Sonos have just tried to tell me that 9 of my devices will not work with my 5 newer devices from May. I have 4 Zone Players (my original system), 4 connects (added later) and 2 Play:5 (added a few years later).

In total they are asking for £4000+ ($5200+) for me to trade up - or my home audio system will cease to work as advertised when I purchased it. 

Im sure, in Europe, this breaches my consumer rights. Has anyone else discussed this with trading standards in the UK?

Not a good look at all.  The email mentions the legacy products were “introduced” between 2005-2011.  I had to go back and look at my order history, I bought mine in 2014 and have heard they were sold in 2015 as well.  Looking at my order history also reminded me the PREMIUM I paid for Sonos devices.  I understand that nothing is getting bricked at this point, but what I have is now mostly worthless.  And seems to be a lot of questions around running legacy and “modern” Sonos devices together.  And 30% off to “trade up”?  I thought that was pretty gimicky the first time I saw it and now it’s even worse.

WARNING: PRICE CRASH AHEAD!

Sell your Sonos stock ASAP!

I have over £2k of Sonos stuff and in the early days was delighted with it, I therefore recommended Sonos to friends who also invested heavily.

With the bricking of devices announcement (which is morally corrupt and an environmental catastrophe idea) I sense this latest bit of news is part of the Sonos roadmap that is preparing to condition us to accept that our investments should be written off and that we should buy new equivalent products from Sonos, in effect we dont buy and own our system, we rent/lease it. It's much the same strategy Apple use with their enforced device upgrades via software updates that render older perfectly functioning devices useless, all done to protect their revenue. 

I sense I will have to start warning people away from Sonos and probably start switching to an inexpensive solution like a Chromecast device with a cheap but more powerful £20 TDAxxxx digital Amp or an old Amp (that will likely still work after 20 or 30 years) and go for a retro look.

I feel like I have been had, or very soon will be “had” in the same way I was with Apple, (I have vowed never to buy one of their products again and they have therefore missed out on 2 tablets, 4 phones, 2 laptops and 1 top of the range PC) since they bricked my devices with “upgrades”.

I don't really buy that the loss of functionality will be down to 3rd party service providers, if new features are made available to 3rd parties via API changes the UI should be able to reflect this, stuff should not just stop working.

I want clarity on what will remain and what services will go with future upgrades. Sonos, please can you publish a roadmap?

Shhh 🤫

Thank you, Ryan S.

This is insane. When will the rest of my 4000USD Sonos system need to be changed? My Soundbar, Sub, 2xPlay3, and Play1? I need to know what kind of de facto subscription model I am opting in for if I decide to accept this shitty and shady business model of yours?

If there is even a slim chance that similar steps will be taken, I am off this platform as soon as I can sell my system, to move to a business that cares at least a little bit.

And yes, I realize “it’s complicated”. I don’t care. It’s a practical problem. Solve it. Mankind went to the moon 50 years ago - if you want to, you will find a solution. 

if you really cared about the environment and your customers you would fix your software to be backward compatible……. let us make our own choices…..

My point is that Sonos isn't justified in pulling support for a product being sold last year, on the grounds that the one of the same name I have was made before 2015. 

One reason for Sonos price points working for them is the way the products retained value in the used markets. There the price of a connect amp was based on the model name and the fact that it is being sold by Sonos today; and is thus assured of the same support, no matter when it was made. If the product made and sold after 2015 is to now be on a different footing for support, it should have carried a different name from 2015.

On the basis of this argument, Sonos may have weak legal grounds for pulling support of connect amps and connects based on date of manufacture.

As soon as anyone has a link to a news article on this, could you post it here?  I need to put this up on my Facebook news feed.

Already announced it at meetings at work - turned out there were a couple of people thinking about buying their first Sonos products!  They won’t be now....

Wow! $2G spent for five years of utility. My previous speakers are nearly 40 years old and still sound good in the garage.  I’ve been a Sonos evangelist since 2015. But if this is how you treat your customers I will never spend another penny on your products.  I strongly urge you to rethink your strategy and provide a software update that makes my audio investment viable for the long term or a much deeper discount than you have offered. Otherwise I’ll be looking to join the class action suit against you and actively urging all my friends to #boycottSonos.

I have 7 “legacy” products.  This is insane.  Cynically feels like a company in financial trouble that needs short term cash flow…

What poor customer engagement

I have a stereo unit from the early 90s that works perfectly well to this day.  I appreciate that business models change and there is now an apparent need to build in obsolescence so as to drive repeat custom.  Holding my nose, I could almost buy the story around technology advances, but what irritates is the need for all “legacy” components to be replaced as systems work to the oldest element.  A more customer focused approach would be to create a software solution to hive off older components so they still work whilst newer components benefit from software updates.  Sonos is a great concept but costly and many in the community will find it hard to replace systems every five years.  Yes, one option is just to keep the old system, until it is truly disposed-of (it will happen, eventually) but adding new components will make less sense going forwards.  And in this age of sustainability and climate change, “ethical recycling” is an oxymoron - products should be built to last rather than us plundering the planet to build new products  So sorry Sonos is going down this route.  

@beynym I guess I don’t deserve a thank-you for answering your question (correctly) 

Spot on, and I dont’ think the Port is as well built either.

The one thing that impressed me (and still does) with the Connect amp was the quality of the components used and the solid build quality.  Not sure the updated Port comes near on either count.

Well, this is unfortunate for both me and Sonos. If my “legacy” products, which I have many, stop working because of this decision, I have no intention of investing more money in Sonos products. I have been a longtime supporter of this company and have introduced their product as gifts to dozens of colleagues, friends and family. To keep me as a customer and proponent, a rethink of this decision is necessary.I don’t believe that a better solution cant be engineered that keeps these legacy products functioning while updating their newer products. 

Just adding to general discontentment and frustration with how this is being handled. I hope your sentiment scraper can go this far to the “They be pissed off” side. 

Pretty disgusted by this. I have spent a fair few grand on your products for you to go and walk away from them. Why? If you can continue to update new and old products today what is the problem? It's LAZY. Speakers should last longer than 5 or 6 years for goodness sake. 

I certainly will not be buying into sonos again if this is your business model. 

One product is 2017 and 2 in 2018. For fuck sake really?? 

Paul 

Yes of course you deserve a thank-you, but (if you don't mind me saying) I prefer to get an answer from a Sonos Employee.

We are honored to have a place in your home and want to make sure that we help continue to bring the best experience we can, even when products reach the end of their useful life.

I’m afraid this is the part that possibly angers me the most.

My product has not reached the end of it’s useful life.

If it has, it will only be because Sonos has deemed it so!!

Think I need a decent cup of tea…...

All of my legacy products have bricked as of today,non will connect and all all “offline” on the same day you announce that you will no longer support legacy products. Is this a coincidence?

So the writings on the wall.

Play 5 this year, Play 3 next year, or maybe my Play 1, Playbar or my Sub?

It’s  clear that this is part of the strategy to keep the money flowing in and turn Sonos into an Apple clone.

Maybe it will work, and I understand things move forward, but it seems the upgrade path is being driven not by features but by a need to drive revenues. It’s a dangerous game and it’s got me looking at the Sonos Competitors for future purchases rather than signing up to a relentless upgrade path.  
if it’s broken I would have replaced it with Sonos. Not so sure now....

This.

 “Dear fervent early Tesla adopters with a Roadster or older Model S: due to our increasingly complex software updates and the limits of our older hardware, we will no longer be supporting the OS on your legacy vehicles. We can’t be bothered to support multiple OSes. Your legacy vehicle should, maybe, work for a while. If you want, we’ll crush your Roadster and give you 30% off on a new model 3. Also if you park your model 3, Y, X or newer S near your legacy vehicle, it will not be able to receive updates either.”

I'm not even bothering to read the previous 15 pages as I can guess that people are thinking the same as me.

Just received the email about my expensive play 5 gen 1 and connect amp both purchased in 2014 no longer being supported. 

I also have 9, yes 9 Play 1s and a Boost. Yes big house.

This is completely disgusting behaviour, an obvious attempt at a cash grab. In an increasingly crowded market for connected speakers, my response to Sonos is to go and screw yourselves.

I will not spend another pound/euro on your hardware.

When the endless software nags annoy me too much or when you no doubt bork my system with a software update 'cos I haven't upgraded to new hardware I will sell my 9 Play 1' s and Boost on the second hand market.

Goodbye. 

Very annoyed by this announcement. My Sonos is a system of 6 different items that I have grown over the years. I have today discovered that 3 items in my system are obsolete and so that means the rest of my products are also obsolete as they will no longer be updated as I have older products as part of my system.
I've been a sonos evangelist for always and have been one of their beta testers for years. I am currently considering a beam for the TV to use with my other devices to further develop my system but I won't bother now and will move from sonos !! Very unhappy this evening !!!