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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crmcatee

Contributor I

Anyone would think that selling 1/3 of his shares early January that SONOS’s Chief Product Office Nicholas Millington knew this was going to go tits up on the share price.

https://techknowbits.com/2020/01/21/insider-selling-sonos-inc-nasdaqsono-insider-sells-36453-shares-of-stock-updated-updated.html

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John B

so heading for 2,800 comments here, almost all of which are saying we will never buy Sonos again…

81% of trustpilot reviews now 1 star, warning people not to buy...

share price continuing to slide…

and still no further word from Sonos… the silence is deafening.…

guess Sonos really is intent on treating all their loyal customers with contempt.

so sad.

No word from Sonos? Maybe they can’t see the point given that whatever they say they will be unjustly accused of being liars, incompetent, stupid, a disgrace etc etc

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DK_Madsen

Enthusiast II

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.

I think the problem is that he thought that the sonos buyer has the same level of religiousness toward sonos, that apple evangelists have toward apple users.

The miscalculation is thinking that he could mistreat his “worshippers” just as much as apple, and still get away with it.

Now the church is in turmoil and the worshippers are leaving the church in droves, much to his surprise.

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billiejoe87

Chromatic Producer I

so heading for 2,800 comments here, almost all of which are saying we will never buy Sonos again…

81% of trustpilot reviews now 1 star, warning people not to buy...

share price continuing to slide…

and still no further word from Sonos… the silence is deafening.…

guess Sonos really is intent on treating all their loyal customers with contempt.

so sad.

No word from Sonos? Maybe they can’t see the point given that whatever they say they will be unjustly accused of being liars, incompetent, stupid, a disgrace etc etc

Unjustly? They are very justifiably being dragged over the coal due to the way they announced this. Many people have spent thousands on these systems and have just had everything turned on its head.

It’s nothing personal against the staff on this forum or any other lower level staff. It’s the big guys that are responsible for this mess.

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1 x Arc, 1 x Beam Gen 2, 1 x Amp, 2 x Sonos In Ceiling Speakers, 2 x Sub, 4 x Sonos Ones, 2 x Sonos Era 100, 5 x Symfonisk Lamp (Gen 2)

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John B

What am I missing? I thought Sonos did a U-turn last Thursday and said legacy products would NOT be bricked in the foreseeable future?

One thing to consider… while the Sonos stock is obviously declining, (it still has a bit to go before the $10 low of last August), we don’t want Sonos to fail because if they go out of business then all of our products will be automatically bricked :-(

Not sure if Sonos going bust would be good or bad. If they did go under there would be a strong possibility that one of their competitors would buy them and integrate Sonos into their products.

What you are missing is that they never said that speakers were going to be ‘bricked’. They always said that updates would cease but the speakers would continue to function. This thread has set new standards in misunderstanding and misinformation among the user base, and not in a good way.

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ppiixx

Lyricist III

Not expecting much out of sonos before this:

Sonos Announces Date for First Quarter 2020 Financial Results and Conference Call

Jan 15, 2020

SANTA BARBARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Sonos, Inc. (Nasdaq: SONO) today announced that after market close on Wednesday, February 5, 2020, the company will report financial results for the first quarter ended December 28, 2019 in a letter to shareholders. The letter will be made available on the investor relations section of its website at https://investors.sonos.com/reports-and-filings/default.aspx#section=earningsreports.

The company will host a conference call and Q&A to discuss the results on the same day at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time. A live webcast and replay of the conference call and Q&A will be accessible at https://investors.sonos.com/news-and-events/default.aspx. The conference call may also be accessed toll free by dialing (833) 236-2748, with conference ID 9666837. Participants outside the U.S. can access the call by dialing (647) 689-4173, with the same conference ID.

Edit: the previous call https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2019/11/20/sonos-inc-sono-q4-2019-earnings-call-transcript.aspx

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John B

so heading for 2,800 comments here, almost all of which are saying we will never buy Sonos again…

81% of trustpilot reviews now 1 star, warning people not to buy...

share price continuing to slide…

and still no further word from Sonos… the silence is deafening.…

guess Sonos really is intent on treating all their loyal customers with contempt.

so sad.

No word from Sonos? Maybe they can’t see the point given that whatever they say they will be unjustly accused of being liars, incompetent, stupid, a disgrace etc etc

Unjustly? They are very justifiably being dragged over the coal due to the way they announced this. Many people have spent thousands on these systems and have just had everything turned on its head.

It’s nothing personal against the staff on this forum or any other lower level staff. It’s the big guys that are responsible for this mess.

And the many people can continue to use their systems. Probably for many years without any significant degradation, although I admit that is not guaranteed. But there has been so much misinterpretation of the impact, so much reluctance to believe that this is fundamentally a technical issue not just an attempted money grab, that they probably think there is nothing more worth saying at the moment. If they change their mind (I don’t think they will or can) then it is worth saying so. If not, what is the point of repeating the same arguments?

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user_end_of_lifed

Enthusiast II

What you are missing is that they never said that speakers were going to be ‘bricked’. They always said that updates would cease but the speakers would continue to function. This thread has set new standards in misunderstanding and misinformation among the user base, and not in a good way.

Question, John. After this policy takes effect, will my whole house audio system still be a whole house system? The value of Sonos has always been as a system, not the individual units. Don’t take my word for it, have a look at the marketing messages al over their website.

’Bricking’ is a euphemism. Originally it was reserved for doing permanent, irreversible damage to some technology (you know, like Sonos do if you accept their kind ‘trade up’ offer). These days plenty of things get referred to as being ‘bricked’ when the damage is bit that immediate or permanent.

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John B

What you are missing is that they never said that speakers were going to be ‘bricked’. They always said that updates would cease but the speakers would continue to function. This thread has set new standards in misunderstanding and misinformation among the user base, and not in a good way.

Question, John. After this policy takes effect, will my whole house audio system still be a whole house system? The value of Sonos has always been as a system, not the individual units. Don’t take my word for it, have a look at the marketing messages al over their website.

’Bricking’ is a euphemism. Originally it was reserved for doing permanent, irreversible damage to some technology (you know, like Sonos do if you accept their kind ‘trade up’ offer). These days plenty of things get referred to as being ‘bricked’ when the damage is bit that immediate or permanent.

Not in my world. ‘Bricked’ means ‘made as much use as a brick’. Anyway, I was addressing a particular poster who also referred to a ‘U-turn’, so that particular person clearly thought something major had changed, and it hadn’t.

And your comment is a bit rich from someone who has used ‘end of life’ in their handle.

And the answer to ‘whole home’. Yes, if you stay in legacy mode. Don’t think we know yet exactly what it will look like if the system is ‘mixed’. I wasn’t addressing that point and what does my view matter anyway?

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WSu

Enthusiast II

What you are missing is that they never said that speakers were going to be ‘bricked’. They always said that updates would cease but the speakers would continue to function. This thread has set new standards in misunderstanding and misinformation among the user base, and not in a good way.

Question, John. After this policy takes effect, will my whole house audio system still be a whole house system? The value of Sonos has always been as a system, not the individual units. Don’t take my word for it, have a look at the marketing messages al over their website.

’Bricking’ is a euphemism. Originally it was reserved for doing permanent, irreversible damage to some technology (you know, like Sonos do if you accept their kind ‘trade up’ offer). These days plenty of things get referred to as being ‘bricked’ when the damage is bit that immediate or permanent.

Not in my world. ‘Bricked’ means ‘made as much use as a brick’. Anyway, I was addressing a particular poster who also referred to a ‘U-turn’, so that particular person clearly thought something major had changed, and it hadn’t.

Bricks are useful - I can build a house with them! Sonos speakers that won’t group into zones or whole house with other speakers, or perhaps won’t play certain services due to API changes, are less useful - because they are landfill. We’re not at that stage yet, of course, I realise that, and MOST others do… but would I buy a new Sonos product right now? Not a chance.

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Sonos Announces Date for First Quarter 2020 Financial Results and Conference Call

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