Discontinuing service and software updates for older legacy Sonos speakers?

Sonos is not a speaker, so expecting it to be like a speaker is nonsense. Sonos is an integrated multi-room music streamer, with significant reliance on an external ecosystem which includes things like cloud services, streaming services, voice services, etc. To expect 13+ year old technology to operate within this ecosystem in perpetuity is not only unrealistic, it is foolish. To expect it to be like the old pair of Advents you bought back in 1972 is downright absurd.

Furthermore, to expect Sonos to continually support every software/firmware release which occurs prior to an older unit no longer being supported is also unrealistic. Sonos is a for profit company, and how much profit is to be made if they waste manpower on a configuration which will eventually lose most if not all functionality, for a forever dwindling user base, who by definition will never buy another Sonos device? Answer: Not much.

Didn’t use any profanity.  Did I say I did that?

 

Didn’t say you did, just relaying the rule.  

Thanks but irrelevant to my post and do not appreiciate the implication in your reply.  I am perferctly able to express an opinion, that happened to be agreeing with yours, without profanity.

Ahh no, my post critiqued yours so that’s why your false implication….:)

It's a speaker - whilst I don't expect it to get new facilities, I do expect it to carry on doing all that it was bought for indefinitely...

I expected that when I bought Windows XP! LOL

The basic task of a speaker is such that they last decades and quite hionestly work just as well as they ever did.  Sonos is sold as a ‘speaker’.

Yes, I know my devices,  the ones I quoted, will not be in question yet, but is it just a matter of time? 

“I said the day they turn them off...”

 

 

I don’t know where the misinformation is coming from, but “they” are not turning anything off at all.  Legacy devices will continue to work just as they do today after May and for the foreseeable future.  There could be things like protocol/security changes at music services that may cause those services to deteriorate.  However those types of changes are very rare, and quite possibly a fix could be fit into the legacy memory and storage, then issued as a bug/security update. 

The only time a device is “turned off” is when you voluntarily choose to recycle it for the 30% discount.  This is your choice, Sonos is not bricking anything against your will.  As to them going into landfills, you are asked to recycle them yourself, or you can send it to Sonos free of charge and they will do the recycling.

 

 

 

 

THEY WILL NOT CONNECT TO EACH OTHER ANYMORE!   My $500.00 speaker I bought 5 yrs ago won’t link to my other 3 speakers! $500 for something that sits on a shelf and is used an hour a day on a system that has the volume of my old 1980s JVC receiver (admittedly better fidelity)

 

Sonos handled this extremely poorly. Most manufactures will continue to provide software updates for at least 5 years after they discontinue a product. I am a Sonos dealer and I received from Sonos my last Connect Amp shipment in January 2019. My last Connect was shipped to me in March 2019. I have customers with systems less than 1 year old that is now obsolete. They should have seen this coming and come out with a Connect Amp and Connect 2.0 years ago to avoid this issue. 

Will you continue to be a Sonos dealer?  If I was a customer of yours, I’d be frustrated at you as well as with Sonos.  I was initially turned onto Sonos by my AV expert, and I’m guessing he’s now fielding many questions from frustrated clients.

 

@apslink.com  I just noticed this, but I hope you’ve gotten the correct answer already. The Connect and Connect:Amp units that were made after 2015 are not being set as legacy products. Only the older version of the device is a legacy product. So those units you recently got are all fully supported as “modern” devices and will be for at least 5 years after you got them. Our commitment is to support all Sonos devices for at least five years after the point when the become no longer sold and we have a track record for supporting them far longer.

 Your commitment is to support “modern” devices for at least 5 years after you got them???  Is that a joke?  Do you think 5 years is sufficient when you’re spending this kind of money on a supposedly high-end product?  This just keeps getting worse and worse with Sonos.  

See this article in case you haven’t already. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/23/sonos-to-deny-software-updates-to-owners-of-older-equipment

I imagine the bad press for Sonos will continue on, and all product reviews will need to contain a Huge disclaimer/asterisk, “Your high-end product will be good for at least 5 years, but then your Sonos equipment might not be supported, might not work with your favorite streaming service, and it might have security vulnerabilities.”    Thanks, but no thanks Sonos. 

 

As I posted before….

‘Not a speaker’ although marketed as such, certainly when I bought most of mine (and still called ‘speakers’ in advertising and on the website). When I bought mine I was not aware of the plans for making Sonos into a ‘smart’ speaker product.  That would have put me off, as would the idea that I would not be able to continue using those I bought as purely speakers for multi-room audio. The Sonos sales blurb! Still!

Not always a multi-room wireless system either.  Depends on the construction and layout of your house and also the competition from neighbouring wifi signals, not just your own.  That is only becoming more of a problem as more connected devices are being marketed. I’d like to see the 32 device systems working and in what scenarios!

I advise anyone thinking of Sonos to exercise caution now.  Before all the smart speaker thing and endless updates, some enforced, I was enthusiastically recommending Sonos.  Anyone who only wants one or two speakers, in fairly close proximity without much competition for the wireless signals is probably okay.  Going the whole hog multi-room thing though can be more problematical. And an expensive mistake if they are also going to stop working at some point. Sonos just doesn’t get that if people spend a lot of money on a quality audio system, their current enjoyment of it is impaired with a sword of damocles in the form of withdrawal of support hanging over them. If it’s going to be a throwaway product ditch the quality and make it cheaper. Decide what the market is for pete’s sake and stop trying to have it both ways.  Or provide both!!

My decision hasn’t changed following the CEO’s email which contains a lot of get outs and was probably just as much a shareholder pacification exercise. I won’t be buying anymore until Sonos proves it’s committment to its existing customers and hardware that can work perfectly well to deliver good audio without all the flummery that is probably usign all the memory and processing power!  Look where the ebook market it going. It’s quite possible voice control will go the same way.

 

the same worries  here, looking at over £2000 to “update” to the same functionality I have now.  I dont use voice activated (amazon or google) so no benefit to me at all ……..  

Same thing with me. I use my system only for listening the music in different rooms. I dont need or want any unsecure voice controls there. 

You can do it also with the speakers from the 70's. So its not a big thing to ask that you can continue listening the music with your expensive system which you have owned only few years. 

 

From the original mail: "Over time, this is likely to disrupt access to services and overall functionality."

It doesn't say that you cant use coming new features if those are not possible because of technical limitations. It clearly tells that over time it will distrupt overall functionality! And you cant get new updates for the system if you have some old speakers and some which are Gen2.

Of course you could make updates also in the future for the old verions. Just take off that kind of things which are not possible because of technical limitations (for example voice control) and different update for the systems/speakers which dont have any limitations. 

PR disaster?

 

 

 

I bought my 3 Play:5’s in 2017 - 3 yrs support on a household product that should last 20 or more years.. Paid a premium because I believed that SONOS was a quality product. SONOS no longer standing behind their older products (after 3 years!!!!) is an excellent indicator what the reality is. Lack of memory? Can’t do modern things - like what? Listen in and collect personal data for our data collection overlords?

Just play high fidelity music from the internet (and local sources) and be able to sync it in groups.. something I thought the original speakers could do but now can’t apparently or won’t be able to in the future. Also my 2017 Connect is listed as “old” and the 2018 Connect is listed “modern”.. I have to replace the Connect with the new device which is even more expensive so the “30%” tradeup discount is insulting.

I realize of course that future devices may in fact handle video etc so yes of course there probably should be another tier of devices (I like the “classic” idea! ).

Hopefully there are some EU anti-consumer laws that can help cause here in the US it seems we just don’t care.

The announcement makes no assertions about PLAY:1s.

One wonders about the motivation behind this move.  Is it due to:

• Genuine difficulty/inability to support older products because of resource constraints?
• Forced obsolescence to encourage hardware purchases -- motivated by profit?
• Forced obsolescence to encourage purchases of voice activated products so Sonos can play in the surveillance capitalist space?

The first two feel unlikely.  If it’s the latter, is it motivated by a fear that competitors such as Google and Amazon already occupy that space?  Or crude greed at the opportunities the surveillance business model promises?   

Sonos handled this extremely poorly. Most manufactures will continue to provide software updates for at least 5 years after they discontinue a product. I am a Sonos dealer and I received from Sonos my last Connect Amp shipment in January 2019. My last Connect was shipped to me in March 2019. I have customers with systems less than 1 year old that is now obsolete. They should have seen this coming and come out with a Connect Amp and Connect 2.0 years ago to avoid this issue. 

Will you continue to be a Sonos dealer?  If I was a customer of yours, I’d be frustrated at you as well as with Sonos.  I was initially turned onto Sonos by my AV expert, and I’m guessing he’s now fielding many questions from frustrated clients.

The problem for those of us using speakers with online services such as Spotify probably means once API changes are made by the service provider, we'll almost certainly be shut out from using those services with our older Sonos speakers.

There's nothing particularly shocking about this.Really? I don't expect old kit to do all that newer kit will do, but I do expect it to continue to do all the things that it currently does...This is one of the downsides of these speaker systems. Sonos are not going to keep supporting older devices forever. Once features break such as Spotify integration, that's it.

Of course it's not without risk for Sonos. Once we start getting cut off, some of us will evaluate whether we want to stay in the Sonos ecosystem. I certainly won't be adding to my Sonos setup with new speakers until I know what Sonos plans are for handling this.


I just wanted you to know I completely agree with you and have ran into some of the same problems. Sonos is constantly preventing older devices and operating systems from controlling their speakers. They claim it's the OS and device manufacturers fault but that doesn't fly when one day the app is working fine and the next not working at all because of a speaker firmware update. There needs to be a simple way to prevent updates to both the speakers' firmware as well as the apps on any device being used to control the speakers. While there is an option to prevent updates under the Android OS there seems to be no option in the Windows 7 version of the app to do the same so there is no way to avoid the prompts to upgrade the app or firmware using a Windows laptop. They need to leave well enough alone but I suspect they are probably patching more security flaws in the version of Linux or whatever other OS the speakers are using internally more than they are adding features, however they will likely never admit it. They are pursuing a one size fits all strategy that is likely to end in their demise.