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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trader174

Lyricist I

Like many others here, I have also heavily invested in Sonos. I have also recommended the products to others.

I now feel very let down and rather personally embarrassed and responsible for letting down the people I recommended to buy these products.

Sonos isn’t cheap and I never anticipated something like this to happen.

30% off a £500 per product replacement is really nowhere near enough. The Sonos site isn’t even the cheapest place to purchase and it feels like a further kick.

i have signed the change.org petition and I would urge everyone else to do the same. Hopefully the decision can be reversed.

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DK_Madsen

Enthusiast II

Some custom operating system (preferably Open Source) will be the way to go and I'm sure a group will come up with something along those lines. Surely we own the hardware and it's ours to donas we please with..

Imagine how devastating it will be for Sonos, if some programming group picks up after Sonos and keep taking their latest firmware for the “new” speakers and making it work on the legacy products.

Take away the routines in the firmware to check in with sonos if it is ok to play, and make it update itself from their servers.

How bad would sonos then look, when a bunch of nerds in a basement keeps their product afloat after they say it is not possible.

I bought a Samsung tablet 5 years ago, it had android 4.4 and was soon after updated to android 5.1 and when android 6 came out, Samsung said that sadly they could not release that, because they lacked drivers for the processor and so on.

I have been running LineageOS on that tablet since android 6 (Yes it was called something else at first) and it has had upgrades to android 6, 7, 8 ,9 and is currently running just fine with android 10 and January security update.

So samsung lied…..I guess Sonos i too..

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M

mpenn

Lyricist I

Thanks SONOS!!!

Bad enough having to tell my Wife I made a mistake “investing” in your products (8 in total).

I also need to let my friends and family know that I’m a clueless numpty for recommending they also ‘invest’.

It’s going to be an interesting few days.

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Sadsadsonos

Lyricist II

This announcement has been terribly put. Objectively I can understand their problem but think the "solution" is a reflection of the connected world and the fact they had such superb products from the start. Surely they can get creative to mitigate this historic issue and must design out obsolescence in future speakers and amps. Why not build Sonos plugs which take the software/process limits off speakers and amps and are more easily replaceable.....I hate fanboys and Sonos was the only one I slipped into thinking was different.

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DK_Madsen

Enthusiast II

How is it that they can not continue to support the Play 5 because of low flash memory.

Every speaker has the same firmware, so if they need space in the Play 5, they could just make a parallel software that has the parts for Airplay 2, voice assistant and other features the play 5 does not support removed, making room for bug fixes and changes to streaming services.

I bet that a compact “Play 5 features only” firmware would take up substantially less memory, thus making it possible to continue support.

It seems clear to me that this is a case of “won’t” rather than a case of “can’t” even though they have said that they “can’t”.

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user_end_of_lifed

Enthusiast II

Just added an updated review to Trustpilot to reflect the CEO statement:

Latest CEO statement reconfirms Sonos’ commitment to screwing its customers. Anyone whose opinion of the company has improved following the CEO statement clearly can’t read very well, because it just says the exact same things as the previous policy.

Good riddance Sonos. Your only value to your customers now is if you fail so hard that no other company does something so stupid to us again.

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S

s_12

Trending Lyricist I

Here’s an idea sonos!?
Why not TELL US NOW WHAT SPEAKERS WILL BE OBSOLETE AND WHEN THIS WILL BE NOW!!??

I was looking at new speakers for the two remaining bedrooms now but, NOT UNTIL YOU TELL ME HOW LONG THEY WILL BE FUNCTIONAL FOR!

Just an idea.

Better than just saying “as long as possible” don’t you think?

I purchased my play 1’s, 3’s, 5’s, playbar and sub AT THE SAME TIME so surely the rest are getting to the infamous LEGACY stage soon? TELL ME WHEN PLEASE!

Also, WHY NOT LET US OPT OUT TOTALLY OF UPDATES? Personally, i’m ok with mine thanks so let me stop getting updates and STOP DISABLING FUNCTIONS unless I do.

IT’S MY SYSTEM, NOT YOURS.

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DK_Madsen

Enthusiast II

Sonos isn’t cheap and I never anticipated something like this to happen.

If Sonos had been a $100 brand, i don’t think anyone would have complained, but being a “premium price” $500 brand, this was unexpected.

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Steve_125

Lyricist III

If my old system doesn’t work with the new stuff as in group ect. then SeYa later Sonos. Wonder people in charge at Sonos are thinking ‘”was this a good idea, people will forget” think again!!!!

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DK_Madsen

Enthusiast II

Good riddance Sonos. Your only value to your customers now is if you fail so hard that no other company does something so stupid to us again.

In my country there is a saying “Your not useless, if you can not be used for anything else, you can always be used as a bad example of how not to be”.

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