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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deeteeakl

Lyricist I

Like the many other unhappy owners of sonos hardware I will not invest in new replacement hardware. I will use the system until it stops working. I can no longer recommend their products. Really poor show. Rip sonos.

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lawhhh

Lyricist III

https://forums.whathifi.com/threads/sonos-everything-you-need-to-know.111173/

The link above shows the first of over 30 reviews I will be leaving on various consumer review websites. Each review I write will be unique so it doesn't throw up any flags with duplicate content with the search engines or websites themselves. If you feel like I do, I suggest you write some honest reviews outside of this website yourself.

In the same way I fully committed to Sonos when I bought 6 of their devices for over £2k, I am now fully committed to telling people how they operate.

While it's great to vent our fury here we are talking to a closed audience, ie just other cheesed off owners, we should be telling non sonos owning people who may be thinking of “investing” in Sonos what will happen.

Never have I been so distrusting of any company or shocked by the immoral, anti-environmental, dirty, money grabbing tactics as I am now with Sonos (even Ryanair comes second place to Sonos)

If the link is removed, here is the text from my review….

“I have been a hifi enthusiast for over 30 years. I finally sacrificed sound quality for convenience and bought 6 pieces of Sonos equipment for plugging into existing legacy Amps and bringing sound to new rooms.

The experience has been painful with intermittent reliability but the main issue is that after spending over £2k ALL of that investment is now obsolete since Sonos have just announced they are withdrawing support for my devices, they offer 30% of the value against new products (yeah right, as if I am going to do that)

Sonos are the only equipment manufacturer I can think of that you buy a product from, then the company decides to effectively destroy it remotely (other than Apple of course). they are effectively hiring the device to you with payment upfront for 5 years. Its a recurring revenue model that is hidden from the consumer.

My Dual, Thorens, Nakamichi, B&W, REL, Denon equipment still works very well, some of it after 35 years and if it needs a new drive belt etc I can buy one for a few pounds or have the equipment repaired, (although I've never had too)

I urge anyone considering buying Sonos to look at alternatives unless they they are prepared for their investment to disappear via a remote update at a random stage in the future. The nagging fear in the back of your mind that would prevent me from enjoying anything whilst I owned it. The fact that a company I once believed in do this deliberately to their early adopters, brand ambassadors leaves me seething.

I will never buy sonos again, I recommend nobody else starts...”

In the very, very, very small chance that someone from Sonos actually reads this I urge you to keep my system working, I don't want new features, I don't want my sonos to boil the kettle, I don't want to talk to my stereo, for it to tell me a joke or the temperature in Jakarta or the next bus to Kings Cross or the significance of the number 42…...I just want it to play spotify and occasionally some radio stations. Comon, how hard is that?

Ohhh, I forgot to mention that I also have a few Roberts and Hacker transistor radios that date from the 60’s, guess what…. THEY STILL WORK!!!!

I even have a very early Russian pocket radio alarm from 60’s or 70’s, guess what IT STILL WORKS! “incredible” you say, “it can't be” you say! but it IS true. They all work despite being over 50 years old! Its really true, they really do still work!

Time to buy a google chromecast or similar for £10 to £20 ish and plug it into my 60year old radio for a near Sonos like experience!!!! (the sound on these old radios is amazing) google also lets you play to multiple rooms using chromecast and the best part is that I can still use the spotify app (what I use to control my spotify equipment since the Sonos App is so crap) that will cast to multiple chromecasts simultaneously so I don't even have to change my UI.

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acmishcon

Lyricist II

Heart goes out to Ryan. Tough job and doing your best.

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attacama40

Headliner I

So what it’s 9.30 in CA ?… think that’s were they based.

Another day …. let’s see if there is any word of comfort today for their loyal and high spending customer base today.

Two days of silence bar Ryan doing his best to support. Let’s hear from decision makers with a way forward.

We all angry sure, … but a direction, a message, a modification of approach...ANYTHING would be good!

Sonos senior management can we have a brief please?

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jwnh2802

Lyricist I

Appalling.

I have kitted out my home with Sonos products as my research at the time suggest a quality product and company. As with everyone else, I have been dumped by your company.

My PS4 is older than the Sonos system, yet they are happily supporting updates.

Anyone know of or interested in starting a class action lawsuit?

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lawhhh

Lyricist III

this is precisely the actions we can and should take…. i.e spread it wider than this forum.

I think there are enough of us to leave 1 star reviews that the average product ratings will drop to 1 or 2 on major product review sites. They have significant impact on people’s buying habits and we should warn others before they potentially part with several thousand or hundreds of pounds/dollars for a system that will be knackered in a few years.

UKUser can I ask on which website this screen shot is from so I can register and contribute to Sonos’ average product rating?

Why don't Sonos commit to letting me play Spotify and some radio through my existing system? I know it can be done and dont give me the bumfff about memory, I have a degree in electronics and life in software dev. I (like many others here) know that there are easy solutions available to continue making your products WORK…. I am not talking about new features, I dont give a toss about new features… I can live without them, I am just talking about maintaining a few basic features. WHY are you trashing my £2k system?

These are the recent ratings for the Android Sonos App

Presumably there is a similar facility for the iPhone App

There is also a head of steam building up on the Trustpilot site - 11 pages of 1 star reviews and counting:

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.sonos.com

Thanks, I will reg and add to trustpilot….

In return I have started on whathifi (many more to follow) perhaps you could leave a review there?.

Here is the link https://forums.whathifi.com/threads/sonos-everything-you-need-to-know.111173/

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rwrgeo

Renowned Enthusiast II

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...

You’re completely right. My main concern about this is the short notice to replace devices, but my wider concern is the damage to the Company from this - or possibly how desperate they are to even try this at such short notice - means they in serious difficulty. Its academic how long Sonos would like to support differently aged devices if they are not here to support any devices new or old.

I do wonder how many supposed Sonos-killers who have come and gone over the years left their customers in the same mess after months rather than years.

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FJM

Contributor I

I have read with considerable disappointment that SONOS will no longer provide updates for certain equipment. I want to advise SONOS management and community at large how disappointing this announcement is.

I have been a very loyal SONOS customer for at least 8 years and have purchased:

2 SONOS one’s

2 SONOS 5’s 1 generation

2 SONOS 5”s 2 generation

2 SONOS Sound Bars…

1 SONOS Base Unit

Also have purchased three individual sets of SONOS one’s for individual members of my family as gifts.

As you can see I have made a considerable investment in both the company and its equipment.

I find it interesting and disappointing that this announcement happens to coincide with the fact that SONOS is now a publicly traded company on Wall Street. Since SONOS has gone public its share price and not increased and its sales volume has not increased as Wall Street had hoped. Now the NEW strategy will be for SONOS management to create incentives for existing customers to purchase more "NEW" units…..THEREFORE INCREASE SALES VOLUME! Before SONOS went “PUBLIC” it had an outstanding reputation for quality. Now it looks like GREED MANAGEMENT has taken control of the company…..

II will no longer invest my money in products with a company management that maintains this type of business agenda.

FJM

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RickyV

Trending Lyricist I

As with others, I am appalled at this decision and the total contempt shown for customers.

I too have spent thousands of pounds on Sonos equipment in the not distant past and three of my 6 products are now apparently legacy.

The thing I’m finding most infuriating is this badge of “being able to support new functionality” and associating processing power etc.

Over the last two years we have seen an enormous downgrade in “functionality” from iPhone lock screen controls to playing from iPhone at all. Three years ago my system did more than it can do now in terms of usable functionality and ultimately those things were the reason for purchase for me. So it doesn’t stack up that new functionality requires greater processing power, keep it simple and working how it was. It used to be such a beautiful, easy system.

I will never buy again if this decision isn’t reversed. What other options are there from someone hacking the software to a class action law suit on fair use? Surely there are enough of us unhappy with this that we cannot let it happen?

What else can we do to damage their brand in the meantime? Don’t let this fade into memory - get on every site possible and give a 0 star review. Tell everyone you know not to buy Sonos. Collectively we can destroy them if they treat us like this.

disgusting company

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agregj

Lyricist I

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.

Very disgruntled customer here, but taking a deep breath having just read the above…….and now looking for some clarity…….

Is this statement above a response to the global angst caused by the legacy announcement 2 days ago, or was this in the master EOL plan? Either way, I’d wager waiting until May to share the detail with us (customers) might be seen as another crass communication clanger from Sonos. If the above statement is to be believed, the key user focused questions that need answered quickly are:

Will we be able to group speakers from the legacy environment with those in the non-legacy environment?
Will we be able to run these two environments from one app, or will it be 2 apps
Will we need to purchase any additional Sonos products to make the two-environment model work in our homes

I’m not sure anyone is going to be buying Sonos until you can answer these questions and we get some clarity on the full user/owner impact of your embryonic legacy strategy

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