Sonos clearly doesn’t give a hoot about its loyal customers. They just lost thousands of customers. What a stupid mistake on their part. 

Wrong, they are threatening that ALL the newer stuff will quit working too if you don’t upgrade because you keep legacy products in the system!

I have spent around £4,000 on Sonos products. My first two where a pair of play 5’s in 2015. Less than five years later they are no longer going to have full compatibility with my newer products some bought within a few months. Two plan fives were about £900. To only get five years proper use out of that is very poor. My old technics separate system still works fine and I bought that it 1989!  I agree with many saying that 30% discount on upgrading is very poor.  I assume you don’t get to keep your old products you upgrade either.

I, too, am very concerned.

Today, software updates are all-or-nothing. E.g., every time a bug is fixed with Spotify or Google Assistant or the IOS AirPlay, your system is forced to update even if you don't use those features.  (in theory  you can delay an update but, in practice, your system is held hostage until you do)

If Sonos were to break updates into their respective feature and let users pick-and-choose which to update -- music services, controllers, airplay/cast, alexa/google assistant, etc -- then I’d feel much better. But Sonos has always done monolithic, all-or-nothing updates. .

Frankly, as long as a system has one modern Sonos component installed, why can’t the legacy equipment continue operating as multi-room satellites?  That’s been the magic of Sonos right back to the beginning.

Me too.
Just want Spotify and local network music and iOS as a remote

Sorry, I don’t rage to nameless, faceless corporations.  I vote with my wallet.  

And I’ll post what I want, when I want.  There are some people in here who are looking for information.  If that is not you, you can ignore my comments.

I have been a staunch Sonos user and advocate. I use my system daily and tell everyone about how much I love Sonos. Over the past 10 years I’ve continued to add products to my system. Now I’m told that the vast majority of my system will no longer be supported. I am still reeling over the loss of the 3 controllers that I used to play music throughout the house. I was given a measly $100 credit so I could by this little piece of junk remote control that I works sometimes and has no screen. Now that virtually my whole investment is being decommissioned and that I get a 30% credit towards new products, What the heck am I supposed to do? Spend another $12,000 for a system that will be bricked 10 years from now? Why build (and charge a HUGE premium for)  top-quality products that are built to last decades just to tell me that they’re garbage a few years later? I’m done with these games Sonos is playing. I can longer, in good conscience recommend this company. They are an embarrassment to me and the friends I convinced to get on-board with them. Good bye and good riddance Sonos!!!

Where did the Boeing CEO go after he got fired? Did he pick up a gig at Sonos?

I’ve got two Play 5 (gen 1) that I love in spite of the fact that I can no longer play my iTunes library. Rather than breeding product loyalty they’ve got me wondering why I don't just get a couple great Bluetooth speakers.

I want to suggest that we get on Twitter / FB / Instagram and flood them with negative comments. Negative PR on social media is about the ONLY thing that can turn around this sort of idiotic corporate behavior. It worked at Backcountry.com

Given the investment made in Sonos equipment,  the 30% discount does not seem reasonable. That discount was available to the public over Thanksgiving.  I have a Connect and at 50% would feel like its fair. With $3000 in this platform, asking for $2100 over the next few years seems like a slap. Its great they sre dynamic and upgradable until it bricks you. The connect i had was purchased in 2014. !!!! This will either be a boom for sonos or cripple the company and stock price. Shorts?

It is just GALLING that they are trying to say these were “introduced” 2005-2011 - but they were sold as brand new state of the art equipment 5 years ago! 

Do you IDIOTS think I am going to buy a whole new speaker system every 5 or 10 years????

If you wanted to make absolutely sure that a customer would never under any circumstances buy any more prodcuts from your company, this is a foolproof way of doing it. 

Who is running your company? Some spies trying to ruin it?

Someone needs to relate the facts, surely; Sonos doesn't have the resources to do this as quickly. And not everyone may feel outrage, and those that do, do not all need to also express it? How does that help?

Local music should be fine.  Spotify is at the mercy of Spotify.  If they make a significant change to their end, functionality on Sonos could be affected.  

Well so much for brand loyalty. I am a Product Design Authority in a high tech   giant company in my day-job and I can tell you that if I were underwriting this technical position I’d be sweating for my job right now.

Has selective exclusion of certain services to legacy products not been considered? I mean, I want to just stream Spotify through my Play5v1, so why not tailor future updates to give some options?

Maybe Sonos is just no longer that nice user-friendly company that we all thought it was - this smacks of an aggressive management team that has realised a handy way to crowbar more profit from their loyal user-base. That’s leaving a somewhat bitter in the mouth, don’t you think?

Does anyone know how long the 30% trade in will last for? I mean, if I wait past May (because I can’t suddenly produce £350 now) and my Play5v1 then starts becoming unusable, will I still get 30% off or will that have lapsed? I hope the former, but corporate greed seems to be in play here so I am not confident.

Ditto! Not only will I never buy another Sonos product, I will make sure my thousands of followers don’t buy one either. I refuse to waste more money. There are other systems out there that don’t treat their early adopters disrespectfully like this. The company must be dying to do a move like this, those 99$ Sonos lamps must not be be moving at Ikea. Lol. Thanks Sonos, for shooting the bird to your soon to be ex-loyal fans. I’d rather tape $1000 to my windshield and drive down the street, rather than give you another dollar. Greed is very unattractive. 

I also have 10 components being end-of-lived. The cost to address will be significant no matter what.  As a result, I refuse to convert to new Sonos units and will do my best to inform others of this risk.  What are the best alternatives on the market to explore?

The only acceptable answer anywhere in a zone of responsible conduct is to create a software patch that will allow old products to operate on their own subsystem, even if without full functionality with the newer products.  Really surprised this has not been provided for in the announcement.   Trade-up discount at 30% is too low in this environment as well. 

Why is it clear John B??

My system works perfectly.  I have no need to update it until it breaks.

I simply cannot afford at this time to update my system and pay a hefty price for it.

No Sonos owner ever expected to be dumped in such a mercenary fashion when they chose to invest at some expense on a Sonos product.

Sorry, but saying ‘nobody died’, and ‘equate Sonos’ decision to murder’ simply ignores the plight of us mere mortals that still have a perfectly working system and have no need to change it.

SONOS DONT GIVE A CRAP SEE ANY REMARKS FROM THEM ….NOPE

#TAILBETWEENLEGS

And that’s the rub - not only are we being asked to spend to upgrade, but many of us Sonos fans are feeling like our reputations with family and friends is eroded. We recommended Sonos and now have to ‘face the music’ with our peers. 

It would be nice if Sonos were to explicitly offer something like “current functionality will not change for the next (5-10) years” for our legacy products.” as a way for us to set the stage for replacement of our gear.

Finally, and not sure if this was mentioned above, but what of the e-waste as people are force-upgraded to new systems before the legacy systems are truly outmoded. Here’s an idea - open source the legacy platforms so that they can live a second life. 

I was an early adopter of several Sonos products and have purchased quite of few of them between 2013 and 2017: Playbar (1), Bridge (2), Play:5 (2), Play:3 (1), Play:1 (5). I’ve said nice things about Sonos in print, online and on audio.

So this unexpected notice of the end-of-life of three of my products (the one Bridge I still use, and both Play:5 speakers) is sad and will likely be costly.

Sonos also needs to do a better job of letting Bridge owners know there is an update to the Bridge, the Boost. That’s not indicated in the end-of-life email notice. There’s also no “trade-up” discount for current owners of EOL Bridges to the Boost. That should be remedied.

What this will have me do is consider non-Sonos products that are Sonos compatible to replace the Play:5 speakers. I’m looking at Ikea’s Symfonisk bookshelf speakers.

All in all, this is abrupt, unfortunate and likely expensive.

So there is plenty of ticked off supporters and purchasers of Sonos equipment. 

I have 8 different devices in my home. 1 at work.

What I find so hideous about this, is that the 1st device I have that is expiring has a registration date of “Registration 2017-11-12”

This is just over 2 years old in my possession from brand new,  for gods sake.

I get that it was in the retailers possession for an too long a period of time… but WTF…

I think this may be grounds for a lawsuit.

This isn’t good enough. Sonos didn’t say clearly when I purchased my items, ‘hey this will only last as long as we feel like updating the system’ this is not good enough. If they want to go down this route fine, but they should refund the customers the original purchase price for the goods affected. For those in the UK can I suggest contacting the relevant organisation regarding your consumer rights

Consumer rights

The law protects your consumer rights when you buy goods or services. Find out who to contact for consumer protection advice.

You can get help if you’re treated unfairly or when things go wrong. This includes problems with:

• credit and store cards
• faulty goods
• counterfeit goods
• poor service
• contracts
• builders
• rogue traders

You can call a helpline to get advice. They can also refer your complaint to local Trading Standards Officers who may then investigate on your behalf

I have to say that I am seriously unimpressed by this update news.  This is just Sonos trying to make money.  They may be “legacy” products but they were expensive to buy (and bought not that long ago) and the upgrade cost is prohibitive.  Even Apple and Microsoft keep their update programmes running longer than this.  Not impressive Sonos.

Thanks, I have to say, it was pretty good while it lasted. Fortunately, I kinda saw this coming back when the Sonos app started going and I didn’t go in too much deeper.  We only have one supported pair of Play:1, with the remainder of our system (6 items) going into unsupported status. Looks like the “Trade-up” program for us will be changing brands. Knowing that the same risk could come into play with a new brand, I hope that a change over to a different product line will last long enough to get us through the next 20 years. P.S. I sure am glad I kept all those little discs sitting on my shelves, and some devices that still play those legacy items.

Kumar, the more outrage that is expressed, the more SONOS execs will have to carefully plan out how to fix this mess and appropriately maintain support for the older systems.  Let the outrage continue.