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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Beaucejim

Contributor I

I now regret the huge investement for 20 Sonos pieces I currently own, I will never buy another Sonos product again nor will I buy into your inadequate 30% buy back scheme. I will be sure to let all of my friends and colleagues know that Sonos is a company to stay away from. And yes, I did read the press release from your corporate HQ… Sorry but I don`t believe it.

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A

Adam Smith The Invisible Hand

Lyricist III

Stocks go up and down. I don’t think multiple stock price updates are worthwhile news each day, just because the shares are down a bit. The management team warned investors to expect a bumpy ride initially when they implemented this pre-planned updates policy. They knew it was controversial, and they knew it was going to be a hard sell.

I do wonder if the current CEO was fully aware how much of this business is built on product evangelism from enthusiastic owners though? It can easily work in reverse if those same people start belittling your product with as much venom now as it was previously enthusiasm. I suppose that’s the real danger for Sonos as a company.

According to their letter to shareholders from November, 37% of new product registrations (new hardware registered) were to individuals who already had at least one product registered (repeat customers). He has a good idea what segment of the population he just pissed off, he may not have estimated how controversial the decision would be.

I could only imagine what it would be like for me to come to work and find that my customers are openly discussing alternatives to my product on my website! And there is nothing I can do about it lest I am viewed as trying to cover up. And, it’s been viewed over 100,000 times. Monday, Monday...

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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”?

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/4786?language=en&et_rid=75038405&utm_campaign=lifecycleeosu_announce_183496_1497698&utm_medium=email&utm_source=owners_legacy_110822355&utm_content=copy-t2-readarticle_US

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.

How long does this last until stuff just stops working and you don’t know why. What features are not going to work together? will i be able to still have whole house audio? what happens if apple music makes a change to the API and it is no longer compatible with the “old” speakers. Lot’s of questions left unanswered in my opinion.

Still not certain what you meant by “new stuff”. Do you mean new software features? Or new units added to the network? If you leave your system as legacy, you can still add any modern device Sonos now sells to a legacy network and it will run with that software version. It is the various streaming APIs that will stop working at some point…. The least likely to stop working are access to your own media library and access to speaker settings, zone grouping etc, because those functions are not tied to the API changes of other companies. As a simple wireless speaker network that accesses local network files, it’s reasonable to assume that a legacy system will work indefinitely until the hardware fails.

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jjohncm

Lyricist III

This could be heading for a class action suit, especially if people recycled 200 series controllers based on the original SONOS ‘won’t work’ statement, then wanted to stop the recycle and were told they couldn’t. There is no upgrade hardware for these controllers. Customers would have no way of controlling their systems.

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FJM

Contributor I

I read with substantial dismay that SONOS will no longer provide updates for certain equipment. I want to advise SONOS management and community at large how disappointing this announcement is.

I have been a very loyal SONOS customer for at least 8 years and have purchased:

2 SONOS one’s

2 SONOS 5’s 1 generation

2 SONOS 5”s 2 generation

2 SONOS Sound Bars…

1 SONOS Base Unit

Also have purchased three individual sets of SONOS one’s for individual members of my family as gifts.As you can see I have made a considerable investment in both the company and its equipment.

I find it interesting and disappointing that this announcement happens with the fact that SONOS is now a publicly traded company on Wall Street. Since SONOS has gone public its share price and not increased and its sales volume has not increased as Wall Street had hoped.

Now the NEW strategy will be for SONOS management to create incentives for existing customers to purchase more "NEW" units…..THEREFORE INCREASE SALES VOLUME! Before SONOS went “PUBLIC” it had an outstanding reputation for quality. Now it looks like GREED MANAGEMENT has taken control of the company…..

I will no longer invest my money in products with a company management that maintains this type of business agenda.

FJM

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macallan18

Enthusiast I

It has been only 6 days since we all got ‘the email’. …..feels a lot longer doesn’t it???

Since then there has been a lot of activity from previously loyal customers on this forum and a fair bit of damning activity from Wall Street.

But very little comment or action from Sonos!

i am bewildered by the silence…...there are even a couple of great threads that actually suggest to Sonos how they can fix this

Something just doesn’t feel right…..

I’m guessing they’re telling investors “trust us, this is going to be great, just a vocal minority, we will delivery quality results in the next two quarters” and it is buying them time. I think admitting failure and changing course here, while perhaps winning back many of us, would result in them losing their jobs sooner. Or perhaps they genuinely believe this is the right course, or perhaps internally things look worse than we have perceived and this is the only way they attempt to fix things - a scary thought.

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chickentender

Michael, I tried the echo link amp to replace my 7 connect amps and it didn't quite work the way I hoped. I don't think it's a replacement, unless you want to change the way you interact with your music. You are forced to ask what to play and where by voice through an Alexa app or device. You can't start music from the Alexa app on your phone or computer by searching or selecting. This means no queing music or playing just a few tracks from an album. I like being dj sometimes across multiple sources and Sonos does this well.

I'm also looking for an alternative and musiccast and heos didn't get that great of reviews for their app, despite the limited music source choices. Bluesound cost more than Sonos and also got mixed reviews. I hate being held captive.

Thanks Morgan,

Sounds like we are looking for the exact same thing. I play music from my household NAS, my S10 Phone, Streaming Services, local radio, you name it. I currently (but rarely) do use my $50 Echo Dot to tell Sonos to play music as well. Normally if I don’t have my phone handy for some reason. I would want Amazon to have a control app with most of the abilities of the Sonos Controller as well.

Not sure they are going to want to play music from by local collection.

I am not rushing to do a wholesale replacement today. Want to look at all the options available and compare against the price / functionality of what i have now.

Thing is… Before last week I would never have even questioned where I would be getting my next purchase from. I admit to being a “Sonos Sheep”.

For what it’s worth, my use is similar, though my Connect has always also been fed audio from my TV as a soundbar substitute double-duty sort of use (passing audio to my main traditional stereo setup), in addition to being essentially the “hub” of my music audio as well. Spent the past week looking into options and decided to (based on a number of factors) to just try the Bluesound Node 2i (purchased from Amazon for the nice risk-free return window) in it’s place and see what I could work out. I’ve only had it connected for 24 hours and frankly, it’s wonderful. I have it sending it’s RCA output to my stereo receiver just as the Connect did, but then I also send it’s optical-output to an inexpensive optical-to-rca converter which then goes to the LINE-IN of the old SonosConnect. This way I can still send audio around to my SonosPlay speakers in other rooms using the Bluesound as the streaming source (as well as a variety of other source options to the Bluesound that I won’t get into here - it’ll just complicate things). Thus far, I’m happy as a clam.

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macallan18

Enthusiast I

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”?

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/4786?language=en&et_rid=75038405&utm_campaign=lifecycleeosu_announce_183496_1497698&utm_medium=email&utm_source=owners_legacy_110822355&utm_content=copy-t2-readarticle_US

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.

How long does this last until stuff just stops working and you don’t know why. What features are not going to work together? will i be able to still have whole house audio? what happens if apple music makes a change to the API and it is no longer compatible with the “old” speakers. Lot’s of questions left unanswered in my opinion.

Still not certain what you meant by “new stuff”. Do you mean new software features? Or new units added to the network? If you leave your system as legacy, you can still add any modern device Sonos now sells to a legacy network and it will run with that software version. It is the various streaming APIs that will stop working at some point…. The least likely to stop working are access to your own media library and access to speaker settings, zone grouping etc, because those functions are not tied to the API changes of other companies. As a simple wireless speaker network that accesses local network files, it’s reasonable to assume that a legacy system will work indefinitely until the hardware fails.

I hope this is correct, but I have yet to see it written by sonos that any new speaker I buy can be added to a legacy setup. As whole home/multiroom audio is what I’m here for I guess I’m going with legacy mode and not buying anymore speakers.

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melvimbe

This could be heading for a class action suit, especially if people recycled 200 series controllers based on the original SONOS ‘won’t work’ statement, then wanted to stop the recycle and were told they couldn’t. There is no upgrade hardware for these controllers. Customers would have no way of controlling their systems.

i don’t think CR200s are eligible for the trade in program. And these customers would still be able to control their system with apps and applications the way the vast majority of people do.

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Danny

F

FJM

Contributor I

This CEO and company management has lost TRUST….they are dead. No one will pay the money for this equipment after reading all of the bad press and Negative Reviews.

What a stupid move….meanwhile BOSE continues to innovate WHILE AT THE SAME TIME CONTINUES TO DELIVER OUTSTANDING quality service and support to its existing customers for more than 25 plus years.

SONSO….who do they think they are kidding.

FJM

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