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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User884294

Avid Contributor I

SONOS, set the controls for the Heart of the Sun :frowning2:

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F

FarFromGruntled

Lyricist III

I guess we’ve gotta be careful that they don’t go down the pan because we want a few more years out of our current ‘non-legacy’ kit...chance to save those hard earned pennies for alternative kit...but hey aren’t we all the more savvy for our next tech purchase!

You bet!

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Adam Smith The Invisible Hand

Lyricist III

200 posts in 2 days and 74000 views.

They can’t help but hear.

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Noemis Snikwah

Lyricist II

I have emailed Jeff Bezos suggesting that Amazon buy them for a song, the patents alone would make it worthwhile.

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vgflondon

Lyricist II

I love my Sonos system, I’ve had it for years and was about to buy an extra unit for my bedroom - not now.

Like a lot of folks on this thread i bought my system as a high end system (which is what it was marketed as) for digitizing my extensive CD collection. I’m not interested in subscription music services and never will be. I want a reliable good quality system to run high quality music from a NAS. I deliberated for a long time and eventually bought Sonos on the recommendations from Sonos community users and never regretted it. Multi-room was a very welcome bonus that i love, dare i say it feels indispensable. However now i’m thinking… why didn’t i bite the bullet and buy a Cyrus!

If i buy relatively expensive audio equipment i don’t expect to get held to hostage after i have purchased the system. I expect it to do what it says on the tin, and what it was promised to do, until it breaks.

I can understand that there may potentially be issues running old sonos kit with new, but i don’t see that they would be insurmountable, and i don’t see why they can’t keep legacy systems so they continue to do what they have been doing for years - it’s a steady state system.

As others have said, it smacks of cynical attempt to drive sales. I fail to see how anyone with a brain cell would think the 30% discount would tempt sonos stalwarts to fork out their hard earned cash to replace legacy hardware… only to face the same situation in 5 years time. Do they really think we are that stupid?

The final straw is Sonos bricking perfectly good hardware - about as un-environmentally friendly as you can get.

It breaks my heart, and will be a pain in the arse for me but i will be switching. I will be doing my homework on network music players (aka CambridgeAudio) and look for separate multi-room solutions.

So congrats Sonos, rather then me spending my money on more Sonos kit, you’ve pushed me into the arms of your rivals.

I’d suggest moving on pragmatically like a number here have decided to. No longer recommend Sonos to others. Continue to use your system as a legacy system; if you are not interested in streaming services, you’re unlikely to be affected by using a legacy system in any way. If you’d like to expand your system, don’t buy new product, buy additional used-market units that are also legacy and thus extremely inexpensive comparatively. (Case in point: I just got a gen-1 Play5 for 100 USD following this mess). You (we) ought to be fine for years, provided Sonos doesn’t completely go under - that is the true risk in all of this. But even that is remote; I suspect they’d be acquired by another company before shuttered entirely. At any rate, I’m just going to pay attention to what’s happening, and carry on as usual, not being bothered by missing future software updates (which, to be frank, have offered me nothing in several years, except occasional system instability).

Stupid question and i am not at home to check (i may have my system set to auto-updates) but i have never knowingly updated my system for years, i run it mainly from my PC and my CR100 still works…. I am in a parallel update free universe? I can’t even remember registering my products it was so long ago i bought them, i assume i did but it will be to some email i no longer use... [i just created this account to vent my anger 🙂 ]

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DK_Madsen

Enthusiast II

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 :wink: .

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

Where i come from, that is called insider trading.

Maybe its the same in the US….have you tried alerting the authorities ?

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Rob NYC1

Enthusiast II

which seems like a stupid move.

I’m just speculating here, but you don’t run a multi million dollar company do you? Would you like to? :grin:

I have run a company like the one you describe. And I agree with Madsen - it’s a stupid move.

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mboydftw

Lyricist III

I sent the below to the CEO

Hi Patrick

You must be getting overwhelmed by these emails. A couple of things struck me when reading your announcements.

You may or may not be actually vulnerable to the whims of your streaming service providers’ API updates. But the message you sent out suggests that you are. If a software change on their side of things renders your products useless, then you are highlighting a giant risk to your business model. Is that factual? If not, why pose that doubt? Highlighting your vulnerability to Spotify software changes is bad optics if not true. If it is true, the message should be to rally your customer base to address the idiot move on THEIR part.

Second thing I thought was that you know exactly what is coming, and after the backlash, you’ve proposed the bizarre idea of a split system in order to address it. Why suggest a solution that is so antithetical to what you do? You wouldn’t suggest something so bizarre without knowing what the problem is that is headed our way.

Hiding the ball never turns out well. When the time comes for you to unveil what you know to be on the way, all this posturing, the vagaries, the apologies will come into focus, and the disingenuous messaging will be laid bare.

I understand your challenge of staying steps ahead of the competition. You have shareholders to consider, and the google wolves are at the door. I imagine these changes are an effort to do just that, and likely to integrate the voice recognition start up you acquired.

Your advantage over these other services is twofold. One is you have excellent hardware. Second is your customer loyalty. So the decision was to threaten your customer loyalty by pointing out their hardware is not viable? You’ve shot your left AND your right foot!

FYI, I have 14 devices over 2 homes. They all work just fine.

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jwinther

Lyricist III

And so it begins

retailers-move-to-dump-sonos

Sounds like Sonos is indeed under pressure - and combined with having an unhealthy tone towards their partners and a technological base that is not modern, they have now begun doing such absurd things like we have seen recently. Certainly a sign of desperation from a company that doesn’t know what to do.

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“This is a chance now to come up with a system that doesn’t cause massive planetary damage in exchange for disposable stuff,” Proctor said. (https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3a8dpn/sonos-makes-it-clear-you-no-longer-own-the-things-you-buy)

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jay johannigman

Lyricist I

Count me in as yet another bitterly disappointed ten year Sonos customer. I have nothing new to add to all of the comments above other than to add my name and voice to the host of angry customer

AND YES-- I AM GOING TO TEXT SCREAM FOR JUST ONE MOMENT

I initially purchased Sonos because I thought it represented cutting edge technology at a (premium) price but also with strong customer support.

Over the years -- like so many others, I have bought over ten units and was going to invest in the sound bar

But not anymore-- this idea of planned obsolescence is horrible

not sonos

not anymore

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