Contributor I

Stop supporting of old Sonos systems!

29 replies
1052 views

Hi Patrick Spence and Sonos in general..

I´m really sorry to hear, that you stop supporting old systems. But in a way, it is kind of okay. Eventually things like this stop, unfortunately. But telling us, that the rest of our system, connected with these products also will be influenced by this outfacing of old systems, is outrageous! Furthermore also telling us, that in time our old loudspeakers will not work anymore, is even more outrageously!!! That is “putting a gun to our heads” policy, only to force us to buy new stuff. We don’t have a choice. Furthermore also a gigantic waste of good and working electronics, just to be added to our global waste problems.

I really encourage you to think this whole philosophy over again, and act accordingly to benefit your customer in a better way than this!

I bought my first Soundsystem, when I was 13 years old. It was a complete B&O system 3000, with a CDX player and a tangential phono. I sold it back in 2010, when switching over to Sonos, and by then every single piece was still functioning and it was over 25 years old!

If this is your policy on your product, to out phase our purchased system, as you like, I´m done with your products! I will not be held hostage by my supplier in sound systems!

Sincerely Jimmy F J.

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Ken_Griffiths

Jimmy F J,

I must have read the announcement differently. It said we had a choice. So in simple terms, I personally see things like this...

We get to May 2020 and our Sonos system, as it then stands, will not get any further updates. A line is drawn under the devices in the Setup. These will (in my case) be a mix of the older 'legacy' and the more recent 'modern' products.
It appears it will be possible to split the products/system into two, the announcement clearly says that, so let’s call that ‘legacy' and ‘modern’ Sonos Households and the legacy system will remain as is, but the separated-out modern system can still move forward with any new updates and features. So that sounds quite good to me, almost like I will be able to switch between the two platforms, old and new. That will present opportunity for me to fade-out the old and add to the new system over time. A smooth transition would be my aim in that chosen situation.
It was also announced that I will be able to move from a Sonos legacy/mixed system to a completely new modern system quite quickly, should I wish to do so and to do that, I can either sell my old legacy items onto others who are happy to perhaps stick with the older-featured software, or I can trade-in eligibile products and get a third off (or thereabouts) any of the new modern Sonos products and future-proof my ‘modern’ system, whilst responsibly recycling my old devices.

If that is indeed the case here, with this announcement, I don’t find that too bad at all and the ball is still very much firmly in my own court on what I may then choose to do, going forward.

I think we’re seeing a bit of a 'storm in a teacup' here and the announcement is actually not sounding that bad (to me, at least) although some folk here are (still) trying to make it sound far worse than it really is. I’ve seen companies like Apple Microsoft, Google and Denon do far worse to their customers in the past. Even the worse-case scenario here, appears to be that a customers Sonos system will just not receive another update post May 2020, but it will continue to work exactly as it did before that date.

E

Ex_Sonos_Fan

Contributor I

There are still glaring gaps in Sonos plans for the end of life items. Eg

@Ryan S didn't seem to be able to answer a question what would happen if an 'end of life' product in your system was temporarily turned off, and the remaining products were updated.

Would the 'end of life' product then be bricked and unable to communicate with your controller?

A damn important question that Sonos simply couldn't answer.

Ken_Griffiths

There are still glaring gaps in Sonos plans for the end of life items. Eg

@Ryan S didn't seem to be able to answer a question what would happen if an 'end of life' product in your system was temporarily turned off, and the remaining products were updated.

Would the 'end of life' product then be bricked and unable to communicate with your controller?

A damn important question that Sonos simply couldn't answer.

We can only speculate without further information, but let’s say the system, as it stands now, is what we have in May 2020 and it’s ‘black boxed’ on all Sonos products and all new features are added to that 'basic platform' and the new stuff either works with the 'black box' code or alongside it, to enhance, or replace, some of its functionality… it would be quite easy for a device to switch between ‘legacy' and 'modern’ mode in such circumstances I think, depending on its surrounding setup.

Personally, I think we should wait for the precise detail, otherwise we will just be debating these things for the sake of argument, rather than achieving things 'constructively' through dialogue.

E

Ex_Sonos_Fan

Contributor I

There are still glaring gaps in Sonos plans for the end of life items. Eg

@Ryan S didn't seem to be able to answer a question what would happen if an 'end of life' product in your system was temporarily turned off, and the remaining products were updated.

Would the 'end of life' product then be bricked and unable to communicate with your controller?

A damn important question that Sonos simply couldn't answer.

We can only speculate without further information, but let’s say the system, as it stands now, is what we have in May 2020 and it’s ‘black boxed’ on all Sonos products and all new features are added to that 'basic platform' and the new stuff either works with the 'black box' code or alongside it, to enhance, or replace, some of its functionality… it would be quite easy for a device to switch between ‘legacy' and 'modern’ in such circumstances I think depending on its surrounding setup.

Personally, I think we should wait for the precise detail, otherwise we will just be debating these things for the sake of argument, rather than achieving things 'constructively' through dialogue.

I agree with all of your points. Just wish Sonos had thought this through and provided better information a part of the announcement. We shall see.

Just disappointing as I love(d) my Sonos gear. And now wondering what other devices will be next to be 'end of life'....

Ken_Griffiths

It just appears to be the rather old products that will no longer be receiving any updates post May 2020, those with slower processors and less memory and old wireless adapters perhaps? I wouldn’t term any devices as being ‘bricked’ or ‘end of life’ here, given what was mentioned in the announcement, it’s more of a case that they are just being put out to “graze in a field”.

I think someone here in the community once mentioned that there’s 32mb memory on the real old Sonos devices, but please don’t quote me on that, however I’m fairly sure that does not apply for example to the (still-modern) 'flagship’ Play:1 Sonos speaker, which I think was given four times that amount of memory, or thereabouts, (that’s from a tear-down I once saw on YouTube). So I personally remain fairly confident that great little speaker and the devices that followed it, will still be around and updating for some considerable time still to come. I personally don’t think we need to worry about those things at all at the moment. I’m thinking and hoping that the Play:1 (I have 9 of those) are not going to be put out to graze for a good many years.

L

leoc

Trending Lyricist I

people spent thousands of $$ on their system and after a few years sonos says “oh, by the way, you have to spend another 70% of that money so your system will work in the near future”??

This is an absolute disgrace and in my eyes more than fraudulent, since they were selling those products until very recently.

I am out and hope many other people will do the same!!!!!

R

Rob_43

Lyricist II

Disgusting attitude too loyal customers. Their equipment has been bought and added to over the years and for them to suddenly tell customers that they are going to make their equipment unusable is criminal. Can you imagine if a car manufacturer decided that when a car was 10 years old it should just stop working anymore!

L

leoc

Trending Lyricist I

important note, we are talking about people who bought the stuff up to 2-3 years ago!

C

Charles Avalos

Contributor I

Jimmy F J,

I must have read the announcement differently. It said we had a choice. So in simple terms, I personally see things like this...

We get to May 2020 and our Sonos system, as it then stands, will not get any further updates. A line is drawn under the devices in the Setup. These will (in my case) be a mix of the older 'legacy' and the more recent 'modern' products.
It appears it will be possible to split the products/system into two, the announcement clearly says that, so let’s call that ‘legacy' and ‘modern’ Sonos Households and the legacy system will remain as is, but the separated-out modern system can still move forward with any new updates and features. So that sounds quite good to me, almost like I will be able to switch between the two platforms, old and new. That will present opportunity for me to fade-out the old and add to the new system over time. A smooth transition would be my aim in that chosen situation.
It was also announced that I will be able to move from a Sonos legacy/mixed system to a completely new modern system quite quickly, should I wish to do so and to do that, I can either sell my old legacy items onto others who are happy to perhaps stick with the older-featured software, or I can trade-in eligibile products and get a third off (or thereabouts) any of the new modern Sonos products and future-proof my ‘modern’ system, whilst responsibly recycling my old devices.

If that is indeed the case here, with this announcement, I don’t find that too bad at all and the ball is still very much firmly in my own court on what I may then choose to do, going forward.

I think we’re seeing a bit of a 'storm in a teacup' here and the announcement is actually not sounding that bad (to me, at least) although some folk here are (still) trying to make it sound far worse than it really is. I’ve seen companies like Apple Microsoft, Google and Denon do far worse to their customers in the past. Even the worse-case scenario here, appears to be that a customers Sonos system will just not receive another update post May 2020, but it will continue to work exactly as it did before that date.

I read the update many times as well . Apparently we do not have a choice. Sonos has made a business decision that will affect many of its longstanding customers. Ultimately, we are being forced to throw away our older Sonos equipment in order to guarantee that our listening experience is uninterrupted. This is bordering on extortion. Maybe you have plenty of cash sitting around that you would like to burn, but most of us whom have forked over a considerable amount of money through the years to build our Sonos sound network do not. The 30% that they are offering doesn’t even cover the additional cost to purchase the new equipment. We will effectively have to start over from scratch again. This is not good at all!

L

leoc

Trending Lyricist I

the system will “probably” work fine for a while. However if f.e the streaming service you are using is making an update, it will stop working, anytime, any day

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