Retired Sonos Staff

End of Software Support - Clarifications

Dec 8, 2022 11:29 AM UTC
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We announced yesterday that some of our oldest Sonos products will be moving into a legacy mode in May of 2020. Our commitment is to support products with regular software updates for a minimum of five years after we stop selling them, and we have a track record of supporting products far longer.

Here is some public information we’ve shared, gathered into one place to respond to some of your questions in one easy thread, so that people can find the correct information easily.

Beginning in May, software updates and new features from Sonos will only be delivered to systems with only modern products.

After May, systems that include legacy products will continue to work as before - but they will no longer receive software updates or new features.

Sonos will work to maintain the existing experience and conduct bug fixes, but our efforts will ultimately be limited by the lack of memory and processing power of these legacy products.

We don’t expect any immediate impact to your experience, but access to services and overall functionality will eventually be disrupted, particularly as partners evolve their own services and features.

Customers with both legacy and modern products have time to decide what option is best for them. You can continue to use your whole system in legacy mode - in this case, it will stop receiving updates and new features.

You will also be able to separate your legacy products from your modern products, so that the modern products can still receive updates and new features, and legacy products can still be used separately. We’ll have more information on how to do this in May when you can take that action.

Another option available to all customers with legacy products is to take advantage of the Trade Up program, which allows you to upgrade older Sonos products to modern ones with a 30% discount. Trade Up will be open to customers at any time should they decide to upgrade.

We recognize this is new for Sonos owners, just as it is for Sonos. We are committed to help you by making options available to you to support the best decision for your home.

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate with asking.

Update 2/22: A message from our CEO

We heard you. We did not get this right from the start. My apologies for that and I wanted to personally assure you of the path forward:

First, rest assured that come May, when we end new software updates for our legacy products, they will continue to work as they do today. We are not bricking them, we are not forcing them into obsolescence, and we are not taking anything away. Many of you have invested heavily in your Sonos systems, and we intend to honor that investment for as long as possible. While legacy Sonos products won’t get new software features, we pledge to keep them updated with bug fixes and security patches for as long as possible. If we run into something core to the experience that can’t be addressed, we’ll work to offer an alternative solution and let you know about any changes you’ll see in your experience.

Secondly, we heard you on the issue of legacy products and modern products not being able to coexist in your home. We are working on a way to split your system so that modern products work together and get the latest features, while legacy products work together and remain in their current state. We’re finalizing details on this plan and will share more in the coming weeks.

While we have a lot of great products and features in the pipeline, we want our customers to upgrade to our latest and greatest products when they’re excited by what the new products offer, not because they feel forced to do so. That’s the intent of the trade up program we launched for our loyal customers.

Thank you for being a Sonos customer. Thank you for taking the time to give us your feedback. I hope that you’ll forgive our misstep, and let us earn back your trust. Without you, Sonos wouldn’t exist and we’ll work harder than ever to earn your loyalty every single day.

If you have any further questions please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Patrick Spence
CEO, Sonos

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S

sm75382

Enthusiast II

Im above Tony Fleming on that screen shot!

Sonos - A expensive speaker rental scam company

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luvpame

Trending Lyricist I

Well, at least we have not been given a diagnosis of cancer.

But it does feel like something dear has died, or has been given a death sentence.

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jjfhiowa

Contributor I

Why would you do this to your most loyal and longest customers? I have been a Sonos user for a very long time and own around 15 speakers between my home and business. In the past I usually add between 1-3 new pieces a year. With this announcement I will not spend another dime on sonos anything. Why would I knowing that at any moment it will no longer be supported. This is nothing but a money grab on your part and you will get no more money from me.

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Horsleya

Lyricist I

SONOS - The Software Company

Many companies release End Of Life statements on equipment but the key is good communications and plenty of notice. EoL statements should clearly details the dates for the end-of-sale, end-of-support and finally end-of-life. SONOS should have released such a statement years ago to let people know if they were buying into a ‘legacy’ product’. Just providing a few months notice shows a total disregard to customer loyalty. Can anyone point me in the direction of such a statement for the Play:3 for instance or am I likely to be told tomorrow that it will not make the end of the year!

To also compromise the ‘Modern products’ until you are forced to remove your fully working but now deemed ‘EndofLife’ products is such an aggressive stance to take and again shows no respect for the customer base.

I have been a SONOS fan for many many years but will no longer be promoting them as they have obviously become a software company with extremely poor lifecycle management.

And like so many other software companies they will no doubt start looking for new ways of generating revenue such as licensing feature sets within their software.

BEWARE - these are the signs of another naïve software company coming out of what was once a great Hardware company.

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John_467

Trending Lyricist I

BTW the Sonos Share Price graphs people have been posting are a little misleading…
Also their lawsuit against Google (which IMHO seems a reach) will be a significant factor in the price…
Finally lets not wish them that much ill, if they go all the music players go with them, and I already have two Internet devices that are just paperweights due to the company going bust (it was bought, but the purchaser ditched support for the old devices and offered a 25% discount on a new, basically identical, model - maybe with more memory IIRC)…
Not that I’m less than extremely annoyed that I have to go legacy (5 of 7 devices) and Spotify plus Internet radio might stop working sometime...

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MIBUK

Enthusiast II

It is interesting to study the comments in this thread, as they all seem to be based on certain assumptions:

“I am a good customer” - well, you may have bought things during time, but to Sonos it may well be so that a good customer is one who will buy something now and in the near future. Old customers are not contributing to the bottom line.
“I have been loyal to you, you should be loyal to me” - Sonos is not your friend! Sonos is selling electronics, of which you have bought some. They produce, you consume, end of story.
“My system of Sonos products is valuabe because I paid a lot for it” - My bet is that Sonos sees each product as a piece of plastic with some cheap electronics inside, and probably see the economical value only for as long as there is still a warranty to honor; as long as the product can still cost Sonos some money. After that, it is just an old piece of plastic.
“We 2,000 people who complain are such a force, they must listen to us” - Haha, Sonos has sold millions of devices and probably calculate in bigger numbers than that. Saying goodbye to 2,000 customers, of which some can probably even be won back, should not matter much.
“The press and internet media is supporting us” - As I read the articles out there, journalists have a hard time seeing the unreasonable in it all; as they all start with the official “Sonos is seeking to retire the oldest of its units, designed from 2005 to 2009”. Not many readers will feel pity for you who had support for such a long time on simple home electronics. And after a few days, these articles will be forgotten.
“Sonos depends on loyal customers” - As said, if you are not buying, you are not a customer. A business depends on selling something to real customers, not of having a fan club of former buyers.

I myself would like to believe in all these assumptions, but realistically speaking, there may be no response from Sonos, no change in the program, no reward for having complained about Sonos’ decisions and behaviour. After the storm fades in a few days, it will be business as usuall - Sonos trying to find paying customers where they can, and you trying to decide what to buy and what not to.

It is obvious that we are consumers trapped in the illusion of being kind of partners - and for this, Sonos rather deserves praise: they managed to spread this idea and maintain it for so long, helping them to build a company. Cleverly done, useful to them when needed. Now it is not needed anymore, as the company is growing and developing different needs, such as a vision for the economical future, and later, some more solid quarterly reports for the shareholders.

It is tempting to cite The Matrix: “Welcome to the real world!”.

Word of mouth has been key to Sonos’s success. While we may not buy as many units as new customers, we are acting as advocates to new customers. Several of my friends have seen my system and bought Sonos units, because it’s a great system! This is a common story.

Also, the storm that this has created across the tech media, social media and on here will place doubt in many potential customers ie. you want to buy 3 units at a cost of £500 per unit and then plan to expand in the future. Seeing what has happened here, most won’t buy. Why pay premium prices when you can pay less and update at a much cheaper cost? Amazon, Google, Apple and many more can do that. Consumers aren’t idiots. Sonos’s reputation is built on many things, one of which is longevity. They CAN’T compete on price!

They will anounce their financials on 6th February. Let’s see where they are 12 months later. My bet is they will have a solution by May which will satisfy most. Otherwise, they will suffer and then probably be bought up as their share price declines.

Fundamentally, as someone has mentioned previously, they have an opportunity here to sell a box with a fast processor, plenty of memory to allow customers to run 2 systems as 1. Most customers see this as a money grabbing decision, rightly or wrongly.

We’ve seen Nokia, Kodak, and many more who made strategic errors which resulted in their decline and missing massive opportunities. In today’s world, bad as well as good news spreads very quickly. Remember Ratners before social media.

Anyway, nobody in their right mind is going to upgrade a perfectly working product or expand their systems. They’re certainly not going to recommend Sonos to anybody else. In fact, the opposite. A Sonos system isn’t a mobile phone. It’s fundamentally a speaker. To brick products that work perfectly in a world looking to protect the environment, it’s madness. Recyling? Yeah right. Landfill for most and then all the energy used to build new units to replace legacy.

We’ll see who is right in May and/or by next year 2021.

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Act in haste, repent at leisure.

ian_btv

Contributor I

I have, blessedly, only one Connect that is affected. I’m happy to disconnect it from the Play:1’s and Play:5’s that are distributed in my house, as it serves only my home theater/main system, and the Sonos speakers are usually used individually by my kids …

The issue comes if Plex, the plug-in that permits more than 65,535 cataloged media server tracks, is updated to no longer support the Connect … and, to a lesser extent, other apps like Soundcloud or Radio.net/TuneIn. At THAT point, the Connect will be worthless to me.

Do we have assurance that this will not happen? Do we have to plead to the app developers individually to not drop the Connect from supported devices?

I have a better idea … Sonos do the begging … or maybe they think that the ‘planned obsolescence’ model of Apple is a good idea. If so, I think it’s a suicidal move.

Thanks for listening -

ianbtv (Williston, Vermont USA)

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JAV

Lyricist III

Hey Patrick… Hows the lawsuit going with Goggle? Looks to me you decided to screw over your base to try to extort cash to pay legal fees… I’m not paying for that… I can’t wait to hear the Feb 5th earning call… better wear a diaper.

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RKDAVIS10

Contributor I

I am simply disappointed.

For years a bragged about your product, and now you are making me leave you .

You no support policy affects the people that were 1st to you door, helped beta test with you and endured not great initial experience.

And for a thank you you no longer care to invest in us , but want me to invest again in you.

Very short sighted on your part

Short term greed for longer term commodification.

SAD

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toastedbass

Lyricist III

At the end of the day, I am happy Sonos has now clearly explained what is architecturally possible with their whole home audio system. They are only confident enough to be able to guarantee software updates and support for five years after they stop selling a generation of any given product. While sad and frustrating, if that’s the best they can do - oh well.

This clarity may well work for some people, and undoubtedly these people will be willing to continue investing in the Sonos ecosystem.

I am not willing to continue investing in a componentized whole home audio system anymore that will see pieces drop out of support and need replacing every 5-6 years.

The good thing as products fall into legacy, those of us who want out, can replace those legacy products with alternative products to Sonos and gradually escape the ecosystem we’ve invested in. Fortunately, nothing else locks us in once Sonos kills off our initial investment. Music streaming is a commodity widely available elsewhere, and none of our owned music is locked to Sonos either. So it could be worse!

Sonos has essentially come up with a path by which we can all go our separate ways if we so choose, and I wish those who remain committed to Sonos well.

Me, it turns out the clever bits that attracted me to Sonos in the first place are not so widely used by me. I almost never group speakers or control different music playback in different rooms. The typical use case in my home is one speaker is playing music and nothing else. And there are obviously lots of excellent options available for this use case.

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