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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D

DK_Madsen

Enthusiast II

Executives from SONOS, especially Patrick Spence, what you did just sounds like Nortel...remember them they closed down.

Luckily for them they didn’t go to jail…

From what i have read, Patrick Spense was the guy at the helm when Blackberry drove themselves into the ground.

Why a tech company would hire a guy that already once took a succesful brand and burned it down is beyond me.

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user_end_of_lifed

Enthusiast II

From what i have read, Patrick Spense was the guy at the helm when Blackberry drove themselves into the ground.

Why a tech company would hire a guy that already once took a succesful brand and burned it down is beyond me.

Did anyone responsible for his appointment get wealthy out of Blackberry failing? If so, then there’s your answer.

There are plenty of people happy to ruin a company worth billions if it’ll increase their personal wealth somehow.

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chickentender

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.

You do know that they put a kill switch on the rear bracket don’t you? When Spence approves a particular software update, it falls off the wall… Though he may not be around to approve it.

But who wants the aesthetically challenged IKEA products?

This is the problem I am having in researching a alternative to SONOS. I like the way my products look. Most of what I am seeing and either just plain ugly or they are too much over the top for my taste. I like the simplicity of the design I have now. The Amazon Echos come closest in that department in my opinion. But they don’t have a equivalent to a “sonos connect” right?

To maybe answer your question RE: Sonos Connect Amazon equivalent - I’m looking at the Echo Link Amp and Echo Link at the moment among many other options (check them out on Amazon if you haven’t seen), and trying to figure out my going forward strategy - as I’m done with Sonos.

I am doing a backyard, California room renovation and was going to go with Moves for around pool and Amps and a Playbar, Sub for TV etc, but of course I’ve discarded that idea. Looking at the Bose 51 hard wired outdoor speakers now (instead of Moves), and trying to decide how to get rid of Sonos completely for the rest of the project . . .

. . . even thinking about a hardwired AV receiver now . . .

. . . it’s crazy like someone said above. Sonos was a default no question purchase before this fiasco for me. I wouldn’t even consider price or competitively shop - that’s how well the previous leaders built the Sonos brand! And I’ve gone from that to “never again” in 1 week - and I’m telling everyone I brought over to Sonos to get out of their ecosystem because they can change your functionality (or shut you down) on a whim (based upon what they see as to their financial benefit) - and they are testing those whims now.

I am convinced they may go out of business because of this brand destruction - and all my speakers will eventually die. In my 52 years of life I cannot think of any company that I have turned against so quickly . . . it’s amazing really . . . it would be hard to do worse in terms of destroying a brand if one really, really (did I say really) tried. I laugh and imagine the leaders at Sonos sitting around the boardroom table (like in a Dilbert cartoon) and saying - “hey, let’s destroy this company and our brand - who has the best idea about how we can do it?”

The sad thing is, the employees that built this (and us the customers) will be the ones that suffer. The leaders will profit when someone swoops in and buys them to pick-up the pieces after the stock drops to 5 . . .

I think the miscalculation that Sonos and Patrick made was that they did not understand the intelligence of their average user. People agreed to pay a Sonos premium because they understood the value in backwards compatibility, a whole house system (ie: we do not want segregated legacy and new systems), etc (ie: ROI). And also, to pay the premium, their customers naturally have to be somewhat successful in general and have substantial disposable income. People that fit that description are not dumb and can read through corporate BS when they see it.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R8NCXGTMM7E13?

Quite a few limitations re: Echo Link.

For my part, I’ve read post after post with sentiments akin to “why would anyone buy Sonos now?” that while not unfounded by any means, often miss the greater point… if the next thought is to look toward other companies with similar capabilities then, basically, the moral of this Sonos story is not being heard.

Everyone should take pause and quickly realize that this will be repeated, with every other manufacturer of “smart audio” as it were, and likely on far shorter product cycles than we’re witnessing with Sonos. Be very mindful if you begin looking for alternatives, slow down and consider what it is you’re doing and why. If speaker wire doesn’t factor into your replacement plans then take a step back. This is an industry problem, not just a Sonos problem.

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mkarszen

Lyricist II

Bittersweet, just returned my Move for store credit. Now I only own 9 speakers, 4 of which are Legacy. I don’t see SONOS surviving this fiasco unless they develop another bridge to keep it all together. One email just lopped off thousands of unpaid salespeople/advocates for their brand.

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rmhamrick3

Lyricist I

I bought mine Dec 14- 3 years after 2011 and likely closer to 4 since introduciton

Not a very custom focused answer - and horrible wording/grammer

Those products were indeed introduced between 2005 and 2011. The date of introduction refers to the first date the products came into the market.

The types of new features that the product would not be compatible with, it would not have supported now to begin with. The physical limitations of the hardware render it incapable of performing tasks they were not designed for. The products will still receive important bug fixes and full support from our technical support staff.

Sincerely,

Sean F.
Sonos | Customer Care | Contact Us
Ask questions, find answers, and share your thoughts on the Sonos Community.

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jjohncm

Lyricist III

Question for you all. I recycled a few products ZP100’s and GEN 1 Play 5’s. I did this because SONOS initially said legacy systems could not be mixed with modern systems.

Now given all the ‘goings on’ I’ve decided to return the replacement products using the 45 day guaranteed return policy due to “incompatibility issues”. SONOS are saying they cannot stop recycling once initiated, but if I return the replacement product I guess they would have no choice but to cease the recycle process otherwise they are bricking a product I bought without a way of getting it back to the pre-recycle status.

I suspect the “cannot stop recycling once initiated” stance is a financial one because if we all do that it would cause them a massive financial issue.

Thoughts?

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Adam Smith The Invisible Hand

Lyricist 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 think the damage has been done and nothing short of a nuclear option will save the company now. The current staff are not in a position to fix this problem they have created. Who trusts these people to come up with an enduring solution? If Spence told us that he will support all of our products forever, none of us would believe him now. If he says it will be supported for another year, five years, ten years, none of us would believe him.

If the stock continues to decline, heads will roll which will make it a different company. I can’t support Spence and Co, they need to go. That is a potential positive for the stock decline.

The second thing I would rather see is that the stock declines even further and one of the companies that Spence has threatened to sue buys up the stock. Neither Amazon nor Google are dumb enough to sue themselves for patent infringement. Kill two birds with one stone. Either of those companies has an interest n the technology and the money to continue development.

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dennis1

Lyricist II

I’ve been with SONOS since the system was born. No shortage of issues - but their service team has always been top notch and worked thru all

The last disappointment was their End-of-life for the IOS controller on my one--generation-too old iPod. They blamed APPLE for ending new IOS support… Fortunately, an apparently better engineer brought out Sonophone that somehow manages to control my system on that device.

SONOS deciding that “everything runs the same code” is the key to this mess. In an era when technology life cycles are 2-3 years or shorter, this is a truly dumb idea. Limits what you can do on the coolest newest stuff and strains the oldest systems.

“Ending support so tradein/upgrade” didn’t go well. Now “No, we’re not ending support BUT you you will have to live with two separate SONOS systems if you mix products on the same network.”

Stop the nonsense:

If you want to get customers you have lost with one email to ever buy from you again, decide to have everything work together until our hardware dies, period. It’s OK to not have every NEW feature run on every OLD device. It’s OK to stop offering repairs on old stuff. Drop the “one code base” idea - it only sounds good to some of your engineers.

Want to sell us your newest gear? Make your newest stuff so terrific that people WANT to trade up.

Dennis

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Aowdam54

Lyricist III

Well, if no one else will speak up fro Sonos I will.

My system has worked flawlessly ever since I purchased my first 1st gen Play-5 many years ago.

Never an issue, not even with the updates that fail ever so often on other systems.

I accept that the older products can not be updated forever and if there will be a solution in May where newer products can be updated while the older ones remain as-is that’s fine with me.

So, I’m still in!

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Aowdam54

H

HelterSkelter

Enthusiast II

Bittersweet, just returned my Move for store credit. Now I only own 9 speakers, 4 of which are Legacy. I don’t see SONOS surviving this fiasco unless they develop another bridge to keep it all together. One email just lopped off thousands of unpaid salespeople/advocates for their brand.

I just returned a brand new Move today also, still in its box unopened.

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