End of Software Updates for Legacy Products

Since this announcement means that the two Syfonisk speakers I bought in December will now be dead in the water due to the Play:5 in my network I will be writing to IKEA to find out how to return them for a full discount.

I wonder how many of the companies Sonos has partnered with recently are going to be pleased about this decision.

Can anyone recommend an alternative system to Sonos that will connect to a qnap Nas to stream music and also support streaming services through apple music and/or spotify. 

Amazon Alexa integration would be a nice touch, as would multi room. I really don’t need to connect my record player to it as personally don’t see the point in that. I am sure others may have a use for such things though.

Thank you. 

I do not understand; the Connect Amp and the Connect were still being sold till some months ago? And if the product has a specific name, it does not matter what year it was made in - a Connect is a Connect is a Connect. Ditto for Connect Amp.

With the Bridge, it is clear, with the Boost being the replacement. That said, did you stop selling the Bridge from 2015?

I have and will contact retailers who sell Sono’s here and inform them that it would be unethical to sell this product without telling the potential customer of this “legacy”. 

Sono’s is being unethical and they do not deserve to financially grow. 

“Over time this is likely to disrupt access to services and overall functionality. “

No longer receive software updates and new features is one thing, but disrupting overall functionality is just not acceptable. The legacy systems are perfectly working devices there is no reason to replace them, not even talking about the environmental impact.

Just split that code into different tiers and keep a base tier that supports the legacy systems. A bit more work, but definitely doable. It’s a simple software architecture problem.

I hope you consider this.

I’ve been with Sonos for 20 years now.  I’ve purchased just about every product you’ve ever made from the beginning.  Over $10,000 worth of your equipment and I’ve sold even more for you with recommendations.  I’ve already thrown away the Controller 100, two Controller 200’s and 3 Bridges.  now you want me to “Upgrade” and give you more money.  I’m finished.  Bluesound here I come.  It’s better anyway.  It has High Resolution Audio.

If it wasn’t abusive enough to charge your longest serving customers an extra $170 for a Connect above the cost of a One SL in order to get an Aux Out instead of a built in speaker, now that $350 is useless and you want to charge an extra $270 for the Aux Out port?  No thank you.  Sonos is headed the way of Control 4 and other companies that abuse their locked in user base.  I’m out: selling everything and will buy from a more open vendor.  

Why would they be dead in the water?

Seems like Sonos has confused big ticket audiophile/home infrastructure assets as throwaway smartphone/app type products. They can hear above how very mistaken they are.

The only way forward for Sonos I can see is for them to quickly announce a technical solution that will allow Legacy and Modern products coexist in user’s single system. So it’s an engineering problem; and they should be able to do it. They may have previously deemed this as not necessary investment; but I agree with others this is existential for them. I.e., no future if they don’t put this fire out fast.

That does not appear to be the case. Connects and Connect:Amps from 2016 onwards are not flagged as outdated. Now, that better mean that they have updated hardware in them, otherwise ...

I can confirm that there hasn’t been any announcement regarding the local library limitation of 65,000 tracks. The limiting factor has always been the memory on older devices, so having more memory available is great for future development, but the software team will need to determine what best to prioritize with the new lowest memory threshold. If there’s any news on increasing the storage for local libraries, we’ll be sure to share it.

https://techknowbits.com/2020/01/21/insider-selling-sonos-inc-nasdaqsono-insider-sells-36453-shares-of-stock-updated-updated.html
 

wowza!  Selling before bad news?

I call BS. How is possible the Play:5 (released Nov 2009) is impacted by these potential “changes” and does not have enough memory or processing power to sustain future innovation, but the Play:3 (released July 2011) and the Play:1 (released Oct 2013) are not impacted?

What device would replace a Sonos connect from May on, in order to keep the software updates and mantain the same functionalities as the Connect? Thank you 

Nice money grab SONOS! I intend to continue to use my “Legacy products” until they stop working, then get a more economical alternative for Wi-FI speakers.

Thanks SONOS

Well, this is it for me, $3000 out the window. Leaving Sonos and not looking back..

Because inevitably the music streaming services that form a core part of the Sonos offering are going to modify their interfaces, and because of Sonos’ policy decision here my 1 month old speakers will not accept the necessary update to use them for no better reason than because I don’t want to throw away a perfectly functional Play:5.

Are we witnessing “business suicide”, or is this merely a death wish on the part of Sonos?

Utter BS. So Sonos rewards the early adopters of their system with a 30% off coupon? Guess what? Many of us spent 1000s of dollars on an unknown system only 6-7 years ago. You expect us to believe you can't work with these existing systems now?! What? We just throw them in a landfill? They are PERFECTLY GOOD speakers!! I would've never bought them if I knew they would be bricked and then profited on. 30% off? What a joke. So you only make 270% profit on doing this. Time to call in the attorneys. 

I imagine faster chips and more memory have been added over time, and more recent hardware versions are still OK.  We don’t know how long for, of course.

The average house brick should do it.

I have a considerable investment in SONOS and had plans to expand to more rooms.
Now I find out that many of the SONOS products, which I bought less than 2 years ago are obsolete.

I do not mind losing new enhancements, but it does not take that much with a standardized (though proprietary) interface between products to continue current function support for these products.
The SONOS statement that future system upgrades may be expected to disrupt the basic functioning of these products is very disturbing.
At the very least, they should allow us to ship in our current legacy product, and have it tweaked and returned (perhaps a simple memory upgrade?) to meet the “modern” standard.

This new SONOS direction suggests a likelihood that some of my currently “modern” components will eventually be obsoleted by future support changes.
Why would anyone choose to invest in such expensive but intentionally short lived, disposable products?

Very poor customer service and support.
I should have gone with products that use industry standard interfaces instead of the SONOS proprietary system.

It is odd that I bought a SONOs Connect and Connect:Amp in July 2018 and another Connect and Connect:Amp set a few months later. The 7/18 purchases are “legacy”, the later purchases are “modern”, even though the matching products look identical and were sold as being the same.
This proves that the differences are likely very minor changes.
I now have 3 products, bought in 7/18, that are legacy including a Play:5 (Gen 1).

The upcoming upgrade should have been fully disclosed with the legacy product heavily discounted with a promise to distributors to exchange any legacy units that were not sold due to the situation. SONOS could then have upgraded the returned units and sold them as “modern”.
Shame on SONOS for how this has been handled.

If I may summarise my feelings in a single sentence, which seem to be echoed by many in this thread;

This is ******** and you can **** *** if you think I will ever give this company any more of my money.

So, what happens if I buy the new amp this summer? 

If it comes with a newer firmware than my connects and play 5s that are losing support, will I be able to add it into the system? 

I thought when adding new items the whole system ‘had’ to be updated to allow it to join. 

I had this issue before, it left the 3 ipads I had bought to use as Sonos controllers no longer working with the system, they needed to be updated to the latest IOS and they couldn’t be. 

I used a 3rd party app instead, but it was very annoying, and may be one of the biggest issues with this news. 

Have Sonos basically stopped their customer who are building up a Sonos system from buying newer products?