardware 1.8.3.7-2

Are you saying that they dont have the same ram/flash amount ?

This just makes it even worse, that i have 4 “identical” speakers and they might brick 2 and not the other 2.

Where are you seeing anything about bricking Play 1s? They are not eligible for the Trade Up program.

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DK_Madsen

Enthusiast II

Where are you seeing anything about bricking Play 1s? They are not eligible for the Trade Up program.

Well the Play 1 was replaced with the Play one back in 2017, if they only support them for 5 years after, then in a couple of years it will be the Play 1 that will be obsoleted.

I was just curious if the Play 1 was like the Connect, where they changed the hardware inside at some point and the old Play 1 would be obsoleted before the other like the connect.

jgatie

Well the Play 1 was replaced with the Play one back in 2017, if they only support them for 5 years after, then in a couple of years it will be the Play 1 that will be obsoleted.

I was just curious if the Play 1 was like the Connect, where they changed the hardware inside at some point and the old Play 1 would be obsoleted before the other like the connect.

No, the Play:1 was replaced by the One SL just last year. So you have at least 4 years, probably more.

Stanley_4

Grand Maestro

They aren’t moving things to Legacy status based on age but on the internal memory limitations. Look at one of the memory charts posted here and you’ll see where the Play 1 stands.

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