In the aftermath of the CR100 debacle it may be helpful to discuss the direction and methods taken by Sonos management to achieve their end goal of retiring the CR100 by force and the impact on and perception of customers future buying decisions
They still have not made it clear in any believable way why they forced this issue which leaves many people puzzled and angry at the rendering useless of their legally owned equipment.
Personally , this is a first for me . I have never owned a product previously that I have bought that has been rendered useless by the creators period,. Far less easy to swallow is the subterfuge of the battery non issue to cover an ulterior motive. This makes the company Sonos look untrustworthy at best . If you have a reason for doing this , spit it out and let people know. I believe that I, as the purchaser gets to decide when it is time to retire my own possession. I have a belief that quality equipment that was sold as a quality product to prospective buyers should be subject to end of life decision only by the buyer and no one else.
I struggle with the management decisions taken that force me to re-evaluate my investment in their goods within my home.
Prior to the CR100 execution , I viewed my home audio system as an asset to my home , something that simply worked and worked well with minimal intervention required from me which is pretty much what I expect from audio equipment . Now I view the lifespan of this investment as something which looks like is beyond my control even if the equipment is still functioning regardless of my desire to maintain that .
The support aspect of this situation where Sonos staff went into hiding and avoided direct questions from concerned customers has to go down as a low point in any companies record in dealing with their best ambassadors.
These are just a few points that caused me to raise this topic for discussion regarding the ethicacy and morality and integrity of the current Sonos operation...any one of the the issues I have listed above would make Sonos or any other company ineligible for consideration for future investment either in business or in domestic life for this individual.
What do others think....? Please keep the thread social.
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Take away ALL the streaming add-ons they put into the unit and it would STILL be a controller for the base system and for people hosting their own files on their own network.
Good point, but not doing this, IMO, does not make Sonos immoral. Did they lie in this case - I can't say, I haven't tracked the CR100 subject. I don't see them doing anything very different from other makes, is the only point I am making.
IMO also by the way, all the controller upgrades they do is just a lot of noise with little forward motion. Take away a few things like Trueplay and I would say no forward motion for all the upgrade noise and heat since the time I have had Sonos from 2011. Fortunately, my upgrade process is robust, so this is just a minor irritant for me.
Now if my two Connect Amps were to ever be bricked in the coming years by Sonos.......
Kumars last sentence in this post highlights one of the issues that I see exists with the operating policy of a company, any company, forget that it is Sonos for moment for the purpose of looking at the decisions made and outcomes of actions by a management team in the consumer market.
Regardless of the product whether electronics or mechanical or any other consumer item , when is it right for the manufacturer to decide lifespan?
When I bought Sonos in 2005 , no one considered lifespan as determined by the manufacturer in the buying decision.
Fast forward 2018 now it appears that I have to do this according to some beliefs. This is something I am deeply uncomfortable with. I transitioned from being a completely happy customer who like a lot of other people happily recommended a product. That changed completely when that company disabled my product. The change for me is that because of that action forced on me I would never consider buying another product from the same company . That is a moral position that I take because I have beliefs regarding how people and businesses should behave.
I started the thread to try to understand the decisions that were made by Sonos management in the aftermath of the CR100 retiral and what led them to try to manage that particular situation in they way that they did. There are fundamental values at the core of doing business with anyone and for me the values have been violated.
I am still none the wiser as to the real reasons behind the retiral , the subterfuge of the battery issue , and the overall handling of the issue which can really only be described as inept , makes me distrust the company, that is a natural reaction.
If anything it should be of interest to Sonos or any other company to examine why a previously very happy customer has gone from being an advocate to someone who will never buy another product.
I have a large number of ZP'S hard wired into multiple properties and am very concerned that they get euthanised also , that is not something that I thought when I bought into the systems that I would ever have to worry about......
Now if my many ZP'S were ever to be bricked in the coming years by Sonos.....
This thread is NOT meant to be about the CR100, it is about the Ethics, Morals and the Integrity of a companies Core Values as displayed by their actions.
In Sonos's case we can look back over a number of years and with the benefit of hindsight look at what has happened, the reasons given at the time and actual results that can be seen years later. This cannot be done just a few weeks after an event.
Can you elaborate on "what has happened" in the past that has been enlightened when you "look back over a number of years and with the benefit of hindsight"? Also what incidents have there been that "reasons given" were at odds with "results that can be seen years later"? Specifics, facts, actual incidents; no speculation please.
Userlevel 7
+22
I haven’t a clue wds0001. I just figured this thread was way for CR100 guys to get more attention.
I mean you have some devices that eventually won’t work on Sonos because of iOS or android updates. But that’s kinda out of Sonos hands and they have allowed some older versions to still run when they are able in limited modes (no settings options). I just think with less being Sonos controller in app and more direct streaming from native apps (which I’m not really fan of but does help a lot of people) .. Sonos becomes less and less able to support older operating systems.
I’m not sure why that is an ethical question through. I’m surprised how Sonos still supports fully the original ZP devices. They seem to have a track record better then most at keeping even their oldest devices current.
I mean you have some devices that eventually won’t work on Sonos because of iOS or android updates. But that’s kinda out of Sonos hands and they have allowed some older versions to still run when they are able in limited modes (no settings options). I just think with less being Sonos controller in app and more direct streaming from native apps (which I’m not really fan of but does help a lot of people) .. Sonos becomes less and less able to support older operating systems.
I’m not sure why that is an ethical question through. I’m surprised how Sonos still supports fully the original ZP devices. They seem to have a track record better then most at keeping even their oldest devices current.
This is not meant to be a jab, as I am fairly new to SONOS. I have been avidly following post for the past few months. If not about the CR100, what other moral/ethical issues is this thread about? I am genuinely curious.
Anyway, Apple is one of the more heavy-handed companies in regards to OS upgrades but even it has enough foresight to support at least a previous version as well the current one.
Isn't the CR100 a lot older than "at least a previous version"? As far as I know, it hasn't been sold by Sonos for at least five years now, and closer to ten.
This thread is NOT meant to be about the CR100, it is about the Ethics, Morals and the Integrity of a companies Core Values as displayed by their actions.
In Sonos's case we can look back over a number of years and with the benefit of hindsight look at what has happened, the reasons given at the time and actual results that can be seen years later. This cannot be done just a few weeks after an event.
Anyway, Apple is one of the more heavy-handed companies in regards to OS upgrades but even it has enough foresight to support at least a previous version as well the current one.
Isn't the CR100 a lot older than "at least a previous version"? As far as I know, it hasn't been sold by Sonos for at least five years now, and closer to ten.
Anyway, Apple is one of the more heavy-handed companies in regards to OS upgrades but even it has enough foresight to support at least a previous version as well the current one.
Isn't the CR100 a lot older than "at least a previous version"? As far as I know, it hasn't been sold by Sonos for at least five years now, and closer to ten.
With not getting updated any longer the apps will effectively become obsolete, don't you think? Each time you'll try to run them, you'll probably be prompted to update in order to continue.
Anyway, Apple is one of the more heavy-handed companies in regards to OS upgrades but even it has enough foresight to support at least a previous version as well the current one.
2 big differences in how we apparently think here.
I do not purchase consumer electronics or any household appliance with the acceptance that I should be happy with 5-10 years of use. I will maintain and take care of the product assuming it will die 1 of 2 ways, either it fails due to poor manufacturing, or I will kill it.
in the end I have only repeated that Sonos should have allowed for a Legacy fork in the road,
The problem is exactly that - comparatively poor manufacturing/component quality is what comes in the way of multi decade lifespans for almost every product made today at the mass market price points. Although I meant closer to 10 when I said 5-10 years, that is based on experience with the average product life today; and as I posted, I also would be very disappointed if a working product like a Connect Amp is bricked after ten years. That said, over a use of ten years the consequent daily cost of the Connect Amp in terms of investment, about 12 cents a day, is acceptable to me. For a similar expected life, the play 1 units are also good deals which is why I have four of them; my two Connect Amps were bought before the 1 units were introduced.
To the second point that is well taken, my only submission is that not so allowing a legacy fork does not make Sonos a company with no ethics, morality or integrity; it is a stretch, to conclude that from just this decision, given the current prevailing philosophy of products made and sold everywhere, not just in home audio.
Userlevel 7
+2
In one of your other posts in this thread you say you bought Sonos with an expected 5-10 year life span. If they brick your Amps but you got your 5-10 years use would you still be upset? Or Are you making a distinction between bricking and the units failing on their own?
The latter; I can live with hardware not lasting for more than 10 years, but not with the bricking of a functional Connect Amp. The former is an act beyond Sonos control and a 10 year life at the price point seems fair with anything more a bonus. I am also OK with Sonos not offering the Trueplay feature for the Connect Amp, while doing so for existing play 1 units.
@TJRL: I noticed that your post went missing about the time I replied to it and I had nothing to do with it:-). Wouldn't have happened on the old forum!
Kumar,
2 big differences in how we apparently think here.
I do not purchase consumer electronics or any household appliance with the acceptance that I should be happy with 5-10 years of use. I will maintain and take care of the product assuming it will die 1 of 2 ways, either it fails due to poor manufacturing, or I will kill it.
the industry knows how to build everything to last, if they only wanted to.
Will I accept an assumed "lifespan", sure, on some types of items, but they need to be lower cost and considered disposable.
Allowing any company to be the decision maker on exactly when an item is to be killed off is a new thing, brought on mostly by the "software" needs of these items. I believe they need to update things to fix issues and keep them running, and when an appropriate amount of time (this is what all industries need to sort out) takes place they should be able to "stop maintaining" that unit BUT they should not be allowed to kill it off without some sort of options for the users to keep it workable. ... if only the car companies could have had that power back 50 years ago, they would have been dancing....
in the end I have only repeated that Sonos should have allowed for a Legacy fork in the road,
In one of your other posts in this thread you say you bought Sonos with an expected 5-10 year life span. If they brick your Amps but you got your 5-10 years use would you still be upset? Or Are you making a distinction between bricking and the units failing on their own?
The latter; I can live with hardware not lasting for more than 10 years, but not with the bricking of a functional Connect Amp. The former is an act beyond Sonos control and a 10 year life at the price point seems fair with anything more a bonus. I am also OK with Sonos not offering the Trueplay feature for the Connect Amp, while doing so for existing play 1 units.
@TJRL: I noticed that your post went missing about the time I replied to it and I had nothing to do with it:-). Wouldn't have happened on the old forum!
With not getting updated any longer the apps will effectively become obsolete, don't you think? Each time you'll try to run them, you'll probably be prompted to update in order to continue.
Now if my two Connect Amps were to ever be bricked in the coming years by Sonos.......
Interesting take on the controller in regards to the little progress in your point of view.
In one of your other posts in this thread you say you bought Sonos with an expected 5-10 year life span. If they brick your Amps but you got your 5-10 years use would you still be upset? Or Are you making a distinction between bricking and the units failing on their own?
If the latter, was Sonos morally right not to give the real reason?
Even if the answer to the above is no, morally they were not right, what next? If I needed another play 1, I would still buy one. Wouldn't you?
Although I still think that this community software sucks and the old forum was a much better place for everyone including noob users...
WHAT HAPPEND TO MY POST?
Surely it was not "moderated" ?? It was a lot longer and more thought through that single sentence quoted above!!
Userlevel 7
+5
It sits there, offline, always charging, with enough music on it to be left in repeat-shuffle mode that I can go weeks without hearing the same song twice, and short of hardware failure of the device, nothing than anyone does or tries to do can affect that functionality...
If you are fine with just that functionality, I agree you will see many years from it. Or not. My classic iPod crashed a year ago, HDD failure, so there is that.
But these days I don't buy new music, now that I find Apple Music serving all those needs. And also allowing offline storage for playing it in the car or on travels. Fortunately I have a handed down to me iPhone 5s that serves for just this application, but the iPod touch from 2011 will not.
Indeed, and everyone's circumstance will be different... I understand your preference is the apple music service, and that's not available to you on your old touch... - but I still make the point, that had you any offline music in your possession, you *could* load it onto that touch, and still have some music playing use out of it. I'm lucky I guess that I was a prolific CD purchaser throughout the 80's & 90's, and I have long since ripped all of them to MP3s on my NAS drive, - same goes for SWMBO's CD collection too. Latterly, after CD purchasing became old-school, I did switch to purchasing music online for download, but I always made certain to make sure I bought DRM-free MP3, so it would be compatible with all my music playing devices. These days of course, most of my music consumption is streaming, but I still have access to my large NAS library of tens of thousands of tracks, including all the "best" (IMO!) music of the last 40 years, which frankly is all I need/want to be satisfied... there seems to be VERY little indeed new material coming out that I'd consider worth buying...
the government in Norway has recently mandated the complete switch off of all FM radio in favour of DAB, so my in-car radio is similarly bricked, and again, it's going to be one of my old ipods or iPhones to the rescue, filled up with classic tunes from my own library...
That's what I call an excellent example of using semiotics.
2:"due to the aging CPU that is failing" So all my ZP100's using the exact same CPU is also failing?
these were LIES......
if you have children, how would you describe this?
I would describe this as becoming entangled in contradictions. No more, no less.
Take away ALL the streaming add-ons they put into the unit and it would STILL be a controller for the base system and for people hosting their own files on their own network.
Good point, but not doing this, IMO, does not make Sonos immoral. Did they lie in this case - I can't say, I haven't tracked the CR100 subject. I don't see them doing anything very different from other makes, is the only point I am making.
IMO also by the way, all the controller upgrades they do is just a lot of noise with little forward motion. Take away a few things like Trueplay and I would say no forward motion for all the upgrade noise and heat since the time I have had Sonos from 2011. Fortunately, my upgrade process is robust, so this is just a minor irritant for me.
Now if my two Connect Amps were to ever be bricked in the coming years by Sonos.......
It sits there, offline, always charging, with enough music on it to be left in repeat-shuffle mode that I can go weeks without hearing the same song twice, and short of hardware failure of the device, nothing than anyone does or tries to do can affect that functionality...
If you are fine with just that functionality, I agree you will see many years from it. Or not. My classic iPod crashed a year ago, HDD failure, so there is that.
But these days I don't buy new music, now that I find Apple Music serving all those needs. And also allowing offline storage for playing it in the car or on travels. Fortunately I have a handed down to me iPhone 5s that serves for just this application, but the iPod touch from 2011 will not.
Userlevel 7
+2
I can see why you still feel like you could purchase from Apple again, Apple did not "brick" your IPod Touch, so in my book, the same issue does not apply.
Steve, with your skills, you are well placed to keep old equipment in service, but you must know you are a rare exception. And one that is getting even more rare given the nature of design/construction of modern kit, compared to amps of yesteryear that were more easily repaired with parts that were more easily available. Sonos, as do all other makes, do not have too many like you in their target market. And I doubt you will be differently served by any other make when you decide you need more kit.
As to the iPod touch, it was being used largely as a Sonos Controller host; now I cannot so use it, because it will not access iTunes to get the latest Controller version. So, I can no longer use it in the manner. To me, someone has done the same thing to it as has been done to the CR100.
Kumar,
good points, and I agree, I am not the typical user and am not a revolving buyer of anything. (much to the dismay of my kids who over time never had the "latest and greatest"
as a side note, my repair shop was open in the 80's and 90's, and was shut down as I saw the change of durable goods to disposable goods take place and what was once a $300+ consumer item that anyone would pay $85 to fix became a cheap $65 item and you could not economically fix (VCR's were the perfect example)
NONE of these Sonos items are low cost, and that is another reason why this issue is insulting to some.
in your case, with the Touch, Apple is having to move forward with software for their entire music service, your touch depends on the service to provide the music.
in the CR100, this was a Controller first, and then over time they added streaming services to the CR100 and made the unit much more functional. this was great.
Take away ALL the streaming add-ons they put into the unit and it would STILL be a controller for the base system and for people hosting their own files on their own network.
Your Touch actually depended on a service to operate, the CR100 was the UI for the original system and technically did not.
what (in my opinion) people are missing is these units were $350+ (with the dock) and had a defined purpose. The least Sonos could have done is to remove all the added streaming services and allow those of us with the CR100 to retain the use of the original UI.
the best option would be to allow for a legacy firmware path that would keep us at the ~8.2 level.
I hate to see the end of any good working piece of gear, but in every case it should be my choice, call me a dinosaur......
Userlevel 7
+2
Your understandig of the term "lie" is quite odd.
funny,
any form of diversion, is a lie......
1: "for your safety and at the risk of fire" I call BS on that
2:"due to the aging CPU that is failing" So all my ZP100's using the exact same CPU is also failing?
these were LIES......
if you have children, how would you describe this?
Userlevel 7
+5
Have you read through this topic? Be prepared, you won't be able to re-install older apps as well.
I have just fully read that topic top to bottom, and in fact, I suspect I have thoroughly debunked it as FUD... - to save you all the effort of going over there & finding my refutation post, I'll reproduce it here for you...
"Err... wait a minute... - I have just read the announcement in the link.. - to save everyone the effort of going there, here's the entirety of the text to be found there:
"iOS 11 delivers innovative features and the redesigned App Store to hundreds of millions of customers around the world. Your apps can deliver more intelligent, unified, and immersive experiences with Core ML, ARKit, new camera APIs, new SiriKit domains, Apple Music integration, drag and drop for iPad, and more. Starting July 2018, all iOS app updates submitted to the App Store must be built with the iOS 11 SDK and must support the Super Retina display of iPhone X."
Now, English is my first language, and I think I have a pretty good grasp of it, and to my mind, I see NOTHING there that suggests or outright states that END USERS of apps coming down TO their devices FROM the app store, have to running iOS11... - what it does plainly state, TO DEVELOPERS is that app DEVELOPERS must BUILD their apps and submit them TO the appstore with the iOS11 DEV KIT...
This announcement is on the DEVELOPERS website... - it is not an announcement to the millions of Apple device users who are consumers of those apps... it is not an announcement piped at users when they go to the appstore, nor is it in the iTunes release notes (AFAICT).
Therefore, is this not, in fact, just blatant FUD-mongering? - If anyone can point out an announcement from Apple that supports the assertion made in the opening post, then I'm happy to be corrected on any/all of my interpretations of the situation."
Userlevel 7
+5
Have you read through this topic? Be prepared, you won't be able to re-install older apps as well.
Well, really not relevant... - my ipod touch is a music storage & playback device... it's not even on my WiFi - which I believe does reach the garage, so perhaps I can connect it up & see if I can get any streaming service or internet radio players to run on it... if I can, great, if not... who cares, it has some 500+ tracks on it now, and when I get time I'll increase that to a couple of thousand or so...
It sits there, offline, always charging, with enough music on it to be left in repeat-shuffle mode that I can go weeks without hearing the same song twice, and short of hardware failure of the device, nothing than anyone does or tries to do can affect that functionality...
I don't have, or use any apps on it, other than the built-in OS-level music player, playing my own legally owned music ripped as MP3s & copied onto the device. I expect it to go on serving in its current capacity for many more years to come.
YMMV...
Hmm... close to useless?... -
the company that Apple is... - Apple will get more of my custom in the future, Sonos will not. End of.
Where I still need Apple functionality, I too will still buy Apple, but knowing that I may again suffer the same fate as I did with the close to useless iPod Touch. Close to useless also because it - a 2011 model - can also not be used to store Apple Music songs for offline listening, something that has nothing to do with Sonos. If it did that, I could use it as a source in the car or on holiday with my bluetooth portable. But no, Apple has seen it fit to now allow its 2011 model to work with Apple Music. Technically a different approach that does not brick it, but in effect, a similar result. In which case, what's to gain by moaning about it?
If the latter, was Sonos morally right not to give the real reason?
Even if the answer to the above is no, morally they were not right, what next? If I needed another play 1, I would still buy one. Wouldn't you?
Although I still think that this community software sucks and the old forum was a much better place for everyone including noob users...
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