Retired Sonos Staff

End of Software Support - Clarifications

December 8, 2022 at 11:29 AM
4256 replies
269641 views

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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clarkyjohn

Contributor I

Like most on the community I have spend plenty of money investing in Sonos equipment over the last 10 years, and now to be told that it may be obsolete soon and you will do me a favour by giving me a 30% discount on upgrades

Shocking way to treat loyal and long standing customers, and the way you are avoiding direct contact by only allowing communication through this medium

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andy_120

Enthusiast II

So the original thread locked and after an hour 6 pages already, let’s look at facts I have a system that works no issues no problems. You state the product is at the max of processing so what are you going to introduce to stretch that processing further. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. But I’m not going to be forced to upgrade so what will I do once I can’t stream from Napster, simple get a raspberry pie and create a server that does the streaming and use my legacy hardware locally to stream that music ,not elegant but it may work

so long and thanks for the fish

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mattsanf

Lyricist I

It’s sad. This announcement specifically targets SONOSs longest term most loyal customers by definition… It is an incredibly short sighted move. Screw you longest term customers...

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ccsdigital

Lyricist I

I can understand that older tech products may eventually stop receiving updates from their manufacturers - Apple ‘pioneered’ this approach and Google are doing it with Chromebooks - some of which are less than 5 years old. However neither Apple or Google prevent your newer devices from receiving updates unless you replace the old ones - that is extortion.

Given that Sonos has told me *exactly* which of my products are about to be classified as ‘legacy’ (4 of them, cost to upgrade even with 30% discount is more than £1600 incidentally) surely it is not beyond them just to stop pushing software updates to those devices whilst maintaining updates for my ‘modern’ devices?

To offer a (presumably hastily devised) ‘solution’ of splitting a system between legacy and modern devices defeats the entire purpose of a multiroom system if they are no longer able to work together.

baconator

Trending Lyricist I

Love that this thread is growing like the last one they took down. I've already started to research other products, so when my 4 Connect AMPs get bricked I will be ready to spend my hard earned $$ somewhere else. #sonosboycott

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licenced

Avid Contributor I

Thanks for those that mentioned Yamaha’s MusicCast a few pages back.

I’ve been very happy with my growing Sonos system over the last 10 years - it’s been pricey, but the ease of use, quality and longevity seemed worth it - and so haven’t really kept up to date on what else is available.

Now I have over half my system (four of my six zones plus CR200 and bridge) becoming ‘legacy’.

I’ve been pondering whether to ‘Trade Up’ ... for me this would mean turning my existing stuff into e-waste (eugh) and considering whether I can do without one or two of my current zones and swapping my two old P:5s for Ones as I can’t afford the like-for-like.

However, now I know there is at least one decent looking - and cheaper! - alternative I will keep what I have now in legacy mode and if the time comes when it no longer does what I bought it for I’ll jump ship. Highly probable no more Sonos purchases for me.

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bholding

Trending Lyricist I

I’ve been trying to stay positive here, and have been continuously contacting Sonos support encouraging them to get someone from the senior team to engage, but to no avail.

As a result, sadly the last 24 hours have turned into a cluster for the company:

Instead of reaching out to its long-time, loyal customer community to articulate the technical challenges and work together on possible solutions, Sonos just puts out a formal mandate about a so-called “Legacy” plan that seems financially punitive, will intentionally compromise even the newest devices, is extremely non-environmental, feels a lot like forced obsolescence coupled with a lackluster price discount, and calls into question the life-span of even new purchases being made today.
In fewer than 12 hours, over 1300 posts came in to the Sonos community thread on this topic, and I don’t believe a single response was made by the company.
Instead of rolling up its sleeves and engaging with its users, Sonos then decides to simply shut down the now 36 page thread, and issues a few “clarifications” that don’t really address the core concerns from the original release.

Unfortunately, the net result is entirely predictable: the existing customer base (which someone has quoted representing 37% of annual revenue from ongoing purchases) now is on fire and feels like they are being gouged by the company, and the emotion/disappointment/frustration from the newly closed community thread is now spilling out into mainstream press and going viral (https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51206604 ). So in one ill-conceived move, Sonos has not only alienated its core customer base, but has also created a PR nightmare. Customers who are known for being loyal, patient, and even strong evangelists for Sonos are now instead talking with each other about potential replacement solutions and even class-action suits against the company. Sigh.

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steveFTC

Ryan - I gotta say you’ve always been very helpful and calm on this forum. But I have to hope that even you think this is ridiculous and are getting your resume updated as Sonos is now a complete joke to your loyal customers. I know you have to put food on your table but at some point take a look around, read these comments. Do you really want to continue working for a company like this? Heck, they’ll probably fire you without notice anyway, they have proven that they don’t care about their customers. I can’t imagine they care about their employees either.

And shutting down the other thread. Oof. Not a good look. But I don’t expect much from Sonos any longer.

Now I gotta figure out how to sell some legacy speakers that no one will want. Maybe send them back to Sonos postage due?

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Columbrian

Lyricist I

After May, systems that include legacy products will continue to work as before - but they will no longer receive software updates or new features.

This is, as you well know, self-contradictory. The Sonos platform has ALWAYS since day one been sold as an integrated ecosystem that plays music from remote sources. With the exception of the 3.5mm input on some devices, there is literally no way to play music without a network service of some kind. The nature of network services, especially, but not solely, streaming services is that the interfaces change over time and clients that wish to integrate have to be modified in-step.

Refusing to provide maintenance updates to a product that relies on integrated services for its core function is 100% killing it dead. We just don’t know the exact time of death yet.

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.

This is, as you well know, disingenuous. It would be ENTIRELY possible to split the codebase such that the older devices keep their original feature set while the newer devices move on. The streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music are going to change and necessitate updates to the Sonos devices, yes, but until such time as Apple switches to projecting holograms of the musicians in to your home they’re not going to change to an extent that the older devices can’t handle.

Implicit in what you’re saying here is that you currently DON’T do this, and so my Play 5 is currently carrying the weight of all the features you’ve put in your codebase that it can’t use. Here’s an idea - strip all that bollocks out and use the extra resource to maintain support for the Play 5’s feature set.

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.

Some of your partners do enhance their software over time, that’s true. As a secondary tip, perhaps Sonos could try this rather than just killing bits of it off *cough* desktop Sonos controller software *cough*. I’m not sure I could tell you anything that’s changed in the Sonos app the whole time I’ve had it.

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.

Explain to us one good technical reason why a play 5 that has been able to handle a synchronised audio stream for the last 5 years is suddenly going to stop being able to do so. Not got one? Good. Now explain to us why one of the more modern products won’t be able to send a play 5 one of these audio streams as it does today.

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.

At this point you deserve kudos for simply having the gall to keep presenting this extortion as if it’s some sort of perk to the current customer base. Well done, you have a bright future in PR.

Great reply. I totally agree about sending streams in legacy and modern formats. It’s just a protocol at the end of the day. Fork the code and add some backwards compatibility in the modern code which streams data in the appropriate format to each device. I’d love to know a technical reason why that isn’t possible.

Yeah, exactly. This isn't a case of “can’t”, it’s a case of “won’t”. And for that, Sonos, you’ll probably get the death penalty as a company. So be sure to put yourself on the EOL list.

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bstan

Lyricist I

I will comment the same as what I did on the previous thread… locking down brand new hardware that is still within its warranty period - just because you own legacy kit is plain wrong.

I will never purchase Sonos again, and will either sell my current kit, or just wait for it to die and replace with a different brand.

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