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

Everything said is a supposition, but in fact, if they suddenly started forcing the obsolescence of old units, the list of “legacy” units can easily change in a short term.

When purchasing a new unit, the customer instead of looking what fits better for their needs (playbar, sub, a small speaker, a large speaker? No, the new one) will be “forced” to look for the new one (like a phone). 
who is gonna pay for the playbar or the sub right now? Old models will always be a gamble. 
And remembering that there are no price reduction each year (like phones), it is for me a no brainer decision. Take the new one if you really want it.
 

I have 2 connect:amp (legacy), 1 play 5 (legacy) , 1 bridge (legacy).

additionally I have 1 play3 (not available anymore for purchase), 1 Play one (still “ok”) and finally 1 beam (no worries about) and a playbar (old model, but still available).

If Sonos go ahead to end updates on legacy products (what will probably not allow me to connect them with the “no legacy units” and probably will quickly avoid me of playing from a music service) , I will not wait till my play3 becomes the next “legacy” to start looking for other products.

Sadly, I bought the beam and the playbar to match them with my other units, including the ones that are now “legacy”
There is no meaning to compose a music ”environment” / “experience” that will last for 5 years (maybe little more if you have lucky) at that cost!

By the way, despite of what have been said regarding cellphones (not in this thread), my Nokia phone still works as designed. It makes calls , send messages,… but I do not use it because I want new features provided by smartphones. And I did change it for new ones because I wanted new features, not because I was forced by the manufacturer.

The same applies to a laptop. I still have my old dell (2006) that works if I want to use it.
I can’t see any difficulties for Sonos to keep the basic running on all units and proving new features for new units (in this case if the customer uses only new units on their system).

It would create a felling on customers that having new units will improve their experience.

In the other hand, Sonos is choosing the path to make worst (in fact ending) the experience of those who are long time customers.

As I said, there is no meaning for me to end with a system that does not connect to each other and the only “not legacy” units are hooked on my TVs .

SELL OR USE BY DATE is the answer.

Between the helpful information Ryan provided about multiple versions of the same product (Connects/Connect Amps/etc.still sold by Sonos up until recently but with more power than the older builds) still in the marketplace + this mess of trying to understand when EXACTLY Sonos will drop support for this mix of products, Sonos should really just STAMP a Sell By or Use By date on every single product.  It’ll be easier for their reseller partners and especially for US their ‘once’ loyal-repeat-customers and brand evangelist.

No one has acknowledged or states the fact that wholesale and retail inventory inventory simply does not disappear immediatly after manufacuturing stops.  In my case, the play 5 gen 1s, were still being sold 3 to 4 years after SONOS stopped making them.

How to determine if your older gear is still modern?

Besides the VOL vs. Wedge symbol on the front rocker switch and the build date next to the serial number.  Is there any way we can use an IP command line function to tell if your Connect or Connect Amp has enough computing power/memory to stay in the MODERN category? 

According to the Sonos link in the “end of support” letter, I have a mix of Connects and Connect Amps that are both Modern and Legacy. 

Am I missing something in the readout of the cool command utility “Sonos Support Info”  (/support/review)?  

I poked around search engines and in the forums and can’t find anything useful yet. 

Thanks in advance for any assistance as I think it would help others as well.

The year and month of manufacture (YYMM) is the 4 digits before the serial number on the label.  Anything after 2015 is modern.  Anything before is legacy.  2015 is a tossup, because nobody knows the exact month of the change, but at least one person found 1509 (Sept. 2015) to be modern.

Thank you, do you also happen to know what the FLOOR CPU/Memory requirements are to make it Modern? 

All current legacy devices have 32 MB RAM and storage.  CPU doesn’t matter, it’s the RAM/storage that’s limiting these devices.  Sonos simply can’t cram any more features into 32 MB.  

While I can see the value in figuring out the exact manufacturing year of product you have, I don’t know that it will ultimately be useful.  There is no way to determine the actual EOL for a product since Sonos doesn’t even know when that is themselves.

Just looking at this current event, there were many products that lasted much longer than 5 years before losing updates, and some that lasted the minimum.  As pointed out, it’s the RAM that matters, not the age.  But even then, it doens’t really tell you when the next group of products loses support and where the cut off point, in terms of RAM or product age (minimum 5 years) will occur. 

For example, we know that currently, all modern products have at least 64 MB of RAM.  It does not mean a product with 128 MB won’t be in the next cut.  It could be that Sonos maintains everything till 2030, and only products with 256 MB or more meet the cut.

That said, I do hope that Sonos gives customers a lot more notice before the next cut, and I hope it’s quite a few years off too.

If you got sold old stock I’d put together an e-mail with scans of your receipts showing the date of sale and serial numbers and send it off to Sonos. No idea what they will do but when Best Buy pulled that trick on me Sonos saved the day even thought they were innocent of any wrong-doing.

So, just to be clear.  If Play:1’s were stopped being manufactured in 2017, (despite being still sold by major retailers today), then the product becomes at risk of being out of support in 2022?

Could somebody confirm that please?

It’s really important to understand this and should have been made clear at point of sale.