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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RentalGuy

Lyricist III

You guys have to put your genius thinking caps back on and come up with a better solution for your loyal customers. Why not:

Give us more options… enable features on new units that work with older units
have some features available on new units, not on older units
add a product which helps out old units? more memory? processing? get !@#$ creative here.
sure, if necessary run two seperate networks.. but figure out how we can control them with one controller. I’m sure your third party developers are already way ahead of you guys on figuring this out.

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kassey22000

Enthusiast II

Hi all employees and the CEO at SONOS, the past days has been turmoilf us and for you, CEO has halfway withdrawn the statement made earlier in the week and I have felt resentment to SONOS, totally losing trust in you.

What SONOS must do in order to earn back the trust is to prove words with rock solid actions and promises, not a single vague reservation will be accepted by your customers anymore, your wording will be analyzed and interpreted by us all.

All of us have and still enjoy your products, you thought that you could make us accept the first message and you have with your anlysis late 2019 shown that such statements would damage your brand and still you went along instead of finding an better option. This falls on all the management and employees that has been involved in this mess.

I’am looking into my options and currently I have no intention of expanding my current SONOS stable with further products from you, until you prove to me that you deserve to get my money again.

So prove yourself to me and the other customers with real promises and actions, you probably need to show the roadmap for us in this matter (and for your competition) in order to acheive this.

You have envisioned yourself as a premium brand-being one of the more expensive solutions, that leads the market, continue to behave as such and in this you need to consider that your speakers are speakers not computers, your tech platform must always be ocmpliant to that so your customers continue to buy your products.

If you choose a tech platform solution that is inferior from cost perspective ( I mean 4 GB of memory wasn’t unobtainable when you started building your units-costwise, lessons of memory need has bee around since the 90s), then you need to have another track for upgrading that tech platform than you have today.

Do anything else and I can promise you failure

I have a feeling the entire company is in turmoil. I was working with some great support folks over the last 2 weeks to nail down some Sonosnet issues and now I can’t get anyone to respond. The engineer/hi-tier folks are booked out over a week now and I don’t dare contact their offshore-contracted support. Maybe they are all at an emergency offsite meeting trying to right the ship. Hope they do because like so many, I invested not only a lot of money but a lot of personal time over the years building out my Whole-Home-Audio system and while I absolutely hate this management debacle I want my system to continue to work TOGETHER, not split!

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MusicLver666

Lyricist II

I have sent a message to the CEO of Sonos expressing my displeasure and disappointment in the company. I suggest everyone do the same.

Patrick.Spence@sonos.com

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Haigh

Trending Lyricist I

Although the jan/22 CEO message points in a better direction, this still needs a lot of improvement.

One would think that after the bricking of controllers you would have learned.

Hi-Fi is not a phone which people expect to get obsolete. Especially a whole house system with thousands invested. What your users expect:

Devices to remain operable for as long as possible, even if they don't have all NEW features. That means keeping the streaming services we use functioning. You don't need a ton of memory or processing to keep existing features.
Devices to remain interoperable between new and old, as has always been the case. That means we need to be able to group old and new devices while playing.

You need much better communications, PR and crisis management if you are to keep your customers loyal. Get your act together you you'll destroy the brand.

I've been a loyal customer for over a decade with 9 zones and am an evangelist, bringing many new customers to Sonos. I hope you find a reasonable solution to this hole you've put yourselves into.

An unsatisfactory solution will mean thousands of your customers will no longer trust you with a single cent. Sonos is a long term commitment. Long term commitments require trust. You're managing to lose ours.

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Nybhh

Contributor I

The Apollo 11 spacecraft had 32k in RAM. The Connect literally has 1,000 times the RAM it took to send man to the moon and it can’t stream mp3s anymore? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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User432208

Lyricist I

So, I’ve been a Sonos customer since 2008 (if not earlier). I have always waxed lyrical about this system and still suggest it’s the consumers weapon of choice for ease and functionality.

i have two play 5’s that will need replacing then, and I even get, to a point, why some of these upgrades, after 9 years might be needed. The issue however is cost and ethics. Plain and simple. In a environment crisis, to be suggesting we throw away and upgrade working hardware is frankly irresponsible. Back to cost then.….to suggest a 30% discount simply takes me back to what I paid for them new all those years ago, no better. Get us a decent discount, especially if we’re forced to disable the other ones to landfill...nobody gains here, the environment, or the client....

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Dumfries

Lyricist I

Hi, you tell us that our Legacy products that you have been selling recently will be phased out! I am thankfull that I bought my Sonos 5 years ago, how can you sell something one year and then say that you are phasing it out the next. If I change to your modern products will they be phased out in 5 years? I am sorry, you sell a quality product but if it is phased out every 5 years then maybe I should buy something cheaper!

And I am not happy with the new format, I loved going through all the playlists and choosing something from random, now there are fewer playlists and half of them you have chosen for me!!!!

I am now looking at alternatives and like many others have done i am now stopping recommending Sonos.

Dumfries

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morgan4x4

Enthusiast II

I have sent a message to the CEO of Sonos expressing my displeasure and disappointment in the company. I suggest everyone do the same.

Patrick.Spence@sonos.com

Good luck. Now they are sending canned replies.

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morgan4x4

Enthusiast II

So, I’ve been a Sonos customer since 2008 (if not earlier). I have always waxed lyrical about this system and still suggest it’s the consumers weapon of choice for ease and functionality.

i have two play 5’s that will need replacing then, and I even get, to a point, why some of these upgrades, after 9 years might be needed. The issue however is cost and ethics. Plain and simple. In a environment crisis, to be suggesting we throw away and upgrade working hardware is frankly irresponsible. Back to cost then.….to suggest a 30% discount simply takes me back to what I paid for them new all those years ago, no better. Get us a decent discount, especially if we’re forced to disable the other ones to landfill...nobody gains here, the environment, or the client....

Check out their ethical responsibility statements on their website. Pure nonsense.

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H

HelterSkelter

Enthusiast II

This is a current SONOS advert.

It states that you can ‘Build your system’ and ‘expand it any time’.

Looks like somebody forgot to tell the advertising department, that the management has changed it’s mind about all of that.

No, you cannot any longer expand your system unless you throw away all the stuff we sold you 5 years ago.

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