End of Software Updates for Legacy Products

Systems with legacy products will no longer be updated.  They will continue to operate as they do now until they die a natural death, or whatever streaming services you use makes a change where it’s no longer compatible with your system.

My Play 5 was bought WAY after 2011. Checking my account, it was registered with Sonos in 2017. I am REALLY annoyed that I paid a premium for a supposedly high end product only to find it’s not supported after 2-3 years. Not only that, but because I have it in my system all of my other components are effectively cut off from any future enhancements. Can’t believe any company would think that’s a good way to treat customers who’ve invested thousands in their products ! 

@Ryan S I understand the need to move forward in an ecosystem, but we’re talking about THOUSANDS of homes and businesses who paid upwards of 5-10-25-50-100k to have professional systems installed with the amps and connect devices.  Many businesses have 5-10 of these amps, so now you’re just forcing them to buy new hardware to continue using ALL of their Sonos products together, or don’t use it at all.

Maybe it’s time for your software development team to rethink their approach to the ecosystem.  It seems there should always be a way to let devices connect to a network.  I can still connect my iPad that I bought 8 years ago to the Apple ecosystem even though I won’t get updates any more I can still listen to music from Apple Music or view my photos stored in Icloud on it!

Forced obsolescence is unacceptable.  Next thing you know Sonos is going to make me upgrade all my original Play 1’s that I bought to the new Sonos One.  I actually only have one Sonos Connect, but I bought it 2 years ago and paid $400 for it new.  Kind of ridiculous I have to throw away a $400 technology, but I guess that’s the way goes.  I may rethink things when I have to start replacing my Sonos gear.  Very unhappy customer here. 

haha so some financial analyst folks at Sonos had actually, honestly looked at how detrimental this move could be to the company and somehow someone convinced the bigwigs to do it anyway?

This decision was being considered for over a year and Sonos was well aware of the potential consumer backlash.   This is from Sonos’ 10-K (annual report) filed with the SEC in November 2018.

“We may choose to discontinue support for older versions of our products, resulting in customer dissatisfaction that could negatively affect our business and operating results. We have historically maintained, and we believe our customers have grown to expect, extensive backward compatibility for our older products and the software that supports them, allowing older products to continue to benefit from new software updates. We expect that in the near to intermediate term, this backward compatibility will no longer be practical or cost-effective, and we may decrease or discontinue service for our older products. Therefore, if we no longer provide extensive backward capability for our products, we may damage our relationship with our customers, and the value proposition of our products with  existing  and  prospective  customers  may  decline.  We  may  lose  existing  customers  if  their  older  products  cannot  integrate  with  newer  versions  of  our software,  and  this  may  also  result  in  negative  publicity  that  could  adversely  affect  our  reputation  and  brand  loyalty  and  impact  our  ability  to  attract  new customers or sell new products to existing customers. For these reasons, any decision to decrease or discontinue backward capability may decrease sales and adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition.”

Similarly, in the November 2019 10-K Sonos said:
“We may choose to discontinue support for older versions of our products, resulting in customer dissatisfaction that could negatively affect our business and operating results. We have historically maintained, and we believe our customers may expect, extensive backward compatibility for our older products and the software that supports them, allowing older products to continue to benefit from new software updates. We expect that in the near term, this backward compatibility will no longer be practical or cost-effective, and we may decrease or discontinue service for our older products. If we no longer provide extensive backward capability for our products, we may damage our relationship with our existing customers, as well as our reputation, brand loyalty and ability to attract new customers. For these reasons, any decision to decrease or discontinue backward capability may decrease sales and adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition”

Sonos knew what it was risking and KNEW that customers expected (although in 2018 they wrote that “we believe our customers have grown to expect” and in 2019 wrote “we believe our customers may expect”, trying to back off the claims they anticipated that customers had been assured by Sonos of backward compatibility.  

My email listed 17 “expiring” products.  I have many more that are not online.  I’m less than pleased at this moment but believe that Sonos can fix this.

Is standard marketing 101 …. put the word out there, let the fire burn (and we are all throwing matches me included) then come back and announce a postponement for a few months. Then we all calm down and adjust our (understandable) anger downwards and resign ourselves to a begrudged set of purchases! It’s in the nature of folks unfortunately.

Thanks for clarifying Danny

Even if they won’t let you update I expect people will now get a pop up or something that says: “Hey, in order to update this you can trade up for 30% off” ad nauseum. 

As I mentioned elsewhere, Richer Sounds in the UK are still selling the Connect - with lots of enthusiastic reviewers. Not sure how they are going to feel when they setup and then pretty much straight away get this email…

Not, this decision by Sonos is not quite the same as murder or genocide (I have some sympathy with your sarcasm) and of course this issue is one that was inevitable once the tech world had the luxury of ‘online updates’ etc.

However even just in the case of two pieces of Sonos kit I have (Play:5, GBP 350, replacement now GBP 450 ea), the prospect of being told that this 4.5 year old kit is now legacy and in need of repacement is clearly likely to cause customer dissatisfaction and harm the brand if not handled carefully.

I picked up on the idea from another guy of a ‘Sonos Classic’ track for legacy kit (before I read this thread) and if Ryan is correct in suggesting that the company is going to provide this kind of safety net, then a lot of relief all round. I hesitate to get too optimistic at the moment, because in my experience of large tech companies, it is far more likely that some bean counter with an Excel spreadsheet will interfere and say that being ‘generous’ is going to hurt the bottome line. Translation - “let’s make life as difficult as possible, so we get upgrade revenue”

A skillful Marketing person at Sonos could put a great spin on a ‘Sonos Classic’ type of plan - “Sonos - the first upmarket audio tech company to guarantee 20 year lifespan for customers” - which would immediately boost the brand immeasurably.  I’m probably one of the few who would take advantage of that plan (as in, I have my system, I have low tech needs, so I won’t need to upgrade down the line unless something physically breaks) - so the ‘loss’ in upgrade revenue for the company would probably be far less than they would fear.

Still, the fact that they make the ‘Legacy’ announcement now, but have apparently still not formulated a strategy for legacy products when the cut-off date is supposedly May does not bode well IMHO.

Beyond shocked at this announcement.  I also was a relatively early adopter, and aside from my investment have talked many friends into the system as well.  I can understand new features not working on the older equipment, but you’re talking about forced phasing out of perfectly good gear.  I run a connect into a receiver that is over 20 years old, and into speakers that are at least that old.  Good sound equipment lasts if you take care of it...apparently unless it is Sonos.  

If nothing else - the environmental effect of what you’re doing is devastating - tons of functional gear going out to waste (the majority of it is NOT recyclable) all because you lack the creativity to develop a system that can keep the older equipment running in parallel to the new tech.

Lastly - if you’re going to screw over your loyal customers, offering a discount that is LESS than what is available at the local COSTCO is not going to win anyone over. 

Highly disappointing.  

Hey Ron, your account doesn’t have any deleted posts, but there are two made here in this thread. We’ve merged several single posts from around the community into this main post so that everything can be in one place.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that Bluesound (which doesn’t work as well, or sound as good, as Sonos anyway) won’t do the same kind of thing.

If I replace Sonos, I’ll be looking for solutions where I can influence/control the software. This means Raspberry Pi units with good sound hardware, and open source distributed audio software.

One of my Play 5’s (old one) was replaced under Sonos warranty by Sonos but at a reduced purchase cost less than two years back. I kid you not.

I’ll join the list of very unhappy people. This feels like a desperate move to generate sales that gives me no confident in spending money on Sonos. 
 

I’ll have 2 Connects and a Play:5 affected. Aside from the possible bill to replace them I’m disappointed as I don’t want to buy a Port that has no physical controls and I’m nervous that the current Play:5 will discontinue at some point soon, and really want a voice control in any replacement. Also its so much bulkier. 
 

I get that my system will still work on day 1 but it only needs a change to Spotify or Bandcamp or Tunein radio for lots of my experience to break. 
 

Also (and this may be answered already - I’ve not had chance to read all the posts), presumably replacing products over time to manage the spend becomes a problem as new components won’t work with the legacy speakers?

The environmental damage of this is nuts thousands of players getting chucked - end of their useful life - what freaking marketing bozoism is this - IT PLAYS LOVELY!  Tell me your calendar is hosed and this is some bad April fool nonsense?! 

So the answer is actually in the announcement, 92% of shipped product still in use. Profits must be spiralling faced with the ever burgeoning and cheaper competition being released on a daily basis so, drastic times drastic measures, sell it as a legacy issue, put a pretty bow on it and then stiff the existing customer base!!! Way to go Sonos.

i like many have been a ardent fan of the system and recommended to friends and family alike but not now. I saw the writing on the wall a couple of months back with the Bridge announcement and the constant dropping out that has only occurred with the launch of the “Recycle” program.

3 Play Ones, 2 Play Three’s a Play 5 and a Bridge all destined for the bin, worthless second hand and fast becoming worthless left plugged in.

i will be investing in a quality amp and hardwiring quality speakers into my rooms and then any of the cheap streaming devices plugged I to the amp, Christ for what I have wasted money wise on Sonos I could have an amp in each room connected to its own “disposable” dot or similar, proper speakers require no software updates to last a lifetime.

as far as I am concerned I am done with Sonos unless they come up with a solution real soon and judging by the comments so far I don’t think I will be the only one.

cant find new customers to invest and alienating the existing customer base, I can only really see the profit line plummeting even further

Fubar

This is the biggest scam I can think of, charging your customers 70% to replace products that they spent thousands on when they are still working fine! SONOS should offer a dollar for dollar exchange program, anything else speaks in volumes for the longevity of SONOS. Anything else is a rip off to the existing customer base. I already got scammed when they discontinued all of the controllers I had purchased and were still working fine. Does SONOS ever consider the environment and the pure waste this is for our planet? SONOS=MICROSOFT=UNTRUSTABLE=MONEY GRABBERS

I am livid about this.
Never going to buy Sonos again.

You have been hassling me for months with emails to upgrade and get Alexa or whatever and now turns out having a new speaker will brick your system!

Unbelievable!

I just received the “notice of old equipment” email and ½ of my 18 Sonos products will be officially UN-supported soon.  Tragic amount of e-waste as a potential result with their “trade-up” program.  Too bad my old, now bricked C100 will be part of that waste stream as well - or??? (see pic) hehe

I own 18 Sonos devices including Playbar (x1), Amp (x1), Port (x1), Play:5 (x3), Play:3 (x1), Play:1 (x4), Sub (x2) , Connect:Amp (x2), and Play:5 Gen 1 (x3). 

With this announcement, you’ve stated that you’ll no longer support updates to my newer Sonos products because my Play:5 Gen 1 (3) and Connect:Amp (2) devices aren’t “modern devices.”

You’ve lost a “forever” customer. You’ve lost an advocate. You’ve lost a champion. And now you have a bitter former customer who will explain to anyone who asks why they should never buy a Sonos speaker. Those criticisms started today as I shared my story with 5000 Facebook friends. The moral of the story is simple. Don’t buy Sonos products because the company will eventually blackmail you to purchase new Sonos products or face forced obsolescence.

I predict that this will be marked as the “we jumped the shark” day in Sonos history.

I can’t remember the last time I was so furious at any company.

I was always a fan of your company but now you lost a loyal customer. Will invest my money better in a reliable and future proof company. Did you also tell Ikea that all their speakers will be running out of life in the upcoming years e.g the used electronics in the Ikea speakers is exactly the same as the used electronics in the Sonos 1.

A very disappointed ex-customer

It was in response to someone saying “I wonder what the competition will come up with?” 

I would argue with the sound thing, I have used the Node 2i recently, it is pretty impressive. 

However, I am now using on my main system, Raspberry Pi, Khadas Tone Board Dac and Volumio to control it all. 

Sound is amazing! 

Total cost was £35 for pi, £80 for dac and £22 a year for Volumio. 

The dac is stunning, it has replaced a £2k Meridian dac.

I loved Sonos and was a big advocate for Sonos.  I will no longer buy any Sonos product due to the fact that what I have bought will no longer work.  You lost a good customer today, who used to tell everyone to buy your products.  I will let everyone I know NOT to buy your product.

This is exactly what I was thinking…  Why can’t the older units continue to operate as is, streaming the music throughout the house.  Buy newer ones to enhance the brain trust and let the other ones slave off them.  Maybe I am terribly misinformed about how the system works, but somehow I think this could happen.

you could not make this up! I imagine Sonos offices are like an episode of the office.