Retired Sonos Staff

End of Software Updates for Legacy Products

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Please note that we’ve created a new thread with some clarifications to questions that have come up several times in this thread. Please see here to continue the discussion if you still have any questions. The information contained in this thread is outdated and may no longer be accurate.

We have some important news regarding our oldest Sonos devices shared on the Sonos Blog today. The text of that blog post is being included here for your convenience:

Starting in May 2020, some of our oldest products will no longer receive software updates or new features. We want to explain why and your options.

When we first set out almost 20 years ago to invent the technology to easily listen to any song in any room, most of the ways we listen to music today did not exist. In fact, the first Sonos products were introduced before the first iPhone was announced and when Myspace still ruled social media.

In order to invent multi-room music and smart speakers, we combined the worlds of high-fidelity audio and computing. Every Sonos product has a microprocessor, flash memory, and other hardware components typically found in computers and smartphones.

Since launching our first products, technology has advanced at an exponential rate; from streaming services and voice assistants to wireless networking and Bluetooth capabilities. Through all of this transformation, we have continued delivering new features via software updates. We’re extremely proud of the fact that we build products that last a long time, and that listeners continue to enjoy them. In fact, 92% of the products we’ve ever shipped are still in use today. That is unheard of in the world of consumer electronics. However, we’ve now come to a point where some of the oldest products have been stretched to their technical limits in terms of memory and processing power.

This coming May, these legacy products—our original Zone Players, Connect, and Connect:Amp (launched in 2006; includes versions sold until 2015), first-generation Play:5 (launched 2009), CR200 (launched 2009), and Bridge (launched 2007)—will no longer receive software updates or new features.

Today the Sonos experience relies on an interconnected ecosystem, giving you access to more than 100 streaming services, voice assistants, and control options like Apple AirPlay 2. Without new software updates, access to services and overall functionality of your sound system will eventually be disrupted, particularly as partners evolve their technology.

To help you through this transition, we’re providing two options:

Option 1: Continue using these legacy products, recognizing that your system will no longer receive software updates and new features.

Option 2: Trade up to a new Sonos product with a 30% credit for each legacy product you replace.

If you’re not sure if your products are affected, you can check in the System tab in your sonos.com-account

If you choose to participate in the trade up program, your legacy products will be put in Recycle Mode, a state that deletes personally identifiable information and prepares these products for e-recycling. Recycle Mode also protects unsuspecting people from buying legacy products that are approaching the end of their useful life and won’t provide the Sonos experience customers expect today. Recycle Mode will only apply to the legacy products listed above.

We ask that you take your legacy products to a nearby certified e-recycling facility. This is the most environmentally friendly way to recycle. That said, if there isn’t a facility in your area, we are happy to pay for you to ship your products back to Sonos for responsible recycling.

Ideally all our products would last forever, but for now we’re limited by the existing technology. Our responsibility here is threefold: build products that last a long time; continually look for ways to make our products more environmentally friendly through materials, packaging, and our supply chain and take responsibility for helping you through the transition once products near the end of their useful life.

We’ve always believed in freedom of choice, whether that means choosing a certain streaming service or way to control your listening experience. We hope the choices provided here—continuing to use these products without new software updates or trading up to our modern products—enable you to make the choice that’s right for you.

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.

More information.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

Show previous replies

pwt

Virtuoso

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

Matter of taste, perhaps. I auditioned Sonos against the equivalent Bluesound hardware, and I thought Sonos crushed it. Wasn’t even close, but sound is subjective.

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.

Sounds good … thanks for the pointers. (TBH, modern DACs are a commodity item: unless they’re playing EQ tricks, there aren’t audible differences between cheap ones and esoteric ones under controlled listening conditions.)

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4 x P:5 | Sub | 4 x P:1 | 3 x Connect | 2 x Boost | Connect:Amp | 2 x One | Amp | Move | Port | Era 300

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mrwarped

Lyricist III

Know what , stuff it I’m not normally “that” type of person but I'm putting this on social media, I’m not gonna let my friends get stuffed if they were thinking of buying a new brick.

I suggest everyone who feels the same does likewise, you never know a national newspaper might pick up on it and then the doodah can really hit the fan,

I feel justifiably ripped off

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G

Goodbye Sonos

Enthusiast II

Only a complete idiot would opt to upgrade their kit after being treated like this.

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Ryan SAuthor

Retired Sonos Staff

I will ask again.

If you have legacy products in your system, then buy a new product after May, with a later firmware, will you be able to even add it?

Good Question!

You will be able to add products to your legacy systems. We'll have more to share on the experience come May.

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Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.

jgatie

All my Sonos system was bought at the same time only 4 years ago. Expect play 1 x2. 2 Sonos 5 and amp would now need replacing. Extremely disappointed

Play:1s are unaffected, and if you truly only purchased 4 years ago, that would be the Connect:Amp and Play:5 Gen 2, both sold after 2015, also unaffected.

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MAucoin

Lyricist I

Question: is the trade up from a Play:5 (Gen 1) a trade up to a newer Play:5 or the Move?

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dpeaslee

Lyricist I

I will add my voice here. In 2013 (an entire 7 years ago!) I went all in with SONOS after hearing it at a friend’s home. The Bridge, 4 of the Play5 gen1 speakers, a SUB. I ripped over 1000 CDs to my computer and ditched my CD player and the discs. In the meantime I retired, moving to a liveable but fixed income. I have endured the endless system updates. And I have very much enjoyed my music system. Now, you are telling me it will soon become useless ( I have no faith that the components will be able to be used more than a year or two after being declared “legacy”.). This borders on criminal. Nothing less than a big ***** to all your customers who have built systems with your products. My father had a pair of high end Klipsch speakers he used for FORTY YEARS!!! And you have the temerity to suggest that products being sold 5 short years ago should, as a matter of course in this modern era, become obsolete, and the 30% discount on all new stuff is a good deal. I am in no position to go out and drop that kind of money on a new music system, especially when the one I have IS IN PERFECT WORKING ORDER! Never again will I purchase a SONOS product. You people are terrible

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Tom F.

Lyricist III

I’m very unhappy about this. Why is my 5yr old Connect:Amp I purchased from Bestbuy now a legacy item? So is the life cycle now only 5 years for your hardware? So if I purchase new amps I can expect to have to purchase new ones again in 5yrs to continue support?

I can not justify upgrading hardware this often, the expense and the cost to the environment. I will put my effort towards helping build an open source solution then.

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User449254

Lyricist II

I understand the approach though a cynic would certainly say the built in redundancy approach to getting more revenue is being applied here!

Whatever the reality, the message to me as a loyal customer of many many years who has enjoyed a wonderful system and in return has added new speakers at periodic intervals is that Sonos is no longer the right solution and I need to move to a separates approach - streaming from a volume provider (google/amazon?) and amp/speakers from a bona fide hifi provider(s). I can’t be anywhere near alone and dear Sonos don’t forget:

As per a 2018 Forbes article once you have lost us loyal customers...”it can cost five times more to attract a new customer, than it does to retain an existing one”.

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jgatie

Question: is the trade up from a Play:5 (Gen 1) a trade up to a newer Play:5 or the Move?

You can use the 30% discount on any one Sonos product (and some bundles). It does not need to be a direct replacement.

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