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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John V

Enthusiast I

I bought my (now legacy) Connect Amp in August 2019 on sale with a 6 year warranty from Richer Sounds in the UK. It was new, but an “ex-display” model, it even looked new. It was not advertised as ex-display (only as on sale), they told me this when I went to collect it. It didn’t cross my mind to ask how long it had been on display, obviously a very long time! I thought it was because Sonos had launched the new amp and they were discounting current stock of the previous amp. I didn’t need the new amp’s features so seemed a good deal.

I would certainly be contacting Richer Sounds and asking for a refund anyway, they sold you a product that will not function as advertised inside the warranty period. They should atleast give you a “new” version of the amp and then they get the old one and can claim 30% off….(Probably not worth it for them though, as the price they pay for a new one is probably less than 70% of a unit at sonos retail price.)

I am seeing more and more of this complaint that SONOS customers are purchasing already new-legacy devices… This brings up a very key Question… Why do all these retailers have such high inventory of old products? Are the increasing revenues over the past 3 years truly real? Or inflated to keep Stockholders happy? I know Pharma company used to force retailers like CVS, RiteAid, etc to take on stock so they could meet revenue targets… until they got caught and paid undisclosed fines… I hope this is not the case with SONOS… If so this is just the tip of the iceberg

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shonasdaddy

Enthusiast I

Possible solution / workaround for some.

Wireless Bluetooth Receiver with 3.5mm audio jack into line in on back of Play 5 Gen 1. Group speakers using Sonos app. Bluetooth any music stream from any phone.

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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?

While we want answers sometimes it is impossible for them to give a definitive answer as the answer is not known at this point in time.

For instance, they will provide updates provide the hardware will allow but as they are not aware of when or what change from an external company (streaming) will take place, they will not know what needs doing to resolve it. Therefore they will not know whether there is sufficient memory/storage left to make the changes required to keep it running. Hence, update it for as long as possible,

The question was meant to be rhetorical...of course I wasn’t looking for a definitive answer for it. The point was that it wasn’t going to be any more comforting for anyone to know that their equipment might continue to operate for a long period when there is a very real possibility it’s functionality also might be lost in a few months.

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izziny

Lyricist III

This analogy sucks. In many ways. I know that.

Offcourse the analogy sucks, because you try to make “Things that break, due to wear” the same as “Things that work but is still being disabled”.

Imagine you put your car in for it’s 8 year service and when you get it back the rep. tells you that there were a security update they had to install for your car, because of some software fault that could affect the cars driveability.

Oh and that since all the car’s ECU’s must have the same firmware version, they have had to disable the climate control, because that could not be updated to the new firmware and thus had to be disabled for the rest of the car to work.

I bet you would be LIVID and DEMAND that they undid this.

Honestly, that extension to the analogy sucks just as much. :)
Yes, I’d be livid. But if my car was out of warranty it wouldn’t be in taken to the authorized service center in the first place, in keeping this hybrid analogy at least somewhat congruous, nor would a firmware change to ECUs affect the climate control if it were in warranty.
(This is fun and all. But I’m legitimately sorry I opened another analogy can o’ worms.)

I think the analogy is a very good one. When an analogy is made, there is always some leeway as to the points you make. If you change the action as postulated, your not referring to the same point being made. In this case, the assumption is that the car is taken to the authorized service center, not anywhere else. And you must assume for this car, the climate control is affected by the ECU firmware. With that as a given, point made.

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chris blackburn

Contributor I

This is an awful decision from Sonos and will only force more loyal Sonos users to switch to alternate brands. I have Sonos play:1 and play:3 speakers and since Sonos dropped support for older Android tablets (I used a Samsung tablet to play music for the first couple of years), and now they don’t support playing music directly stored on IPads the system has become an expensive radio!
Even the radio functionality is poor with the system dropping out and it has never worked well over my WiFi extenders - another long standing problem that was never sorted out.

This was a great product but has slowly lost its appeal as the streaming device to own.

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DK_Madsen

Enthusiast II

I am seeing more and more of this complaint that SONOS customers are purchasing already new-legacy devices… This brings up a very key Question… Why do all these retailers have such high inventory of old products? Are the increasing revenues over the past 3 years truly real? Or inflated to keep Stockholders happy? I know Pharma company used to force retailers like CVS, RiteAid, etc to take on stock so they could meet revenue targets… until they got caught and paid undisclosed fines… I hope this is not the case with SONOS… If so this is just the tip of the iceberg

Yeah it would be somewhat of a bombshell if some reseller could show that a device they sold, that was legacy, was delivered from sonos a lot of time after they claimed to only sell new stock.

This is what they get for updating the products without changing name to clearly indicate what is “new” and what is “old”.

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J

John B

I am seeing more and more of this complaint that SONOS customers are purchasing already new-legacy devices… This brings up a very key Question… Why do all these retailers have such high inventory of old products? Are the increasing revenues over the past 3 years truly real? Or inflated to keep Stockholders happy? I know Pharma company used to force retailers like CVS, RiteAid, etc to take on stock so they could meet revenue targets… until they got caught and paid undisclosed fines… I hope this is not the case with SONOS… If so this is just the tip of the iceberg

Yeah it would be somewhat of a bombshell if some reseller could show that a device they sold, that was legacy, was delivered from sonos a lot of time after they claimed to only sell new stock.

This is what they get for updating the products without changing name to clearly indicate what is “new” and what is “old”.

I think it's all a plot to destabilise the US economy. Probably the Russians. Or the Chinese. Or both acting together.

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Madel19

Lyricist II

There appears to be a school of thought that we should have seen this coming. Why? I’m not aware of Sonos themselves highlighting the fact that their product would cease to be a “Whole Home Sound System” at some point. I don't think it unreasonable that as a purchaser of a SYSTEM I could expect that the system components should continue to work together. Although I’m more than a little disappointed at what is going to happen - and lets face it, its going to - the main learning point for me is that I was probably too trusting of this supplier. That’s likely to be the biggest issue for Sonos as a company - some (possibly many) of their long established customers no longer TRUST the company. I’ve had Sonos products in my home for years (and many of them are about to be designated legacy). I’ve been a strong advocate for the system - but not any longer. I think its unlikely I’ll ever buy another Sonos component again or recommend anyone does so. The only good thing to come out of this, I’m now looking at all my potential ‘smart home’ purchases in a new light!

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me”

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melvimbe

There appears to be a school of thought that we should have seen this coming. Why?

I don’t think people should have seen this coming, but I think people with some knowledge of software could have easily seen this, or some version of this, coming.

I’m not aware of Sonos themselves highlighting the fact that their product would cease to be a “Whole Home Sound System” at some point. I don't think it unreasonable that as a purchaser of a SYSTEM I could expect that the system components should continue to work together. Although I’m more than a little disappointed at what is going to happen - and lets face it, its going to - the main learning point for me is that I was probably too trusting of this supplier.

I think that lesson should be that anything with software/firmware in it is going to have a shorter life than something that doesn’t. You’re correct that when that software/firmware is tightly integrated in a system, it could easily shorten the life of your whole system. In some cases, like Bose, the whole product line could be shutdown.

That’s likely to be the biggest issue for Sonos as a company - some (possibly many) of their long established customers no longer TRUST the company. I’ve had Sonos products in my home for years (and many of them are about to be designated legacy). I’ve been a strong advocate for the system - but not any longer. I think its unlikely I’ll ever buy another Sonos component again or recommend anyone does so. The only good thing to come out of this, I’m now looking at all my potential ‘smart home’ purchases in a new light!

And I think that’s a perfectly valid and logical approach. Just my opinion, but i don’t think it’s wise to look at this as just a Sonos issue, but an overall smart speaker, smart home, IoT issue. And obviously, less of a concern for the less expensive and less complex devices and systems.

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me”

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Danny

I

Intense70026

Lyricist I

If I wanted to sell my Legacy components, which I probably could have done with a 40-50% off retail price and I am sure I could have done that easily. Well Thanks Sonos you just took that option away from me. Doubt anyone would buy Legacy products now.

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