End of Software Support - Clarifications

End of Software Support - Clarifications
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S
Userlevel 2

Sonos customer for seven years.  I have spent a lot on a Gen1 Play 5, a Connect, a Connect Amp - all of which are being abandoned by Sonos - but only one of which I can trade up.  I also recently bought a Beam and a couple of surround speakers.  They are going to be dropped too if I don’t spend hundreds more updating the Play 5 and unplugging the Connects.  This is a very shoddy way to treat your customers, and you should be ashamed of yourselves Sonos.  I am not stupid though.  This is going to keep happening isn’t it?  Just ordered a Naim Muso qb Gen2 (thought I would stretch to the Gen 2, but I could have ordered the Gen1 as Naim … get this… still support their legacy products).  Will keep the Beam, because it’s providing the sound for my tv.  It will be the last Sonos product I ever own though.  It’s goodbye from me.

K
Userlevel 6
Badge +3

Sonos speakers are not just speakers. They are essentially computers, and computers that need to constantly communicate with each other. Asking for  a 25 year lifetime for a bit of traditional hifi equipment is reasonable.  Asking for it from a multiroom wirelese audio system is stupidity and ignorance of the highest degree. And therefore consistent with much of the outrage on the ridiculous thread.


With all due respect John, While many of us long-time contributors to this forum know that your are a long-time avid Sonos supporter to the nth degree, to state that this is a “ridiculous thread” shows that you yourself are horribly biased.  These posts are from real people who invested thousands of hard-earned dollars (and lots of time) in real whole-home-audio solutions to play music and audio, sold by high-end audio retailers.  To just write them off as whiners who should have had all the technical foresight to ignore Sonos’s push for audio (not computers) in their extensive marketing and sales campaigns is unkind at best.   Sonos stands for SOUND not personal computers.  The arguments are valid and real in these posts and let them be.  

C
Userlevel 4
Badge +3

Yamaha MusicCast Legacy Products

I put all my SONOS equipment on eBay the day after the announcement and have been looking into an alternative whole house music product.  Yesterday I came across someone saying the old equipment can’t play Amazon Music, but the new equipment can.  I have Spotify, so I could care less, but I called Yamaha and talked to there tech support.  Here’s my paraphrasing of our conversation:

Me: “I have some old MusicCast products and I’m thinking of switching from Spotify to Amazon Music, but my equipment doesn’t support it.  What should I do?”

Yamaha: “You will need equipment manufactured after 2018 to support Amazon Music.  Here’s a link that shows which products support the different streaming services.”

Me: “So what happens to my old equipment if I get a new product to stream Amazon Music?”

Yamaha: “Nothing, they will continue to operate as before.”

Me: “So how do I listen to Amazon Music in a room with equipment that doesn’t support it?”

Yamaha: “Start Amazon Music in the room that does have equipment that supports it, then group it to the other room.”

Me: “That’s it?”

Yamaha: “Yes”.

 

SONOS - did you really screw up your equipment design or is this legacy equipment won’t work with non-legacy equipment just a cheap attempt to milk your existing customers out of more money?

 

B
Userlevel 3

This is a poorly thought out solution.  They could have released a $25 "bridge" type device that connects to legacy equipment via ethernet and/or wifi.  Kinda like how the Sonos Connect connects to 50 year old receivers.  You'd think if Sonos can develop a device that can connect your 1967 McIntosh amp to the sonos network, they could also develop something that could connect your 2015 Sonos speaker.  They could then mark it up to $50 and make a modest profit on each unit sold.  I've seen a few other posts by people suggesting a solution similar to this.

I've got 11 sonos products and only 1 is legacy, but I now know it's just a matter of time before they are all legacy.  I'm not biting on the ridiculous 30% coupon in exchange for bricking a perfectly good device 

R
Userlevel 6
Badge +2

Who at Sonos made the decision to announce this without answers to the inevitable flood of questions that would ensue? The price to upgrade a working device is what got me mad.  Now I realize it is decidedly un-”green”.  Shame on Sonos.  The wrong people are now at the helm and the ship is taking on water.  

N
Userlevel 4
Badge +1

“Our business model is simple — we sell products which people pay for once, and we make them better over time with software updates.”

 

This shows you how full of **** this CEO is. The quote is from this year when he testified at a Congressional hearing about bigger companies having a monopoly. 

 

He must have known about the announcement at the time. It's going to be really difficult for me to trust this company again with it's current leadership. 

#BoycottSonos
U
Userlevel 6
Badge +4

 

Asking for  a 25 year lifetime for a bit of traditional hifi equipment is reasonable.  Asking for it from a multiroom wirelese audio system is stupidity and ignorance of the highest degree.

Ok, explain why. Produce one logical argument why a play 5 is going to lose the ability to be grouped with a play 1, especially given that Sonos control the protocol in use. 

Well, they will be able to if they stay on tbe same software. And we don't know for sure what the final outcome will be on legacy vs modern. But let's assume it won't be possible.

Sonos is an integrated system that has always relied on common software. Geouped speakers need to be able to perform identical tasks. Either speaker has to be able to act as 'group co-ordinator', running the show for the group.

Now, I find it entirely plausible that the more the system has to do, the more likely it is that a player with a paltry 32MB of memory cannot keep up. That seems far more likely than the cynical view on here that Sonos are making all this up and are just profiteering. You are free to believe otherwise.

 

Wow. Where to start. 
No belief or faith is required if you have an understanding of technology; different devices of different capability working together is the entire essence of computer networking. They don’t need to be running the same software, they just need to speak the same protocol. As one example, the protocol that moves email around the Internet, SMTP, was ratified in 1982. It’s been extended many times to add many capabilities to it but (and this is no exaggeration) you could take an SMTP mail client written in 1982 and it could send an email over today’s internet.
You want a less extreme example - Skype. You can send a real time audio/video stream between two a massive beefy Windows PC and a (comparatively tiny) android phone running completely different software and it works fine.

There’s even precedent for this within the current Sonos portfolio - you can group an airplay capable device with a non airplay device and they work together fine.

So let’s be very clear this is absolutely possible on a technical level. When Sonos implies it isn’t they. are. lying. What they mean is, for business/commercial reasons, they don’t want to facilitate that happening. They’re screwing us for profit. 

M
Userlevel 4
Badge

So despite all the rage yesterday from probably thousands of people (and rightly so) is your response basically - 

  • sonos are still going ahead with this.
  •  Sonos are clarifying that we don’t care about customers opinions. 
  • we will eventually cause your old products to probably not work. 
  • We want you to buy new ones please to replace them.
  • then we’ll do it again in the future. 

Have I missed anything people? 

Bravo Sonos - great response. Let me Clarify that I’ll never buy your equipment again. 

C
Userlevel 5
Badge +3

Let's be under no illusion this 32mb limit is simply guff.

These "legacy" devices, when in a mixed environment with non legacy devices, need to be nothing more than thin TCP clients streaming an audio feed.

There is absolutely nothing preventing software being written that allows the newer clients to serve legacy devices in a mixed environment, software updates or otherwise.

 

The ONLY thing preventing this is the ability or desire for sonos to do this.

 

Effectively they would operate in a very similar way to thin client PCs.  Those haven't got the power to run desktop apps, so they just serve as a dumb terminal to a server elsewhere on the network.

This is absolutely NOT about the hardware limitations, and everything to do with sonos's ability and effort to serve the loyal customer base. Let's not forget the expensive connect:amps were being sold as little as few years ago.

N
Userlevel 5
Badge +9

Thank you that someone at Sonos had the good sense to correct this.  That was an incredibly stupid communications/strategy blunder which I am sure was driven by the need to keep quarterly numbers up for wall street.  

Read it again - he hasn't  corrected anything - he has just reiterated what has already been said. 

busy trying to edit the queue
H
Userlevel 6
Badge +3

Sonos SELL premium products. If they are designed to be replaced after 5 to 10 years, then they’re not premium. Might as well as spend a lot less to get the same functionality and replace every 5 to 10 years. If I was buying 1 product, fine, but most buy 5, 10, 20 or more units. You can’t expect customers to suddenly replace half of their large investments in just a few months and at a paltry 30% discount. The products have gone up in price and the dollar has become very strong. Two factors they probably didn’t consider or more worringly, they can’t adapt to lower their prices or offer larger discounts.

They obviously expected a backlash, but I think even this has surprised them. The damage is done. Only a solution that allows the current system to coexist with the newer products while allowing grouping as it was designed, will repair some of the damage. We don’t need the latest technology to run on legacy equipment. We want it to work as is. If it doesn’t in the future, they should either offer a very large discount OR offer a Sonos box that allows the legacy to work in a mixed system. However, when the next batch like Play 1 & 3’s go into legacy, they must have a solution for that. So plan ahead and tell us how you’re going to deal with this soon. For a technology company with very intelligent and technical people to NOT have a proposed solution in the works before making an announcement on legacy equipment, IS beyond a joke. 

The Board must either think we’re naive or were totally unprepared. Based on the statement from the CEO, it seems both. They need to clarify with DETAIL within a few weeks, otherwise, the longer it goes on, the harder it will hit their bottom line and as a public company, that will get a reaction both in the share price and from their investors.

Sonos units AREN’T computers with speakers added! They are foremost speakers with technology to stream music and radio. We don’t use them to browse the internet, buy clothes, send email. We just need the basics AS designed.

Sonos are at a crossroads and if they make the wrong turn, they’ll suffer and at best they’ll be bought out. To try and make customers think this is just about technology moving forward, is the kind of thing politicians do. We know it’s not the complete truth and there are underlying reasons why this is being done. But, imho, you’ve messed up big time. You’ve alienated your core customer base who also act as ambassadors for your brand and help sell new units. Now that has stopped!!

Read, listen, think and then do the RIGHT thing. You have a great chance to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Sonos has placed so much doubt in me as a customer, I’m not sure if I trust them anymore. Can the company survive on this new approach? So maybe buying more Sonos in the future will be a bad investment? As for most of us, this has opened our eyes and we’re looking at what the market is offering and in 2020, there are a lot more options than when I jumped in to Sonos and at a price that is very attractive.

One more chance Sonos, just one more and you have to hit the nail on the head. It’s amazing how one week can totally change one’s perspective on a company that was viewed so positively and had a brand loyalty that others would die for. 

You know what to do. So as Nike says. JUST DO IT!

 

 

Agree on all points, and very well worded.

One thing that keeps going through my head, is how many 10’s or 100’s of thousands of Sonos customers never needed to look elsewhere, it was a given that all future spend would be on Sonos as and when required. Like when I bought two Moves to add to my system last year, no way would I have looked elsewhere, but that’s all changed in the last week.

As you say, they’ve now got one chance to fix this situation.

If this week continues with just the existing CEO announcement from last week, then that simply isn’t enough to change things.
 

D
Userlevel 2

Agree with others was really bad to close that thread!!  Will this one be closed too when it hits 50+ pages?

I will reiterate:

Long time Sonos user, eight zones, many legacy.

Very disappointed.

Sonos needs to revisit this decision and find a way to enable older devices to keep working in the network with updated newer devices.  Clearly the older devices won’t have the latest features, but they should be able to interoperate with similar functionality to today.

Sonos is an expensive product.  As an example, we just bought two Sonos Ones for children’s bedrooms.  The alternative was two echo dots.  Clearly inferior product, but would have been ¼ of the price and would have kept the kids just as happy.  The draw of staying with the Sonos ecosystem was the interoperability with all the existing zones, including the now legacy products.

Was planning to scale up number of zones.  Seriously reconsidering now.

Sonos - please try to come up with another solution here.

S
Userlevel 3
Badge

I’ve read through most of the 4,000 posts from the closed thread in addition to this one; you have to wonder if anyone but Ryan from Sonos has.  Consequently, it’s unlikely I’m going to add anything new with this post, but here goes.

What really burns is that many who defend or sympathize with Sonos’ position, analogize their products as computer hardware with audio components rather than as speakers with technological components allowing them to stream audio sources and sync with one another.  This difference isn’t (wasn't) obvious to me and probably most Sonos owners until the May Doomsday email.  As many have replied, the “legacy” Sonos devices are not cellphones, laptops, streaming boxes for tv, routers, etc. that need replacement or upgrades as a result of needed or wanted increased speed, resolution, or bandwidth.  And as has been stated before, Sonos buyers typically have numerous devices to play audio throughout their homes; how many cellphones, laptops, etc. does one typically own?

The Play 5 was priced higher than the 3 and the 1 because of the improved audio components and sound quality, not because the tech among the 3 devices was vastly different.  Why would the average consumer think that their devices would stop doing what they’ve always done? It’s unreasonable for most owners to have thought that streaming audio would become so advanced that they’d have to upgrade “speakers” that still work and sound great.  Especially when the company never issued the disclaimer on their products, advertisements, or terms of service that updates or support will end in 5 years from their introduction.  I guess they hid that from me and I was fooled, mislead, naive, tech challenged, or just plain dumb.  I do know that I’m disappointed and disillusioned barring a change of heart and course from Sonos.

W
Userlevel 4
Badge +1

WE DO NOT WANT SPLIT SYSTEMS.  REPEAT:  WE DO NOT WANT SPLIT SYSTEMS.  Thanks for at least responding, but WE DO NOT WANT SPLIT SYSTEMS.  It’s very simple.

S
Userlevel 5
Badge +5

@user_end_of_lifed 

me too.  It has cost me way too much time over the past week.  I am going to leave this thread now and wait until May, when I suspect all hell will break loose again.

And in the meantime, will I be buying or recommending any Sonos products?  Absolutely not!

G
Userlevel 6
Badge +4

Having read the latest “clarification” and apology, I am even more convinced that I will never buy another Sonos product ever!

All we have is confirmation that the bricking is going ahead combined with platitudes that amount to “sorry if that wasn’t clear enough in the previous communications”.

Only a fool would buy Sonos kit now or upgrade their Sonos system - how long before your next “investment” becomes a brick?

I don’t buy the argument that hardware is the issue here, streaming sound is inherently easy, straightforward and low on hardware\software requirements.

The issue seems to be poor software design\architecture, combined with a total lack of desire on the part of Sonos to just make their system work. It’s just software and not very complicated software at that.

To break the system by preventing in-sync broadcast sound across old and newer speakers on the same network, is to break the whole raison d'être for Sonos - without this Sonos is not Sonos.

To break newer speakers by not providing updates because you use older speakers on your network is frankly ludicrous, illogical and unforgivable.

To break older speakers by not providing updates to maintain API’s for streaming is disgusting - these are not cheap disposable items. We expect speakers to last, and the environmental impact of making perfectly good speakers defunct should not be overlooked.

To deliberately brick speakers in return for a discount against new speakers is shameful and the environmental damage caused by this deliberate throwing away and destruction of working speakers should be an object lesson in how not to do things for other companies.

On so many levels Sonos is letting itself, its customers and the environment down.

It is clear this was planned\thought about for sometime from the reports to investors, and its clear there is no change of heart and that the plan will continue.

 

H
Userlevel 6
Badge +3

You seriously locked the feedback thread on the disgraceful announcement after 56 pages?

 

what complete nonsense!

 

i sent an email letter to your CEO yesterday.  Any idea when I will get a response?

 

Reminder, I have 26 SONOS devices and feel betrayed.


richard 


 

 

It wouldn’t surprise me if the 56 page thread disappeared altogether.

That’s how I now feel about Sonos, all trust has gone.

 

J
Userlevel 6
Badge +1

Have Sonos closed the other thread to stop the negative feedback? They clearly do not know who to deal with customers. I am yet to come across a customer who thinks this is a good idea.

Sonos has some of the loyalist consumers you will find I imagine as we buy products to extend our current system without giving much of a thought to other manufacturers. For me that will change and almost ten years of loyalty to Sonos has ended and I will look to replace my “legacy” Play:5 device with something non sonos and leave the rest of my “Modern” Sonos system intact.

Hey, Johnny, 

Who's gonna buy your play5 for 100quid when you can get a brick to do the same job for less than one pound? 

I've got two of the effin paperweights. 

Shame on sonos. Shame on Patrick Spence, CEO of sonos. 

baardog
Userlevel 3
Badge +3

My product has not reached the end of it’s useful life.
Do you even care about the environment? This stinks...

D
Userlevel 3

INVESTORS, SELL YOUR SONOS STOCK.  This company has just had its “RATNER” MOMENT.  If you have 1 minute 36 seconds to spare, you can see Gerald Ratner give his speech that resulted in the destruction of his company. 

 

G
Userlevel 6
Badge +4

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

P
Userlevel 2

This brand is on its way out. I’ve been in since 2007, and the USP has always been that it just works. No stress, no fuss, it just works as you want it to. Very rare in tech goods, and it was a breath of fresh air.

Except now we know, it only works for a limited amount of time. Then it stops. So it’s just like all other disposable tech after all.

What’s worse though, is that Sonos used to be focused on keeping customers happy. Now it focuses on keeping shareholders happy. This decision isn’t about not being able to update the ‘legacy’ units, it was a cold, hard decision made in the boardroom. Let them buy more, they said. They assume we will, no matter what they do.

But no, I will not buy more, because for starters, I don’t know how long those shiny new units will last before becoming ‘legacy’. 5 years? Not long enough. My main (non-sonos) speakers are 13 years old. My amp is 13 years old. And I am not expecting either of them to stop working any time soon. That’s why I was happy to pay the price I did.

But mainly I will not buy more because you’ve acted like I don’t matter. You’ve lost my trust. And, unlike in 2007, I have other options.

 

 

 

D
Userlevel 2

What on earth are you playing at? It’s 2020 and the world is creaking through overconsumption and you are trying to force your customers to upgrade perfectly good kit. Shame on you. #SavetheWorld

L
Userlevel 5
Badge +1

https://forums.whathifi.com/threads/sonos-everything-you-need-to-know.111173/

 

The link above shows the first of over 30 reviews I will be leaving on various consumer review websites. Each review I write will be unique so it doesn't throw up any flags with duplicate content with the search engines or websites themselves. If you feel like I do, I suggest you write some honest reviews outside of this website yourself.

In the same way I fully committed to Sonos when I bought 6 of their devices for over £2k, I am now fully committed to telling people how they operate. 

While it's great to vent our fury here we are talking to a closed audience, ie just other cheesed off owners, we should be telling non sonos owning people who may be thinking of “investing” in Sonos what will happen.

Never have I been so distrusting of any company or shocked by the immoral, anti-environmental, dirty, money grabbing tactics as I am now with Sonos (even Ryanair comes second place to Sonos)

 

If the link is removed, here is the text from my review….

“I have been a hifi enthusiast for over 30 years. I finally sacrificed sound quality for convenience and bought 6 pieces of Sonos equipment for plugging into existing legacy Amps and bringing sound to new rooms.

The experience has been painful with intermittent reliability but the main issue is that after spending over £2k ALL of that investment is now obsolete since Sonos have just announced they are withdrawing support for my devices, they offer 30% of the value against new products (yeah right, as if I am going to do that)

Sonos are the only equipment manufacturer I can think of that you buy a product from, then the company decides to effectively destroy it remotely (other than Apple of course). they are effectively hiring the device to you with payment upfront for 5 years. Its a recurring revenue model that is hidden from the consumer.

My Dual, Thorens, Nakamichi, B&W, REL, Denon equipment still works very well, some of it after 35 years and if it needs a new drive belt etc I can buy one for a few pounds or have the equipment repaired, (although I've never had too)

I urge anyone considering buying Sonos to look at alternatives unless they they are prepared for their investment to disappear via a remote update at a random stage in the future. The nagging fear in the back of your mind that would prevent me from enjoying anything whilst I owned it. The fact that a company I once believed in do this deliberately to their early adopters, brand ambassadors leaves me seething.

I will never buy sonos again, I recommend nobody else starts...”

 

In the very, very, very small chance that someone from Sonos actually reads this I urge you to keep my system working, I don't want new features, I don't want my sonos to boil the kettle, I don't want to talk to my stereo, for it to tell me a joke or the temperature in Jakarta or the next bus to Kings Cross or the significance of the number 42…...I just want it to play spotify and occasionally some radio stations. Comon, how hard is that?

 

 

S
Userlevel 3

And - the new e-mail is just comic:

1. We heard you.

2. We are sorry.

3. We are still doing exactly what we said in the first e-mail.

4. We will however release security patches.

5. We are sorry.

6. Can you forgive us?

 

Answer: No. Too late.

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