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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Chris0288

Lyricist II

My main concern, and I apologize if it’s already been asked - how much longer until the sub and playbar are also killed off? I believe they’ve been out since 2012, so can we expect them to disappear in 2022?

@macallan18, our commitment is to support products with software updates for a minimum of five years after we stop selling them, and we have a track record of supporting for longer. You can still purchase from us the same Sub and Playbar that were introduced a while back. And even if they do move to legacy at some point in the distance, they’ll continue working as they currently do, but without software updates. Even if software requirements move beyond their hardware capabilites, they’ll keep on playing your TV input until the hardware breaks.

What software capabilities though? What if we don't want them to do anything else? Just continue to work with streaming services?

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wigginsteape

Contributor I

The point has been made by other contributors about what a really bad decision this is.

My suggestion is that you recruit a focus group from users and ask them to work with a group of your management to work out a revised solution.

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fredwolkovitz

Lyricist I

Extremely disappointed after hearing the announcement to cut software support.

Not going to spend additional money to replace speakers knowing Sonos will pull the rug and not back its products. Should not matter if the products age

Looks like Sonos will not be able to compete any more and likely go out of business.

Why would anyone spend $400 plus for a speaker or component? Bad business model.

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Cisume

Enthusiast II

Please explain what you mean when you say that you will support products that you sell for at least 5 years. I bought a CONNECT:AMP in 2018 to add to the 3 CONNECT:AMPS ans 2 CONNECTS that I bought in 2015 (less than 5 years ago - but it will be 5 years in May when you discontinue support). If the one I bought in 2018 is still “Modern”, why aren’t the others?

There were apparently some hardware changes without a corresponding device name change. Sonos realizes this was a very bad idea and probably won’t do it again.

According to my sources the original Connect and Play 5 had 32mb of memory, the connect:amp and play 1 have 64. The newer connect has 256mb as does the Gen 2 play 5.
The newest models have 1024mb (1 gig) so it is safe to say that the older models with 64 and 256mb are likely not long for this world. And when 1 gb is not enough, they will get tossed too. This will NEVER end and the cost of ownership it through the roof.

Posted by another forum member (apologies I can’t locate that original post… it’s a swirling vortex of post activity the past 48 hrs.)

Oh how I now wish I’d purchased my Connects just 13 months later.

It’s precisely this kindof chart which would prevent me replacing my Gen 1 Play:5 with a Gen 2 as surely that (and my existing Play:3’s) are going to hit the same issues soon.

Thanks for posting the chart, all. This actually explains pretty well why it is becoming challenging to keep the earlier models working over time when using their existing architecture where every device needs to work at the level of the “lowest capability device”.

Real big eye opener and explains pretty well the issues they are facing. But we all agree here that not supporting the older models with new software is fine. Thats life, it happens. What were all “annoyed” about is how it effects our other devices, they shoundnt be penalised/staunted/held hostage. Sonos has clever developers, they just need to find away to allow modern to update, legacy to stay still and basic fucntionality (grouped music) still work. Just have a caveat about newer features not working on legacy devices.

This doesn’t explain why speakers that play music now won’t be able to music in the future. I understand why they won’t have additionally features; but, this doesn’t explain at all why music won’t be able to be played.

Does this explain why you can’t Manage your system anymore on the Windows Desktop App where you have oodles of memory and need a mobile app now and preferred a current version because otherwise basic function are even there disabled ?

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N

NO MORE SONOS

Trending Lyricist I

I’ve been a user since 2007, still using a ZP90 and ZP100 with a Play5 and a recently purchased Sonos One this month. I get that legacy players may not have the processor power or memory to handle new functionality. Thats the nature of tech.

I’m not bothered that my legacy players won’t get any new software updates with jazzy new features. What my system does at the moment suits me just fine - playing from my NAS and streaming from Amazon Music and Spotify. If it will continue to work as it currently does then I’m ok with that. But whats not ok is to stop support, threaten the removal of streaming functionality and not allow new players (with their new functionality, services, etc) to co-exist with legacy players.

Like others have said, surely some new bridge type product can be created to send out data to the legacy players. Afterall they’re just speakers that play a digital packet of data !

This is exactly what they could do. Or spec newer products to ensure backward compatability via distributed computing.

They decided to smoke crack instead.

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#BoycottSonos

C

Cisume

Enthusiast II

Please explain what you mean when you say that you will support products that you sell for at least 5 years. I bought a CONNECT:AMP in 2018 to add to the 3 CONNECT:AMPS ans 2 CONNECTS that I bought in 2015 (less than 5 years ago - but it will be 5 years in May when you discontinue support). If the one I bought in 2018 is still “Modern”, why aren’t the others?

There were apparently some hardware changes without a corresponding device name change. Sonos realizes this was a very bad idea and probably won’t do it again.

According to my sources the original Connect and Play 5 had 32mb of memory, the connect:amp and play 1 have 64. The newer connect has 256mb as does the Gen 2 play 5.
The newest models have 1024mb (1 gig) so it is safe to say that the older models with 64 and 256mb are likely not long for this world. And when 1 gb is not enough, they will get tossed too. This will NEVER end and the cost of ownership it through the roof.

Posted by another forum member (apologies I can’t locate that original post… it’s a swirling vortex of post activity the past 48 hrs.)

Oh how I now wish I’d purchased my Connects just 13 months later.

It’s precisely this kindof chart which would prevent me replacing my Gen 1 Play:5 with a Gen 2 as surely that (and my existing Play:3’s) are going to hit the same issues soon.

Thanks for posting the chart, all. This actually explains pretty well why it is becoming challenging to keep the earlier models working over time when using their existing architecture where every device needs to work at the level of the “lowest capability device”.

Real big eye opener and explains pretty well the issues they are facing. But we all agree here that not supporting the older models with new software is fine. Thats life, it happens. What were all “annoyed” about is how it effects our other devices, they shoundnt be penalised/staunted/held hostage. Sonos has clever developers, they just need to find away to allow modern to update, legacy to stay still and basic fucntionality (grouped music) still work. Just have a caveat about newer features not working on legacy devices.

This doesn’t explain why speakers that play music now won’t be able to music in the future. I understand why they won’t have additionally features; but, this doesn’t explain at all why music won’t be able to be played.

Their system is designed at present to require all devices to interoperate in several ways (wireless compatibility, sharing the songs library, etc) so they have backed themselves into a technical corner. When one segment of devices can’t “keep up” they have chosen (or forced themselves to choose) to let that device limit what other devices can do.

Of course their solution, rather than do some creative engineering, is to shoot themselves in the foot, which is sad and hopefully they change their mind. A new system architecture, that takes into account varying capabilities without limiting more capable devices because of legacy limitations, would be the responsible corporate thing to do.

I don’t just mean good PR, I mean they boast of their good corporate values and environmental ethos. So, making sure legacy devices are still usable even if functionality on those devices is limited is a much better ethical and environmental solution than their current update&brick approach. That is, it would be a PR win (or at least a step in the right direction) but it would ALSO be a boon to current owners, and to the planet.

Agree ,

In this context their blog about sustainability reads like satire

https://blog.sonos.com/en/sonos-sustainability/

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timc995

Prominent Collaborator I

Like others have said, surely some new bridge type product can be created to send out data to the legacy players. Afterall they’re just speakers that play a digital packet of data !

Well, if they allow legacy and modern to exist as separate networks, isn’t one solution to feed the audio out of a modern connect device to the audio in of a legacy connect or connect:amp (assuming you have both), and use that line-in source within the legacy network? It is quite ironic that the connect is designed to work with legacy audio gear.

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Vogon

Lyricist III

I was previously proud to support Sonos and praise its products. I even bought one for my girlfriend. But now it’s obvious they can’t be trusted at all. I wish I’d never bought into them.

They should re-think this policy. It’s a disgrace.

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jwinther

Lyricist III

Does anybody have an email address to send comments to Ikea? I wonder how they feel about partnering with a company that is bricking equipment in light of its sustainability goals?

As IKEA does not make the speakers or the software themselves, i would not risk buying any of their speakers either.

I saw someone on twitter yesterday, ask IKEA if their speakers were also going to be made obsolete and if so, when.

The poor twitter rep, said that “IKEA has no plans to make any of out speakers obsolete anytime”.

But then, that was what sonos said on twitter a couple of months ago as well, so i would not put a dime of trust into such a statement.

It seems that as soon as sales drop, they will just take another of their product out behind the barn and shoot it, to force people to keep buying.

I think we can safely say that the IKEA products will not be supported forever - IKEA doesn’t keep any product in the repetoire for long. Their former series of TVs and sound system got four years, then it was the end of those, and most kitchen utilities and other things are replaced on a yearly basis or close to it.

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“This is a chance now to come up with a system that doesn’t cause massive planetary damage in exchange for disposable stuff,” Proctor said. (https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3a8dpn/sonos-makes-it-clear-you-no-longer-own-the-things-you-buy)

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dfont4

Lyricist I

Not sure it makes a difference, but I left a (bad) Google review, related to this news, for the Sonos business office that is local to me in Boston, MA USA. They have several offices around the world… Here are their locations if you want to do the same. Thanks.

https://www.sonos.com/en-us/contact

Dave

(Two Play5 Gen1s and a Bridge)

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