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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chickentender

And now what?

Bose SoundTouch or Denon HEOS?

Please help me decide.

Both have the exact same risks right along with them. If you’re going to fracture your system, just make sure it’s more modular going forward. Or just sit tight, listen to music and see what happens. There’s little need to swap everything out unless you just think it’s fun and have the money. Nothing is going to explode.

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chickentender

I cannot believe Sonos still wants to pull the rug out. I get stuff not getting updates anymore but saying that I won’t be able to use the speaker with “new stuff” is just plain wrong. I have thousands invested into Sonos and i was looking into buying more. This makes me hesitate? What will happen in 5 years. will I have to upgrade again? This whole thing is wrong on Sonos part.

What do you mean by “new stuff”?

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Whitenoise

Enthusiast I

Having purchased a Move last week with a 15-day return window, I started intently researching alternatives to decide whether to return the thing and cut my losses. There are way more alternatives than I thought. I’m cutting my losses.

For an alternative, it’s probably smart to look for one of two things:

(1) a long-time audio component brand because it’s less likely to abandon the core functionality to compete with Amazon and Google AI components, or

(2) a wireless standard that various brands build into their components because it provides more options and the software piece is modular.

Final three:

Heos / Denon Home:
- Pros - Sound United (owner of Polk, Marantz, and other audio brands) recently bought it and started integrated Heos into its other brands. Meanwhile, Denon announced Denon Home, a line of wireless speakers with Heos and other wireless compatibility. Looks like the future is bright here. These guys make audio components and won’t get that twisted.
- Cons - the controller app looks mediocre right now (but there will probably be more resources put into that side now).
Audio Pro:
- Pros - closest to the original Sonos model. Gets incredible reviews and awards across the board. Great range of options. A speaker company with a history.
- Cons - single-company ecosystem again. Availability in the US is sparse.
Airplay 2:
- Pros - There are so many speaker options. It’s easy. Functionality is separate from smart features because it’s a standard added to other speaker features.
- Cons - [Edit] Not Android friendly.

There’s also Yamaha MusicCast, but it offers limited options and its future in the market seems questionable with no foothold. Then there’s Play-Fi, which looks promising but still fledgling with no strong partners. B&O looks really cool, but I can’t see the value at those prices.

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ausono

Enthusiast I

I’m not sure if Sonos have considered this will really damage their ability to sell “old stock” in the future.

Traditionally when a new version of a product was released, they continued to sell the previous version for a very slight discount.

This presumably hinged on the fact that you were choosing between two units that would work as long as each other, but that the newer one might have some slightly fancier new feature.

For example the change over between the Play:1 and the One.

If you watch any videos online where a reviewer helps you choose between the two, they never say “Don’t buy the Play:1 you’ll only get 5 years out of it before Sonos brick it”.

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chickentender

Airplay 2:
- Pros - There are so many speaker options. It’s easy. Functionality is separate from smart features because it’s a standard added to other speaker features.
- Cons - There appears to be no Connect (or Port) equivalent to add existing stereo equipment (no more Airport Express.

Bluesound Node 2i and Powernode 2i offer Airplay 2 to existing audio setups.

To your other points, you’re bang on.
Audio first.
Standards.
Modularity.

That’s the future.

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Whitenoise

Enthusiast I

Airplay 2:
- Pros - There are so many speaker options. It’s easy. Functionality is separate from smart features because it’s a standard added to other speaker features.
- Cons - There appears to be no Connect (or Port) equivalent to add existing stereo equipment (no more Airport Express.

Bluesound Node 2i and Powernode 2i offer Airplay 2 to existing audio setups.

To your other points, you’re bang on.
Audio first.
Standards.
Modularity.

That’s the future.

Brilliant. That’s great to know. Thanks for that correction

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ausono

Enthusiast I

Factoring in the supposed memory in each different type of Sonos unit:

Why is Sonos still selling the Playbar at full price?

Do current Playbar units still have 8 x less memory for 3.3 x the cost of a One?

Why aren’t Sonos telling customers what they get for their money (e.g. I wasn’t told that I was getting ½ as much memory as a Playbase for the same price.)

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bbraw67

Trending Lyricist I

Can somebody please clarify for me, is it still the case that even with the Sonos commitment to support legacy products this will still mean split system's so no more multi zone to include new and legacy products except if you opt out of updates ?

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ausono

Enthusiast I

Can somebody please clarify for me, is it still the case that even with the Sonos commitment to support legacy products this will still mean split system's so no more multi zone to include new and legacy products except if you opt out of updates ?

Even factoring in the CEO’s “apology” and every note I have read from Sonos Support, that is correct.

While they’ve started to say “they will continue to work as they do now”, that doesn’t mean they will continue to be able to sync/group with all the speakers in your network that they currently do.

They have made frequent reference to the older speakers needing to be run separately.

**Edit**
Here’s an example from Twitter demonstrating that their stance has not changed, they just keep shuffling the words around in their message.

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teleskier

Contributor I

Sonos, this is such a disaster that I fear you are a dead company walking.

You had to do one thing - convert a network stream or web stream into a positive and negative and send it to a speaker. Until now, you did that well. So well, in fact, that 9 million customers spent BILLIONS of dollars on your products. This was NOT because you have some yet-to-be-announced-software-update-in-may. You don’t know your customer and it is now painfully obvious.

Because all you do is sound, and the UI is on our phones and computers, your hardware should not need ANY additional processing power, ever. All those software features should be confined to the application…. But by adding more and more unnecessary "features" to your hardware you somehow bricked not only these "legacy" products, but your entire brand.

I’m less worried about legacy support and more worried that this policy and backtrack may be the beginning of the end of Sonos as a company. All I wanted was DTS in my Playbar... but instead you put an expiration date on my whole system.

Time to dust off my wonderful 40 year old "legacy" stereo with a left and right channel - it should work forever and will never need a software update. Oh yeah. I will get a different sound bar with DTS while I am at it.

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