Hi sm75382, our commitment is to support products with software updates for a minimum of five years after we stop selling them, and we have a track record of supporting for longer. Also, in May, these old devices will go into a legacy mode and will continue working exactly as they do today, however they’ll stop getting software updates. Without software updates, eventually the functionality of features and services will be impacted as technology, particularly music service and voice partners, evolves over time. But nothing will change initially.

We haven’t talked about any of those devices that you have specifically, but the Play:1 was only recently no longer sold on our website, the other’s still are sold on the website.

Problem is when you have a mixture of legacy and new devices. Sonos state that neither will be updated.

a simple solution would be to introduce a profile layer into the App. Allowing legacy devices to co-exist with newer devices. 
 

this is common practice in application development.

hi Ryan, in the future, do you have an idea on how the following scenarios would play out, or will u know once may comes?

legacy 

2x play1s (surround) 1x play1 (connected to router as 'sonos mesh' device)

modern

playbase and sub

do u think that would still work as a 5.1 only from tv (no streaming etc - also could use it with no app control)

Interesting question. I’d love to answer it but I don’t know what the software will look like when or if that scenario comes up. 

The Play:1 is very different from its closest relative on the list of legacy devices, the Play:5 gen1. It has very different hardware (greatly improved computers), capabilities, and longevity of software support. Without knowing if or when the Play:1 might go to legacy status, it’s entirely conjecture and assumptions. Also, the Play:5 gen1 doesn’t support being a surround speaker for a home theater speaker because the WiFi card is so old it doesn’t support 5GHz, so we didn’t even have to consider as a possibility.