Retired Sonos Staff

End of Software Support - Clarifications

December 8, 2022 at 11:29 AM
4256 replies
269754 views

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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O

OEMV

Lyricist I

Any lawyers out there who can supply a opinion on the legality of this move by Sonos? Surely the law must have something to say about companies who sell expensive equipment and then suddenly announce five years down the line that it’s all redundant…….?

J

jparish

Contributor I

All I can say is BUMMED!

2 - Play 5 Gen 2

2 - Symfonisk

2 - Sonos One

3 - Play 5 Gen 1

1 - Playbar

1 - Connect

1 - Sub

1 - Play 3

2 - Play 1

P

PeterHTH

Lyricist I

Dear Ryan and Sonos

Having posted to page 54 of the previous thread, I shall not repeat my disgust at your actions.

I shall merely reiterate the point that, like many other loyal and enthusiastic customers, I can no longer trust you to deliver a high quality product that will last long enough to justify the high prices your charge.

Shame on you.

Peter

A

AndyD2413

Lyricist I

What is astonishing is Sonos and its engineers must have known this day was coming for years. And the best solution they could come up with is to nobble a user's entire system if they have a legacy speaker in it?

It is not good enough and shows that profit over customer experience rules at this company. This is and should be a PR disaster. Now every user will be wondering when their system will no longer receive upgrades, when streaming services may suddenly stop working or at least new features not be available to them. This has introduced a untenable level of uncertainty into a system that many users have paid a lot of money to set up.

I for one will begin looking at alternatives going forward. I simply won't reward a company for being this bloody minded.

E

ewolkoff

Enthusiast II

I’ve been Sonos customer for years and like many on here I have spent over $5,000 pulling my system together piece by piece. The slap in the face by Sonos shows that they are more concerned with forcing existing customers to purchase new temporary products knowing that they will be obsolete in 5 years or less.

I will be reaching out to Best Buy to see what their return policy is and what promotions they will be offering for Sonos competitor products. I’ve had my Bose products for over 20 years in my media room and they offer lifetime product support and replacement.

Depending on what I hear I will have the following equipment for sale at 50% of what I paid for them.

Beam	1
Bridge	1
Connect AMP	1
Move	1
Play 1	6
Play 3	1
Play 5	4
Playbar	1
Sub	2

Happy to take the sub and the move off your hands at 50%! Best Buy’s return policy is 15 days or 45 if you are elite plus.

Are people really going to toss whole systems and outlay all that cash for a new, even more expensive one, made by a company that could disappear or discontinue their line (e.g. Bose) at any time? Of all of the companies that make these systems, Sonos seems to be the most stable to invest your money into for products, despite this announcement.

Sorry but when you spend a lot of your hard earned money on a system, just to have a large part of that investment junked with little notice is shocking. I for one will slowly move to another solution as I have lost all trust in Sonos. I won’t just throw it all out but will plan and move as and when I can or when I need to. I won’t be held hostage to a company that treats its customers in this manner. Would also add that 30% discount is an insult, 50% would be a joke.

As I said, if you want to take a giant loss on all of that equipment just because you have the 1 Connect Amp and a Bridge, I’m prepared to be a buyer. I don’t mean that to be argumentative -- anyone you sell to will be investing in something you no longer believe in (i.e. they will believe in it). But I also am not sure which company everyone is going to switch to that doesn’t do this already -- or is guaranteed not to do the very same thing. The only real solution is to not invest in any of these products and wire your whole house with speaker wire.

U

upstatemike

Long term, I am thinking of keeping my Sonos speakers on Legacy, and using the Sonos controller just to group and ungroup speakers and control their volume.

For music streaming, I’ll set up Emby or Plex on a cheap Linux system (maybe a Raspberry Pi) and send the output to my Connect’s line in. Then all I need to do is group my Connect with the other rooms where I want music to play. We almost never stream two different services at the same time--in fact, I don’t think we ever have--so no problems there with a single source system.

It adds an extra UI step: go to Emby/Plex for the music selection, and Sonos Controller for volume and grouping, but the Sonos UI on mobile devices is so bad now that it feels like a lateral move, anyway.

This is my thoughts at this point as well. I could build my own control with my current Homeseer Integration.

As long as they don’t break the UPNP, there will be plenty of ways to integrate/automate with 3rd party smart hubs, to control grouping and even playing. Smartthings, Control4, Homeseer, etc all have working integrations.

I just hope and pray that we can add Legacy units to our Legacy system, or even better, purchase new equipment and run in Legacy Mode.

Interesting times ahead.

This is an important question to get clarified. Is legacy mode sustainable with the ability to add devices or is it frozen such that no further changes are allowed and you can’t add anything new?

Local music library with carefully constructed playlists - no shuffling!, Integration with Homeseer Automation, No touch screen devices, No streaming services, No Apple products ever

A

attacama40

Headliner I

This new thread didn’t clarify the most important points I had read in the previous thread. Answer these please...

Will future controller apps and pc based software continue to work with legacy systems? (with existing functionality)
Can Legacy and Modern speakers be grouped together?
Will legacy systems allow other legacy speakers to be added after May?
Will you allow hardware with various versions of Sonos OS to work side by side on a single Sonos network?
I mainly use a NAS with my Sonos and rarely use streaming services. Will I still be able to do this after May?

Sonos do not delete the other thread.

Mirrors my concerns although do also use streaming

@matthew.bacon and @attacama40 my previous post in this thread answers some of those questions, but you might have missed.

I believe this is the answer you’re looking for: You will be able get the app that works with a legacy system to use on new mobile devices, or if you accidentally delete it.
You would either have a legacy system with legacy devices and modern devices, or a modern system and a legacy system. If it’s all one legacy system, than yes, they’ll group together, but if it’s two separate systems, than they’re two, separate systems.
You will be able to add products to your legacy systems. We'll have more to share on the experience come May.
No, Sonos players are a system and won’t operate properly with different versions in one system.
Yes, if you mostly use the NAS drive, the only likely change with your system will be that you’ll stop getting updates. Everything else will continue to function exactly as it does today. Streaming services will work the same as well, but at some time in the future, service software changes might cause it to degrade or stop working.

Despite increasing anger with the organisation (from an originally disappointed base), I appreciate your attempts here Ryan to introduce at least some clarity here. It helps for sure.

I’m not the smartest tech person so need have a proper read and understand. But thanks for at least addressing some of the Q’s raised. Good or bad as they may be it is as least a step in direction.

E

Egbert

Contributor I

How to blow a reputation that's taken years to build in a single day. A masterclass in how to lose customers.

You're going to have to back track faster and deeper this to have any chance of me buying any of your products ever again.

M

mkarszen

Lyricist II

I am off to return the Moves I received for Christmas. Best Buy doesn’t need the original box, just speaker and wires. I am never going to spend another dime on SONOS. I feel awful recommending them to all of my friends too! 30% off?…..CRIMINAL!

T

themetman

Contributor I

Further to some comments on the precious discussion (now closed) regarding a Raspberry Pi Multi Room Solution I found this https://support.hifiberry.com/hc/en-us/articles/205699981-How-to-build-a-multiroom-audio-system-based-on-Raspberry-Pi-and-Hifiberry

Anyone could set this up very easily should the Sonos System die when the Sonos Upgrade cocks up.

Don’t hold your breath……

Also thank you @AdrianB100 for the links above.

EDIT - Whilst I was writing the post from @AdrianB100 with the CEO’s Email address has mysteriously disappeared. I was just going to use it!

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