Retired Sonos Staff

End of Software Support - Clarifications

Dec 8, 2022 11:29 AM UTC
4256 replies
270427 views
Translate All

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

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

Show previous replies

C

Cisume

Enthusiast II

Unfortunately, I’ve endured this transition once before in the digital music world, having suffered through the slimdevices becomes Logitech Music debacle -- eventually the systems got left behind where streaming services are concerned (though still workable for local music collections). That’s how I ended up with Sonos in the first place.

If this goes as badly as that transition, lesson learned: do NOT invest in systems which integrate the software with the actual speakers -- at least then come what may the only parts that get bricked are the networking dongles, and you’ll still have functioning speakers to use with emergent software/network systems.

At least I am able to use my old Squeezeboxes as glorified clocks -- my Play5, Connect and collection of Play1s appear destined to become paperweights.

Of course, maybe the big brains at Sonos are having a “New Coke” moment and will realize that legacy hardware can be retained if they create a “Legacy Master” device that can be upgraded which simply streams bits to legacy “slave” units …

Turtle Beach AudioTron is still usable :wink:

Translate

K

Kirk33

Collaborator II

Both my earlier post on the BBC and Evening Standard indicate that the legacy and modern groups are being created to allow appropriate level updates to reach each group, presumably because the legacy components have insufficient capacity to handle what’s coming in software updates and would cause the update to the whole system to fail. The BBC hints, and the Evening Standard states Spence saying : the speakers still work together but receive the appropriate updates for each device.

I understand the desire to cling to hope, despite all the evidence, but I believe you are being ridiculous. When a news agency speaks directly with someone, they always say so in the article. In this case, it’s very clear that they haven’t actually spoken with Spence and they have no first hand information They are simply (mis)interpreting his statement. A statement that was very carefully worded to imply grouping without actually saying so. The statement was designed to be misinterpreted by the press, and it worked.

Translate

M

morgan4x4

Enthusiast II

Unfortunately, I’ve endured this transition once before in the digital music world, having suffered through the slimdevices becomes Logitech Music debacle -- eventually the systems got left behind where streaming services are concerned (though still workable for local music collections). That’s how I ended up with Sonos in the first place.

If this goes as badly as that transition, lesson learned: do NOT invest in systems which integrate the software with the actual speakers -- at least then come what may the only parts that get bricked are the networking dongles, and you’ll still have functioning speakers to use with emergent software/network systems.

At least I am able to use my old Squeezeboxes as glorified clocks -- my Play5, Connect and collection of Play1s appear destined to become paperweights.

Of course, maybe the big brains at Sonos are having a “New Coke” moment and will realize that legacy hardware can be retained if they create a “Legacy Master” device that can be upgraded which simply streams bits to legacy “slave” units …

Turtle Beach AudioTron is still usable :wink:

So funny. I endured AudioTron, then had 5 or so Squeezeboxes, now Sonos. I just noticed the Squeezebox Transporter still plugged in my basement. Good times. I though by going premium with Sonos I would not have to go through this again. I guess not.

lesson here is I never spent money with Turtle Beach or Logitech again. Sonos, are you listening?

Translate

chickentender

Why bother and staying with Sonos? I made up my mind in just a few hours. There are other systems on the market that hopefully wont stab us in the back suddenly.

Just sold three ZP100. Next step: the rest of the system. So looking forward to Yamaha Musiccast!

I’m not. I'm staying with legacy Sonos. I don’t have the money, the time, or will to

disconnect and sell all my Sonos gear,
find something else suitable that could inevitably meet the same IoT-sphere fate of future doom, or
wire my home and/or move to an entirely modular system (which I ought to have in the first place) in one fell swoop.

What I can afford to do is find a single piece that will be an alternative single unit (on its own and to feed one of my Connects) for the time being that gives me options for the future and lets me utilize what’s left of Sonos streaming services for however long that remains, and utilize Sonos as a “dumb” wireless speaker network fed from another source for however long I want before selling binning it.

Really simply, I just don’t feel like letting Sonos wreck my day, or week, or month. And a lot of that is financially driven. Anyone else that has the money and wants to play with other new shite on the market, have at it and have fun.

Translate

chickentender

Unfortunately, I’ve endured this transition once before in the digital music world, having suffered through the slimdevices becomes Logitech Music debacle -- eventually the systems got left behind where streaming services are concerned (though still workable for local music collections). That’s how I ended up with Sonos in the first place.

If this goes as badly as that transition, lesson learned: do NOT invest in systems which integrate the software with the actual speakers -- at least then come what may the only parts that get bricked are the networking dongles, and you’ll still have functioning speakers to use with emergent software/network systems.

At least I am able to use my old Squeezeboxes as glorified clocks -- my Play5, Connect and collection of Play1s appear destined to become paperweights.

Of course, maybe the big brains at Sonos are having a “New Coke” moment and will realize that legacy hardware can be retained if they create a “Legacy Master” device that can be upgraded which simply streams bits to legacy “slave” units …

Turtle Beach AudioTron is still usable :wink:

New Coke still tastes great. :wink: (to the same number of people with Turtle Beach)

(That’s not a dig.)

Translate

C

Chris_183

Enthusiast II

Waste of time to express my complete distain and feeling of betrayal after spending thousands on what will soon be garbage , but here it is. There’s nothing I can do but to hope the worst for Sonos as it gets pushed out by companies now producing better products at lower prices.

I sincerely hope that your company soon ends up in the same garbage heap as your products.

Shame. shame, shame on you.

Gotta admit I’ve seen a fair few posts like this and while I’m mad at Sonos at getting this so wrong I do want them to turn this around, ongoing support for any and all of their products depends on this - Sonos failing completely would be worse that what is proposed.

While stupidly they are giving many people a good reason to go out and replace their Sonos kit overnight, I honestly don’t think any of their rivals offering comparative products have supported them as long, I doubt those lower priced products will still be supported in 5 years from sale.

MusicCast is still supporting six year old products. I’m switching.

Translate

S

sambeny

Lyricist III

I have recently bought a new play 5 - from Amazon. I have just started the return process. Easy. I will return it and get my money back. That is about damage limitation. The main problem I have is the fact that I have different products / different generations with the issue of them not working together in the future (it already a problem now). I have several Play Ones (I kept buying them thinking I did not want the Alexa functionality and never thought they may become obsolete because they are a nice heavy good looking piece of kit - ‘designed to last for ever’).

Translate

I

IJN

Renowned Enthusiast I

Both my earlier post on the BBC and Evening Standard indicate that the legacy and modern groups are being created to allow appropriate level updates to reach each group, presumably because the legacy components have insufficient capacity to handle what’s coming in software updates and would cause the update to the whole system to fail. The BBC hints, and the Evening Standard states Spence saying : the speakers still work together but receive the appropriate updates for each device.

I understand the desire to cling to hope, despite all the evidence, but I believe you are being ridiculous. When a news agency speaks directly with someone, they always say so in the article. In this case, it’s very clear that they haven’t actually spoken with Spence and they have no first hand information They are simply (mis)interpreting his statement. A statement that was very carefully worded to imply grouping without actually saying so. The statement was designed to be misinterpreted by the press, and it worked.

I think you are being condescendingly discourteous

Translate

M

MIBUK

Enthusiast II

This article nicely sums up the difficult position Sonos has put itself in. https://www.slashgear.com/sonos-nightmare-was-inevitable-24607638/

Translate

Act in haste, repent at leisure.

E

EquinoxV

Lyricist I

Wow. When I read that email, I thought, business professors are going to be using Sonos as a modern-day example of New Coke, which school-aged students these days weren’t around for.

Same as the others, I do not expect a high-tech device to remain useful forever. However I feel with a little effort a technical solution could be found which would allow Legacy devices to continue to be used with Modern devices (as it does today, as was the promise of Sonos). It seems to me as simple as creating a legacy software version which can do the critical tasks of communicating with the modern devices without bringing new features to old devices which can’t support it. And if you can’t do that, then sell affected owners new devices at cost. I don’t need new features, I just want my devices to continue doing what they’ve done all along.

Like so many others here, I have spent thousands on Sonos for myself and my recommendations to friends and family have led to lots more sales for them. That has all changed. The easy way to win me back and guarantee more sales to me and my social group is to allow the legacy devices to keep working, and keep working with the modern devices. If not, then I’ve already bought my last Sonos device. Who knows when the Ones I bought a few months ago will shift from Modern to Legacy and I’ll have to upgrade my whole system again? It’s a non-starter for me.

Translate

Show more replies

Sign up

Login to the community