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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Clancolin

Lyricist I

I'm going to be somewhat controversial here. If you spent £400 on Sonos speakers, and you've used them for 4 years, that's £100/year or less than £2/week for premium sound quality that is *so* much better than listening through paired Google minis! IMHO opinion, that's no worse than paying £10/month for a streaming music subscription. If I want convenience, I pay the subscription. If I want cheap music, I put flac/mp3s on my pc and/phone and stream from there.

Having said that, I too don't have hundreds of £s to spend on replacing what are (for now) working speakers, with more expensive speakers. I can't justify trading up, so I may trade down, *unless* Sonos comes up with a way to spread the cost of the replacements, or (say) partners with streaming music services and offers me some form of decent price reduction on subscriptions

Or something/anything that recognises their customers are in it for the long-haul. They may not buy kit every 3-4 years, but they are fans, and they - and their family and friends will spend £10Ks/£100Ks over the years.

What concerns me most about this debacle, is that Sonos appears to be *deliberately* chucking/breaking perfectly serviceable kit. In 2020, when we need to be recycling as much as we can, this is reckless ecological vandalism of the worst kind, and that's the main reason I may never buy Sonos kit again.

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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.

Agreed. Nor are they. 1024MB = 1GB.

I understand that, I was indicating that if it were GB, 1024 would be just over a terabyte.

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in4369

Lyricist I

This is my first post, from someone who usually stays away from online forums, but I am so disappointed I need to vent.

I have been building my Sonos system for around 8 years, a new speaker every year or two (oldest Play:5, newest Move). We would rave about this to friends and family. For Sonos, this was perfect - on ongoing cash stream for ever, with word of mouth advertising thrown in.

What was great about it: centrally controllable sound all over the house. Sure the newer items feel nicer, but fancy features do not matter a jot.

In one swoop, this model has been destroyed and everyone is a loser. My system will be broken up into separate networks, which defeats the USP. It is anathema to me to send perfectly good kit to be recycled/landfill for expensive and unnecessary upgrade. If I buy a new piece of equipment it now adds to my problem rather than helps solve it.

Unless money and environmental concern are absolutely no object surely new equipment is now uninvestible.

What do I want? A cast-iron commitment to be able to continue with the functionality I currently have for my old units and latest functionality new units, all controlled/grouped from a single interface. Until Sonos convince me of above - and that they do not intend to snatch it away again - their offering has become toxic.

This is my first post too. Melinda yours is a very articulate post with which I wholeheartedly concur. By this debacle, Sonos has lost my faith and my future custom

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pol69

Lyricist I

PATRICK SPENCE GIVES THE PERFECT ARGUMENT TO LOOK FOR ALTERNATIVE SYSTEMS

Your website operates with the statements like: Cooperation, Accountability, Trust (translated from Dutch) ...excuse me...?

Please provide real clarity after such disruptive announcements. NeedSleep: Will old(?) and new(?) systems still be inter-operable? Those are the type of questions to which your clients expect answers!

Nobody expects (new) functionality like voice control on a device that has no microphone, the basic functionality that clients purchased can for sure be maintained while operating with new devices: e.g. Let clients choose what streaming services to use on their devices and yes, older devices can have less or only the older ones. Or provide bridges with additional memory/processing power to support “old" devices. Where is your innovative ability? Overwhelmed by the financials?

The mail of CEO Patrick Spence to all users mentions splitting the systems, thereby providing THE PERFECT ARGUMENT TO LOOK FOR ALTERNATIVE SYSTEMS. Sonos advertised for years that all systems were connected and provided premium sound quality everywhere. If Sonos cannot inter-operate anymore then why betting on two separate systems from one provider? There might be better alternatives out there. Next time I need something on audio, the automatic choice for Sonos that I made for more than a decade is gone!!!!! Maybe good that I myself need to be innovative again…

Truly disappointed customer

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Ken_Griffiths

10 years ago I initially invested over £2500 in the so called Legacy 3 x Sonos Player 5’s, 3 x Connect Amps, 1 x Connect, 1 x Bridge and 2 x CR200 controllers. Further to this I invested further into 3 x Player 3’s and 6 x Player 1’s and most recently 2 x Moves. The latter of which I have barely removed from the box, then the bombshell email arrives. Wow how to totally destroy a brand and it’s reputation in one short swipe. Totally gutted and disgusted with this marketing strategy.

As a loyal Sonos consumer and promoter of the Sonos brand, I am left speechless by this announcement from Sonos.p
Furthermore when I receive the email to upgrade, I acted swiftly and somewhat foolishly and have now ordered 3 x Player 5’s, and 2 x Amps and 1 x Port for a staggering £2500 with the 30% trade up discount applied. (My initial investment outlaid again in 10 years). Then I receive the next bombshell email stating that Sonos have made a mistake and that they listened!, and that they will now continue to bug fix legacy products as well as allow them to coexist with newer products. A bit frickin late now!.

All of my legacy products are now on a 21 day end of life countdown which will then place perfectly good and very presentable products into landfill waste. Unbelievable.

why had you not thought this through earlier and made an announcement to inform legacy products would only receive future bug fixes etc., however they would still coexists with newer products and the 30% discount could be applied at any time to upgrade in the future, allowing legacy owners to retain the original usable working products, but also upgrade to newer products over time. This would allow old to work with new, whilst also allowing the loyal Sonos user to slowly upgrade without having to take a massive hit with only 3 Months notice.

I now feel like I have been screwed twice and will seriously consider other wireless music options in the future. No more Sonos recommendations from me.

Why did you trade-up now? … you could have done that anytime, over many months, or perhaps years in fact.. Also the trade-up agreement is that you 'responsibly recycle' the devices, not take them to landfill.

If you had just left things as they stood, before starting the trade-up process, my guess is you’d have got many more years of service out of your devices. It’s entirely your prerogative though, I guess.

Also what to do now with your 30% discount vouchers???

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user_end_of_lifed

Enthusiast II

From what i have seen, the electronics inside the IKEA Symfonisk is exactly the same as inside the Play 1, with the only difference being that the Symfonisk has 256Mbyte instead of 64Mbyte

The Symfonisk is essentially identical to a play 1 inside, apparently.

Yes, the Symfonisk is the same PCB but with added ram and rom

Should be an easy retrofit when the Play 1 is obsoleted in a couple of years….If they have not changed the PCB in the Symfonisk or stopped selling it.

If you think about a Symfonisk is more functional than a play 1.. when Sonos brick your Symfonisk in a few years you can at least continue to use it as a shelf.

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