Retired Sonos Staff

End of Software Support - Clarifications

Dec 8, 2022 11:29 AM UTC
4256 replies
270444 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

P

PeteCam

Lyricist I

The message from Patrick Spence is welcome but it beggars belief that a corporation the size of Sonos can get it this wrong. Very pleased to see that the Customer remains king! What has still not been addressed is the environmental impact of the still bricked returned units if I decide to upgrade at some stage. What is happening to these?

Translate

chickentender

4. There is quite an amount of anger on here. It's very understandable, given people have made big investments. A number of users seem to be making a big effort to hurt the company with bad ratings on Amazon and elsewhere. But from the many reviews I've read over the last few years of Sonos and the alternatives, it does seem to be that in terms of audio quality and reliability, Sonos is still one of the very best products in the wireless speaker market. And it looks like most or all of the competitors' control apps are poor. If Sonos were to be bought by Apple or Google, or to go out of business, the end of life date for all Sonos products would be much earlier than if Sonos continues to grow. And then we'd be forced to switch to a poorer setup.

Great post, and I can agree with you that Sonos is a good product.

However, back at the start of 2018 my whole five-zone Sonos system was acting up. I lost countless hours and days trying to diagnose it, support brushed it off as being a problem with my network but I replaced the switch with a managed one just so I could Wireshark the Sonos traffic.

In despair I bought a Bluesound Node 2 to start replacing the Sonos... and it was great!

The controller wasn’t as good as Sonos, but it was steadily improving while Sonos’ offering was getting less polished and usable with each update. The hardware was beautiful - and far better specs than even the latest Sonos models released since. Anyone familiar with the Sonos products would be at home with Bluesound - they have the equivalent of ZP80/90/Connect, ZP100/120/Connect:Amp, phone apps and even a desktop controller (PC/Mac). It plays music from your NAS (I still use Samba shares). The even have their own NAS but it’s not necessary. The only bummer is that, being quite similar to Sonos, they chose to differentiate themselves by being even more expensive.

But then I had two incompatible systems, Bluesound and Sonos. The only link between the two was through Line In, which caused delays and meant I needed to use two apps - one to select the music (Bluesound), one to control the volume (of the Sonos players feeding off Bluesound). Needless to say, this is not going to give the best sound quality and could only work as a temporary solution while upgrading Sonos for Bluesound one by one. An expensive proposition.

After a while and another round of factory resets, the Sonos system eventually started working again. I cancelled plans to switch over, because it was an unnecessary cost. I stayed with Sonos because of compatibility and put the Bluesound Node 2 on eBay.

If I had known that Sonos was going to impose the same situation on all its early customers as the one I faced above, I would have put the Sonos gear on eBay and proceeded with the switch to Bluesound and to hell with the cost.

I looked at Bluesound a while back. Have been again. It’s down to the Node 2i and one other from Arylic. I thought the Node 2i had variable output available; did the Node 2 not, or did you just not use it? I’m not switching to anything whole-house again. I’m just going in on a single *real* streamer for my main stereo setup, and if it can feed whole-house (via my Connect much like you did back then) that’s fine - I don't have much need for more. When I’m feeding other rooms even now with Sonos directly (or if my wife is) we’re usually not paying close attention or skipping tracks . At least Bluesound seems to have leaned in more toward the audio side and less so the convenience side of the market. Will be nice to have hi-res streaming options for listening sessions in the main room. Frankly, the new Port is a downgrade from Connect in many respects and an enormous disappointment to me. Factor in that I *have* to do something in the not-so-distant future regarding the Connect…. well, considering everything now and before, it isn’t Sonos it seems. My main traditional audio has been with me for years and years (Connect currently feeds my old Marantz 2235b and out to a nice stereo pair. Simple. Clean.) I used to have many more components but decided I didn’t care enough anymore to run it all (a small collection of receivers all let go some years back among other bits). The Marantz is small and a sound I love for most genres.

End of ramble. This ain’t the end of the world. I’ll run my Sonos speakers just as a network set until they run into the ground. Happy to stay legacy honestly at this point. In my humble opinion Sonos has spent far too much time talking to Alexa and her friends the past few years. I’d just like to listen to music.

Translate

C

Cisume

Enthusiast II

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.

I would imagine so yes.

But i have not found any “Take an audio stream from the internet, transcode it to another format and retransmit it as a stream” programs for the PI.

search for audio stream transcoder

there are several out there

Translate

A

andy_120

Enthusiast II

Looked at Roon, my god price put me right off and a subscription is needed. I'm not get caught again.

Translate

W

will.gaskell

Lyricist I

This is shocking, it feels like “upgrade and pay us or else...”. Unless they change direction I will never buy another Sonos product again. I have 6 speakers currently and have spent thousands of pounds.

Agreed!

Translate

U

user_end_of_lifed

Enthusiast II

Looked at Roon, my god price put me right off and a subscription is needed. I'm not get caught again.

I’ve just looked at it and come away feeing more positive. When I have to replace the sonos kit it will be for ‘dumb’ speakers that use standard, long-lasting protocols to communicate with a smart single central controller that can be replaced easily.

On first glance Roon seems a good fit for that.
Thankyou to the posters who have mentioned it

Translate

P

PeteD

Enthusiast I

The message from Patrick Spence is welcome but it beggars belief that a corporation the size of Sonos can get it this wrong. Very pleased to see that the Customer remains king! What has still not been addressed is the environmental impact of the still bricked returned units if I decide to upgrade at some stage. What is happening to these?

Sadly the customer does not remain king. The message simply says we’re going to do what we said in the first place - stop updating software on your ‘legacy’ units (they might update bug/security aspects but they will potentially still stop working as soon as a streaming service updates its API). And if you want to keep using your legacy units while they last, they won’t interface with any new units you buy (or any “modern” units you own if you dare to update the software on them) - you will have to have two systems.

Translate

O

ObsoleteOIllie

Lyricist I

How to lose your previously loyal customer base in one fell swoop. Market a product as being at the heart of a system, let your customers buy three of them, then announce you are stopping proper support for the software a year later. Mmm, what do I do? Do I “recycle” by spending a few thousand more on a company that just ripped me off or do I go elsewhere?

Translate

M

mrwarped

Lyricist III

So I read the apology and frankly it has not assuaged my concerns. We will continue to support for as long as we can? What a week, month, year? How about clarifying just what it is that will cease to work as time marches on, the speakers are in essence a dumb WiFi receiver, still on 2.4ghz WiFi, the standards of data transmission over WiFi not tied to Sonos so that’s not gonna change, the streaming services using industry standards to play the music, mp3, mp4 etc, not controlled by Sonos. The processing of the packet data to send over WiFi has to come via the app and the software within your laptop, iPad or phone etc. Exactly what does the speaker do but convert the WiFi packet data and that isn’t set to change anytime soon or every other WiFi device will also stop working?

Fyi small format stereo amps less than £100, echo dot with 3.5mm stereo out £40 ( arguably disposable ) speakers of your choice, upgrade proof with the ability to connect whatever you want to the amp as well and voice control……..

I will use my Sonos speakers for the time being but I will never again spend another penny of my hard earned on a Sonos product

It is clear the company is planning obsolescence of the products and using smoke and mirrors to confuse their intentions. The reply fromPatrick is disingenuous and offers nothing that was not in the original email save an unquantifiable promise to not screw us over just yet! I’m guessing they will give it a month or so, wait for the international media glare to die down from their massive PR cockup and then carry on with their initial intentions

Sorry Sonos but I, and I’m guessing a few thousand more like minds, am done with your products...

Translate

chickentender

If any here are light on cash but like to tinker, these guys have some really cool stuff that’s whole-home capable, lots of it DIY, and some pre-fab. All runs of the 4Stream app. Bit of a wild-west but could be fun. I’ve been tempted for a bit, and their newest S50 is spec’d nicely. Quite a few favorable reports around about he A50 (amplified) which has been around for a bit. Could fab your rigs with just a speaker or set. I’d wager there’d be some headaches… but definitely cheap.

https://www.arylic.com/collections/diy-audio

Translate

Show more replies

Sign up

Login to the community