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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C

Cisume

Enthusiast II

My Mail to Mr Spence…

Dear Mr. Spence,

I’ve read your statement. https://blog.sonos.com/en/a-letter-from-our-ceo/
It’s definitely not clear and satisfying enough. It’s a good indication that you’ve heard us but it will not make us paying any money to become even more depended on your system and your – as it seems – good will. Splitting up a multi room system makes it becoming a single-room-system. That’s not what the customer has bought and paid for. That’s not why we choose Sonos.

Concentrate on your main business, playing music from as much as possible sources. Offer the newest tech stuff which needs stronger hardware on separate devices two those who really want it. Start to split weak and strong devices in terms of software but keep them together in the same group.

What you’ve done made us aware of how much we have to rely on you. It cleared up my mind, how great the simplicity of a bluetooth speaker is. It can be connected to whatever device – in can solely replace if it’s not workening any longer and it will work (almost) forever. How clever it ist to split up the wireless connected music playing device and the speaker itself.

There will be plenty of used Sonos devices on the 2nd hand market the next few weeks and months. Your sales will break down.

Show us your true good will. Provide us with even better solutions (direct play from a mobile device – android and apple).

Yours sincerely

This is what everyone is upset about. Either Spence didn’t understand why people are upset or he’s still not willing to listen to customer feedback.

most likely both

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F

Fraud victim

Contributor I

Sorry for appearing simple but surely if yesterday’s modern products are now legacy, then today’s modern products will be legacy tomorrow. Who on earth would upgrade knowing that this will be a temporary fix?

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R

RentalGuy

Lyricist III

Okay, everyone is venting their anger which is normal.

But can we for a second talk about what options us “legacy” users have after May.

We actually listen to the same, maybe 5 streaming radio channels. Today via Tunein Radio in our house when we dont stream music from our NAS.

Lets say that TuneIn changes something, making me unable to connect to the radio channels because sonos legacy devices can not decipher them.

I was thinking...What if i had another device that could receive the channels, recode them to some format Sonos legacy still supports and the re-cast them.

I dont know if a Raspberry pi would have enough processor power to do this, but there is an option in Sonos “Add radio station” so if i could get the Pi to receive the station, recode it and retransmit it, i would be able to stream radio channels to legacy devices for as long as the program on the PI was updated.

Alternatively i have a QNAP NAS that is always on, is there some app on this, that would be able to do this.

Good attitude. I’d suggest jumping off this thread, and over to another: https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers-software-228995/the-sonos-brexit-and-a-pragmatic-way-past-it-6836056/index4.html#post16398393

You can totally do this with a pi. Part of this whole thing is a plan by Sonos to get us to spend money upgrading, when they could have done workarounds.

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R

RentalGuy

Lyricist III

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 saw other posts mentioning Yamaha musicast, I am going to check it out.

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J

jiffypopjr

Lyricist II

It is unclear to me why it is necessary to insist that the SonosNet would have to be split or legacy systems and newer systems can't coexist together. I am a software developer, so my background is primarily software, not hardware, but taking a page out of something I've seen Azure do, why not have each device have a list of capabilities that it supports? Then, each feature that is supported has capabilities that it requires. It is simply then a matter of matching capabilities when a feature is executed.

For example
Play:5 Gen1, Capabilities: A, B, C

Play:5 Gen2, Capabilities: A, B, C, D, E

If I want to execute feature "D" (maybe Atmos?), then the app only shows "D" as the speaker that can be used. If I want to say, just listen to music off a network drive ("A"), then both are enabled for use (in the 'grouping' function).

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T

TCT67

Contributor I

For those considering Yamaha MusicCast, this is from their FAQ:

Is the new MusicCast system compatible with an old MusicCAST or MusicCAST2 systems from a decade ago?

Yamaha was one of the first AV manufacturers to introduce a wireless multi-room audio system, similarly named MusicCAST, back in 2003. This was followed by MusicCAST2 in 2009, and then MusicCast in August 2015. Models released from August 2015 to present are compatible with one another. Select newer models also support MusicCast Surround/ Stereo which are only compatible with other models that also support MusicCast Surround/Stereo.

How is that any different or better than what Sonos is doing now (except for the fact that they’re up front about the new/old system incompatibility)?

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J

jdale

It is unclear to me why it is necessary to insist that the SonosNet would have to be split or legacy systems and newer systems can't coexist together. I am a software developer, so my background is primarily software, not hardware, but taking a page out of something I've seen Azure do, why not have each device have a list of capabilities that it supports? Then, each feature that is supported has capabilities that it requires. It is simply then a matter of matching capabilities when a feature is executed.

Presumably you already have that to some extent, e.g. a Port can be an input or an output or both, whereas a Play has no inputs.

But for the underlying issue here, it’s overkill. What’s needed is a reduced “Legacy” firmware that just supports getting music from other more-current devices in the network, and playing that music. Not every device needs to be able to connect to Spotify, as long as something on the network can.

In fact, that’s how the system already works. If you have a group of three speakers playing music from Spotify (just as an example), they aren’t making three separate connections to Spotify to get the music. One device is downloading, the others are just playing. The Legacy firmware just needs to assert that it will always be the follower and never handle the connection to the internet. No need to split the network at all, because with the reduced functionality requirements, the Legacy firmware will fit in the available memory of these devices. How do I know? Because it doesn’t require the devices to do anything they don’t do already.

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I

izziny

Lyricist III

No, my system doesn’t require attention, I’m afraid some of you nerds at Sonos require attention. Do you really think you can con customers who have spent a bundle on your products into throwing them away for your replacement scheme to increase profits? Most of us would rather switch to the competition after you make our present equipment obsolete. Better rethink this one guys! Your company is going down the tubes.

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C

CrossInOz

Then, each feature that is supported has capabilities that it requires. It is simply then a matter of matching capabilities when a feature is executed.

For example
Play:5 Gen1, Capabilities: A, B, C

Play:5 Gen2, Capabilities: A, B, C, D, E

If I want to execute feature "D" (maybe Atmos?), then the app only shows "D" as the speaker that can be used. If I want to say, just listen to music off a network drive ("A"), then both are enabled for use (in the 'grouping' function).

Exactly

A = My Music Library - YES

B = Spotify - YES;

C = TuneIn Radio - YES

All I have ever used an needed - across all rooms

As to the newer features

D - Voice Control by Applazonagoogle -Siralexablahblah Nope

E - Home Automation to turn off my smart lights when I press play - Nope

F - IFTTT Integration so when I ring the doorbell music starts - Nope

G - Etc Etc Etc Nope

The Connect goes to a 30+ year old hand-built amp, and 20 year old high-end speakers - all of which show no signs of forced obsolescence.

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J

jwinther

Lyricist III

For those considering Yamaha MusicCast, this is from their FAQ:

Is the new MusicCast system compatible with an old MusicCAST or MusicCAST2 systems from a decade ago?

Yamaha was one of the first AV manufacturers to introduce a wireless multi-room audio system, similarly named MusicCAST, back in 2003. This was followed by MusicCAST2 in 2009, and then MusicCast in August 2015. Models released from August 2015 to present are compatible with one another. Select newer models also support MusicCast Surround/ Stereo which are only compatible with other models that also support MusicCast Surround/Stereo.

How is that any different or better than what Sonos is doing now (except for the fact that they’re up front about the new/old system incompatibility)?

I would expect that they are not afraid of defining a new standard sooner or later and start producing equipment for that instead of the one that is current today. This is how the classic electronics industry normally works. The trick will then be to buy sufficiently many devices of a certain standard while they are still available.

However, Yamaha is producing other things as well and are integrating MusicCast in other products - probably sometimes selling these products to people who are not interested in that particular feature. So I guess that it is not an individual source of earnings for them, like it is for Sonos. Sonos has one main product only, being their software (of dubious quality, we have recently learned) - which they wrap up in different packagings (being the hardware) in order to sell as many copies of it as possible. Yamaha, on the other hand, sell music equipment of various sort, using the MusicCast software and concept as an added value - a sales parameter. They will earn money even if people should some day decide that multi-room music was a fad and no longer interesting; and even then, Yamaha can keep selling the feature because it is bundled with many other features.

So the main difference, as I see it, is the role that the multi-room feature plays for each of the companies - which will control their respective strategies in the markets.

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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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