End of Software Support - Clarifications

I was angry, very angry … but if they can come up with a solution which enables all speakers, old and new, to work seamlessly with features extant today, and new features possibly being restricted to modern units, then I'm happy once more….Refer to earlier posts where I’ve picked up glimmers of such hope in media (BBC/Evening Standard/ Slashgear)

There are a few posts on here who can also see this through the fog of hysteria, which to my eyes might be lifting (slightly) and hope these thoughts are picked up by Ryan S and reported back ….

Whilst I can appreciate the stance as of now you’ve caused irreparable damage to your company. You were made popular by the people who bought your products and trusted your brand, however the people can just as easily avoid your brand and go elsewhere. Sonos do not have monopoly and this brazen ignorance and arrogance by which you’ve alienated your loyal customers and I’ll not be forgotten. Your intention was your original action and had the people on this forum not stood up to you, you were happy to get away with it. Shame on you and the inevitable reduction of the size of Sonos as a brand. The damage is done.

Appreciate the apology, but the Exec Team at Sonos need to give very careful thought to their next step….

MY HOME SYSTEM MUST NOT BE SPLIT AND MY OLD SPEAKERS MUST KEEP PLAYING MUSIC

Key points:

1. The only reason for investing in SONOS is to stream and listen to music in unison around the house
2. I do not want to talk to the speakers
3. I do not want the speakers to talk to me
4. Surely it must be possible to up date the “new” speakers and the old speakers carry on working perfectly as they do now just playing music
5. I really do wish I had simply invested in just the SONOS Connect amp connected to plain old speakers hard wired through the house. Then is is just the amp at risk
6. If Sonos do not change their position so that speakers keep working for 20yrs+ I will NEVER buy another SONO speaker and will replace my system with traditional speakers when they eventually stop working. My 10 year old Focal speakers in the front room connected to the SONOS amp will still sound stunning in 20 years (each speaker cost less than a Play 5)
7. This is not like buying a mobile phone where it is OK to replace every few years - many like me have invested £1000’s - I will not risk any future investment if I can not be sure my very expensive speakers will keep working

Suggest we back off damaging the brand and give them short time to come back with a road map of possibilities… no doubt they’ll be kicking arse, scratching heads this weekend… what we want is whole home grouping for all current features on all devices and the ability to also access newer features on modern units… a bit like introduction of voice control/ Airplay2 - issue may simple be software for next new features too big to handle for legacy… few ideas of work rounds… give them a short breathing space to draw breath and come back… if its not deliverable, then back to war… treat this as a Christmas Day game of football in the trenches …

Last thing we want to do is PERMANENTLY DAMAGE Sonos and OUR kit if there is a way forward … IF

Agree - see my other posts

It's not happening.  New units once updated will not be able to synchronise with legacy units.  As soon as only the latest software will work with spotify etc, legacy units are landfill.

Sonos could choose to implement software that will allow newer units to be a master to legacy units and keep them all part of one environment.  Or they could develop a control box to sit on the network and do this.

The truth is they dont want to, it's far easier to cut loose the "legacy" hardware and hope people will upgrade.  If you are sat on £3k worth of connect amps, tough.  Sonos dont want to know.  They are moving to a 5 year premium subscription model for their hardware and that's it.

For those who of us who took the plunge and upgraded..

Revoke the brick schedule and let us keep the legacy unit

I wouldn't have traded up if I'd read your most recent hasty announcement about running legacy and modern separately!

Another mess to add to your stupid way of competing in today's tech market.

As a gesture of goodwill!

I’ve posted a couple of responses and spent hours reading through everyone else's whilst waiting for the ‘heat’ to disperse.

Seems like our loyal Sonos community comprises of a number of different types but principally 2 main ones:-

1. Those with extensive existing speaker set ups who added Sonos components, presumably to enhance the functionality of their existing systems

2. Those, like me, without an existing speaker system but who liked the idea of streaming their music collections throughout their homes and wanted a simple system that just worked.

The one thing that many of us have in common seems to be a lack of interest in ‘new features’!

I am not totally dumb but I don’t have a highly technical understanding of how these systems work. Everyone keeps mentioning APIs on the assumption that we all what they’re talking about - I don’t. When Sonos have introduced components such as Connects, Boosts, Ports and goodness knows what else I didn’t understand what they were or what they did. As a result I have a very simple Sonos set up comprising 3 ‘legacy’ Play 5s and 2 ‘modern’ but discontinued Play 1s. I also have a Bridge that came with the initial Play 5 which I still use but know isn’t any longer always necessary.

Because I don’t understand much of the jargon being used in this discussion please forgive me if this post sounds over simplistic.

I’d been considering buying a Beam ever since I bought a new Samsung TV  last year but it was a big expense and being rather ‘frugal’ I was waiting for a good discount. On Jan 5th this year I was in my local Curry’s store (UK retailer) and the Beam was reduced to £319.99, the cheapest I had seen it so I bought one, brought it home and immediately set it up.

When the Sonos bomb dropped in the form of their e mail announcement it gave me a quandary. Do I keep the Beam and hope that Sonos find a way to allow it to integrate with my ‘legacy’ Play 5s without losing the option for it to receive updates, or do I return it? As an in-store purchase, having now unsealed the packaging and set it up it wouldn’t ordinarily qualify for a refund. I have e mailed Curry’s to ask, in view of the fact that it ‘might’ not now integrate with my system - the purpose for which it was intended, and received an auto response saying they’ll reply within 6 days. As the price at Curry’s has since risen back up to £399.99 I could probably easily sell it on Ebay, possibly for more than I paid, so that is another option but selling on Ebay can be a hassle.

Leaving that aside for a moment, a few months ago some of you may remember there was a widespread problem with alarms whereby the chosen alarm, in my case TuneIn radio, would be replaced by Chimes. Along with many others I was in touch with Sonos Support, who I might just say were absolutely brilliant as they always have been on other issues in the past. The chimes problem which turned out to be a TuneIn issue, was resolved but during the course of my contact with support I mentioned other problems I’d been experiencing such as the queue suddenly playing spontaneously, old cleared queues playing on speakers at the same time as the alarm started playing in the selected room and so on. I was asked how many tracks were in my queue and in all innocence I told them that as I like to listen to my whole music collection throughout the house on shuffle play the queue contained over 50,000 tracks. In my technical ignorance I had no reason to suspect that this would be a problem since in my mind the track limit capability of the system was 65,000 tracks. It was explained to me that my ‘old’ devices were running out of memory and that when this happens all manner of weird things could occur. The solution was simply to disconnect and reconnect all my speakers and in future try to limit the number of tracks in the queue. I followed that advice and haven’t experienced the problem since. It does suggest though that current arguments about memory shortage do have merit but I expect I am rather unique in wanting to listen to my music in that way so maybe not many people have experienced what I did.

Anyway, going back to the Beam,  I need to know, sooner rather than later, whether the legacy and modern systems will be able to re-integrate. If they will it would be worth keeping it, if not then maybe not. I didn’t much care for it at first on discovering that Alexa can’t access my music library (not that I’m that interested in Alexa) and because where it is placed it blocks my TV’s remote receiver but it is growing on me and it was a good price.

I have other questions too. Can anyone in simple terms explain to me what is the practical difference between the latest Play 5 and the latest ‘One’. I expect the 5 to be more powerful but is there any other fundamental difference making the 5 worth £459 as opposed to the One at £199 at their respective RRPs?

With the larger memory of the Latest ‘One’ would I be able to go back to listening to a queue of 50,000 tracks without creating technical problems?

I will not rush to dispose of my legacy Play 5s as, like I said in a previous post, there are uses to which they can be put using the ‘line-in’ function even after they cease to function in their present capacity, whenever that might be.  I’d never consider the trade-in option mainly on environmental grounds plus the fact that the 30% allowance is miserly. However, what might prove appealing to me would be if Sonos were to offer me 3 Ones to replace the legacy Play5s at a heavily discounted price - just a thought, trying to think outside the box to find mutually beneficial outcome.

Reading about all the various alternative systems being discussed is interesting but very confusing to me since all seem to have drawbacks of one sort or another of their own and for me, lacking in technical expertise, one of the top considerations is ease of use and the quality of after-sale support.

If you’ve managed to wade through all that thanks for your patience.

You are right, it's not like buying a mobile phone.  Three years ago I bought a Ssmsung Galaxy phone for around £650. I bought a Play:5 gen 2 for £499 around same time. The phone might last me another year, maybe 2. The Play:5 will be fully supported until 5 years after Sonos stop selling it. I would guess that will give me 10 years use, fully supported . Thank God that buying a Sonos is not like buying a phone. 

If Sonos does what it says right now and divides the system into Legacy and Modern, with no posibility to sync between the 2 groups and says that it does so, because it is not possible to do it otherwise, and ROON then has a product that enables this functionality anyway, how bad is SONOS gonna look then.

Basically Sonos would have to say “We can’t do it, but ROON can” on SONOS hardware.

The backlash would be even bigger then.