End of Software Support - Clarifications

End of Software Support - Clarifications
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Smilja

It's great that Sonos have seen sense and decided you no longer had to throw away perfectly functioning devices.  The people tirelessly defending the incentive will now think its the right thing too now presumably.

 

Sonos purely disclosed to the world that the chink in their armour is their weak management. Come May one still will have to put their system into ‘legacy mode’ in order to group modern and legacy items together. No shiny new features for this setup until one get rid of the legacy gear.

»And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space, Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.« (›Windmills Of Your Mind‹ [1967]. Music by Michel Legrand ; English lyrics written by Alan & Marilyn Bergman)
S
Userlevel 7
Badge +15

I guess the point is they still have Legacy devices to do that with and they're not in landfill.

K

 Come May one still will have to put their system into ‘legacy mode’ in order to group modern and legacy items together. No shiny new features for this setup until one get rid of the legacy gear.

For those of us that see these as just good speakers that deliver music, shiny features are no attraction.

User694694
Userlevel 5
Badge +4

It's great that Sonos have seen sense and decided you no longer had to throw away perfectly functioning devices.  The people tirelessly defending the incentive will now think its the right thing too now presumably.

 

Sonos purely disclosed to the world that the chink in their armour is their weak management. Come May one still will have to put their system into ‘legacy mode’ in order to group modern and legacy items together. No shiny new features for this setup until one get rid of the legacy gear.

Personally, I don’t mind putting my system into legacy mode as I don’t care about new features (any I can think of currently), but I understand that others may feel different. My current contingency plans have gone from Bluesound full scale replacement to Roon. I had never heard of Roon a month ago, but it seems like a really good solution if the Sonos software/firmware becomes stagnant and unable to keep up with changes with streaming music services. At $500 for a lifetime subscription, it seems pretty reasonable (to me anyway). I keep both NAS and a couple servers running all the time in my home and office anyway, so using one to install a Roon core isn’t going to change any hardware for me. I’m curious to know if Roon will be able to group legacy and non-legacy Sonos together. I doubt we’ll know until May.

D
Userlevel 7
Badge +5

Wow

 

Just checked in here because i saw that Sonos has scrapped the recycle program

So anyone with a legacy product can still get 30% but their old product will not be bricked.

People, that has already taken advantage of the 30% trade in, prior to this, will not be able to get their bricked products reactivated.

So basically, those that were quick to trade in their sonos speaker, is getting screwed over here, big time.

I can get the 30% off, buy a Play 5 2.gen and sell my Play 5 1.gen for a price, but anyone that took the offer, before yesterday, dont have that option.

 

I bet that there are going to be a lot of angry costumers out there, that feel betrayed by sonos by this move.

Also, it seems that the Sonos stock has been on a steady decline since January, and from what i can see, they are down about 33% since.

 

I would personally like to thank Sonos...I had plans for a sonos sub and a sonos one for a hobby room, but i luckily had not bought anything. (Thanks for making it easy to choose between more sonos or a new PC)

This message was written from the new PC, i bought with the money i would otherwise probably have spent on Sonos products.

melvimbe

So it seems it was possible to communicate an effective message with the audience.

The reasonable expectations of the 80% were exactly that, reasonable.

 

 

Yes and no.  While obviously this change course would not have occurred without customer’s reaction to the recycle aspect of the trade in, I would bet that there were other factors effect as well.  You could argue that the addition of legacy products losing support made it a bit more unecessary for Sonos to be concerned about legacy item resale cutting into Sonos sales, or something like that.    And although there were complaints about recycling, they are not nearly as big as the complaints about legacy products no longer receiving updates.  I’m not saying complaints are irrelevant or anything like that.  I just wouldn’t expect that Sonos to start reacting and reversing every decision that has a customer backlash.

 

And it’s a solid call by Sonos. It will (as said many times) restore confidence in the high price paying user base.

 

 

Maybe.  Again, the complaints were higher about loss of updates then there were about recycling...although perhaps the combination of the two makes the loss of updates a lot more palatable?  Don’t know.  Regardless, I don’t know that a customer can see a downside to the current trade up program at all. 

 

It will make zero difference to the evangelists and the frustrated folk may still be frustrated. But for the rest of us, it’s a very solid call.

 

 

I don’t know that Sonos customers can be cleanly separated into these groups, or how big the ‘rest of us’ is/are.    I tend to feel that of the options of Trade In w/recycle, trade in w/o recycle from the beginning, and switching from w/recycle to w/o recycle mid program...the last option is definitely not the best.    Although it’s very much an unknown to me, I do have a concern that a trade up program  w/o recycle is financially bad for Sonos.  The did do recycling for a reason, which may not be as important as it used to be.  As a consumer, I do want Sonos to do well as a company, so that they can continue to provide products and services for many years to come.

 

I can now go ahead and ‘buy more Sonos stuff’ …. life is simple.

That was all that was needed.

Now we can wait till May for the details, the nuances, the bland tech detail etc.

So, so simple and CE marketing 1-0-1.

And none of this was technical, it was business, Simple. But good news. 

Let’s keep this new straight line Sonos. And lets factor the clear feeling from the buying public going forward into product positioning.

 

Yea, I hope it does generate a lot of goodwill with customers.  I’m sure it will for some as it has for you, and the many without any legacy Sonos are likely to not care at all.  Those customers with thousands invested can perhaps  find it a bit easier to upgrade to modern, since they can use both trade in and used sale revenue to lower the cost of replacement.

Danny
D
Userlevel 7
Badge +5

 

Maybe.  Again, the complaints were higher about loss of updates then there were about recycling...although perhaps the combination of the two makes the loss of updates a lot more palatable?  Don’t know.  Regardless, I don’t know that a customer can see a downside to the current trade up program at all.

From what i remember, the biggest complaint was not actually that they would stop updating the legacy products, but that they said that legacy products would not be able to communicate with modern products and do the things that were available today.

 

For example multi room streaming of MP3’s ….

A
Userlevel 6
Badge +10

So it seems it was possible to communicate an effective message with the audience.

The reasonable expectations of the 80% were exactly that, reasonable.

 

 

Yes and no.  While obviously this change course would not have occurred without customer’s reaction to the recycle aspect of the trade in, I would bet that there were other factors effect as well.  You could argue that the addition of legacy products losing support made it a bit more unecessary for Sonos to be concerned about legacy item resale cutting into Sonos sales, or something like that.    And although there were complaints about recycling, they are not nearly as big as the complaints about legacy products no longer receiving updates.  I’m not saying complaints are irrelevant or anything like that.  I just wouldn’t expect that Sonos to start reacting and reversing every decision that has a customer backlash.

 

And it’s a solid call by Sonos. It will (as said many times) restore confidence in the high price paying user base.

 

 

Maybe.  Again, the complaints were higher about loss of updates then there were about recycling...although perhaps the combination of the two makes the loss of updates a lot more palatable?  Don’t know.  Regardless, I don’t know that a customer can see a downside to the current trade up program at all. 

 

It will make zero difference to the evangelists and the frustrated folk may still be frustrated. But for the rest of us, it’s a very solid call.

 

 

I don’t know that Sonos customers can be cleanly separated into these groups, or how big the ‘rest of us’ is/are.    I tend to feel that of the options of Trade In w/recycle, trade in w/o recycle from the beginning, and switching from w/recycle to w/o recycle mid program...the last option is definitely not the best.    Although it’s very much an unknown to me, I do have a concern that a trade up program  w/o recycle is financially bad for Sonos.  The did do recycling for a reason, which may not be as important as it used to be.  As a consumer, I do want Sonos to do well as a company, so that they can continue to provide products and services for many years to come.

 

I can now go ahead and ‘buy more Sonos stuff’ …. life is simple.

That was all that was needed.

Now we can wait till May for the details, the nuances, the bland tech detail etc.

So, so simple and CE marketing 1-0-1.

And none of this was technical, it was business, Simple. But good news. 

Let’s keep this new straight line Sonos. And lets factor the clear feeling from the buying public going forward into product positioning.

 

Yea, I hope it does generate a lot of goodwill with customers.  I’m sure it will for some as it has for you, and the many without any legacy Sonos are likely to not care at all.  Those customers with thousands invested can perhaps  find it a bit easier to upgrade to modern, since they can use both trade in and used sale revenue to lower the cost of replacement.

 

I can’t count into three decks with these conversations like you can Danny … too many maybe’s and variables for me. :-)

I just do know that corporates that talk to their folks do better than those who wait for a perfect tack into the wind.

I speak from a position of knowledge and experience without sounding big sorted. Sonos played everything entirely wrong. A shame as their product and service is good as others have mentioned. Like or loath Sonos, it’s impossible to defend that statement. I like Sonos but I can also be dispassionate about their poor decisions and communications.

Sonos lost the comms initiative, delayed, realised it, corrected it and that’s ok for me and seems a few others. 

Is it the full fat solution? No, as Kumar and others have said. We’ll see the tech fluff in May. 

Regardless it’s a correction and one that was requested and should have come three weeks back. Nevermind, it’s here now. I may return to being ‘white box man’ but I have seen the emperors new clothes. :-)   

 

baconator
Userlevel 2
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This news really doesn't change anything, legacy and modern will still not talk. I'm still out, Denon here I come.

S
Userlevel 3
Badge

SaS….Speakers as a Service model…..I’m out too…….

D
Userlevel 7
Badge +5

This news really doesn't change anything, legacy and modern will still not talk. I'm still out, Denon here I come.


Totally agree.

Only thing that changed is that they will not brick the old Sonos, if you get the 30% off.

 

This move comes to late to satisfy the angry costumers, the stock prices has plummeted with 33%, most people that would have realistically wanted to do the trade, has done so.

This move is not gonna soften the angry sonos owners, but it will probably enrage the people that took the deal and bricked their old unit.

So even more dissatisfied sonos costumers from now on.

melvimbe

 

Maybe.  Again, the complaints were higher about loss of updates then there were about recycling...although perhaps the combination of the two makes the loss of updates a lot more palatable?  Don’t know.  Regardless, I don’t know that a customer can see a downside to the current trade up program at all.

From what i remember, the biggest complaint was not actually that they would stop updating the legacy products, but that they said that legacy products would not be able to communicate with modern products and do the things that were available today.

 

For example multi room streaming of MP3’s ….

 

 I was referring to all aspect of the Sonos annoucement in January for upcoming May changes when I stated “loss of updates”, not any particular aspect.  I would agreement that the aspect you mention is likely the biggest complaint.

Danny
melvimbe

 

I can’t count into three decks with these conversations like you can Danny … too many maybe’s and variables for me. :-)

 

 

I can’t speak with much more certainty right now.   

I just do know that corporates that talk to their folks do better than those who wait for a perfect tack into the wind.

 

 

I’m not against sharing information, but I know that reversing course, even when the new course is right, is never as good as taking the right course from the beginning.  So I’d say if you can’t your course with certainty, it’s better to say nothing at all.

 

I speak from a position of knowledge and experience without sounding big sorted. Sonos played everything entirely wrong. A shame as their product and service is good as others have mentioned. Like or loath Sonos, it’s impossible to defend that statement. I like Sonos but I can also be dispassionate about their poor decisions and communications.

 

Hindsight being 20/20 and all, but I there certainly are plenty of places where Sonos could have communicated better, timed announcements better, and got the decision right the first time.

 

Sonos lost the comms initiative, delayed, realised it, corrected it and that’s ok for me and seems a few others. 

Is it the full fat solution? No, as Kumar and others have said. We’ll see the tech fluff in May. 

Regardless it’s a correction and one that was requested and should have come three weeks back. Nevermind, it’s here now. I may return to being ‘white box man’ but I have seen the emperors new clothes. :-)   

 

I don’t think the correction should have come 3 weeks ago, I think it should never have needed correction to begin with.  I was ok with the recylce program before, and I’m ok with it now. 

Danny
K

 

This move is not gonna soften the angry sonos owners, but it will probably enrage the people that took the deal and bricked their old unit.

So even more dissatisfied sonos costumers from now on.

That’s up to Sonos and how leaden footed Sonos leadership shows itself to be - or not. I am reasonably sure that there is a way for Sonos to undo what they did remotely - bricking. If that be the case, the only ones enraged will be those that tossed their units into landfills either on their own or via a return to Sonos. These folk now have only themselves to blame if they feel hard done by, although logically, nothing has changed for them.

How Sonos deals with the implementing of this new decision, welcome as it is, will be another test of whether they have learnt any lessons at all from this fiasco.

J
Userlevel 5
Badge +9

I recycle 5 Amps this Christmas and now Sonos drops the recycle requirement.

They really know how to make a customer happy, NOT!

Playbar(2) Sub(1) Play:5(2) Play:3(6) Play:1(5) Connect:AMP(3) Sonos:AMP(5) Move(1)
D
Userlevel 7
Badge +5

That’s up to Sonos and how leaden footed Sonos leadership shows itself to be - or not. I am reasonably sure that there is a way for Sonos to undo what they did remotely - bricking. If that be the case, the only ones enraged will be those that tossed their units into landfills either on their own or via a return to Sonos. These folk now have only themselves to blame if they feel hard done by, although logically, nothing has changed for them.

How Sonos deals with the implementing of this new decision, welcome as it is, will be another test of whether they have learnt any lessons at all from this fiasco.

Depends on how they have chosen to brick the devices.

They might have done a complete firmware wipe, which would probably at least require the device to be reprogrammed, using an external programmer interface, probably somewhat like they might do the initial programming.

From what i have heard, Sonos has always had a “disable” feature, so that if a registred owner contacted them and told that their sonos unit had been stolen, they would be able to disable it permanently. If they used this feature it would probably be possible to re-enable the unit if the registered owner got the unit back because the police arrested the thief and found it.

 

But still….I think the main reason they dont want to re-enable these units is as to not flood the market with old units.

I know of atleast a couple of people that have bought cheap Play-5 that had been disabled, just to have a unit for spares.

If they offered to re-enable these units, then the people who bought them for spares, would get them re-enabled and onto the used unit’s market. This would be bad for future sales.

 

Also it would further enrage those who sold it for cheap, because it was essentially a brick, and as you see in the comment right above this, it would also enrage the people that took the offer and followed sonos advice to just throw the unit away, because if they had held on to it, they would have been able to re-enable it.

The problem here is that Sonos has made a very bad decision, that landed them in the middle of a field, filled with landmines and no matter which way they decide to go, to try and make people less angry, they will step on a new landmine and, further angering some of their costumers.

 

The only decision they can really make, that will make people less angry is the “Forget what we said, we will continue to support old and new as best as we can, and we promise that all products will be able to communicate as one system in the future and that base functionality will continue to work across our entire product range”.

 

I dont think that anyone is expecting that all of the functions, that sometimes need tweaking, will continue to work, but base functionality like multiroom “mp3 from my NAS” will work “forever”.

 

If they dont opt for that solution i guess that the 33% decrease of sonos stock prices just in the last month, will continue.

Personally the new course here, changes nothing for me, i have one Play 5 that i never intended to trade in, so i am still looking at the “Come May, expect your legacy Play 5 to not work on certain things and because of the Play 5, all of the other “modern” products will also loose those functions”.

 

D
Userlevel 7
Badge +5

I recycle 5 Amps this Christmas and now Sonos drops the recycle requirement.

They really know how to make a customer happy, NOT!

 

If you had waited, you could have gotten the 30% AND been able to sell your old amps for a bit of money.


Really seems like Sonos did not analyse their initial decision and is now running around in the forest, blindfolded, trying to escape.

 

If i had been a major sonos stock holder i would certainly have demanded that sonos got rid of the current management, as they are clearly not very good at reading the market, and if not, i would drop all of my sonos stock faster than a pair of panties in a brothel.

Smilja

Personally the new course here, changes nothing for me, i have one Play 5 that i never intended to trade in, so i am still looking at the “Come May, expect your legacy Play 5 to not work on certain things and because of the Play 5, all of the other “modern” products will also loose those functions”.

 

Again, the legacy units aren’t going to stop working on certain things past May; they will proceed to work as they do today, they just won’t get new functionalities. Neither will your modern components if you choose to go the “all system legacy route”, until you ditch the legacy gear.

There will be two options, “all system legacy route” and separating system in legacy and modern  – either way, none of these options is going to be “A River Of No Return”. I think this is the biggest fear, that the May update will prove a dead end street for legacy owners.

»And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space, Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.« (›Windmills Of Your Mind‹ [1967]. Music by Michel Legrand ; English lyrics written by Alan & Marilyn Bergman)
D
Userlevel 7
Badge +5

Again, the legacy units aren’t going to stop working on certain things past May; they will proceed to work as they do today, they just won’t get new functionalities. Neither will your modern components if you choose to go the “all system legacy route”, until you ditch the legacy gear.

There will be two options, “all system legacy route” and separating system in legacy and modern  – either way, none of these options is going to be “A River Of No Return”. I think this is the biggest fear, that the May update will prove a dead end street for legacy owners.

I know, and i dont expect everything to be updated indefinitily.


I just find it unbelieveable that they can not retain current functionality in the legacy units and do updates in the “modern” units, while stille retaining interoperability.


There is no REAL reason (Other than profit maximizing and plannet obsoletion) that a totally up to date modern product, should not be able to do multiroom MP3 playback from my NAS, in a multi room enviroment, together with a legacy product.

This is ONLY a “Will not”, certainly not a “CAN not”.

 

The “Every unit needs to be on the same firmware level” is not something that is unavoidable, just something that sonos CHOSE not to do.

 

If i have modern and legacy products, i would fully understand it if some day, my legacy products would stop being able to do multi room spotify, because spotify changed their stream to a new format that the legacy products did not have processing power to decode.

I have NO respect for the fact that if i want to be able to keep modern and legacy products in the same network, NONE of my speakers would be able to play spotify...Even in a single room setting, because the firmware would not be updated because of the legacy product.

Smilja

The “Every unit needs to be on the same firmware level” is not something that is unavoidable, just something that sonos CHOSE not to do.

 

The mode of operation of a multiroom system is a tinsy bit more complex than that of a standalone device. Or have you ever seen a standalone device requested to group and play in perfect sync with itself? I daresay no.

»And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space, Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.« (›Windmills Of Your Mind‹ [1967]. Music by Michel Legrand ; English lyrics written by Alan & Marilyn Bergman)
D
Userlevel 7
Badge +5

The “Every unit needs to be on the same firmware level” is not something that is unavoidable, just something that sonos CHOSE not to do.

 

The mode of operation of a multiroom system is a tinsy bit more complex than that of a standalone device. Or have you ever seen a standalone device requested to group and play in perfect sync with itself? I daresay no.

Well it is working today, so why would it not be able to work tomorrow.
 

The modern units have more ram and storage, would it be totally unrealistic to think they would be able to keep the legacy “interconnect” mode in the firmware so that when there is a legacy unit, they would communicate via “legacy protocol”, while still being able to update the modern units with regards to functionality.

Anyone that has done a bit of software development knows that different aspects of the software is usually made so that, changing one part will not be a problem for another.

 

There are subroutines for different functions, so changing the “spotify” subroutine should not affect the “output to speaker” routine.

I can upgrade the driver for my network card in my PC, just fine, and my sound card will still be able to play music, because there is an established interface standard that means that updating a driver for one part, does not invalidate the driver for another part.

Smilja

The “Every unit needs to be on the same firmware level” is not something that is unavoidable, just something that sonos CHOSE not to do.

 

The mode of operation of a multiroom system is a tinsy bit more complex than that of a standalone device. Or have you ever seen a standalone device requested to group and play in perfect sync with itself? I daresay no.

Well it is working today, so why would it not be able to work tomorrow.

 

Currently each unit of your Sonos system is running the same firmware build. In separated systems legacy gear will remain on a legacy firmware build, while modern gear will continue to get firmware updates on a regular basis.

 

 

I can upgrade the driver for my network card in my PC, just fine, and my sound card will still be able to play music, because there is an established interface standard that means that updating a driver for one part, does not invalidate the driver for another part.

 

A PC is a standalone device not required to play with other computers in your household in sync. I’m using Microsoft Word and Onenote daily on different devices and 7 times out of ten both applications fail to sync properly to Onedrive at first attempt. And that’s just a unidirectional sync with no peer-to-peer connection involved.

»And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space, Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.« (›Windmills Of Your Mind‹ [1967]. Music by Michel Legrand ; English lyrics written by Alan & Marilyn Bergman)
D
Userlevel 7
Badge +5

 

Currently each unit of your Sonos system is running the same hardware build. In separated systems legacy gear will remain on a firmware legacy build, while modern gear will continue to get firmware updates on a regular basis.

That is just SO not true.

I have 4 Play 1’s and even those 4 are 2 different hardware builds.

They are on similar software revisions but if that means that the exact same firmware file is inside every unit, that would mean that the Play 5 1.gen would contain A LOT of code that it would never be able to use.

Airplay 2 for example, this is something the play 1 have never been able to and will never be able to.

 

A PC is a standalone device not required to play with other computers in your household in sync. I’m using Microsoft Word and Onenote daily on different devices and 7 times out of ten both applications fail to sync properly to Onedrive at first attempt. And that’s just a unidirectional sync with no peer-to-peer connection involved.

So my PC does not need to sync up with other devices in my house.

I would REALLY think my kids, playing Multiplayer games would disagree with that statement.

 

Let me make it crystal clear.


Today all of my sonos units can sync…..If sonos wanted to, it would be possible to make alle sonos units sync, even though some got new features as well.

Why would the Airplay 2 units be able to sync with units that are not able to do airplay 2…This is a feature that was added later

Smilja

 

Currently each unit of your Sonos system is running the same hardware build. In separated systems legacy gear will remain on a firmware legacy build, while modern gear will continue to get firmware updates on a regular basis.

That is just SO not true.

 

I made a mistake and subsequently corrected it to “running the same firmware build”.

 

Airplay ist a different matter. Airplay requires a 64bit processor built into, it’s hardware-related. Playback via Airplay is initiated and controlled by an iOS device while grouping still occurs within the Sonos app between devices running on the same Sonos firmware build.

»And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space, Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.« (›Windmills Of Your Mind‹ [1967]. Music by Michel Legrand ; English lyrics written by Alan & Marilyn Bergman)
J
Userlevel 5
Badge +9

I recycle 5 Amps this Christmas and now Sonos drops the recycle requirement.

They really know how to make a customer happy, NOT!

 

If you had waited, you could have gotten the 30% AND been able to sell your old amps for a bit of money.


Really seems like Sonos did not analyse their initial decision and is now running around in the forest, blindfolded, trying to escape.

 

If i had been a major sonos stock holder i would certainly have demanded that sonos got rid of the current management, as they are clearly not very good at reading the market, and if not, i would drop all of my sonos stock faster than a pair of panties in a brothel.


Yes, and I also have five more with the glaring “Legacy no support” message! 3 more Amps and 2 Play5s. They sure do know how to make me really want to upgrade more.

Doesn't help that my Vizio tablets I use around house as perfect Sonos interfaces have a glaring message on top telling me the OS isn't supported. “Can you make it where I can ack msg so it goes away?” Sonos: “No”. They just want to continue to send glaring messages to me to remind me they dont care about existing loyal customers.

Playbar(2) Sub(1) Play:5(2) Play:3(6) Play:1(5) Connect:AMP(3) Sonos:AMP(5) Move(1)
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