End of Software Support - Clarifications

Does this actually change anything or just a bit of spin ?

I never write on forums.  I rarely read forums.  But this move by Sonos has sorely disappointed me.  Just a couple months ago I advised my parents to set up their whole house with Sonos because I’ve loved it.  And now I’m working with them to see if they can return their products.  If you expect your products to only be useful for such a short time, you should be transparent about this up front when people spend thousands of dollars, and you should charge a lot less for this “disposable” product.  Maybe make it out of cardboard so it can decompose since it will be entering the landfill after only a short time of use.  And to only offer 30% off is a disgrace.  Stores have better sales for national holidays, and they’re not trying to keep brand loyalty.  

Your follow-up email just added insult to injury.  You admitted you were wrong and then just re-iterated what you already said...the products won’t be updated and you’re still only offering 30% back.  An apology doesn’t simply re-state your action in a different way; you do something to FIX it.  

I have just registered here to post my utter dismay at the recent announcement. I am also of the opinion that there should be no technical reason why a device designed to stream music shouldn’t be able to stream music well into the future, whether the music comes from a local NAS or a streaming service surely these are approximately equivalent in terms of processing power and memory required and shouldn’t be putting the hardware under “strain”.

I too have noticed a huge number of updates that have brought nothing obvious, I have another pending now but I don’t see a changelog or anything indicating what is new or why it needs to be applied. If you are adding features at the expense of preventing core functionality working on older models, please stop adding features. I don’t expect new features to be added or for features to be removed from the time I purchased it, those features are what made me buy it in the first place! What I expect is for the functionality to remain the same and as others have mentioned here, for a lot lot longer than 5 years. This equipment is not a mobile phone or a computer, it is a music player that is able to synchronise with other players, that’s it, it doesn’t need to be able to listen to me, turn on my lights or do anything else.

If the intention is to split the devices into legacy and modern, what will happen in 5 years (or sooner) when the next batch are made legacy, will we have to create a second legacy network so we then will potentially have 3 networks that can’t talk to each other, or will we be able to downgrade to the lowest common denominator? I really don’t think this idea has been thought out! 
 

I don’t know how you can expect me to buy anything from you knowing that in 5 years you could pull the plug and we’ll be in the same position again, especially not at the premium prices you charge!

I’ve lost trust in you and will be looking for an alternative solution.

Translation of CEO’s latest message = FU, we are doing this anyway and not increasing the trade up discount to “earn back your trust”.

This will do nothing to placate those who will no longer buy Sonos products. Apology not accepted,you want my trust, either give me a 50% discount or hire a software team that can make the legacy kit work in a mixed system.

I just read the marketing email from the CEO and it hasn’t swung my opinion, purely because it’s the expected corporate response to save face.

Trust is hard to earn and easy to lose.

Words don’t matter, actions do.

I wont consider they’ve changed direction until they show they have, not just because they say they have.

They’ve already been caught lying several times throughout this.

Previous troubles caused by trying to avoid Sonos update that introduced new t&cs
 

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/10/11/sonos_privacy_speakers/

Regarding the “All Sonos products will continue to work past May” message that hit my inbox this afternoon; the apologetic tone was welcome, but the Sonos calculus continues.

As has been mentioned previously, Sonos management fully expected user backlash and stated so in detail in their 28 SEP 2019 10-K filing:

“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.”

This transcript of the Q4 2019 earnings call is quite enlightening; I suggest scrolling down and perusing the “Questions and Answers”:

https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2019/11/20/sonos-inc-sono-q4-2019-earnings-call-transcript.aspx

Sonos is apparently developing something called “Snips”, which they call “a strategic intellectual property that will make the voice experience on Sonos even better.”  We’ll see, but I’m ready to jump ship and have been seriously researching non-Sonos options.

I installed my first Sonos “ZonePlayer” with the slick Controller back in 2005; it unleashed my rather large music collection, which previously was only playable in smallish portions via three Sony 100+ CD disc “jukeboxes”.  Weeks of CD ripping later, it was easy to listen to music I had forgotten I had.

I would absolutely love to go back to the early Sonos system simplicity, without all the extraneous cruft that has been tacked on over the years.  I want to play music from my personal library, with maybe a streaming service or two.  I also want f-ing stability in the control GUI; I am sick and tired of the constant user interface changes that result in “where did that go?” moments and rarely provide an improvement in my user experience.  While I find these changes merely annoying, it drives my significant other crazy.

If Sonos voice control can’t handle my personal library, which it doesn’t, it’s pretty much useless to me.

What I’d like to see is the option of pared down “Sonos Lite” system software that would accommodate Legacy and Modern components. 

Why can’t there be more than one Sonos system software package?

Like many others, I have spent thousands on this system. You refer to it being “old” software and yet I bought every single one of these items after 2012 and some as recently as 2017/18.

If they were of an age that there were going to be pushed into the legacy category, they should not have been being sold as new.

I am going to forward the email to ACCC https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/complaints-problems/make-a-consumer-complaint and

NSW Fair trading https://www.cas.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/icmspublicweb/forms/GeneralForm.html  

and I encourage all other affected users to do the same. There is consumer protection in Australia and we need to report. unscrupulous behaviour.

How insulting and ridiculous to offer a 20% discount to upgrade, as consumers we have a right to expect that the product will work for the period of time that a reasonable person would reasonably expect it to work, and I dont think any Sonos customer spent thousands expecting it to be obsolete within a few years. Who would be so stupid to go and spend 1000s again to replace the system after this appalling breach of confidence.

Once you lose the loyalty of customers that bond is broken. 

Shame on you Sonos.

I urge everyone to report to ACCC and dept of fair trading so that Sonos are bound to reasonable treatment of its consumers.

I share in the frustration and skepticism of this most recent email from the CEO. There is no change of mind. He said nothing in the email that suggests any change in company policy -- except perhaps maybe you will stop bricking devices even with a 30% trade in? Don’t worry, I won't trade any of mine in -- I’ve already invested and, like others, expect speakers to be a 20-30+ year purchase, not a 5/year requires-a-refresh. My recommendation of Sonos to others ceased when the ‘brick’ news came out. This only reinforces it.

Hey SONOS, it’s very important to understand this.  Most of your users do not care about voice support or anything like that.  We use this equipment to play audio from our collections, and from streaming services.  If the processing and memory requirements are to support stuff like Alexa, please just drop that as a feature.  I don’t care about or want that, I just want my streaming services to continue to work.  I’m *certainly* not going to throw hundreds of dollars more to replace my working equipment with new for Alexa.  It’s not like my speaker could hear me when I’m playing music anyway.