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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lesterstewart

Enthusiast II

Of course all of the “Legacy” products will become obsolete, just like the Dock, Controller 100, Controller 200 and the Bridge did. Its just a matter of time. I will not spend another penny on Sonos. I’m switching over to Bluesound and the BluOS. Check it out at Bluesound.Com. They even support Hi Resolution audio which Sonos does not. Sounds better anyway.

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KingPin

Enthusiast II

I don’t want new features, I want my whole system to work together and be able to group as I like! This letter from the CEO is just more crap. Not good enough by a mile.

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SGL1968

Lyricist I

The design of this solution is meant to be modular in the sense that you build your product library on the platform provided. To interconnect all components as one and say arbitrarily that one of your components is older therefore your entire solution will not longer receive updates tells a story about how the direction of this company has changed. We have seen a continual shift from supporting the Sonos Communities investment in the Sonos solutions to a never ending list of news updates stating that your products are too old or the technologies have changed too much for Sonos to keep up. Really? Invest some of your energy and our money in providing firmware updates that will keep ‘legacy’ products on the same platform as our current products while limiting functionality on those legacy items to keep them in range of their capabilities and not limit all components of the solution. Don’t offer a worthless 30% discount on newer more expensive replacements, I am questioning whether I want to invest anything going forward. Sonos is literally asking us, the consumer, to pay for there poor design after convincing us to invest in their platform and in many cases helping them improve the design. I am not interested in stating personally what this does to my solutions at two different locations, I am more interested in making the point that Sonos should take notice that this decision really makes the consumer re-evaluate where we want to invest our dollars in audio solutions and technologies going forward. The end of life announcement is not the community based approach I bought into over the past years with Sonos and is very disappointing and concerning.

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triskellion

Contributor I

Not sure if this has already been posted? Struggling to keep up with the posts on here!

letter from the guy who is pulling our pants down

https://blog.sonos.com/en/a-letter-from-our-ceo/

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TAR222

Lyricist I

So when I received the email I went ahead and upgraded my amp out of fear of having an issue. Now the CEO’s email comes out. I call Sonos to see if I can turn my old Amp back on and they tell me sorry the count down has already begun and we can’t do anything. I said well what if I return the new amp? He tells me that the old amp still will not work. Sonos this is not how you treat customers. You got the last $460 from me, I will never buy another product from you.

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amun

I purchased 4 Sonos devices four days ago, basing my decision on the good reputation of the brand. Then came the announcement that at some point in the not very distant future the equipment will cease to function as promised. What a mistake I have made. Obviously, this will be my only Sonos purchase.

You should be able to send them back and get a full refund, I’d have thought...

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PileMonkey