This is ridiculous. I am being penalized for being an early adopter of your product. And now I am being told….sorry here is 30% off on new products. Why the hell would I EVER buy more of your products if this is what you do.
Loved the sound. Hate the company.
Sonos are absolute Charlatans. I have been a loyal customer since they started in the UK. And have invested many thousands of pounds in their equipment. This has now been rendered absolutely useless by this removal of Update Service.
Do they honestly think I will ever spend another penny on anything they now produce?
Where as previously I have told my friends Sonos is a good system with great support , I will now tell them never to go anywhere near sonos and never to touch any of their products.
This sort of behaviour is typical of what you find at the lower end of the market.. At the top end of the market you expect continuing support. Especially as the cost of these units is by no means insignificant.
Not to mention the environmental impact this has on me having to dispose of many thousands of pounds worth of very good, working, electronic equipment that over the coming months will become completely useless. This is purely about generating extra profits.
I’m in the same boat
Early UK adopter, spent a lot of money because kit was good
This just makes me think Sonos think people aren’t upgrading or buying new kit often enough so they’ll fix that by making all existing kit obsolete at a stroke.
This is very disappointing. I have four Connects and two Play:5s. This means, even with the 30% discount, that I will need to spend more than $2,000 just to get back to where I am now.
In addition to the newly obsoleted equipment above, I have twelve Play:1s and two subs and a Playbar.
I have a considerable investment in Sonos gear. Before I even consider the Trade-In offer, I am going to research options for replacing all of my Sonos equipment.
I forgot to mention the two Flexson stands for my Play:5s. That will cost me another $300 plus.
Sonos is despicable.
Gutted they have done this given the amount of money I’ve spent since 2012 on their products.
Wont be spending another penny on Sonos products and I will no longer be recommending them.
Gutted
Anybody want to work for them… they currently have 123 job vacancies… https://www.linkedin.com/company/sonos-inc-/people/
You could perhaps contact someone who works for them and tell them what a great idea bricking devices is and how glad you are that… in their words…
“You can continue using legacy products after May, but your system will no longer receive software updates and new features. Over time, this is likely to disrupt access to services and overall functionality”
If you dont brick your own device and send it to landfill Sonos will do it for you, over time
Already in just a few hours, I hope Sonos management finally understand what a monumental dumb business decision this is. It is purely down to the cost of maintaining and updating two software versions for new and legacy products, which is costly but common practice in countless industries who appreciate their legacy customers. Rather than invest in this, Sonos expect their customers to fork out to replace perfectly good working equipment. 30% discount when the old product is disabled as scrap is pitiful, as this must still provide a healthy profit as the cost of a speaker distribution and warranty can be nowhere near 70% of the retail price. You need to try a lot harder than this if you want to retain customers and avoid a media backlash that hits your bottom line.
OK… so my Play 5 is no longer going to be upgraded and while it’s connected to my system, nothing else will be upgraded either. SONOS has offered a discount if I upgrade my old Play 5 to the newer version… but it’s still an outlay of more than $500AU. Given I have a few Play 1s and a soundbar & sub, I’d like some assurance that the same situation isn’t going to arise with any of my other components - again rendering my system un-updateable. SONOS, you need to publish your timeline of when other components will become un-updateable (my Play 1s are older than my now outdated Play 5). At least I will then be able to make an informed decision about purchasing a new Play 5 or sticking with the old one.
Gutted they have done this given the amount of money I’ve spent since 2012 on their products.
Wont be spending another penny on Sonos products and I will no longer be recommending them.
Gutted
I’m feeling the same way. No more sonos for me. Total waste of money. Barely 5 years of use. Back to real HIFI for me I think. Better sound as well.
There was no ‘this product expires in 2020’ label on them!
The product isn’t expiring, software support has been dropped. All software companies drop support of a product eventually, and I’ve never heard of company announcing when support will drop before a product is sold. This is a significantly different situation though since Sonos devices are highly dependent on each other within a system because of their functions. I’m not aware of a similar situation.
Yes, I know that really, but I can’t continue to expand on my system, as none of the newer products would receive updates. Well I could, but they’ll all slowly start to lose functionality no doubt over the coming years, eg not be able to work with new streaming services, or keep up with existing ones if they make any changes.
The much better option (for us devoted followers) would have been for Sonos to offer us upgrade kits for our legacy items, a simple replacement motherboard, or chip, or whatever it is they need. Even sending the equipment off to have it fitted, if the owner didn’t want to (or couldn’t) do it themselves.
I don’t mind paying for an upgrade, to give the equipment up to date technology so that it can keep the system moving, but I’m not replacing all the equipment just to have the situation occur again in the future.
Just throwing away equipment that’s perfectly good, albeit a little older, is absolutely crazy.
Sorry, not getting angry at you, just so very very frustrated at Sonos.
Judging by the majority of comments here, Sonos you have absolutely stuffed your loyal customers, other companies please now use this opportunity to take all us sonos customers, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime, we are being massively let down after spending big with Sonos, disgraceful, and it won’t be the end, as new products are released expect yours to only last a few more years… how long befor the original play bar, sub, play one.. etc are in this same position, then you’d have to shell out thousands, and have a useless system, what if you don’t want Alexa or google assistant, or airplay… why should you be forced, why can’t Sonos have 2 lines of speakers??? Dumb speakers, and smart? That would make sense both for loyal customers , and for environmental reasons, customers would also be more likely to not go elsewhere , this is a huge kick in the buts for Sonos original customers. Disgrace!!
There’s no way I’m letting Sonos force me into buying more of their products with this Legacy nonsense! Before I spend another dime on Sonos I’ll buy another competitor’s system. This is as bad as the ink scam for printers.
Dear Sonos,
When I bought my products from sonos I was not informed they were going be become obsolete in time. My speaker works fine and I don’t want new features, just existing features. I was not told that I could expect the speaker to last for only a limited time.
I am shocked to be told that you are withdrawing support for my speaker and wish to ask for a refund. If I had known this would happen I would not have purchased a sonos speaker.
Please stop your withdrawal of support of the original features of the speaker that I paid for. I did not pay for a time restricted product.
Please either commit to maintaining the function of the product or refunding me the cost so I can get an alternative.
I think a major problem is that SONOS needs to better explain the specifics of the impact, the reasons for the impact on legacy systems, and the options going forward from here.
(1) What I am hearing is that they need to update the SONOS control app on the smart phone. And that changes to the app will require some matching changes to the software on the SONOS devices. And that they won’t make those needed matching changes to the legacy devices. (the functional impact is discussed later)
Is that a correct summary?
(a) It is not clear if the changes are not technically possible (lack of memory?) or if SONOS just don’t want to make that investment. It would be good to hear an answer to that.
(b) why is it not possible for the app to be programmed with a compatibility mode to work with legacy devices just as it does prior to the May 2020 cutoff?
(2) If I update a control app after May2020, what exactly is the impact on that app working with the legacy devices? Is there some guide as to what functionality might be lost? For example, perhaps only certain new streaming services may not be available, though streaming from my NAS based music collection would be OK.
Or it may be that even basic communication between unmatched app and devices would be lost (turning the legacy devices into expensive bricks)?
(3) If we do not update our SONOS smartphone/tablet control app after the May2020 cutoff, then the app will continue to work with our devices indefinitely after that point, though any newly discovered bugs will not be fixed. This can be accomplished by turning off the “Update Automatically” setting and not manually approving any app updates.
Is that a correct summary?
(4) The catch is that without new software updates, our frozen control app would no longer be able to support the newer devices, even with old functionality? SONOS statements imply that there is likely more lost than just new functionality (which many of us do not care about), but could impact current functionality.
Is that correct?
Would the frozen legacy control app be able to work with the newer “modern” SONOS devices, limited to old functionality? Would it matter whether the “modern” devices have newer software updates? It would be good to have a clear answer on that.
(5) Further, there is a possibility that SONOS will provide for download of the pre-May2020 control application for use on any new smart device, should I change smart phone or tablet in the future.(or need to delete/reload in a recovery situation).
Is that correct, and when would we see that as an available download?
(6) Is it possible to use two different smart devices, one with the frozen legacy app and one with the current supported app. In that case, I should be able to control and update “modern” SONOS devices from one while using the legacy app to control, at least, the legacy devices and perhaps even all my SONOS devices (with old function scope)?
(7) SONOS is saying all of this is driven by the major music streaming servers changing their interfaces. It is not clear if they are talking about control interfaces or about streaming protocols.
If the impact of the streaming servers changes is a control interface used only by the SONOS control app, than SONOS should be able to isolate that impact to the control app and still maintain backwards compatibility with the SONOS devices. Correct? Or does the SONOS device need to work with that same changed streaming service control interface?
If the impact is directly to the software in the SONOS network which is doing the streaming, then only that streaming device needs to be modern. The streaming SONOS device should be able to forward that music content to the other SONOS players/speakers using the old protocols. All of my devices have te ability to stream from the server, but I gather for any particular music stream, only one handles that streaming and passes the content to the rest (in a synchronized fashion).
This is an important point since, if true, you would only need to ensure that there is one “modern” SONOS device, in the network, for each different streaming source, in order to handle any streaming interface issues. I only use one source at a time, so I would only need one “modern” device. (I am making some educated guesses about the overall design of the SONOS network).
Is there validity to what I am saying?
**************************************
The customers just need to better understanding of the situation and what alternate paths we have going forward.
Doing so can be a big win for both SONOS and their customers
**************************************
I cannot believe that Sonos has decided to take this action. I understand that products evolve but I have 10 amps that would need to be replaced for the 30% off bargain price of $4543 when I’ve already invested over $10K in Sonos products for my system. (I left out the 2 docks and a bridge since they were useless within a year of buying them.) I rue the day in 2010 when the A/V guy talked my husband into Sonos. I fought vehemently against leaving the standard A/V setup but NNNNNOOOOO. We now also have 3 useless iPods in our walls because Apple discontinued them along with our now soon to be useless Sonos amps to drive our whole house system. Needless to say… A/V company got FIRED today. Aren’t you proud of yourselves? You can bet they won’t be recommending any Sonos products in the future. Oh… and I called our broker and told him about this and he’s now recommending that anyone holding Sonos stock sell. REALLY, REALLY BIG MISTAKE.
I too got the notification email today. I must say that I wasn’t that surprised. Yet, it’s still extremely disappointing seeing as how expensive Sonos gear is and their “upgrade” offering is borderline insulting. That said, I started purchasing my Sonos gear in 2011. My entire system is legacy. Honestly, none of the “feature” upgrades have benefited me in any way. So I’m fine with a frozen system. I don’t need or want any future “feature” upgrades. “Maintenance” upgrades are a different matter. Meaning, upgrades that keep the system working. That’s my biggest concern. I’m perfectly fine with everything as it is now. I just wanna keep it that way.
In short, I’m fine with a frozen system. I just don’t want a bricked system.
Does anybody else regret being a brand ambassador for them in the past or is it just me?
Very poor customer service. I like many others I have a significant investment in Sonos speakers and to only be offered a 30% discount on upgrading and affected speakers really SUCKS! Should be a 75% discount.
To add insult to injury if you use this 30% discount offer they brick your legacy speakers so they can’t be used again and are only good for the recycling depot.
Unless something changes looks like I and many other people will be looking at other speaker systems other than Sonos. Don’t want to get burnt by Sonos again as they obviously don’t care about their customers.
The new Amazon speakers are affordable and starting to look pretty good right now!
This is really sad news for all Sonos customers.
Most of us will now think twice before buying anything again, as we have learned that at any time, sooner or later, all our investments into Sonos system will vanish.
That implies that this was done arbitrary for no reason, and that would not be able to use the legacy devices at all past May. That’s not true.
Well, we can think further and, as the software evolves, some services will stop working on the old devices anyway. It will certainly not happen in May. But I can think that some years later same Spotify will stop backward compatibility on their API and it will stop working then.
I don't think I am able to re-buy all my stuff every 5-10 years, especially considering the fact that Sonos keeps selling previous generation goods while already planning to start selling new generation in a month. And not mentioning, that lifetime of that previous gen speaker is twice shorter!
Why couldn't you offer a kind of better, cost-effective solution to your customers than throwing away 70% of money spent on their systems?
Without knowing the cost to produce the products, it’s hard to say whether Sonos really could have or should have offered a better discount. Also, the percentage is based on what you buy, not what you’re trading in. The total savings could actually be greater than the original cost of what you’re trading in for some scenarios. Also, just my opinion, but being that you got years of use out of your speakers, it’s hard to say that money spent on your system was entirely thrown away.
I'm not asking for a bigger discount, but why not offer a new device that will, well, bridge between older firmware and a new one?
That could be a good solution for owners of lots of legacy products that still able to work. I see here two main reasons for not doing that: a) it will cost more hours on development of two firmware versions at the same time and b) most of users after the first frustration will still start slowly trading in old stuff.
I myself am quite new to Sonos, the oldest product in my system is Play1, which I bought 2 years ago, when Sonos One has just appeared, so I saved some bucks and bought a device that, as I see now, has a much more shorter lifetime, than One, that I decided not to buy because I don't have Alexa in my country.
So this is why I've decided to write here: there are currently Playbar and Playbase devices on sale by Sonos, that are much older than Beam, so probably their lifetime is also very limited?
Now we all know that we never know exactly how many years we have support for our products from Sonos.
I purchased my Generation I Play 5s from Sonos in Aug.2014. The new Generation 2 Play 5s came out in Sept.2015
So my new Sonos Speakers were essentially obsolete in 13 months. Why would I purchase more Generation 2 Play 5s (even with 30% off) that have been out for over 4 years when Sonos discontinued the first ones after 6 years. I buy quality electronics that I expect the manufacturer to
stand behind. I have Great stereo equipment, some that I have used for over 30 years. McIntosh, Linn
Klipsch, Bryston. I expect to get more than 5 years of service from what I thought was a quality product.
Thank you Sonos. June 2016 I bought a Connect and 2 Play:1’s.
Because this Connect was produced in 2015 I won’t be able to update my system after May 2020.
Can someone explain me what is the difference between those produced in 2015 and those in 2016?
I don’t think anyone has an idea, certainly not the seller who sold me the connect…… For him and me it was just a connect.
Shocked and Horrified - Shame on you SONOS!
You have stabbed all your customers in the back you charlatans, deceit, lies, theft - you should be ashamed of yourselves.
My perfectly working system has cost me five or six thousand pounds and just been told I have 5 legacy products that are going to cost me £2,000 to replace - even though my current components work perfectly well!
I gave my daughter two of my fives before Christmas, she has just phoned me up “Daddy will our HiFi stop working?”
Shame on you, I like thousands will go elsewhere from today!
Guess its time to move away from Sonos. Thanks for the push Sonos!
Outrageous.
8 Sonos units in the house - 3 of which will have to go.
To think I was going to buy a couple of outdoor speakers for the summer… They’ll be no additions to the Sonos family if they have such a limited shelf life.
Very poor customer service. I like many others I have a significant investment in Sonos speakers and to only be offered a 30% discount on upgrading and affected speakers really SUCKS! Should be a 75% discount.
To add insult to injury if you use this 30% discount offer they brick your legacy speakers so they can’t be used again and are only good for the recycling depot.
Unless something changes looks like I and many other people will be looking at other speaker systems other than Sonos. Don’t want to get burnt by Sonos again as they obviously don’t care about their customers.
The new Amazon speakers are affordable and starting to look pretty good right now!
I bought a Onkyo G3 for my blind father at christmas so he can play music easily, it has surprising brilliant sound and is voice controlled which works well. He loves it, it cost £50 at the time although prices are creeping up.
Why does sonos stuff cost so much... and then cost so much again… and then cost so much again… and then cost much again…. and then cost so much again?
Agree, shame on Sonos. I have 8 zones now on a possible brick list.
I have recommended this system to friends for over 12 years!!
