Retired Sonos Staff

End of Software Support - Clarifications

December 8, 2022 at 11:29 AM
4256 replies
269652 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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Show previous replies

S

scallan

Lyricist I

And now you go close the old thread, what to try sweep this under the carpet?!?!

This is just getting worse!

I now honestly can’t think of a reason to buy another Sonos product knowing it has a limited shelf-life.

So angry I just bought a Sonos Move. How long will that be good for!!!

As someone else said, after the ridiculous upgrade ‘offer’ to bin your old products and now this.

Unless there is some miraculous turn-around or a good solution...

I won’t buy another Sonos product.
I won’t recommend them, like I used to, I used to big them up big style!

P

PBobUK

Trending Lyricist I

I’ve got thousands of dollars invested in Sonos products. I’m just about to remodel my basement. I’m now rethinking the sound system I’m going to put down there as I’m not OK with paying money for gear that is junk at a time to be determined by you.

Fix this.

H

HelterSkelter

Enthusiast II

Since I can’t reply to myself on the old thread now…

All this got me onto Google… and I find that Yamaha have a “whole house” solution, and a wide range of products, many of which fill gaps I felt I had with my Sonos gear. It all gets about equal reviews to the equivalent Sonos gear too.

Locking the old thread has also got me onto shop sites to do reviews of my previous purchases.

This is what, we in the UK call “doing a Ratner” - after a chap called Gerald Ratner literally killed his entire, quite successful, jewelery business over the course of a weekend by making a very ill-advised speech about his own products.

#sonosinthetoilet by the weekend.

Very much “doing a ratner”.

Well it’s now 9:10 am in california, hopefully Patrick has woken up, turned up at work …. and is thinking hard about how to stop the ship from sinking.

Come on Patrick, don’t sh!t on us, our equipment is perfectly good, and not ready to be binned!

B

Bobby3333

Lyricist III

Since I can’t reply to myself on the old thread now…

All this got me onto Google… and I find that Yamaha have a “whole house” solution, and a wide range of products, many of which fill gaps I felt I had with my Sonos gear. It all gets about equal reviews to the equivalent Sonos gear too.

Locking the old thread has also got me onto shop sites to do reviews of my previous purchases.

This is what, we in the UK call “doing a Ratner” - after a chap called Gerald Ratner literally killed his entire, quite successful, jewelery business over the course of a weekend by making a very ill-advised speech about his own products.

#sonosinthetoilet by the weekend.

I’m glad I’m not alone in my thinking that Sonos have ‘done a Ratner’

I wonder if this thread will also be locked before long?

#BoycottSonos

M

morgan4x4

Enthusiast II

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).

16 of 26 Affected here. Shameful.

K

KingPin

Enthusiast II

Sonos, are you listening? These are your most loyal customers and promoters talking to you. If you sell products at Mercedes Benz prizing, nobody expects it to be ready for the junkyard in five years. This is the worst PR disaster I’ve seen in over a decade. Fix it.

E

ewolkoff

Enthusiast II

I’ve been Sonos customer for years and like many on here I have spent over $5,000 pulling my system together piece by piece. The slap in the face by Sonos shows that they are more concerned with forcing existing customers to purchase new temporary products knowing that they will be obsolete in 5 years or less.

I will be reaching out to Best Buy to see what their return policy is and what promotions they will be offering for Sonos competitor products. I’ve had my Bose products for over 20 years in my media room and they offer lifetime product support and replacement.

Depending on what I hear I will have the following equipment for sale at 50% of what I paid for them.

Beam	1
Bridge	1
Connect AMP	1
Move	1
Play 1	6
Play 3	1
Play 5	4
Playbar	1
Sub	2

Happy to take the sub and the move off your hands at 50%! Best Buy’s return policy is 15 days or 45 if you are elite plus.

Are people really going to toss whole systems and outlay all that cash for a new, even more expensive one, made by a company that could disappear or discontinue their line (e.g. Bose) at any time? Of all of the companies that make these systems, Sonos seems to be the most stable to invest your money into for products, despite this announcement.

M

Manu Luna

Lyricist I

I did works at home back in 2015, I installed then 14 Sonos plus I own 4 more for another house. Does this mean that every 5 years I have to renew the 18 Sonos because you want to manage the business model of a “Home Sound system” as it was a single cell phone? I will never recomend again Sonos. Very bad decission, you’ve lost another costumer.

N

NeedSleep

Renowned Enthusiast I

Please confirm that the 30% "trade up" or discount is on the lowest price offered for the identical yet newer device and not something else. I have heard different reports that this was not the case and want to make sure we are on the same page before I agree to your hostage demands and you murder my existing devices. So for every pair of Play:5 I replace it's 30% off this?

No, the recycle discount does not stack with any other sale.

Also consider this purchase carefully, this generation of P5 is now 5 years old, it only has 256 MB memory compared to 1 gig for newer units. It might be supported for a long time or not. I think 5 years it's legacy.

G

googull

Enthusiast I

The level of pain scales with the degree ownership. I don’t care hearing that there is no room left in Legacy devices for future fixes. Apparently there was room to add registration, and usage metrics, and more. If you have not seen Your Data Collected have a look here. None of that was there when I purchased those Legacy devices and I never wanted any of it. Sonos has seen fit to change the functionally of my purchased hardware as they please. Remove all the garbage code you’ve added to these devices and open up some space to leave room for fixes for another 5 years. Give us a runway longer than June and stop raising prices and we might stick around.

Long Live AirPlay 2 - it may be my path out of this mess.

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