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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melvimbe

Correct. And if you don’t know what functionality changes are going to separate modern from legacy, how can you conclude that the functionality changes would be compatible with legacy? Maybe Sonos is only doing this break to make money, but they have no history of doing this in the past. In fact, they have a history of trying to make modern and legacy products work together.

Until a week ago Sonos never even suggested that there were or would ever be legacy products that would not be able to retain the same level of functionality as it had at any given time, without sacrificing, the posibility to upgrade ANY device.

That alone is a change.

Sonos has NEVER to my knowledge said that it might be like that some day, and in fact i have seen multiple adverts and statements that has come from Sonos, that would suggest the opposite.

So, no they dont have a history of trying to make legacy and modern products work together...They have a history of making all their devices work together and have used the fact that it was a multiroom system that you just upgrade when the need arrives, in their advertising.

Deciding between :

Keep everything legacy and loose future upgrades for ALL units

Segregate legacy and modern devices into two networks that can not interoperate to get software and feature upgrades for modern devices.

Is a sudden kick in the groin for people that has always been told and believed that sonos is a premium multi room system that is a bit like a lego set...You just buy more bricks if you want to build a larger lego figure.

This is very well said, and I agree. I also can see Sonos’ side of things. They have made some critical mistakes in the past and obviously lately with the emails. Developing the software and hardware without a clear vision was a mistake.

I think it’s rather easy to come to that conclusion now, but I don’t really know what everything looked like a decade and more ago when the basic structure was developed. It seems to me that they did have some thought about leaving space for growth, but didn’t leave enough space.

Developing the software which requires the same version on very different products in a system was a mistake.

I don’t think each product has fully identical sets of code. For example, I doubt the play:5 gen 1 has any code related to airplay 2 on it, even though that is a part of the current version. I do think there are certain aspects of the product code that need to be match. What exactly that is, how much space it takes up, and why it can’t be done a different way, I don’t know.

Making different versions of products that look exactly the same, are named the same, but have different internals was a mistake.

I don’t think there’s a debate on this point. I think the fact that Sonos One has a gen 1 and gen 2, with no visible difference or current functional difference between the two, shows that Sonos likely has learned their lesson on this.

Someone at Sonos (most likely developers) saw this coming a long time ago. Ignoring those warnings was a mistake, and they apparently put it off until it’s at critical mass.

It would be an interesting story of how that came about through Sonos internal discussions. I would guess there were conflicts between marketing and the developers, and how such an announcement would effect the bottom line, etc. I am fully speculating here, but it is possible that Sonos originally intended to give a full years notice (or something), but plans had to change due to changes in the development schedule etc. All things that we will never know. As customers, really not things that we need to worry about too much, as the final result is really all that matters.

Having said that, I understand that future updates which are out of Sonos’ control will push the code over the line on the legacy devices. They can’t be supported forever.

Frankly I’m disgusted with the whole situation. They will have to do something different - create a device that allows modern and legacy devices remain in a group, or change/rewrite the code.

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Danny

A

audiophile99

Lyricist III

Sonos boxed itself into a corner early on by promising customers free software updates for life. Chief Executive Patrick Spence testified at a congressional hearing this month: “Our business model is simple — we sell products which people pay for once, and we make them better over time with software updates.”

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-01-27/sonos-software-updates

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kmurray

Trending Lyricist I

Pretty certain that a legacy route was discussed over 1 year ago when the CR100 bricking was announced .Dismissed as non viable……….How come viable now please?

Why is it being touted now as an option, when it could have been explored over 1 year ago…?

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Johnas

Enthusiast II

Pretty certain that a legacy route was discussed over 1 year ago when the CR100 bricking was announced .Dismissed as non viable……….How come viable now please?

Why is it being touted now as an option, when it could have been explored over 1 year ago…?

Really??? Sonos has flip flopped on a lot of things. Ugh they need to turn this around.

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andy_120

Enthusiast II

Well I just spat a cup of tea out whilst reading the latest reply form support, apparently some users are excited about not having to do updates anymore, for Christ sake are support real to say this

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Davidonthecoast

Lyricist III

I have a Playbar, Sub, 4 Play:1s, Play:5, Connect: AMP, and a boost. Over $3000+ worth. None of them are currently “Legacy” products but how long until that changes? I cannot in good conscience spend another dime on audio equipment that has an artificial end of life date, and I can no longer recommend Sonos as a brand.

Agreed!!!

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rwrgeo

Renowned Enthusiast II

Sonos boxed itself into a corner early on by promising customers free software updates for life. Chief Executive Patrick Spence testified at a congressional hearing this month: “Our business model is simple — we sell products which people pay for once, and we make them better over time with software updates.”

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-01-27/sonos-software-updates

And I do kindof believe they’ve largely done their best on this. I think those people saying they should have stuck more memory in the components or made the software more flexible are forgetting how different Sonos was at launch (pre smartphone apps, probably pre streaming services at all?) and that the memory cost alot more ten years ago. I’d also argue it probably isn’t a entirely sustainable business model even if the hardware can cope with more updates.

Where they’ve hugely messed up is the messaging, the short period of notice, the lack of details (though Ryan has been helpful) and just making people feel that both their legacy system and the brand they’ve supported have become tarnished over night.

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Goodbye Sonos

Enthusiast II

Sonos boxed itself into a corner early on by promising customers free software updates for life. Chief Executive Patrick Spence testified at a congressional hearing this month: “Our business model is simple — we sell products which people pay for once, and we make them better over time with software updates.”

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-01-27/sonos-software-updates

And I do kindof believe they’ve largely done their best on this. I think those people saying they should have stuck more memory in the components or made the software more flexible are forgetting how different Sonos was at launch (pre smartphone apps, probably pre streaming services at all?) and that the memory cost alot more ten years ago. I’d also argue it probably isn’t a entirely sustainable business model even if the hardware can cope with more updates.

Where they’ve hugely messed up is the messaging, the short period of notice, the lack of details (though Ryan has been helpful) and just making people feel that both their legacy system and the brand they’ve supported have become tarnished over night.

I am not convinced they’ve “done their best” on this…. software can be changed, architecture can be modified. They have had years and years to fix this… and yet here we are… that’s not a definition of “doing your best”.

And worst of all this is all fixable - thin clients anyone?

The Sonos promise has always had two parts - you can buy in now with a grouping of say a couple of speakers and add more later, plus what you buy today will be supported tomorrow.

Both of these promises are now broken - what we bought previously is no longer supported and what we bought previously cannot be grouped with newer speakers without losing updates / support of the newer kit.

Seriously does anyone think it would be reasonable for Apple to say if you keep using your old smartphone at home we will not give you any updates/support for you new phone?

How long ‘till the next cull - what dies next - play:1 play:3 ?????

How can you invest £££££ $$$$$ in kit with such short life - HiFi is not disposable it is not cheap!!

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Goodbye Sonos

Enthusiast II

In fact it is not unusual to completely re-architect and re-write software every now and then I have worked on several ground up rewrites. They tend to be big pieces of work, but the ones I have involved in have been fairly smooth - mainly because you have a concrete definition of what you need to replicate plus a vision of how you want the new architecture to work.

A move to master units (the newer more capable units) and slave devices (legacy units) could be delivered and keep the legacy units in play for the future whilst allowing future deliverables via the newer units.

Its really a question of whether you want to do it and have the drive and commitment to do it

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Finn1000

Enthusiast I

Had my play3 & play5 (gen 2) less than 2 years.

Although I’m not affected by these changes at the moment, l feel Sonos have cheapened the brand with this announcement & in turn broken all trust in the Sonos brand.

They may or may not be interested in the fact there are a lot of very pissed off Sonos owners,

I for one will be watching closely what they do next .

If it is not resolved satisfactorily, I am done with Sonos & all streaming speakers that can be so easily be trashed by manufacturers .

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