Here are some ideas so this doesn’t happen again in the future:
- Sell a new hardware device that adds to your system which has plenty of processing power to handle new software updates, etc. and “bridges” to your legacy equipment, allowing it to still function, while removing the processing workload from the speakers themselves and putting it into this new device. This is something I would gladly invest in every 3 - 5 years as new features are released.
- Ensure all new products have upgradeable memory / processor modules so that in the future customers can upgrade their equipment without having to buy an entirely new speaker.
- Offer an option to send in legacy equipment to have memory / processor upgrades performed at at a reasonable cost without needing to replace the entire unit.
- Simply maintain functionality on legacy equipment as it is today, without promising any new features in the future. I’m OK with not getting upcoming features because the system can’t handle it; but I don’t want to lose features I bought it for now. My use case is primarily Google Play Music. If that goes, my sonos system is basically useless as when Sonos provided GPM, i stopped investing in my own personal music library.
Great ideas parafly. I contacted sonos suggesting a standalone box of chips that can join a legacy system together. A rsspberry pi could do it for 50 quid. One with a sonos badge on it could fo it for 200! LOL!
We may choose to discontinue support for older versions of our products, resulting in customer dissatisfaction that could negatively affect our business and operating results.
We have historically maintained, and we believe our customers may expect, extensive backward compatibility for our older products and the software that supports them, allowing older products to continue to benefit from new software updates. We expect that in the near term, this backward compatibility will no longer be practical or cost-effective, and we may decrease or discontinue service for our older products. If we no longer provide extensive backward capability for our products, we may damage our relationship with our existing customers, as well as our reputation, brand loyalty and ability to attract new customers. For these reasons, any decision to decrease or discontinue backward capability may decrease sales and adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition.
Source: https://s22.q4cdn.com/672173472/files/doc_financials/2019/q4/52d86c5b-248f-4939-aa85-1489c1828e7f.pdf#page=17
It was planned and they even predicted it in their own annual report of 2019 what’s happening now.
WTF?
And the share holder meeting is next month. The selling of all my sonos positions may not make a difference, but it’s the only way to give them the finger. Guess I can’t attend the meeting now;
You are cordially invited to attend the 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders (the “Annual Meeting”) of Sonos, Inc. The Annual Meeting will be held at 614 Chapala Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101 on February 27, 2020 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time.
We could copy that onto pretty much any major electronics’ company message board, and it would apply to them. Apple no longer supports the iPhone 4.
And how many of your iPhone 5-11’s stopped receiving updates when the iPhone 4 got end of life’d?
Those iPhones are not an integrated system. That’s a single product. The whole point of a Sonos system is that everything has to work together and be on the same software. That’s the core of its design. The solution Sonos has given us is to separate our system into legacy and non legacy. That solution stinks, but it goes to the point that the software only works properly if everything is on the same version because it is one system. If you want to break it up into different single speakers, the newer ones will still work fine.
When I plug my legacy iPod classic into my Macbook, the Macbook still works. I can still synch, add and delete. My original Apple TV still works. Apple are one of the biggest tech corps out there - there’s no way in hell they’d ever think that having some components integrated into a system should render the whole system as ‘legacy’ - it’s awful thinking. Those of us who work in Tech are flabbergasted at this approach. Those of us integrating legacy mainframe and AS400 systems into modern Oracle and Teradata environments are looking at this and thinking they need to hire better people.
Do you use Samsung SmartThings? Or a Z wave controller? What will happen to all of the attached devices if the controller’s cloud is taken offline? They’ll all cease working and you’ll need to buy a new controller. Each Sonos device needs to be on the same firmware to talk to all of the others. That's how the system has always been designed with every update. If there is another competing speaker company with a different design, maybe that’s the way to go to avoid this sort of thing in the future. I haven’t heard of that company though. For instance, eventually all Bose SoundTouch products will cease to function because they are no longer supporting any of the product line.
Sorry but when you spend a lot of your hard earned money on a system, just to have a large part of that investment junked with little notice is shocking. I for one will slowly move to another solution as I have lost all trust in Sonos. I won’t just throw it all out but will plan and move as and when I can or when I need to. I won’t be held hostage to a company that treats its customers in this manner. Would also add that 30% discount is an insult, 50% would be a joke.
As I said, if you want to take a giant loss on all of that equipment just because you have the 1 Connect Amp and a Bridge, I’m prepared to be a buyer. I don’t mean that to be argumentative -- anyone you sell to will be investing in something you no longer believe in (i.e. they will believe in it). But I also am not sure which company everyone is going to switch to that doesn’t do this already -- or is guaranteed not to do the very same thing. The only real solution is to not invest in any of these products and wire your whole house with speaker wire.
The lesson for me in all of this is keeping a system more traditional and more modular. There are scores of incredible sounding “dumb” speakers available, just waiting to be fed by a very inexpensive streaming device (for pennies comparatively). The options are many, from DIY to turnkey. In many instances they’ll not be as robust or simplistic in operation perhaps as Sonos, but that changes more each and every year as the market grows and competition increases. Anything given up in the Sonos experience can surely be gained in peace of mind, whether or not as elegant. If a streaming device goes down and must be replaced, at the very least it will be a fraction the cost of the dilemma that the Sonos ecosystem now stands to position the user in every few years. There are quite a few lessons here.
Thx for the email address supplied. This was my email to the CEO
Patrick,
I would encourage you to speak to the people that run your community site (Ryan S) and take a look at the literally 100's of customers that will never buy Sonos again. I am in this category.
Over the years I have raved about Sonos, told my friends to buy it. Not now. You have just alienated me and your whole customer base.
You share price dropped 1% today..... this is just the tip of the iceberg
When the real fall out around this is seen in the next 2 quarters when your sales figures plummet due to the customer base not continuing to invest in your platform , your share price will decline rapidly.
People will talk about the mistake that was made yesterday as the turning point in Sonos's history.
You need to act fast and say you listened to your customers and reversed this decision as of today.
Adrian
Great to see SONOS getting a ton of well deserved negative press on this major debacle. I would just like to get my money back. Perhaps chief product officer Nick Millington who coincidentally just sold 1/3 of his stock before this announcement would like to pay me for my now obsolete gear.
https://boycottsonos.com
CEO: patrick.spence@sonos.com
Chief Product Officer: nick.millington@sonos.com
COO: david.perri@sonos.com
After connecting Sonos directly I was told if you have any legacy systems in your network, you will not get any new updates from any Sonos unit in the network… you have 2 options… replace them with updated Sonos units OR look for alternatives.
32MB of RAM has been enough for my devices (Play:5 and CONNECT) to work for years. What has changed? Did Spotify and all of the other vendors update their protocols such that they now need a lot more RAM to function?
Those iPhones are not an integrated system. That’s a single product. The whole point of a Sonos system is that everything has to work together and be on the same software. That’s the core of its design. The solution Sonos has given us is to separate our system into legacy and non legacy. That solution stinks, but it goes to the point that the software only works properly if everything is on the same version because it is one system. If you want to break it up into different single speakers, the newer ones will still work fine.
When I plug my legacy iPod classic into my Macbook, the Macbook still works. I can still synch, add and delete.
Doing occasional connections between to products to move data around cannot be compared to sharing data between mutliple devices in a matter of microseconds and having those devices then play audio in sync with each other. This is not even close to a valid comparison.
My original Apple TV still works. Apple are one of the biggest tech corps out there - there’s no way in hell they’d ever think that having some components integrated into a system should render the whole system as ‘legacy’ - it’s awful thinking.
Again, you are comparing apples to oranges. Sharing of data across systems is not the same things as having multiroom audio work. It’s also not exactly fair to compare a tech giant like Apple with practically unlimited resources to a company like Sonos with limited resources. Apple can afford to support devices long after they are profitable in order to help maintain it’s image and such, while Sonos cannot.
Those of us who work in Tech are flabbergasted at this approach. Those of us integrating legacy mainframe and AS400 systems into modern Oracle and Teradata environments are looking at this and thinking they need to hire better people.
So I take it your familiar with Oracle licensing fees, support fees, and that Oracle does require customers to upgrade their servers, UNIX/lenox version, database, middleware, and application versions in order to stay supported? You’re familiar with the bad reputation Oracle support has (although it is getting better)?
What an absolute joke. I now have a speaker that in a few years will probably no longer work and all you can offer is a 30% discount if I buy more products that you may eventually stop supporting.
I think the feedback you are receiving shows what the majority of loyal customers think of your ‘poor’ decision. Will start to look at the Denon HEOS range of speakers to replace my defunct SONOS equipment.
Great to see SONOS getting a ton of well deserved negative press on this major debacle. I would just like to get my money back. Perhaps chief product officer Nick Millington who coincidentally just sold 1/3 of his stock before this announcement would like to pay me for my now obsolete gear.
https://boycottsonos.com
Nice website. Great job!
Massive rethink, will not be adding to my system, of Playbar, woofer, 4 x play 1 2 x Play 3, 2 x Play 5 and two connects
Great to see SONOS getting a ton of well deserved negative press on this major debacle. I would just like to get my money back. Perhaps chief product officer Nick Millington who coincidentally just sold 1/3 of his stock before this announcement would like to pay me for my now obsolete gear.
https://boycottsonos.com
Maybe the FTC can probe him, investigate for insider trading. Better yet, the FTC should open an Antitrust investigation against this company. Yes I’m still really mad!
So Sonos will still release firmware to fix bugs. Will a streaming service that is currently supported changing API be considered a bug and receive a fix on legacy hardware?
This is the crux of the issue for me. If say Spotify changes something that means Sonos needs to change, then will it get fixed? I don’t see “upgrading” at 30% reduced price as an incentive, far from it.
@MrSwadge, I replied to this a few pages back, but I know some replies get missed. 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 - this is the most concerning thing (for me at least) - you say: Streaming services will work the same as well, but at some time in the future, service software changes might cause it to degrade or stop working. - So you are confirming that you won’t be updating legacy devices to cope with service software changes. It seems unlikely that these changes would impose unrealistic demands on legacy devices, so why won’t you be updating the software?
@PeteD, as above, where possible, we’ll try to update legacy devices, but we might not be able to. The hardware might not be able to support whatever solution is needed.
“These legacy devices are stretched to the limits of their hardware already.”
But Sonos is already streaming Deezer and Amazon etc now… I’m not interested in any future new features gizmos, I’m interested in Sonos continuing to provide a service that I have been receiving over the years. Amending a line of code to ensure it aligns with external databases is hardly going to stress it any further. Just branch code the app based on Legacy / modern hardware to provide a basic no frills streaming / network service or full package all bells and whistles. There is no need to add extra code to the device.
This is just sounding like complete cut and paste BS and is only serving to make me even more angry and determined to kick Sonos into touch.
Wow way to lose your entire loyal customer base. To think I was about to buy a new set of SONOS speakers for the house extension. Me thinks I will wait and see how this pans out. The thing about HiFi is it lasts generations. My best pair of B&W speakers are 20 years old and sound glorious. My Keff setup as well. It is not a smart Phone with a 18-24 month refresh cycle. I will be parking this right here and refusing to update as my system works fine for what I need. No new speakers will be added to the mix (which should make my wife happy).
You sure we not got the same wife? 
…. same here, genuine stuff. Bought a new Amp a few weeks back and a sub thinking about it. To layer on my what, think it’s 14 boxes (of which 5 now on death row) and indeed was about to buy two more Amp’s and another sub. And these are all linked to B&W’s …. either in ceiling CCM683’s, 663’s or Matrix 805’s.
Approval from other halves has always been a game of chess … there’s little chance of that now.
I suppose at least the B&W’s will sustain any transition. Glad I only ever bought two box (Play) solutions now
Another option you should all consider is to contact the California State Attorney general. They will be interested in this scheme Sonos is running.
This may be the best stock to short sell on the market today. Just keep an eye open and quickly turn the position if they reverse this decision. I think they have about 24 hours to do it before the company’s reputation is damaged for a long long time. If not reversed, keep the short position open.
A loyal customer for many years…..£3K worth of Sonos equipment.
I’d love to be constructive, but I think everyone else has said the facts objectively. So retiring my 5 year old products whilst offering me a “discount”which is no better than many high street vendors, Obliterating customer loyalty and creating a mountain of waste in environmentally sensitive times - all in one swift move!
When you took away using Music on IOS devices through your app without streaming it was insulting, but this is next level incompetence. Wake up management if you don’t want to sink this ship you’re all so happy sailing on …..I’ll vote with my feet and not spend a penny more on your now “fly by night” labelled products....
Shame on you, Sonos.
At least I will have very good looking and expensive door stops to litter around the house.
#dontbuySonos
/s/ another burned customer
Great to see SONOS getting a ton of well deserved negative press on this major debacle. I would just like to get my money back. Perhaps chief product officer Nick Millington who coincidentally just sold 1/3 of his stock before this announcement would like to pay me for my now obsolete gear.
https://boycottsonos.com
CEO: patrick.spence@sonos.com
Chief Product Officer: nick.millington@sonos.com
COO: david.perri@sonos.com
Quality stuff … although taking what I considered a balanced view, the closing of the previous thread displays utter contempt and puts me now in the less tolerant box.
Your web site there is a reasonable flag waved back.
Should not be necessary but I like it
Sorry but when you spend a lot of your hard earned money on a system, just to have a large part of that investment junked with little notice is shocking. I for one will slowly move to another solution as I have lost all trust in Sonos. I won’t just throw it all out but will plan and move as and when I can or when I need to. I won’t be held hostage to a company that treats its customers in this manner. Would also add that 30% discount is an insult, 50% would be a joke.
As I said, if you want to take a giant loss on all of that equipment just because you have the 1 Connect Amp and a Bridge, I’m prepared to be a buyer. I don’t mean that to be argumentative -- anyone you sell to will be investing in something you no longer believe in (i.e. they will believe in it). But I also am not sure which company everyone is going to switch to that doesn’t do this already -- or is guaranteed not to do the very same thing. The only real solution is to not invest in any of these products and wire your whole house with speaker wire.
The lesson for me in all of this is keeping a system more traditional and more modular. There are scores of incredible sounding “dumb” speakers available, just waiting to be fed by a very inexpensive streaming device (for pennies comparatively). The options are many, from DIY to turnkey. In many instances they’ll not be as robust or simplistic in operation perhaps as Sonos, but that changes more each and every year as the market grows and competition increases. Anything given up in the Sonos experience can surely be gained in peace of mind, whether or not as elegant. If a streaming device goes down and must be replaced, at the very least it will be a fraction the cost of the dilemma that the Sonos ecosystem now stands to position the user in every few years. There are quite a few lessons here.
Yes. I think that’s a reasonable position/choice for sure. If you wire everything, you will not have to worry about these issues. Or you could use cheap Alexa pucks on all your speakers and have powered speakers or an amp.
Those of us who work in Tech are flabbergasted at this approach. Those of us integrating legacy mainframe and AS400 systems into modern Oracle and Teradata environments are looking at this and thinking they need to hire better people.
So I take it your familiar with Oracle licensing fees, support fees, and that Oracle does require customers to upgrade their servers, UNIX/lenox version, database, middleware, and application versions in order to stay supported? You’re familiar with the bad reputation Oracle support has (although it is getting better)?
This is simply continuing a poor analogy with additionally poor examples.
You’re adding apples and oranges to the pile you’ve already called apples and oranges.
What point is it exactly that you’re trying reach or illustrate?
I have a number of existing products that will now be “legacy”. If I choose option 1 and keep them, my software for my entire network will be frozen at the current version. If I were to buy any new products, they would also have to run on this old version.
Therefore please explain why I would ever buy Sonos again if all my existing products and any new products are treated as legacy right now and could potentially lose access to services and features they may ship with?
Do you only care about new customers or those who are prepared to re-buy the equipment they already own? You certainly don’t care about the rest of us.
Great to see SONOS getting a ton of well deserved negative press on this major debacle. I would just like to get my money back. Perhaps chief product officer Nick Millington who coincidentally just sold 1/3 of his stock before this announcement would like to pay me for my now obsolete gear.
https://boycottsonos.com
CEO: patrick.spence@sonos.com
Chief Product Officer: nick.millington@sonos.com
COO: david.perri@sonos.com
nice website!
I am appalled at total lack of support Sonos is showing to their loyal customers. I have 8 connect amps in my home and it would cost me over $4,000 with your discount to replace them. I cannot afford to do that. You are saying that eventually as streaming services change their systems my perfectly good system will become unusable.
This is total BS. I will have to look for a competitors systems to replace mine wihen that time comes as I will no longer financially support a company that will not support the equipment that I spent thousands with buying their systems.
Very disappointed.
Michael
