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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S

scarey

Lyricist I

"We expect that in the near term, this backward compatibility will no longer be practical or cost-effective, and we may decrease or discontinue service for our older products," the filing explains. "If we no longer provide extensive backward capability for our products, we may damage our relationship with our existing customers, as well as our reputation, brand loyalty, and ability to attract new customers.

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 just 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 honour that investment for as long as possible. Whilst 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, whilst legacy products work together and remain in their current state. We’re finalising details on this plan and will share more in the coming weeks.

Whilst 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 programme 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.
Sincerely,
Patrick

Patrick Spence
CEO, Sonos

Patrick ,

Glad to hear this as I was about to write a long rant on email. But I am still not amused I now have a Sonos system which is 75% out of date and trade ins are pathetic as well. Your loyal customers are left with systems which will no longer perform with the new products. The whole idea was a sustainable sound system which could be added to or upgraded. I believe you need to be looking at a fix which upgrades the “legacy” components - a plug circuit board with the required processing to upgrade them for example at low cost to your existing customers. I can see your company being sued and your customer base dwindling to an unsustainable level. After all there are now several cheaper competitors out there. You could also make your system compatible with other wi- Fi speakers fo example Alexa from Amazon it could receive the updates and run existing SONOS systems.

I have 4 obsolete Bridges, 2 x Play 1s , 2 x play 5s, 1 x Sub , 2 X amps and on and on.

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Ken_Griffiths

Here’s another thought, given there are lots of eyes on this forum at the moment a few of them have to be bright spark techies or electronics wizards, unlike myself I hasten to add

what we need is one of these clever guys to whip the top off a play1, 3 or 5 and figure out how to retrofit a line in, aux Jack, possibly even a Bluetooth module. I love the sound quality of my Sonos kit and always have and I would personally pay to have my gear retro fitted and thus make it independent of any software shenanigans. I think people would queue up for this to be done.

come on one of you bright sparks get the soldering iron out and get yourself a profitable ready made business all in one go

The play: 5 has a line-in already and just to say the Play:1 and 3 devices are not part of the annoucement .. hope that assists.

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F

Fobskid

Enthusiast I

just received my " 30% off special deal " e-mail from Sonos ...
in the past year iv spent £2000 / £2500 grand on their expensive kit for all over my house
Why ? cause it worked straight out of the box with no complications for me or my kids ...
Not ever was i told at the point of sale that my kit would self break and be worthless as a working hi-fi
What this tells me is ... i need to quickly sell all my kit on the "bay" and try and recover some of my investment
Do not EVER buy any of their kit ever again as all the new kit will eventually go "bricked " once again
What a greedy stupid decision from Sonos ... just to make even more money in my opinion

PS

Just looked on the "bay" and all the second hand prices have collapsed !

update

What a massive storm on the internet ... so much anger ... could be the makings of a horror movie !
I wish i was a fly on the Sonos boardroom wall ... what a self inflicted total nightmare .
But seriously ...
It doesn't matter what Sonos does or says now ... the Sonos brand is now very toxic if not dead !
Even if they roll back everything to "as was" I for one will not be buying any more of their kit.
I have lost all trust in the product and the company. I realise if it goes bust nothing will work
but i consider my existing kit as worthless now anyway ... even if i bought new ... it will eventually go "Legacy"

SONOS = LEGACY = SCRAP . Lets call it what it really is !

This whole Sonos debacle has made me realise that any Internet connected hardware from any company is time limited.
Why spend top money on the best products { which Sonos was } when a cheaper alternative is available
When it goes "Legacy" i wont lose so much of my hard earned money if i buy cheaper ...

PS

I hope that if it does go bust all the hard working innocent staff get re-employed in any Sonos alternative company .

They are the ones who will really be paying the price for this crazy stupid mess ....

Yours

A Totally 100% angry pissed off disillusioned never ever again former Sonos advocate

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J

jwinther

Lyricist III

@DK_Madsen

“Imagine buying 2 speakers ~4 years ago, paying over $1000 for them, only to be told they are obsolete now.”

Yup, that is me as well! Feel like a right chump!

Now I have calmed down a bit, I know what my plan is. I am not going to buy any more speakers until the May announcement. Then I am going to watch these threads and wait and see how it all plays out.. Time will tell.

If everybody waits until May before buying anything - there won’t be anything to wait for. Sonos does not have a strong economy, and if the stock market feels that their future is in danger, it may not be possible for them to capitalize further. Only a take-over by another company could bring in a serious amount of new capital.

For a company this small, I bet that closing down would not take long - we will not have several months to collect devices for the future, and it wouldn’t be useful either to do so if they work only when being daily comfirmed by a Sonos server plus regularly updated.

So what I believe about the current situation is that if not Sonos right away does something drastically that will bring back customer trust and corresponding willingness to buy their products (or another company announces a take-over, be it friendly or hostile), then you and all others will know before May that we need to find a different solution.

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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)

M

mrwarped

Lyricist III

Here’s another thought, given there are lots of eyes on this forum at the moment a few of them have to be bright spark techies or electronics wizards, unlike myself I hasten to add

what we need is one of these clever guys to whip the top off a play1, 3 or 5 and figure out how to retrofit a line in, aux Jack, possibly even a Bluetooth module. I love the sound quality of my Sonos kit and always have and I would personally pay to have my gear retro fitted and thus make it independent of any software shenanigans. I think people would queue up for this to be done.

come on one of you bright sparks get the soldering iron out and get yourself a profitable ready made business all in one go

The play: 5 has a line-in already and just to say the Play:1 and 3 devices are not part of the annoucement .. hope that assists.

Hi Ken,

yep my Play 5 does have a line in but it still needs the Sonos app to work, I’m talking about making each unit wholly independent of the software and app, a standalone powered speaker. Whilst the 1’s and 3’s are not the issue at the moment Mr Spence’s mealy mouthed reply sure made it clear they will be part of the issue at some point…...

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K

Keithmac

Virtuoso

I genuinely wonder how much it would have cost Sonos to develop a Media/ Legacy hub (which I'm sure people would buy in droves) vs what this last week will have cost them in lost sales and share prices.

Why would you employ the man that killed Blackberry to run your company, doesn't make any sense. My 8 year old daughter could do a better job it seems..

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B

Bill2000

Lyricist I

Patrick

The sonos Email telling me my connect and play 5 are obsolete arrived during a rather busy week, but not too busy to give this little problem some thought. Your follow up clarification arrived this morning. My verdict is you are going to have to do way better than that to recover sonos’ fortunes with its customer base. I suggest you google the Gerald Ratner case study; Gerald’s high street jewellery chain went straight the pan after he told his customers that the jewellery in his stores was all rubbish. You my friend have just done exactly the same. Sonos RIP.

What this sorry state highlights is the folly of throwing your all in with a closed system like Sonos, I for one will now investigate the other options available going forward that adopt a more open approach.

Just as a final thought, given that sonos is a network, I fail to see why the so called shortcomings of this older kit cannot be compensated for elsewhere in the network. There are also sockets on the back of most speakers, surely some expansion device can be place in those!

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M

mrwarped

Lyricist III

@DK_Madsen

“Imagine buying 2 speakers ~4 years ago, paying over $1000 for them, only to be told they are obsolete now.”

Yup, that is me as well! Feel like a right chump!

Now I have calmed down a bit, I know what my plan is. I am not going to buy any more speakers until the May announcement. Then I am going to watch these threads and wait and see how it all plays out.. Time will tell.

If everybody waits until May before buying anything - there won’t be anything to wait for. Sonos does not have a strong economy, and if the stock market feels that their future is in danger, it may not be possible for them to capitalize further. Only a take-over by another company could bring in a serious amount of new capital.

For a company this small, I bet that closing down would not take long - we will not have several months to collect devices for the future, and it wouldn’t be useful either to do so if they work only when being daily comfirmed by a Sonos server plus regularly updated.

So what I believe about the current situation is that if not Sonos right away does something drastically that will bring back customer trust and corresponding willingness to buy their products (or another company announces a take-over, be it friendly or hostile), then you and all others will know before May that we need to find a different solution.

Have to say Jwinter think you have hit the nail on the head there, if the comments on the forum are anything to go by the statement has had little effect on the ill feeling amongst current owners. I would think the national news coverage has stopped possible new buyers in their tracks and with nothing but the derisory 30% bricking offer on the table for current owners the share prices are set to jump off a cliff anytime soon. Either way we as current owners appear to be well and truly screwed over…....

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F

Fobskid

Enthusiast I

rightly or wrongly … people are very pissed off ...

my son is a manager in a national chain of electrical stockists , he says that people who have bought a Sonos product in the last 14 days are trying to return them for a refund ….

Company is worried about stock levels going forward

Nuf said ...

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D

DK_Madsen

Enthusiast II

not great. The wording of that clarification, whilst on the face of it seems to try and backtrack...they haven't stated specifically that the units will work fully for as long as you want them. Imagine spending 2k on a HiFi system only to have to replace it in 5 years because the manufacturer deliberately built it of parts that were non replaceable and would only last 5 years. really angry about this.

I was in the proces of acquiring a Sonos SUB for my Playbar + 2 Play 1 “sorround sound”

Come may, i wont even be ABLE to buy that one and incorporate it into my setup, because i will be in legacy mode to keep my Play 5 in the loop, and a new SUB will probably have new firmware out of the box, that can not be downgraded to run in legacy mode.

So they not only angered a lot of current costumers, making them not want to upgrade, they also prevented anyone with a legacy system from buying any new sonos products in the future because the new units can not be enrolled in a legacy system.

How’s that, for a poor “Lets trip ourselves up big time” decision

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