End of Software Support - Clarifications

For some reason, I thought I had a Connect and Amp… just realised that I actually have the original ZP100, ZP80 and CR(100) which of course no longer works.

Might have to keep them as museum pieces

Was saving up for a pair of Play 5’s but very worried that as they have now been out for ten years they will soon be no longer supported.  Am now thinking that I shall have to go elsewhere unless Sonos can reassure me that they will continue to be fully supported.

Here’s an extract from today’s Evening Standard:

 

Spence said the company is working on a way for customers to split these systems so the speakers still work together but receive the appropriate updates for each device. 

 

This reiterates my earlier speculation from a BBC article that its the legacy units’ inability to handle greater memory requirement updates which necessitates creating two populations of Sonos units - legacy and modern.  The ES article goes further by saying that the speakers still work together but receive the appropriate updates for each device. 

 

If the storm (hopefully in a train cup) is ONLY about handling software updates and they can indeed work together after having been updated, I’m HAPPY again.

The speakers WILL NOT work together if you choose to update. See reply that I got via Twitter today. 

 

 

 

 

Confirmation of what we’ve been saying all along.

If you have old and new speakers you cannot group them anymore - so lose the key function of the sonos system.

Only if you are interested in continuing down the path of future updates. I for one am going to embrace “Legacy” network, and purchase any additional expansion unit for my environment from a drastically (enormously so compared to valuation of old units in the past) 2nd-hand used market. It isn’t ideal, but I’m personally not much interested in future voice integrations and the like which are clearly driving what’s coming for future “modern” software iterations. After considering all of this for several days now, this will make the future far more affordable (and perhaps more stable) for legacy users.

 

Fair enough, and genuinely good luck to you - I hope no API’s (that you use) break for you I really do.

But I wasn’t sold Sonos on the basis that I cannot get updates if I want to use my old and new speakers in a group. For me having a mixture of old and new is where I am, and I was never warned or told this could or would happen. I will never buy another Sonos item again if this comes to pass, and I will actively dissuade my friends by explaining what happened to me. These are simple systems, not laptops or mobile phones all they do is stream audio - they should last longer than this, and the environmental impact of bricking them and putting them in landfill in return for a 30% discount is beyond appalling.

Yup. I’m resigned that potentially ALL the APIs I use could break, but the least likely would be local media streaming and even less so, simple speaker grouping and connectivity. It will all potentially become not much more than a wireless speaker network, but it can be fed via line-in from another streaming source (I do this already sometimes) that is not a Sonos device. One can also still currently direct-cast from certain applications to a given Sonos speaker singly, so at least there’s that. NONE of this is ideal, but I’ll not be “moving forward” under conditions as they now seem to be. I’ll make it work until I can no longer. 

Understand where you are coming from, this whole situation is so unnecessary though - so sad

Here’s an extract from today’s Evening Standard:

 

Spence said the company is working on a way for customers to split these systems so the speakers still work together but receive the appropriate updates for each device. 

 

This reiterates my earlier speculation from a BBC article that its the legacy units’ inability to handle greater memory requirement updates which necessitates creating two populations of Sonos units - legacy and modern.  The ES article goes further by saying that the speakers still work together but receive the appropriate updates for each device. 

 

If the storm (hopefully in a train cup) is ONLY about handling software updates and they can indeed work together after having been updated, I’m HAPPY again.

The speakers WILL NOT work together if you choose to update. See reply that I got via Twitter today. 

 

 

 

 

Confirmation of what we’ve been saying all along.

If you have old and new speakers you cannot group them anymore - so lose the key function of the sonos system.

Only if you are interested in continuing down the path of future updates. I for one am going to embrace “Legacy” network, and purchase any additional expansion unit for my environment from a drastically (enormously so compared to valuation of old units in the past) 2nd-hand used market. It isn’t ideal, but I’m personally not much interested in future voice integrations and the like which are clearly driving what’s coming for future “modern” software iterations. After considering all of this for several days now, this will make the future far more affordable (and perhaps more stable) for legacy users.

 

Fair enough, and genuinely good luck to you - I hope no API’s (that you use) break for you I really do.

But I wasn’t sold Sonos on the basis that I cannot get updates if I want to use my old and new speakers in a group. For me having a mixture of old and new is where I am, and I was never warned or told this could or would happen. I will never buy another Sonos item again if this comes to pass, and I will actively dissuade my friends by explaining what happened to me. These are simple systems, not laptops or mobile phones all they do is stream audio - they should last longer than this, and the environmental impact of bricking them and putting them in landfill in return for a 30% discount is beyond appalling.

Yup. I’m resigned that potentially ALL the APIs I use could break, but the least likely would be local media streaming and even less so, simple speaker grouping and connectivity. It will all potentially become not much more than a wireless speaker network, but it can be fed via line-in from another streaming source (I do this already sometimes) that is not a Sonos device. One can also still currently direct-cast from certain applications to a given Sonos speaker singly, so at least there’s that. NONE of this is ideal, but I’ll not be “moving forward” under conditions as they now seem to be. I’ll make it work until I can no longer. 

 

Understand where you are coming from, this whole situation is so unnecessary though - so sad

Fact.

Good thing Nicholas Millington, Chief Product Officer, sold 30% of his shares on January 2nd for $500,000.00 before the share price started going down.  Shrewd trader that Nicholas .

http://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001314727/5e4c0a01-abfa-4ea8-bf30-6a97f31fb24d.pdf

As was said in a previous post, this decision will be used as a future case study.  Who would have thought that Sonos would become the modern day Ratner?

Sonos’s success has been its ability prise people away from their hifi through its convenience and simplicity of use.  It’s expandability has meant that people can simply keep adding to their system, willingly spending £££ on speakers to replace old radios in their kitchens, put in their kids bedrooms and rooms that they would never think of putting hifi in.

Sonos is (was) also ‘reassuringly expensive’.

But this is a two way street.  There has been an unwritten contract between Sonos and us customers; that we willingly pay over the odds and a premium price, but we at least expect the system to keep working in return.  We TRUST the system to keep working.

The moment the system loses the core values of convenience and simplicity of use, that originally drew us to it and most importantly once the brand loses the TRUST of its customers, that unwritten contract is broken.

Who in their right mind is going to buy a new Sonos product after this announcement?  What possible TRUST can customers have that this won’t simply be repeated again in the future?

At least with Ratners you could sell the gold.  Sonos’s ‘Legacy’ will be bricked plastic boxes polluting the planet.

Re this comment:

It will all potentially become not much more than a wireless speaker network, but it can be fed via line-in from another streaming source (I do this already sometimes) that is not a Sonos device.

It’s a pity Google stopped producing the Chromecast audio. Ideal, I would have thought. You can still pick them up on eBay, but how long they’ll be supported is anyone’s guess. 

My response to Patrick Spence 

Hello again,

Your email actually does not address the issue we all have.  That is the co-existing of devices on the same network, and working in the way they always have.   The benefit of Sonos was multi-zone music delivery without sync issues.  If I run two systems , then I am guessing I cannot sync devices between systems.  That defeats the purpose of $10,000+ of equipment, no?

The question I have been trying to get an answer to is: Is your suggestion to me that I update 16 of my 26 devices at a cost of $5,500?  You cannot explain what upsides I will get see in terms of new features, but you will say I must separate into multiple systems fail to get full advantage out of my more modern devices.  

After raising your prices 20% you then offer us a 30% discount to upgrade.   Back in the day I paid about $300 per connect, and now they run $449.  I have loads of these.  What do I get for the increase in spend?  What’s my ROI?

For now my investments in Sonos have ceased.  I have turned many, many people onto the platform... no longer.  I am active on Social Media and on the product review forums.  I will continue being as strong as messenger against Sonos as I was a proponent.

Perhaps the day you offer upgrades AT YOUR COST, and not try to profit again off my back, we’ll talk again.

Regards,

Maybe this is intentional. I mean that someone related in the Sonos company chain of command might intend to decrease the value of the company, because he has a spurious interest to do so and, therefore, facilitate the purchase by some other company for a lower value.
If I am right, the new owner will quickly annul the whole obsolescence issue, and will regain the trust of his clients, of course that can only be done by a NEW AND PRESTIGIOUS OWNER.
I'm not sure, but I won't rule out the possibility

The document does not say that 37% of households have legacy products.  Some of those household have bought their first product any time since 2015 (all non-legacy products) Or bought a play:1, play:3, playbar etc (non-legacy).  That would imply that the number of households with legacy products is somewhere south of 37%.  And this is ‘new product registrations’, which could mean a household bought a used legacy product and is registering it.  That would likely adjust the number of households up.  We also don’t know how many people have already used the trade in program...adjusting the number down.  

This is also only the percentage for 2019, not reflective of sales from previous years.  Obviously, there can be households with legacy products who did not buy anything fiscal 2019.