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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I'm so confused. The first lines says this:
"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. "
then they say this:
" You can continue to use your whole system in legacy mode - in this case, it will stop receiving updates and new features. "
So, will they continue to support the existing experience on legacy speakers, or not? I’m OK with Sonos not providing new features on legacy equipment. But I’d like to keep using what I am using today for streaming services. The first sentence seems to indicate you will be committed to keeping the existing experience going (yay) but then the second sentence says you won’t do any more updates.
I’ve added a review and I encourage everyone else to do the same. Sonos will probably decide to suppress this forum discussion sooner or later, but they can’t remove the reviews on other sites.
Good plan.
Like most Silicon Valley-type CEOs, I suspect Patrick Wotsit is totally unaware of what goes on in these forums - it’s poor Ryan and Co. that are left to face the music.
The only thing that PW watches will be the Share Price - so until that starts tanking (hopefully) there will probably be zero movement. And for the share price to descend it will need the press to start broadcasting the discontent. I notice that most of the tech press are following the rather naive and weak ‘well, these things are bound to happen with fast-moving tech’ line.
It will also take a bright person to realise that having literally hundreds of thousands of loyal supporters flip to being anti-brand overnight is definitely going to hit future purchases - and so income.
In fact, conspiracy theorists may even start wondering if all this wasn’t a deliberate move by some execs - since it would make Sonos a handy target for Amazon, Google or others down the road if profits do go south.
On a practical note - all my Sonos stuff has an ethernet connection at least, so is there any room for an enterprising hardware company to come up with a central unit that will at least work with wired Sonos kit? I’m assuming wireless is out as that will be encrypted.
Alternatively, for someone to offer a service whereby you send in your Sonos kit and for a fee they physically add a line-in type socket (or maybe a custom wifi chip) which could then be connected to a 3rd party system? At the end of the day, whatever Sonos do, there are tweeters, woofers etc. in there which can be made to produce sound someway, somehow.
Bad Move Sonos… I just purchased a new Beam and now I’m very sorry I did after learning how Sonos decided to treat their early loyal customer, like me… I have turned on countless friends and family to the Sonos solution and now I’m very sorry I did that. A 30% discount is hardly enough given the very high replacement cost… This is what happens when Greed takes over a once-great company. This is truly a Blackmail/extortion scheme… I'm so sick and upset. about this… I am not purchasing another unit until Sonos does good by us all.
Joke of the day:
I replied to this thread saying "none". Strangely this thread just closed to further comments. And mine disappeared! Lol
Everyone needs to go to trust pilot.com, and every review site they can think of, and let Sonos know how they feel!
Just been there. Still had to give the b<&^/#s one star, though.
Just left my review. They are at a 1.4 trust score. Seems right.
I have been a huge supporter of Sonos from day 1 and have bought some 15 components
this news could have been handled so much better and to me it shows their focus on their customers is over. I can accept that my early speakers may not have all the functionality but freezing a system is just wrong. I think we are seeing the end of Sonos as it used to be and I think this will costs them the loyal support they have built up over all the years.
I personally have cancelled my recent orders and will look for a new system that appreciates their customers
closing yesterday’s thread is another sign of what Sonos has become
A string a bad decisions lately. Time for a new CEO?
I’ve been Sonos customer for years and like many on here I have spent over $5,000 pulling my system together piece by piece. The slap in the face by Sonos shows that they are more concerned with forcing existing customers to purchase new temporary products knowing that they will be obsolete in 5 years or less.
I will be reaching out to Best Buy to see what their return policy is and what promotions they will be offering for Sonos competitor products. I’ve had my Bose products for over 20 years in my media room and they offer lifetime product support and replacement.
Depending on what I hear I will have the following equipment for sale at 50% of what I paid for them.
Beam
1
Bridge
1
Connect AMP
1
Move
1
Play 1
6
Play 3
1
Play 5
4
Playbar
1
Sub
2
Happy to take the sub and the move off your hands at 50%! Best Buy’s return policy is 15 days or 45 if you are elite plus.
Are people really going to toss whole systems and outlay all that cash for a new, even more expensive one, made by a company that could disappear or discontinue their line (e.g. Bose) at any time? Of all of the companies that make these systems, Sonos seems to be the most stable to invest your money into for products, despite this announcement.
Sorry but when you spend a lot of your hard earned money on a system, just to have a large part of that investment junked with little notice is shocking. I for one will slowly move to another solution as I have lost all trust in Sonos. I won’t just throw it all out but will plan and move as and when I can or when I need to. I won’t be held hostage to a company that treats its customers in this manner. Would also add that 30% discount is an insult, 50% would be a joke.
I bought my Connect: Amp in 2017, 2 years later it’s “Legacy”? I didn’t know I should have been super careful about the manufacture date.
What happened to the “keep adding to your system each year” way of thinking?
$455 after a 30% discount is a slap in the face to replace a perfectly functioning amp.
Now there’s conflicting information as to whether or not “legacy” products will get software updates.
This sucks.
Yeah, I bought my Connect:Amp in June 2018. I’ve had it for a year and half and it’s tagged as Legacy.
Joke of the day:
I replied to this thread saying "none". Strangely this thread just closed to further comments. And mine disappeared! Lol
Me too! Can’t disappear us from all social media though!
I received an email from SONOS yesterday which states that I have six legacy products. I just logged into my account and the news got even better. Turns out I have nine legacy products.
“You have 9 legacy products that do not receive regular software updates and new features as of May 2020.”
Better than what I found…
Just logged into my Sonos acccount and went to “System” and saw:
“You have 31 legacy products that do not receive regular software updates and new features as of May 2020”
As I understand it I would have to upgrade every single one of them and if I don’t then nothing in the system can be updated? How realistic is it to expect that I’m going to replace 31 Sonos products before May?
Would Sonos be able to roll out an initiative that would allow legacy speakers to be sent back to Sonos for an electric upgrade for a better discount that 30% off newer speakers? Incidentally, I'm worried which of my non-legacy speakers will no longer be supported after x amount of years… Can you give us the data on all your speakers to show which models you think will be phased out and when?
I have a very old Rega Planer 3 turntable, which with Rega's help, I have been able to buy drives, mechanisms, arms and stylus, etc, which helps them keep up with the latest Rega technology. If they can do this, why can't Sonos?
I will be investing in more Sonos speakers to cover my whole house - 4 new rooms and a garden. Should I look to alternative brand speakers with a more sustainable ethos, which would be supported by (alternative brand) for longer?
So I have THREE Play 5 units but only two are eligible for trade in. Why? My Sonos Connect is not eligible but my Connect Amp is! What kind of support is that?!!!
@User443206, they all should be, you might need to contact our team directly to look into what might be causing the trouble with your account. I do know that recently registered devices might not show as trade up eligible for an hour or so after registration if you just plugged those in.
Long term, I am thinking of keeping my Sonos speakers on Legacy, and using the Sonos controller just to group and ungroup speakers and control their volume.
For music streaming, I’ll set up Emby or Plex on a cheap Linux system (maybe a Raspberry Pi) and send the output to my Connect’s line in. Then all I need to do is group my Connect with the other rooms where I want music to play. We almost never stream two different services at the same time--in fact, I don’t think we ever have--so no problems there with a single source system.
It adds an extra UI step: go to Emby/Plex for the music selection, and Sonos Controller for volume and grouping, but the Sonos UI on mobile devices is so bad now that it feels like a lateral move, anyway.
This is my thoughts at this point as well. I could build my own control with my current Homeseer Integration.
As long as they don’t break the UPNP, there will be plenty of ways to integrate/automate with 3rd party smart hubs, to control grouping and even playing. Smartthings, Control4, Homeseer, etc all have working integrations.
I just hope and pray that we can add Legacy units to our Legacy system, or even better, purchase new equipment and run in Legacy Mode.
Interesting times ahead.
I am facing 23 zones of Sonos and no real way to ditch or keep the system. Funds to use the paltry 30% deal just don’t exist. ABANDON your unified code on all devices architecture and make it possible to control legacy and new equipment inside your app. You own both sets of code, just get the engineers to make this happen. Don’t force the 92% of legacy equipment still in use to go in the trash, and, lose a huge portion of your user base at the same time!
Sonos (NASDAQ:SONO) continues to feel stock price and social media pressure from yesterday's announcement that the company would no longer support some models released between 2006 and 2009.
The support ends in May.
The company informed customers they could either continue to use the products without updates or purchase a new Sonos product at a 30% discount.
Statement from Sonos: "As this is the first time we’ve had to end software updates for any music player, we recognize this is new for Sonos owners, just as it is for Sonos. We’ve now come to the point where our oldest products have been stretched to their technical limits in terms of memory and processing power."
Sonos shares are down 1.2% to $14.63.
@Ryan S Please go away you corporate shill….you should be ashamed
Hello to Sonos and their community.
I haven’t read every single comment on this thread, but it would seem that a lot of people are unhappy. My comment, for what it’s worth, is that I bear no animosity towards Sonos. It is inevitable that this will happen to every “smart” device at some point. Sonos, are just the first to do it. To name a few, we have had Bose, Yamaha, Denon, and B&O speakers over the last couple of years. We were in search of superior sound and only found it in Sonos. Where Bose is concerned, they do have a relatively good sound, but the software and services that are included in both their SoundTouch, and Smart devices, is incredibly limited. We had many negative experiences, with every device, until we bought Sonos. Yes, their “legacy” announcement was a shock, but it is not going to be the only company to do this. Sonos are just the first to do it. The hardware in their “legacy” devices, has simply reached its limit and can no longer be “confidently” updated. If Sonos are to remain ahead of their competitors, in a saturated market, then they have to make controversial and difficult decisions such as this.
I would like to say that Ihave not bought a Sonos “smart” speaker. I have avoided the Sonos one for the exact reason that I figured that it would be a device with a shorter lifespan as a result of the “smart” integration. None of my 30 components (including 2 Play 5 (Gen1), 1 connect Amp, 2 Connect, 2 Play 3 (Gen 1), 3 play 1, 2 playbars, and 2 subs) are “smart”. Yes they are internet connected but that is a very different thing in my mind. I can buy a stand alone amazon Echo or Google nest mini if I want smart control of my Sonos speakers which I did to limit the number of “disposable” items.
I purchased Sonos because it allowed me to have an integrated experience and didn’t require that I run wires around my house. I use them for a limited number of services (streaming personal library, Spotify, and TuneIn) and don’t need more than maintenance of the current services. I don’t believe that this is too much to ask. I don’t expect Sonos to keep upgrading my current components if there are technical limitations but I also don’t expect them to simply say that they will no longer support older equipment because the new equipment will have additional functionality.
I think it’s a misscaracterization to say that the legacy equipment can no longer be “confidently” updated. There is no evidence that the equipment could not continue to receive updates should there be small updates to the APIs of the services assuming, what they may not be able to do is “confidently” upgrade legacy components, which I for one can accept. What they appear to be saying is that the legacy components will simply be set adrift to die a slow death as providers tweak their APIs.
I agree. The Play 5 and Connect are not “Smart”. They have one purpose, and only one purpose. To stream music. Period. That has not changed since they first hit the market. They should not become obsolete at the whim of the lazy developer who , as always, think they know better than the users.
The only thing smart here are the disgruntled posters who are voicing their disgust with a company who has blatantly and lamentably, decided to piss on our parade. Miserable bastards.
Interestingly, Sonos encourage you to email there CEO directly if you want to talk to them.
Maybe his email box is full from irate customers like myself.
I did ring, and left a voicemail for him…. as we cant email him anymore
I emailed him yesterday AND got a reply! Sad to say it was just corporate bs-speak. Come on Patrick, resign and let someone who gives a damn run sonos. Since the company went NASDAQ, it has become more about share buybacks and dodgy corporate manipulation than HiFi.
Hello to Sonos and their community.
I haven’t read every single comment on this thread, but it would seem that a lot of people are unhappy. My comment, for what it’s worth, is that I bear no animosity towards Sonos. It is inevitable that this will happen to every “smart” device at some point. Sonos, are just the first to do it. To name a few, we have had Bose, Yamaha, Denon, and B&O speakers over the last couple of years. We were in search of superior sound and only found it in Sonos. Where Bose is concerned, they do have a relatively good sound, but the software and services that are included in both their SoundTouch, and Smart devices, is incredibly limited. We had many negative experiences, with every device, until we bought Sonos. Yes, their “legacy” announcement was a shock, but it is not going to be the only company to do this. Sonos are just the first to do it. The hardware in their “legacy” devices, has simply reached its limit and can no longer be “confidently” updated. If Sonos are to remain ahead of their competitors, in a saturated market, then they have to make controversial and difficult decisions such as this.
I agree with this view too. This is the nature of the beast with integrated hardware/software solutions. Bose discontinued Soundtouch overnight. That’s always a risk. We are all invested in Sonos’s continuing operation by having their stuff. If this is part of what is necessary to keep innovating, then that’s the deal.
Sure if that is the view you want to take...I agree...HOWEVER, moving forward I will not invest in high priced company who touts themselves as ‘eco friendly’ and ‘delivering something better than the rest’……
We could copy that onto pretty much any major electronics’ company message board, and it would apply to them. Apple no longer supports the iPhone 4. Samsung doesn’t release updates for old devices - all the apps on my Samsung TV are dead. Same with LG -- I’ve lost a bunch of functionality since I got it. Bose just discontinued Soundtouch and left all their customers hanging. I mean I totally get the anger -- I had to outlay a bunch of money to upgrade my Sonos system yesterday. It would have been great if they had made this announcement before the January 9 price increase. That being said, this is how tech companies operate in 2020. If Samsung decides the SmartThings hub isnt profitable, my whole house integration will be shut down. We are at the mercy of technology updates and companies that are profit seeking. The alternative is just to not use these kinds of products, which is fine too. But I don’t think trying to ruin Sonos’s business with bad reviews is very helpful. The result will be that whatever current Sonos products you have that work will be worthless or worth a lot less money. How is that a good thing for anyone here?
Interestingly, Sonos encourage you to email there CEO directly if you want to talk to them.
I had my e mail just yesterday and am utterly shocked and appalled. Its a flipping music streaming system for goodness sake! How complicated does that need to be? I have invested a considerable amount of money in my Sonos system…..3 Play 5 units, a connect amp and a connect and you’re telling me it’ll soon be useless. Well guess which system I will NOT be investing in ever again and will advise everyone I possibly can not to invest either! You had better do a 360 degree U turn on this decision pretty damned quick Sonos or face market redundancy in my opinion.
Was a loyal customer. Crazy they are doing this. They did this to me on their remote controls. I should have stopped then. No more!
Here are some ideas so this doesn’t happen again in the future:
Sell a new hardware device that adds to your system which has plenty of processing power to handle new software updates, etc. and “bridges” to your legacy equipment, allowing it to still function, while removing the processing workload from the speakers themselves and putting it into this new device. This is something I would gladly invest in every 3 - 5 years as new features are released.
Ensure all new products have upgradeable memory / processor modules so that in the future customers can upgrade their equipment without having to buy an entirely new speaker.
Offer an option to send in legacy equipment to have memory / processor upgrades performed at at a reasonable cost without needing to replace the entire unit.
Simply maintain functionality on legacy equipment as it is today, without promising any new features in the future. I’m OK with not getting upcoming features because the system can’t handle it; but I don’t want to lose features I bought it for now. My use case is primarily Google Play Music. If that goes, my sonos system is basically useless as when Sonos provided GPM, i stopped investing in my own personal music library.
I’ve added a review and I encourage everyone else to do the same. Sonos will probably decide to suppress this forum discussion sooner or later, but they can’t remove the reviews on other sites.
Alternatively, for someone to offer a service whereby you send in your Sonos kit and for a fee they physically add a line-in type socket (or maybe a custom wifi chip) which could then be connected to a 3rd party system? At the end of the day, whatever Sonos do, there are tweeters, woofers etc. in there which can be made to produce sound someway, somehow.
Brilliant idea.
I’d be quite happy to open up all my Sonos boxes, throw away the circuit boards, and fit a replacement ‘lets call it modern’ motherboard and wifi from another enterprising young company.
We’ve all got lot’s of excellent speaker enclosures, with super sound quality, and power supplies.
