End of Software Support - Clarifications

Am really pissed off with Sonos following their recent announcement to stop supporting over 50% of my Sonos products. My investment in has been substantial over the last few years and I expected them to continue to work effectively for many years to come. My traditional HiFi is 30 years old and still as good as the day I bought it. And to offer just a measly 30% discount to “upgrade” is a slap in the face. I don’t want more bells and whistles on my system. I just want it to continue to operate effectively without being deliberately downgraded by Sonos.

Like all in the community I am deeply saddened by Sonos announcement re- no more updates for what Sonos term legacy products. I don’t recollect when spending £7k  on my system anyone advising me that it had a shelf life of less than ten-years. I was originally so endeared by Sonos that also I purchased systems for my son and daughter. I was always a great advocate for the company and its products and while considered expensive the quality of product and service provided was excellent making the purchase price seem reasonable. In one fell swoop SONOS has destroyed its customer base and there is not a snowball’s chance in hell of me purchasing another Sonos product under the current terms.

Dear Sonos,

No.

Please make updates available to “modern” devices with “legacy” devices on the same network.

Otherwise I will not spend a single dime on yours products ever again. 

(7 of 24 products affected).

Another early adopter of Sonos here, and how embarrassing the number of mates I have promoted Sonos to!

We helped build your Company, and this is what you do.  

I won't be walking past the Bose stand anymore feeling superior.  This is a disgrace and offering a 30% discount is below contempt.

John Lewis say they are never knowingly undersold, but they must be having a pang of conscience selling me a Sonos unit in 2015 to find it “Legacy”, less than 5 years later.  Add that to the other 5 legacy products I have, and I like many on here feel cheated.

I think all reputable resellers should think long and hard about this, and should they continue to sell Sonos products, be forced to put a notice near the product explaining that support may be arbitrarily withdrawn in the future, rendering the product susceptible to obsolescence.

I bought a Play 5 (Gen 1) and Bridge combo when I retired as a very extravagant present for myself. I had a large and growing collection of CDs that I had added to my iTunes library and had been looking for a system to allow me to play my music wirelessly throughout my home. At the same time I bought a Mac Mini to replace my ageing Windows PC and an iPod to use primarily as the Sonos Controller. I am not rich and I made these purchases only after a lot of hesitation and serious soul searching.

I was absolutely delighted with my then basic Sonos system and like many others I have promoted Sonos to friends and associates. A couple of years later I added 2 more Play 5s (again Gen 1) and later still 2 Play 1s which then completed my system with a speaker now in each room. By now my music collection had risen to over 50,000 tracks.

The iPod was the first casualty when an update rendered it obsolete as a Sonos controller. I bought an iPad to replace it - first Sonos disappointment involving further expenditure.

I use my system to play my own music, set alarms and to listen to Radio using TuneIn and have little interest in music streaming services. If I’m honest I find the Play 1s to be virtually as good as the Play 5s in terms of the sound quality but the best thing about the 5s is the line-in function and headphone socket, features that I’ve found very useful but which were not incorporated into the less expensive speakers.

A few months ago, without a great deal of warning, Sonos announced that the “play from this iPad” function would no longer work with speakers that do not support Airplay2 - another Sonos disappointment as I occasionally used that when visiting my daughter to play music on my iPad through her Play 1.

As recently as a couple of weeks ago, again after a lot of deliberation, I bought a Beam in the hope that it would improve the sound from my Samsung Smart TV. It’s OK but I wouldn’t say it’s brilliant. Of necessity it sits in front of the TV where it blocks the remote receiver on my TV meaning that I have to stand over the TV to use the remote, and Alexa can’t even access my music library - another unexpected Sonos disappointment. It came with a free 6 month Spotify Premium trial subscription which I am familiarising myself with, but from experience so far I doubt I’ll continue to subscribe.

Yesterday’s e mail from Sonos has now basically informed me that the bulk of my system will no longer be supported from May 2020 and that if I continue to use it in combination with my Play 1s and Beam they too will be unable to receive updates meaning that over time the entire system will lose some functionality.

The offer to get a 30% discount off replacement products is absolutely derisory besides which even if I could afford 3 Play 5s the current model doesn’t have the ‘line in’ function that I find so useful. The Play 1s, not currently defined as legacy products, are now discontinued so no doubt before too long another Sonos e mail will announce that they too are about to become obsolete.

I simply cannot afford to replace my entire Sonos system so my knee-jerk reaction is to list the Beam on Ebay whilst it’s still new enough to achieve a sale price roughly equal to what I paid for it and to then allow my system to run until it fails and, in the meantime research what alternatives are available for someone, like me, who simply wants to listen to my CD collection.

I will however wait until May to see what the as yet unannounced work-around to run legacy speakers on a separate Sonos system involves.

My faith in Sonos right now is shattered. Whilst I understand that nothing lasts forever I don’t think it unreasonable to expect very, very expensive equipment that can still work as it was initially intended to should no longer be updatable purely because the developers want their customers to alter their listening habits. So Sonos please tell me why I should even consider buying more of your products or recommend them to others.

No need to close the other thread, it does not clarify anything, you will soon have another 55 pages of angry customers who have spend thousands on this system, including myself. 
well done Sonos, I am now looking at alternative speakers, I will not be caught out like this again, and as for a 30% discount on an upgrade, you can shove it where the sun don’t shine 😡

Never mind about the Shareholder meetings, I just closed out my position (I will show you the order 😵.  I won’t be using my Capital gains from your stock to purchase more equipment either.  You really have upset me, although you obviously don’t care.

Ryan

Please could Sonos answer how Connect:AMP units purchased in 2017 from a mainstream retailer who was out of stock at the time (so had to order in) are marked as legacy units so presumably pre-2015. Serial number starting 5CAA. As Sonos have now explained the pre-2015 units are a different product to the ‘modern’ Connect:AMP units so should have not been sold as the same.

Thanks

Congrats to BBC to cover this. I am sharing that with all my local and national news feeds.

I echo much of what has already been said and normally would not post but this has angered me. I will now be very reluctant to add any more components to my existing system for the fear the same will happen with that. 
 

Also if I did want to use the trade up - which I don’t because I have something that works - why would I want to trade in my old Play5 for a Move. I would want a Play5 surely?