I agree; these are just speakers at the end of the day. But once you set up your phone to not auto update all apps, why do you feel forced?

Opt out of Auto-update. Then there’s no “forcing”.  
 

Updates improve the way your system performs and the way it sounds. For example… the Height Audio and Spatial Audio features on your screenshot wouldn’t exist without updates. My system sounds much better today than it ever has because of these updates.

Thank you for the replies..however , as you can ..I do not have auto updates on and haven’t for some time. Nor do I have the Sonos app set to update. So yes,  I still say to keep the available options that Sonos  offers..you have to update the system. 

Unless you are using Sonos for TV audio, a thing I do not know/care to know about, I don’t see that you are losing anything useful by getting off the update bandwagon. And once you do, you can’t get such messages in a way that forces you to comply. Or lose existing features by staying off that wagon. 

If I’m satisfied with the current sound from the speakers.. why change it? I watch movies , tv sound) and listen to music from SoundCloud through the Sonos app. The updates always , never failing, say performance enhancement but doesn’t ever say what it is. How much enhancement can you make every month? I’m not talking bug fixes. Why take away trueplay if I don’t update??? Maybe Corey P with Sonos can explain this. 

You need to turn off iOS App updates for the App Store, not the Sonos background app refresh.

Trueplay not greyed out, and an update is available. 
 

Indeed; I am on 11.12 under S1 and haven’t lost true play!

What you are seeing may happen if your app on the phone has updated, but Sonos units have not. 

@Dogdad 

Have your Trueplay settings been turned off, or is it that you can’t run a fresh Trueplay? 

If you look at the pic above I posted.. Sonos app update is off. 

And we asked (or tried to): for the Sonos app (on your phone App Update settings) as well as in the Sonos app? Both have to be set to not auto-update. 
 

If you look at my pic above you can see that Trueplay is enabled even though an update is available.
 

My setup has App Store app auto-update turned off and Auto-update turned off within the Sonos app. What setup do you have? 

That’s not the right place DogginDad

How to turn on or turn off automatic updates on your iPhone or iPad

1. Go to Settings.
2. Tap App Store.
3. Turn on or turn off App Updates.

Love it! Will it survive the moderators? 

Then what’s the purpose of the App refresh option on the Sonos app I turned off??

This stops Apps (any) running in the background and refreshing data. i.e. pulling new emails, pictures, artwork updates etc.

You state “I don’t want to do these updates”. Why are updates such a problem? On my system I do not notice the updates (that take place in the middle of the night).

Your speakers are connected to the internet, so can make your network vulnerable to outside threats. Updates keep your system safe too.  So why not do them.

I don’t have auto updates on because I prefer to let people like you do the informal beta test for bugs. Will update later if the reported bugs don’t affected me. Sonos has not added a new features I use that I can remember so it’s not worth the risk to me to be given the updates add nothing to my system. 
 

@Dogdad FYI every iOS device with Sonos app on your network needs to have auto updates turned off. 
 

Sonos should let us run mismatched app/firmware without losing features or locking out parts of the controller for “performance improvements” updates but I’m sure they have their “reasons “

Because I don’t trust the updates and don’t care for some of the changes. Best sound Sonos had was 14.10. They went down hill from there. Don’t believe me..watch these two videos. Sonos got hammered with complaints on the forums because of their screw ups. 

I agree; and all my Sonos kit bought in 2011-2014 sounded exactly the same in 2020 which is a good thing because I bought it for the way it sounds; after 2020 it has been on S1 with thankfully, very few updates. Making it sound better means making it sound different, and that different may not be to everyone’s tastes. True play works well because it can be toggled off, if not to tastes. But in that period there were so many updates, many of them to do little more than change the colours in the app. All of which increase the burden on memory capacity leading to failures in time.

I have also never understood this vulnerability fear; everything is connected to the internet these days and most things are not updated every month except for things like computers/phones. If vulnerability here just means that someone can brick my Sonos kit, it is an acceptable risk in my book. And people are these days having issues with their Sonos kit not working properly after an update too many, for the memory cards in their units to be able to deal with these.

Not everyone can afford or otherwise feels the need to have kit that is new enough to cope with these updates.

I’ve never noticed the change you mentioned on my set up, though I did read the complaints at the time. I seem to remember this change was corrected in part though.

To me owning a connected device gives me access to new features, the maker of the device changing other things along is a risk inherent to owning connected devices. AirPlay and Google Assistant both appeared on my devices after I bought them. Playing from my iPhone and using my phone buttons for volume disappeared. The way to escape this risk to me would not be stopping updates, but staying with non connected devices.

I disagree with @Kumar that the main risk when not updating devices is them being bricked. Using a vulnerable connected device can open up a gateway into your home, making other connected devices there (your printer, connected TV’s computers and cameras) vulnerable too. Someone could hijack the speaker for use in a botnet, exploiting other people. The fact other producers do not update their connected devices is a shame - not a reason for Sonos to making their costumers vulnerable too.

An update to change the colours in the app would, by the way, not put a burden on the speakers.

A big disadvantage to the need for updates on connected devices is the fact that they tend to become obsolete much earlier than non-connected stuff. This should be taken into consideration when buying the devices and could mean you use separate devices, like a non connected Amp used with a Port. Come the time the Port would be obsolete (remember though Sonos still provides updates to most of the devices they sold), only the Port would be exchanged.

Unless someone gives me a cogent explanation of how my Sonos play 1 that has not been upgraded by Sonos may be used to empty my bank account, I am not going to take this seriously. My Samsung smart TV then may be used the same way and I don’t see updates coming all the time for it as they used to for my Sonos kit before my S1 system got designated to be S1. Ditto for home webcams - though I don’t use these. I don’t think that many IoT devices get such upgrades, actually. In theory there may be a risk, but both makers and users also have to make decisions based on cost/benefits.

The changes in the app for any reason lead to more memory utilisation over time, and the present issues that many Connect Amps and others of that vintage like play 3 are facing where used on S2 is there on a few other threads running concurrently. This issue did not surface at the beginning of S2, but after all the changes to it by 2023. From what I read there, even frequent erase/rewrite on the flash memory cards in the Sonos units, even with no extra memory load, may lead to memory failures after enough cycles of such. Why risk that if no real benefit is to be had? What is a benefit and what is not becomes a subjective decision, user by user.

I agree 100% with the last part except that I use Echo devices in place of Port. Wired in to Sonos kit in 5 zones. Whenever those Echo smart front ends die or get obsolete, I can cheaply replace them by a smarter Echo or similar, without having to throw away the connected Sonos hardware. Some of those smart front ends give me things that Sonos cannot even on the latest version of S2 - album art for the music that is playing. They also give me something that Sonos does not for my location, Alexa voice control. I don’t use that often, but there are times when it is very useful to control the music and I do not use Alexa for anything else at home.

That’s your choice of course. As explained above you can stop automatic updates.

Quite. I know people that chose to remain on version 8 many years ago that run their kit with no issues today. The key thing is to disable auto updates on the phone, something that many miss at first. Only if the Sonos controller on the phone updates, as it automatically will based on settings in the phone for all app updates, is one forced to update Sonos kit to the same version if it is to be controlled by that phone. Or if one must have Sonos Support in to solve issues; they may refuse to do so for systems running old versions until they are first updated, which is fair enough, seeing that this support is free.