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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bluesbreaker1962

Lyricist I

I have built a Sonos system over many years. I have put up with ‘average’ products because I bought into Sonos.

Now if I retain my older products it will have an impact on my new products. Well there you go. I will NEVER buy another Sonos product again. I will focus on a system with separate streamers and get good quality audio with a far better sound.

Goodbye Sonos your company is now severely cattle trucked.

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Saucerman

Enthusiast I

So what’s going to happen when….

Every time I ignore their “Update Available” message so my system works in the future, you know because I have legacy equipment and new equipment and can’t upgrade, then one day someone accidentally hits, yes, then my entire home system is gone….

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Daniel88

Avid Contributor I

So the speakers i buy today play5 gen2 (2015)

will probably become legacy in the next 5-6 years? If im going to buy sonos products today i want them to get software updates for eternity, they are speakers for crying out loud, they have 1 purpose to play music, we could LAND ON THE MOON 1969 but we cant get software updates on old sonos devices

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DK_Madsen

Enthusiast II

So what’s going to happen when….

Every time I ignore their “Update Available” message so my system works in the future, you know because I have legacy equipment and new equipment and can’t upgrade, then one day someone accidentally hits, yes, then my entire home system is gone….

Or your legacy device is accidentally turned off so now there is no problem autoupdating and no way of returning to the older firmware

Or they decide that the app will not work when legacy devices is connected.

Or they decide that the app needs atleast firmware (something newer than legacy products have)

Or …. or …..or …..

Basically, they have you by the balls and THEY decide when YOUR product stops working.

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jdale

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.

That completely misses the point. At some point they will “move to legacy” and block your entire network from updating. The update limitation isn’t just on the legacy devices, it’s an albatross around the neck of the whole system. Any single device could block updates. Buyers deserve to know when that will occur.

I’m not going to buy expensive hardware now knowing that my other devices will block it from updates in the potenially near future, knowing that Sonos may give as little as four months notice. I’ll just wait until the majority of my system goes into legacy -- which will pretty much be all at once since most of my devices are the same type -- and move to a different brand.

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KenW

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.

You missed out a vital point, does this mean the legacy and modern will be interoperable? Or completely seperate? I am fine with my legacy speakers not getting updates, but I want my modern speakers to get updates and new features. I then EXEPCT to be still able to group music between legacy and modern.

This is the main issue on the table! I have 26 SONOS devices, 16 of which are “legacy”. If you tell me I have to separate them out, then you gave failed in your mission, and why I purchased $10k of equipment from you… to have Whole House Audio.

@David_366 and @morgan4x4, these legacy devices are stretched to the limits of their hardware already. Where possible, we will work to maintain the existing experience and conduct bug fixes on the legacy devices where the computing hardware will allow.

@Ryan S ^^^ this is the biggest issue. It’s why I’m in the “Not one more dime to Sonos” camp, and (with no small measure of embarrassment) vocally and actively retracting my recommendations to friends and family.

The fact that the basic (although I know that’s a simplification) and core (not an overstatement at all) ability to simultaneously broadcast music across multiple speakers is being blocked on older devices is ridiculous.

From a technical perspective, there has to be some way to maintain that core functionality across these devices, even if that’s when and only when they’re grouped with modern, more powerful devices, or even a new “hub” of some sort that handles more powerful computing and simply “shares” the digital bits (music) to older, legacy devices.

Given such a model, failing to update legacy devices (except, perhaps, for security issues) would be fine. But the fact that I can’t even stream music to them and newer devices at the same time?

Nope.

Seems like the only solution is to connect a third party streaming device to the analogue input of one of the devices in your “legacy” Sonos network. I use a Play 5 gen1 as a TV speaker via the analogue input so can stream from the TV.

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DOJM

Lyricist I

My initial reaction was much like many others but actually this probably was inevitable at some point and all competitors are likely to face a similar problem.

The miscalculation is to offer a measly 30% which effectively is no discount at all bearing in mind some of the reductions available elsewhere. If they were keen to keep customers they should be offering the upgrade at cost price. No profit at all. They would benefit hugely from this as virtually nobody would dump the system because of it. In fact it could create even more brand loyalty.

I guess the other possibility is running a lite version of the software which continues to get updates and people may have to choose between lite functionality of the system or upgrading components.

If they continue down this path i do believe they are in trouble. People fork out these kind of sums for hifi equipment, not for the smart tech which will be redundant in a few years. From now on nobody will see value in the equipment in the same way.

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DK_Madsen

Enthusiast II

So the speakers i buy today play5 gen2 (2015)

will probably become legacy in the next 5-6 years? If im going to buy sonos products today i want them to get software updates for eternity, they are speakers for crying out loud, they have 1 purpose to play music, we could LAND ON THE MOON 1969 but we cant get software updates on old sonos devices

I dont expect them to get firmware updates forever.

I just dont expect their software to be so poorly written that the features that work TODAY on my Play 5, is not able to still keep working and coexist with my newer products, regardless of firmware status.

Not asking for new features, or updates, just asking that legacy and current products can atleast stream music from my NAS, and play streams from streaming services in party mode if i want to.

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Chris_183

Enthusiast II

The miscalculation is to offer a measly 30% which effectively is no discount at all bearing in mind some of the reductions available elsewhere. If they were keen to keep customers they should be offering the upgrade at cost price. No profit at all.

If customers found out the “cost” of producing the products (sans engineering, testing, marketing) they would be shocked. Financial websites that try to determine the value of stock prices, estimate the SONOS One, which retails for $199, costs about $6 to manufacture in bulk.

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Chris0288

Lyricist II

So the speakers i buy today play5 gen2 (2015)

will probably become legacy in the next 5-6 years? If im going to buy sonos products today i want them to get software updates for eternity, they are speakers for crying out loud, they have 1 purpose to play music, we could LAND ON THE MOON 1969 but we cant get software updates on old sonos devices

Exactly

I can only assume they have future software updates that can land falcon 9 rockets etc.

Either that or they are just lying to make money

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