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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FredBloggs

Avid Contributor I

I was wondering if SONOS would use the weekend to calm things down and come up with a reversal of their death wish announcement. It seems they are too entrenched in their past decision to take a different direction. There have been many suggestions here, some of them really quite interesting. For me, I am not too invested in SONOS (thankfully). I bought 2x Play1’s about three years ago. And in December 19 I bought a Beam. The lesson for me? Going forward I will use regular dumb high quality HiFi kit by a long established rock solid company like Naim, Rega, Arcam……….. And I will plug a streamer into the input of the dumb HiFi system. That could be a SONOS Port, or more likely now, something else now that SONOS appear to have changed direction. I do feel bad for those with big multi-room SONOS systems. Luckily, I have never been interested in that side of things.

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fougs

Contributor I

This whole fiasco is beyond disappointing. Write bare bones versions of your software to communicate with the legacy equipment & at least keep the ability to stream music to them while the new stuff gets full features. But they need to be able to sync & play music together. I don't care if i can voice control any of it or not.

People who bought into sonos think of it as audio equipment, not tech. & audio equipment should work until something physically fails. In the end, my play 5s have the ability to turn a wifi stream into sound. So get your software engineers to figure out how to continue to send the music to them over a wifi signal. What you're doing is a choice & will destroy your company.

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themetman

Contributor I

From the CEO’s Letter it is clear they think we will upgrade the newer stuff, and end up with a ‘Split System’ This will NOT work well for me. I just hope I can opt out of any upgrades after May and keep my system running as one unit.

I did find that if you plug two Sonos devices into a network they flood the network broadcasting to each other and disrupt the other traffic, so how is a ‘Split System’ going to work? Not well I suspect.

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Yemster

Lyricist II

The news is really disappointing for me just as it is for everyone else. I have one Play5 and three Play 3’s as well as one Gen:1 Play 1. I already have two of the newer Play One’s as well. All of my devices are working perfectly so that I have no reason to replace very expensive devices with new expensive ones.

Reliability and quality are two of the key reasons why I love Sonos so much and why I have always recommended it to my friends.

These devices cost a lot of money. I’m glad that the CEO has written to us and I really hope that they will support us in every way possible. I’ve even been a beta tester for many years.

I feel cagey now about further purchases now.

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FarFromGruntled

Lyricist III

If you bring modern devices along with legacy devices into a legacy build it’ll still be possible to add all Sonos products currently available for sale to a legacy system. They’ll all update to the correct legacy build.

Whoa Ryan, are you actually saying that a system currently containing Play:5 Gen 1 and Play:3 speakers (i.e. legacy and modern) will continue to work as it does at present even after May? If I understand correctly what you are saying here, I will have one system with a mix of generations. I understand that no further updates will be applied to the Play:5 speakers (and presumably to the Play:3 units as well).

What would I have to do to freeze the software level at that point after May?

@FarFromGruntled, that’s correct. From the original message above:

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.

In May, when the legacy change comes, you’ll be able to set your whole Sonos system on the legacy build (both modern and legacy devices). Any existing modern speakers that come along with your legacy devices onto that build will work exactly as the have been, however the whole system (including the modern devices that move to legacy) won’t regularly update. Any new features that come to Sonos won’t be added to any of those speakers while they’re on legacy software. Over time, some services may require updates to keep going and we’ll do what we can to provide them, but we will be limited to do so by the hardware of those legacy devices.

Thank you Ryan. That seems clear. Much clearer, in fact, than the earlier strident message that we face the unacceptable option of a split system unless we upgrade our legacy units to modern.

I guess the big problem is contained in your comment: “Over time, some services may require updates to keep going...”. My main use of Sonos is streaming Spotify and TuneIn radio. If these become no longer compatible then the utility of Sonos is lost to me.

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frank black

Avid Contributor I

Does anyone know where the subwoofer fits in on that chart?

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Daniel88

Avid Contributor I

Looks like the play5 gen2 and the rest of them on the right side should have enough memory and space for a very long time, i can understand that 32 just wont cut it, still sad but...also is it MB or GB ?

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Beagle

Enthusiast I

I have a Playbase 5.1 system, new Port, two one gen 2s and two SLs and a boost. All of which are currently safe from being obsolete. Currently but for how long? Beginning to feel really foolish for investing into Sonos. The May announcement better be very good to keep me onboard or I will start looking more closely at HEOS. This will cost me but may as we’ll cut my losses sooner rather than later. Can’t believe this fiasco.

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ausono

Enthusiast I

...also is it MB or GB ?

It says at the bottom “All sizes in MB”

There is no way they’re putting a terabyte of on-board memory into new units.

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sm75382

Enthusiast II

... For some of us who want to just purchase a few newer Connect or Connect Amps so we can get past this May shut-out/forced obsolesce/split system issue, There may be some economical options out there instead of the reduced functionality (and stupid expense) of the Amp and Port or the environmental disaster of the “trade-in” program. Of course Sonos isn’t clear about how much longer their so-called (Modern) units will be supported either...

@kassey22000, I know it’s buried several times in the pages of this thread and others, but we’ve committed to supporting our products with updates for at least five years after they’re no longer sold by us, after they’ve been discontinued. And as you all know, we have a track record of doing so for much longer than that. The 2015 Connect and Connect:Amps are only recently no longer sold, or in some cases still available at very limited stock levels. So you’re looking at at least five years worth of updates from when they were discontinued.

I'm sorry Ryan, but this was not what I was told when I brought into the sonos concept. It was sold as a hifi streaming system which could be added to make a truly remarkable system. But now products have an EOL policy, let me put it this way if I were to see a cake that cost £50 and I know that cake has a sell by date of a week. And there was another cake that costs £20 but has no use by date which one would you buy?? But again you have the £50 cake and the £20 cake both have no use by date, you buy the £50 cake as it a better quality but find out later it does have a use by date how would you feel about that.you would think I might as well got the £20 cake, this is exactly what sonos has done and frankly has killed the brand. Sonos may come up with this solution or that explanation of what will happen but non of the statementments returns us to the status que we had when we brought our systems. The sonos board ignore this fact at the company's peril but it's not to late to turn this around but I fear you won't.

I would eat the £50 cake before it becomes obsolete! or, list on gumtree for £30-£40, or wait for the '£1 max selling fee' promotion on fleabay and list on there.

i have already listed my 5.1 sonos on gumtree this week, waiting for the 'max £1 fee' link from ebay and listing on there.

now i know my kit may stop working (if eventually all stuck on 'legacy' mode) I might as well sell now and get a better 5.1 experince (better dialouge from the center speaker for starters)

I was looking at alternatives 1-2 weeks before the annoucement anyway so this just exbidited by exit plan.

i certainly will think cheap / second hand when buying anything 'smart' in the future

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