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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bbraw67

Trending Lyricist I

I have just gone through the exercise of registering and updating all the Sonos components I own and then checked what will go in the bucket and the website told me I have 20 components that will not be supported plus I have another 10 bridges still in sealed boxes as were 2 Connect Amps which I have now registered. I then went to the Sonos website to see what it would cost me to get back to where I am right now and that comes to $8,265 USD.

I suggested to Sonos Customer Experience team the idea that Customers would be happy to work with two split systems is frankly naive as one of the major drives for people to invest in Sonos products is the integration capability and that is coming over loud and clear on the forums which Patrick needs to start listening to.

The Sonos share price is on the decline which does not surprise me at all and the shops are full of kit they will even be able to give away. I suggested if they want to keep loyal customers they will have to take a hit on the replacement scheme as there must be millions of dollars in Sonos “Legacy” Products out in the market that just will not sell anymore and so better to bring back in, upgrade RAM and use at say 50% - 60% cost discount to legacy users as one for one replacements or alternatively have some form of capability to upgrade existing legacy products.

As many people have said they have no desire to tell their speaker to turn on the lights they just want to play music from their NAS or stream from services and all the components do that right now

Maybe Patrick needs to tell his speaker to turn on his lights and open his blinds as he is bouncing around in the dark at the moment !!

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Sgm198

Lyricist III

If ,after May , 2 different Sonos networks are used for old and new, is there a reason why Roon couldn’t be used to stream to both simultaneously ?

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bonervz

Enthusiast II

It seems telling that Ryan_S has not made a comment or clarification in many, many pages of posts.

Either we’re all being allowed to vent, or there’s nothing new to say. Or both.

I’m reading along, but there hasn’t been much in need of clarification that hasn’t already been said.

And everyone is definitely allowed to vent. As long as the community rules are followed (for example no personal attacks and keeping profanity out of your posts) we welcome the feedback. I’m also making sure to share your voice with the right people.

Sincerely, Thank you very much.

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Sonos from leader to loser in 2020.

A

Albion

Avid Contributor I

I have just gone through the exercise of registering and updating all the Sonos components I own and then checked what will go in the bucket and the website told me I have 20 components that will not be supported plus I have another 10 bridges still in sealed boxes as were 2 Connect Amps which I have now registered. I then went to the Sonos website to see what it would cost me to get back to where I am right now and that comes to $8,265 USD.

I suggested to Sonos Customer Experience team the idea that Customers would be happy to work with two split systems is frankly naive as one of the major drives for people to invest in Sonos products is the integration capability and that is coming over loud and clear on the forums which Patrick needs to start listening to.

The Sonos share price is on the decline which does not surprise me at all and the shops are full of kit they will even be able to give away. I suggested if they want to keep loyal customers they will have to take a hit on the replacement scheme as there must be millions of dollars in Sonos “Legacy” Products out in the market that just will not sell anymore and so better to bring back in, upgrade RAM and use at say 50% - 60% cost discount to legacy users as one for one replacements or alternatively have some form of capability to upgrade existing legacy products.

As many people have said they have no desire to tell their speaker to turn on the lights they just want to play music from their NAS or stream from services and all the components do that right now

Maybe Patrick needs to tell his speaker to turn on his lights and open his blinds as he is bouncing around in the dark at the moment !!

I have over 16 ‘’legacy’’ products at the moment and haven’t registered all the older connect’s etc that I have. It seems what we all should have done in the past, is only by Connect Amps, thereby allowing us to select our speaker of choice, that today would still be as useful as it was when purchased and will still be as useful in the future. Worse case, we would only be out the cost of Amps and if they become ‘obsolete’, then presumably we would only have to upgrade this component to its modern equivalent, to have a working whole home system again. I feel like an idiot now having invested thousands in Play 5’s, Play 3’s, Play 1’s, CR200 controllers, Connects, Bridges, Boosts...what a fool I was.

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jwinther

Lyricist III

I have over 16 ‘’legacy’’ products at the moment and haven’t registered all the older connect’s etc that I have. It seems what we all should have done in the past, is only by Connect Amps, thereby allowing us to select our speaker of choice, that today would still be as useful as it was when purchased and will still be as useful in the future. Worse case, we would only be out the cost of Amps and if they become ‘obsolete’, then presumably we would only have to upgrade this component to its modern equivalent, to have a working whole home system again. I feel like an idiot now having invested thousands in Play 5’s, Play 3’s, Play 1’s, CR200 controllers, Connects, Bridges, Boosts...what a fool I was.

Not a fool - an enthusiast who got a lot of energy and activity out of it. Alternatively you would have done something else with the time and the money, and then you could now have been regretting that instead. My advise, don’t cry over the steps you have already taken - learn, and be happy that there is something to learn from; this means that you have had an eventful life.

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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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Albion

Avid Contributor I

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.

Agreed. I think we have seen something similar with Airplay 2 compatibility. I recently purchased a Beam, which is the only Airplay 2 compatible speaker in my setup, yet by grouping can now play music from my iPhone across my home. Only 1 speaker, the Beam is doing the Airplay 2 connection however.

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Forgotten

Lyricist I

I cannot describe my anger and disappointment of the arrogant, disrespectful, disloyal way Sonos have completely screwed this up. I bought what was considered to be the best completely integrated home sound system on the planet only to be told that it is no longer going to be integrated but I can have separate bits scattered around my house which don’t talk to each other and somehow I meant to be grateful.

When I spent a great deal of my hard earned cash on Sonos products it was a statement of my trust in the Company and its excellent reputation, it’s difficult to imagine trusting them again. The breathtaking arrogance and disrespect shown by Sonos at the moment is beyond belief and the 30% discount offer to buy again all the things that I’ve already got is derisory and insulting.

Let’s be clear about this, Sonos didn’t sell me individual components to work alone, they sold me an integrated system. Withdrawing this integration is the same as deliberately trashing my system. I feel that I’ve been completely cheated, tricked and conned. Whilst the CEO’s recent communication tries to paper over the cracks caused by his mishandling of this fiasco it does nothing to change the fact that Sonos expect you to be happy with a derisory discount which still leaves a profit margin for them when you re-buy products you’ve already got which are working perfectly well.

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Whitenoise

Enthusiast I

Seconding all the anger here, it's super discouraging to see another great company go public and turn bad.

The only software advances that might exceed computing hardware are the smart features like Alexa. Nothing about multi-room streaming of audio files demands hardware upgrades, ever.

Sonos has effectively abandoned it's core business -- multi-room audio components -- in a vapid effort to compete in the smart home space.

What I learned from this announcement is what I suspected since the IPO: Sonos isn't trying to be an audio or speaker company anymore. And the CEO message only re-affirmed that. His company relies on its reputation in the audio space; he knows that. But he's abandoning it anyway.

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NO MORE SONOS

Trending Lyricist I

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.

Agreed. I think we have seen something similar with Airplay 2 compatibility. I recently purchased a Beam, which is the only Airplay 2 compatible speaker in my setup, yet by grouping can now play music from my iPhone across my home. Only 1 speaker, the Beam is doing the Airplay 2 connection however.

Maybe they lack the ability to develop the software? It's not impossible but maybe they just can't do it reliably and decided to segment for stability?

The hardware has always been solid however I've had Sonos for about 3 years and it feels like I've been on a beta release the whole time. I suspect they are rushing things to market to complete with bigger brands.

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#BoycottSonos

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User810040

Lyricist I

I have long been a huge sponsor of the Sonos brand. Recommended it to many friends and family of which all bought them. Now I feel like you made me mislead them. I am sorry but your CEO’s apology is mediocre at best.

Being a CTO myself and founder of various startups all I can say is how deeply disappointed I am that after going public you are becoming the classic example of a failing company reacting to the market in the worst possible way. You are a product company not a services company. Did some smartass twenty something product manager told you that people would just accept this as if they were upgrading a phone or something ? Wrong market! Fire all those marketers and product folks who pushed for this and promote those who pushed back on it. And if it was an exec of the company he/she should resign. I will be selling all my shares right away.

I spent thousands of dollars in your products and made other people do the same. I spent lots of time in the beta program, nothing prepared me for this. I won’t be buying a Sonos product ever again and will recommend everyone against upgrading unless you fix this. Do a complete reversal and explain to me why and how you can justify that a Sonos bridge or a connect are becoming obsolete. I could care less about not having Alexa embedded in my darn speakers. I didn’t buy them for that purpose. Stop making stuff up and acknowledge that you are doing this to boost your sales. The rest is bs.

Way to lose your best product advocates!

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