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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G

Goodbye Sonos

Enthusiast II

But it IS a hostage situation because sonos would clearly be able to make the legacy products work and still have newer firmware versions on the newer products.

Sonos has stated otherwise. No one has access to the level of technology to prove this one way or the other. The fact that you or anyone else isn’t aware of a technical reason is not proof that there isn’t one. You can chose to believe them or not.

Look Danny whether you like it or not, or agree with it or not….

If we have a legacy system with old and new units in it, then our new units are being held hostage at an old version of the system.

You can debate the reasons for this all you like - you object to the words that I use all you like…

BUT whatever defence you may suggest for Sonos’ decisions it doesn’t change the above fact.

I don’t think I was fully clear on my previous statement that you quoted above. I was referring to “sonos would clearly be able to make the legacy products work and still have newer firmware versions on the newer products”, not ‘hostage”. I agree that modern units will not be able to receive updates while in the same system as legacy units. Sonos has stated there are technical reasons for this and no one is required to believe them. It is possible that Sonos is lying about this. It is also possible that Sonos is telling the truth.

Understood Danny, but it doesn’t change the fact that If we have a legacy system with old and new units in it, then our new units are being held hostage at an old version of the system and that plus the loss of the ability to group old and new units together in “party mode” if we split the system to allow new units to update means the whole raison d'être, the “core “if you like of the reason many choose Sonos has been ripped out of the systems we bought.

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melvimbe

Seems to be a big spike in astroturfing/apologists today.

Yeah, if one was just a bit conspiratory one could think that sonos might have hired some people or made some of their own people go to the forum and try to persuade people that the lemon they have fed people, is actually not as sour as it really is.

Not totally unheard of, as a means of damage control.

Sonos staff are marked as such, and no, I’m not secretly paid by Sonos to say nice things about them. However, just like everything else, you (the royal you) are free to believe I’m just lying to you.

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Danny

G

Goodbye Sonos

Enthusiast II

Is anyone aware of a commercial audio system that consists of a local/on premise streaming device that reads streams/audio from diverse sources, such as spotify, local file servers, CD players, and outputs streams to ‘dumb’ wirelessly connected speakers that can be grouped etcetera?

Just to be clear, what you are asking for sounds like sonos, but the distinction between Sonos and this solution you are looking for is “dumb” speakers?

Pretty much but I was thinking more of one central streaming server to minimise the replacement burden if it goes obsolete or fails. Also is there such a thing as ‘dumb’ wireless speakers, if so is there a standard communications protocol between these and a sender/server?

I don’t know of a commercial solution. I’ve started testing an open source solution called Picoreplayer which does what you ask, but it isn’t an out of the box solution by any means.

That looks interesting but probably a fair amount of work assembling it! I’d be interested to know how you get on with it.

I think https://www.hifiberry.com/ plus https://www.openmediavault.org/ looks pretty powerful

I was previously considering buying a couple of the IKEA speakers to add into my system before this situation blew up; previously I never had a reason to look elsewhere, but now I am and my eyes are opened up to the possibilities

This is pretty much what I am testing. I’ve got the server/player set up on a RPi, but long term would move the server to a docker on my OMV server.

have you found anything good to use to control playback from Android? (I mean an app that can control the pi’s and effect playback from omv)

Yes, there’s a Material skin which I am using and looks great mobile and desktop, link goes to screenshots. But there are also a pretty big number of well review apps in Google Play (assume iOS too) but I haven’t got that far yet.

That looks pretty cool - thanks

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D

DK_Madsen

Enthusiast II

Standard operating procedure these days. I have no evidence that this is actually going on, just an observation.

Yes it seems pretty fishy that there suddenly seems to be an insurge of these people.

Maybe sonos decided that a few support workers should do a bit of “damage control” on here. (Not that i think they are doing a good job of it though 🙂 )

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G

Goodbye Sonos

Enthusiast II

Standard operating procedure these days. I have no evidence that this is actually going on, just an observation.

Yes it seems pretty fishy that there suddenly seems to be an insurge of these people.

Maybe sonos decided that a few support workers should do a bit of “damage control” on here. (Not that i think they are doing a good job of it though )

I really hope this isn’t the case, but who knows?????

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I

izziny

Lyricist III

Look guys….you buy an expensive system, you expect that, if you prefer, you can keep that original configuration as long as you like in working condition. I could have kept my old hi fi components and they would have been still working today. I chose to upgrade because I wanted to, not because my old system life was being cut short by the manufacturer’s built in design obsolescence. As far as their offer for support for as “long as possible” that don’t cut it. It’s kinda like a cable tv offer that isn’t guaranteed beyond a limited time. They want to suck you in with a low ball price and then when your knee deep in their crap they hit you over the head with the real cost.

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melvimbe

Sonos has stated otherwise. No one has access to the level of technology to prove this one way or the other. The fact that you or anyone else isn’t aware of a technical reason is not proof that there isn’t one. You can chose to believe them or not.

Could you please speculate on what the technical reason that my play 5 that can do multi room with my other speakers today is going to be unable to do this after may and needs to be put in a seperate network.

The ONLY reason is that sonos has chosen not to do it.

PS. We can not make the speakers run on different firmware versions is NOT a valid reason, this is a “Won’t” problem, not a “can’t” problem

My speculation would be pointless as it is not proof of anything.. Even if I could come up with something that you find has merit, that doesn’t mean that’s the actual reason. I stand by my point. The fact that you or anyone else isn’t aware of technical reason is not proof that there isn’t one. You can chose to believe Sonos or not.

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Danny

melvimbe

Standard operating procedure these days. I have no evidence that this is actually going on, just an observation.

Yes it seems pretty fishy that there suddenly seems to be an insurge of these people.

Maybe sonos decided that a few support workers should do a bit of “damage control” on here. (Not that i think they are doing a good job of it though )

The reason why you didn’t see regulars participating in the conversation early on (at least I wasn’t) as it did not look at all like a reasonable conversation could be had. The vast majority were just expressing their frustration and not willing to consider any differing view then their own. As well, the posts were coming in so fast that it was difficult to see any responses to a post you made.

I’m not saying there is a problem with venting your frustration and all that comes with it. Honestly, I am thinking it’s still a bit early, not so much because reasonable conversation can’t be had, but the volume is still a bit high to follow the conversation constructively.

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Danny

I

izziny

Lyricist III

Here’s the offending paragraph in my opinion. You keep saying in your response,

“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.

Exactly how long do you suppose that might be?

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melvimbe

Understood Danny, but it doesn’t change the fact that If we have a legacy system with old and new units in it, then our new units are being held hostage at an old version of the system and that plus the loss of the ability to group old and new units together in “party mode” if we split the system to allow new units to update means the whole raison d'être, the “core “if you like of the reason many choose Sonos has been ripped out of the systems we bought.

Ignoring any connotations that ‘hostage’ has in regards to the reason this is happening, yes, I absolutely agree with the above. I only have one active legacy product, and I can pretty easily work around the problem. I fully understand that customers that have several legacy products have a much bigger problem to deal with, and that it can’t be handled cheaply if you want to continue getting regular updates and don’t want to deal with a split system..

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Danny

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