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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M

mrwarped

Lyricist III

Wow. Is there even anyone at Sonos anymore or did nobody come in after the weekend?

It is mind boggling how passively they’re just sitting there watching their business burn down from a fire they voluntarily started (and have had numerous opportunities to put out).

Couldn’t agree more, poor old Ryan S has been left all weekend to try to put a positive spin on something that is patently unspinnable and clearly about to compromise the company. Hats off to Ryan S and his efforts, he has tried his best to deliver the unpalatable message of the company and kinda deserves a medal for persistence whilst it is clear Nero has been out and about fiddling all weekend……...

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rmhamrick3

Lyricist I

You are not going to support the first speaker I ever bought in Dec 14 - meaning 5.5 years by May 2020. Not very long…..

I have bought other products since and never heard “ only 5 years of support “

from when?- when introduced or when bought? who knew?- buried in small print somewhere i guess that was not made clear before the product is bought.

? no offer to allow upgrade of software into the “ old” speaker? - no just buy a new one at a 30% discount - which is a terrible offer.

This is terrible support from a product I have admired and bought for myself and family members. Hard to think I’d ever buy again, Total lack of customer focus - especially to early adopters that helped Sonos get to a publicly traded company. A fatal mistake to not remember “ who brung ya”

Makes me think time to go back to wired speakers- I have some over 25 years old that sound pretty good- and now sound better….

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kassey22000

Enthusiast II

How to determine if your older gear is still modern?

Besides the VOL vs. Wedge symbol on the front rocker switch and the build date next to the serial number. Is there any way we can use an IP command line function to tell if our Connect or Connect Amp has enough computing power/memory to stay in the MODERN category? We now know that Sonos slip-streamed upgrades into identical looking units over the years and seem less-than-transparent about how to determine this.

According to the Sonos link in the “end of support” email, I have a mix of Connects and Connect Amps that are both Modern and Legacy.

Am I missing something in the readout of the cool command utility “Sonos Support Info” (192.168.X.XXX/support/review)?

I poked around search engines and in the forums and can’t find anything useful yet.

Why?? because I want to somewhat future-proof my system (at least for the MAY announcement) though the second hand/used market (reuse, not replace & throwaway).

While I was OK paying premium prices for Sonos AUDIO gear over the last 10 years of yearly purchases, I can’t justify paying the outrageous premium for the AMP or PORT when we all know it’s about $15-$30 worth of parts and has a very limited lifespan. The paltry 30% discount (after the recent price increase) is just silly. I’ll pay premium for AUDIO gear that lasts more than 5 years, but not for cheap parts that are horribly marked-up and have a short life span.

Appreciate pointers on how to determine this for our home and hopefully others.

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Landerson

Avid Contributor III

The really sad thing is that, despite previously being a loyal Sonos customer with a fair amount of kit, I and other customers I know are actively hoping for the stock price to crash further.

For the simple reason that it would be that event, and that alone which would force Sonos to really try to provide a solution (either techinical or financial). The CEO letter was simply too vague to insipire full confidence that they were not still playing for time and hoping the whole thing would blow over.

I suspect a lot of the investors out there might be assuming that a) the CEO letter was sufficient to restore confidence, and b) that most of the protests are from the usual small core of customers who threaten to desert a brand, but seldom do.

It will take an intelligent investor to realise that Sonos customers are not generally of ‘the usual suspects’ variety and that the sudden reversal of loyalty from this large and financially important base could really damage revenue in a big way - not to mention discourage the many people who had finally decided to fork out more than they wanted to to buy their first Sonos system because they believed that, at the end of the day, the Sonos brand had merited cachet thanks to endless recommendations from existing users.

If the stock price declines another 10% during this week, then that will hopefully lead to a more substantive announcement…

From my limited technical knowledge, and looking at the spec of the now ‘legacy’ kit over the past few years, it does look rather as though Sonos have been negligent in not revising the hardware to take advantage of dramatic falls in memory prices and thereby give the kit a longer potential life. Given the retail price of e.g. the Play:5, I think it was not too much to ask for the minor cost I assume it would have taken.

As it stands, the comment that seems most pertinent in this entire debacle was from a user who said (from memory) that it was a bit crazy that Sonos could engineer a piece of kit to drive non-Sonos speakers (the Connect:Amp), but - apparently - not a piece of kit to drive Sonos‘ own ‘legacy’ speakers.

Personally, I would have said this would be a win-win solution for the CEO - I’d be willing to pay a small amount for this kit for each of my legacy devices if it guaranteed a decent shelf-life, and it would immediately signal to existing and prospective Sonos customers that they could continue to have faith in Sonos.

I definitely think they need to revisit the memory spec of all their existing equipment - which in some cases might again seem rather mean in 5 years time.

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Royally_shafted

Lyricist III

How to determine if your older gear is still modern?

Besides the VOL vs. Wedge symbol on the front rocker switch and the build date next to the serial number. Is there any way we can use an IP command line function to tell if our Connect or Connect Amp has enough computing power/memory to stay in the MODERN category? We now know that Sonos slip-streamed upgrades into identical looking units over the years and seem less-than-transparent about how to determine this.

According to the Sonos link in the “end of support” email, I have a mix of Connects and Connect Amps that are both Modern and Legacy.

Am I missing something in the readout of the cool command utility “Sonos Support Info” (192.168.X.XXX/support/review)?

I poked around search engines and in the forums and can’t find anything useful yet.

Why?? because I want to somewhat future-proof my system (at least for the MAY announcement) though the second hand/used market (reuse, not replace & throwaway).

While I was OK paying premium prices for Sonos AUDIO gear over the last 10 years of yearly purchases, I can’t justify paying the outrageous premium for the AMP or PORT when we all know it’s about $15-$30 worth of parts and has a very limited lifespan. The paltry 30% discount (after the recent price increase) is just silly. I’ll pay premium for AUDIO gear that lasts more than 5 years, but not for cheap parts that are horribly marked-up and have a short life span.

Appreciate pointers on how to determine this for our home and hopefully others.

log into your account on my Sonos and look at your system on the pages there It will show what is modern or otherwise.

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W

Wkelkel

Enthusiast II

Not only will owners of the company's first-generation speakers and Sonos Connect and Bridge not be able to update their home audio system soon, but they'll be blocked from updating newer devices that are connected to the so-called "legacy" products.

Bizarrely, Sonos boasted in the SAME press release that "92 percent of the products we’ve ever shipped are still in use today".

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L

Landerson

Avid Contributor III

BTW, it is clear that - in general - the cowardly tech press are trying to avoid pointing the blame at Sonos.

This is a very interesting piece from Australian Channel Press which might shed light on the reasons for this:

https://www.channelnews.com.au/retailers-move-to-dump-sonos/

I definitely think tech journalists need to start quizzing suppliers of expensive tech about future proofing (e.g. decent amount of memory, replaceable batteries, modular design etc.) for higher end audio kit.