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Contributor I
June 20, 2016

Sonos goes bankrupt! What then?

  • June 20, 2016
  • 37 replies
  • 8444 views
I'm looking at the possibility of setting up a Sonos surround system upstairs and downstairs as well as Play:5's for music in different areas of the house. This is a lot of money. My concern these days with technology is that it seems to have a shelf life of max 5 years and then it is considered throw away. You used to be able to buy a expensive set of speakers that would keep their quality sound for 20 years. To prove this, all you have to do is go to any high end stereo store that sells old high end systems. Amazing sound!

I'm in the financial industry and I've learned over the years that even the good companies don't always last. Their products though should still be usable. What I would like to know, if Sonos, for whatever reason, goes bankrupt. What is the implication for my system? I know that there would no longer be any updates for the software, but would the system still function as it did at the moment that Sonos no longer existed?

I tried searching this on these forums and I was quite surprised to not find an answer to this.
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      bockersjv
      bockersjv
      Local Superstar
      December 16, 2018
      I sold my Sonos and went to Musicast. Buy some good quality speakers or even an active speaker set and drive them with the MC amp or pre amp. Yamaha is a save company and if for some reason their MC service is discontinued you still have your high quality speakers.
      So you answered on a Sonos forum purely to promote a competitor :8
      rais28
      rais28
      Contributor I
      December 16, 2018
      He? I am not promoting anything here. I wish the Sonos speakers would be more open and flexible so I could more easily drive them with my existing HIFI system. They are great speakers and have some pretty neat software enhancements just a shame they are so closed.
      jgatie
      jgatie
      December 16, 2018
      So you gave up on the industry leader to purchase from a company which is on its third (or is it fourth?) attempt at wireless multi-room audio, each incompatible with the next, and all spectacular failures? Well done!
      bockersjv
      bockersjv
      Local Superstar
      December 16, 2018
      What. You can do what you want using a Sonos connect or the Line in on a Play 5. Nothing closed about it. Seems easy to me, although the tough bit is spending the money 😃 I'm still dithering over another Play 5!
      valyno
      Trending Lyricist I
      January 20, 2019
      Question is not fully answered.
      My jawbone 24UP is perfectly fine but I can’t set it up anymore because Jawbone went bankrupt and since we need to authentificate to a web server to finalize the setup, the hardware is now useless.
      Nokia, Polaroïd, Lehman Brothers, Arthur Andersen... big names falling down are not unknown and just theoritical.
      Back to the question: will I be able to use my Sonos speakers if by bad luck the company should go bankrupt?
      To set up the speaker, we need to have a running app, with an account logged in. I guess that if no server to authentificate to, the setup of the Sonos system is impossible. Hardware is bricked.
      For existing setup I guess we can run as long as we do not need to reinstall the Sonos app.
      Smilja
      Smilja
      January 20, 2019
      Back to the question: will I be able to use my Sonos speakers if by bad luck the company should go bankrupt?
      Not even Sonos is able to give a final answer to this hypothetical bankrupt scenario. No one can foreknow the future.
      »And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space, Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.« (›Windmills Of Your Mind‹ [1967]. Music by Michel Legrand ; English lyrics written by Alan & Marilyn Bergman)
      valyno
      Trending Lyricist I
      January 20, 2019

      Not even Sonos is able to give a final answer to this hypothetical bankrupt scenario. No one can foreknow the future.

      Of course they can: the Sonos App relies on the authentification on Sonos web servers. They go down, for whatever reason, the user will not able to set up an account and thus add hardware to it.
      Should the account be already existing and the App logged in at least once, they maybe the user would have a chance to continue to use the hardware... (I never tried to see how long my Sonos App would work without live internet connection...
      Of course we do not know what would happen if Sonos should go bankrupt: maybe a white knight would buy back the assets and maintain the infrastructure that allow people to log in and set up their hardware. Or maybe the buyer would knot care and buy only the patents and other valuable assets, without a second guess for the existing users.
      So the reasonable thing to envisage when we buy Sonos, is that should things go wrong, we could end losing the ability to use the hardware.
      As for the streaming service, I do not care too much as I listen only NAS shared music...
      That being said, I am quit confident with Sonos, they have been in the business for quite a while and they offer good performance, reliable and affordable solution. So I am buying....
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