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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K

kimgsriver64

Trending Lyricist I

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.

I agree with @kumar. You are probably malone with poor old Ryan!

My question to you - were there are further clarifications from Sonos buried in all those posts? I'm working on the basis that I will hold onto my Connect and three Play 1s for the time being. I won't be doing any trade ups or buying any more Sonos speakers at least until I see how things play out in May and afterwards. Did you see anything that would indicate that I'm taking the wrong approach? I'm not asking you to be my adviser, just curious. Thanks.

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chickentender

This thread is ….. fascinating.

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K

Keithmac

Virtuoso

This is a watershed moment for Sonos.

They COULD invest in producing a "Media Hub" that takes over all the heavy duty processing and streams to the Legacy and current kit "Whole Home".

Maybe give this Hub a 5 year self life instead of the whole system?.

They could save face and go some way to repairing the ill will between probably hundreds of thousands of customers.

I still cannot believe how badly this has all been handled and and it's a real shame for ALL Sonos system owners.

If they hand all the Legacy owners out to dry in May then I won't be investing in any more kit personally because 5 years support is nit long enough for the price of these "Premium" speakers imho..

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J

John B

Irrespective of any further information there may have been, 'wait and see' seems an entirely sensible approach. It may be that even 2 or 3 years after May people in legacy mode will find their Sonos experience is pretty much the same as now. Of course that is not guaranteed and it isn't what everyone wants. But it sounds like whatever options are available come May, they will continue to be available into the future.

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J

John B

This is a watershed moment for Sonos.

They COULD invest in producing a "Media Hub" that takes over all the heavy duty processing and streams to the Legacy and current kit "Whole Home".

Maybe give this Hub a 5 year self life instead of the whole system?.

They could save face and go some way to repairing the ill will between probably hundreds of thousands of customers.

I still cannot believe how badly this has all been handled and and it's a real shame for ALL Sonos system owners.

If they hand all the Legacy owners out to dry in May then I won't be investing in any more kit personally because 5 years support is nit long enough for the price of these "Premium" speakers imho..

Mimimum 5 years from discontinuance date. Given its recent launch and the vastly increased memory in a One compared with the units now going into legacy, I would happily buy a One tomorrow expectimg it to be fully supported for at least 10 years, probably much more. If others feel differently that is their business. But this presentation of a norm of 5 years life is a complete misrepresentation of the reality.

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W

wazzamatazz

Lyricist II

I understand the anger at the original announcement (and I have a Bridge and a Connect that are affected by it), but I have to confess that I don’t understand the continuing anger now. Sonos have said that legacy products will continue to be supported for as long as possible, but that they won’t get new features due to the limitations of the hardware. This seems like a pretty reasonable stance to me.

They deserve criticism for misreading the lay of the land, but equally they deserve some credit for responding quickly with a reasonable compromise.

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J

John B

I understand the anger at the original announcement (and I have a Bridge and a Connect that are affected by it), but I have to confess that I don’t understand the continuing anger now. Sonos have said that legacy products will continue to be supported for as long as possible, but that they won’t get new features due to the limitations of the hardware. This seems like a pretty reasonable stance to me.

They deserve criticism for misreading the lay of the land, but equally they deserve some credit for responding quickly with a reasonable compromise.

Sonos actually said from the start that legacy devices would not get updates (and nor would other speakers if you chose legacy mode) but would continue to be usable. What do you think they said?

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W

wazzamatazz

Lyricist II

I understand the anger at the original announcement (and I have a Bridge and a Connect that are affected by it), but I have to confess that I don’t understand the continuing anger now. Sonos have said that legacy products will continue to be supported for as long as possible, but that they won’t get new features due to the limitations of the hardware. This seems like a pretty reasonable stance to me.

They deserve criticism for misreading the lay of the land, but equally they deserve some credit for responding quickly with a reasonable compromise.

Sonos actually said from the start that legacy devices would not get updates (and nor would other speakers if you chose legacy mode) but would continue to be usable. What do you think they said?

Sorry, yes, I wasn’t clear. The problem was the “if you have any legacy products, none of your products will receive updates” thing. The compromise was that Sonos will provide a way of allowing legacy and modern products to co-exist, but allow the modern products to receive new features.

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Taco5layer

Lyricist III

I understand the anger at the original announcement (and I have a Bridge and a Connect that are affected by it), but I have to confess that I don’t understand the continuing anger now. Sonos have said that legacy products will continue to be supported for as long as possible, but that they won’t get new features due to the limitations of the hardware. This seems like a pretty reasonable stance to me.

They deserve criticism for misreading the lay of the land, but equally they deserve some credit for responding quickly with a reasonable compromise.

You need to brush up on your reading comprehension if you think there's been any sort of "compromise". My apologies, but all of the responses I've seen here, and received via multiple emails, have said the exact same thing. Sonos clearly does not value those of us who have been here since the beginning. They seem to be standing their ground on this betrayal of trust, as such, I will stand by my promise to never buy their products again and will go above and beyond to help my friends and family avoid making the same mistake I did. It was fun while it lasted, but I prefer to support companies with at least a little bit of integrity.

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chickentender

Irrespective of any further information there may have been, 'wait and see' seems an entirely sensible approach. It may be that even 2 or 3 years after May people in legacy mode will find their Sonos experience is pretty much the same as now. Of course that is not guaranteed and it isn't what everyone wants. But it sounds like whatever options are available come May, they will continue to be available into the future.

Exactly. It isn’t what everyone wants, but it is what quite a number do. Frankly, since buying into Sonos initially I can think of very little by way of added features that were something I was looking forward or genuinely excited about. There have been subtle updates and integrations that were pleasing (support for Sonos control within the Pandora Premium app has been my only “followed” development of the past few years), but all of these came with periods of Controller issues and some unwelcome changes and plenty of hiccups and problems along the way. Even my Sonos One, which I purchased at launch, on a whim partially because it was able to provide integration for both Google Assistant as well as Alexa (reportedly at launch - as most know, the Google side didn’t come for well over full year later which was quite frustrating), but most because it was newer and priced the same as a PLay:1 which is what I was in the market for at that time. (Looking at the memory/storage configurations of Play:1 and ONE now, I’m glad I made that choice, but not for the reasons I thought at the time) The voice integration seemed like an interesting novelty to play with. That’s pretty much it. I really just wanted another “Sonos” speaker.
At the end of the day(s), my Sonos system did (has done) what I bought it to do and the core of what I bought it to do was play music in selected zones from a central app experience. That’s it. And that’s all I want it to do now when it comes down to it. Legacy is a-ok with me if that’s the path needed. Even if I purchase only 2nd hand legacy devices for whenever I may want to expand it further, that’s fine as well. As long as it does what I bought it to do. Sounds like it will.

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