End of Software Support - Clarifications

So has there been any official release from Sonos of the reports they are moving to a subscription/rental model for their equipmet and service?

Not that id ever consider it, but it makes sense now after the recent announcement to kill off old speakers and customers with a view to getting new ones through subsription. Constant income stream etc...

That can not be the case, Sonos has clearly stated that the reason they have to retire the older products that has less storage is that all speakers has to run on the same firmware, and now there is no more room in the 32Mbyte devices, for the firmware.

If they make multiple firmwares, one for each speaker but still label the firmware with the same number, then the claim that they can not keep updating the Play 5 for example, would be void, as they could just stop adding features to the play 5 and keep sending new firmware where the only change would be the firmware revision date, to keep everything on the same firmware revision level.

Agree that … 30% is outer space ….. 50% is a number you can land on and live to tell the tale. 

50% would work for me. Won’t make me happy but will buy my continued commitment. 

Getting back to love-in I used to have …. is a longer thing.

Problably if you are a tech reporter, have a twitter account that has a lot of followers and so on, you will be able to get the bigger discount.

Case by case probably means something like “We do a cost benefit analysis and if we think we will loose more money by not offering 50%, then you will have it”

Joe Schmoe with few devices and no “audience” will probably never get this deal.

Another option available to all customers with legacy products is to take advantage of the Trade Up program, ​​​​​

The above Sonos statement is simply not true. I live in the Czech Republic and the Trade Up program is not available here. I have one legacy Connect Amp and four modern units. My only option  to keep the system doing what it was intended for - multiroom playback - is to pay a ransom of US$ 649 to replace the legacy unit I bought only less than four years ago! I am very disappointed how you deal with your customers.

A customer in New Zealand who was in the same situation was able to call support and get the trade up discount.  I would do the same if I were you.

I did contact Sonos before posting my comment. No, they don’t offer Trade Up program in the Czech Republic, they actually do offer the program in around 40 countries out of 200. New Zealand was added to the list together with China, Singapore, Thailand end several other countries: https://support.sonos.com/s/article/4799?language=en_US. 

Yeah, this would be a fair inference that Sonos is making base-level code changes. But that also doesn't make sense. Base-level code changes should be very rare in this space, so:

• You'd expect this to be, kinda like Apple's move from PowerPC, a clear statement that “To move Sonos into the future, we need to make fundamental changes that require us to remove support for some older devices. We remain committed to product longevity and do not anticipate future changes with a similar impact.” But instead, Sonos is now saying their products should last 5 years, and likening this announcement to cell phone update support timelines.
• It would make clear and absolute business sense to offer a customer-friendly trade-up program. If they really expected this to be a one-time or highly unusual occurrence, keeping existing customers satisfied would clearly outweigh whatever lower profits they'd see on replacement units. But if they expect this to be re-occurring, then it makes business sense to do what they're doing: offer just enough to existing customers to sound good in a press release and shift to a broader, less passionate customer model.

Sonos' statements have been worthless in part because they're internally inconsistent. No explanation maps onto a coherent model.

As far as we know, this is the first time in Sonos history.  Definitely the first time players couldn’t do the base level change.  Seems rare to me, but it’s a subjective term.

I don’t think Sonos has made any reference to phone support timelines.  Others have as a means of comparison, but I don’t recall Sonos making that claim.  Regardless. it’s not ‘should last 5 years’, but 5 years minimum from the point we selling/producing a particular model.  And that drop in support means that you will no longer get regular updates, but will get bug fixes and security updates.

That surely isn’t going to make a lot of folks happy, but not the same as 5 years and you’re guaranteed to have support dropped.

By all accounts no break fix updates. From Sonos official FAQ:

I want to leave my Sonos system with legacy products as it is. What’s going to change?

Your Sonos system will no longer receive updates, so your experience will initially remain the same. However, the functionality of features and services will be impacted as technology, particularly music service and voice partners, evolves over time.

How long until existing functionality or features are impacted?

We don’t expect any immediate impact from ending software updates.

As changes are made to technology in the future, particularly by music service and voice partners, access to certain services or features may be disrupted. An example would be a music service partner issuing a new update that isn’t backwards compatible with legacy software.

Its a shame the engineers at Sonos couldn’t figure out a way to introduce some sort of bridge/router type product that would allow the older legacy products to continue to stream music in sync with newer products.   

is there a pool for how long the legacy products will continue to function after May?  Six months?  3 months?   I mean Sonos sent out an update that intentionally bricked the CR100 remote so it’s not like they have a great track record in this regard. 

Agreed, except the FAQ (Feb 3) was posted after the quoted CEO message (Jan 22).