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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I

izziny

Lyricist III

To quote melvimbe

“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.”

Why can’t the system be designed with a central software/firmware device that is replaced when necessary, that transmits a bluetooth signal to permanent components located where desired? When my phone requires updating, I don’t throw away my car, I change my phone.

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haef

Trending Lyricist I

Gotta confess I LOL’ed as they say when I received the Sonos announce. I am so touched!

Frankly I do not care if you don’t provide updates to my legacy gear. Indeed I am thrilled by this that you will quit bricking my gear and interrupting my dinner parties with cloying “Let’s Do This!” impossible to escape updates. Which by the way 95% of the tie those updates not only provide any benefit to me, and again, I tremble in fear of what is going to be harmed by them. Leave my 12-zone system alone thank you!

Cross-compatibility between old and new gear? I care not because I stopped buying Sonos gear long ago, and advise my tech advice seeking followers to do the same.

Sonos has never, for years now, acted upon requests for features from myself and lots of other community members. Sonos seems to have this egotistical. narrow and rigid idea of their customer profile, and that has been a total PITA. e.g. Not everyone in my household has a smart phone, and the ones we do have, we do not carry around from room to room at all times. Oh, and they must be fairly new ones, so the idea of using older iPhones & iPads as controllers was a tolerable workaround… well it was until Sonos wrecked THAT.

And the really sad part? I’ve noticed in the past few years the family use of the system has been slowly diminishing due to the reasons described, plus a few more that Sonos has chosen to ignore.

Too bad. So much potential here.

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Whitenoise

Enthusiast I

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”

Yeah, this school of thought pops up here and in media outlets. It's wrong and it conflates Sonos' ecosystem with a smart speaker IoT ecosystem.

But the core and original Sonos consumer did not buy smart speakers in the IoT world. They bought multi-room audio components, which were virtually future proof. They were advertised as such -- as long- term purchases and future proof. They were sold firstly in audio stores, not tech stores. And, no, there was no reason to think that music streaming tech fell in the category of fast-evolving IoT tech with likely obsolescence.

The problem is simple: Sonos was an audio component company, but it is now trying to be a smart speaker IoT company. And more recent Sonos consumers, and many in the tech media, view Sonos as a smart speaker company, so they conflate this outcry with any outcry that will occur when a smart IoT device later demands more computing resources.

Folks here are mourning the surprise death of a beloved company that decided to abandon its business as an audio company.

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rwrgeo

Renowned Enthusiast II

Just seen this about email addresses inadvertently been exposed on a Sonos email response on this issue. Not cool and more bad press unfortunately.

Anyone get an email and want to share the contents?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51315460

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hyperlite34

Lyricist III

My opinion (maybe I’m wrong), but it appears I’m beginning to see a shift of some opinions of Sonos since their “Your system requires attention” email we all received on 1/21/20.

While a number of us loyalists have decided we’ll no longer purchase nor recommend Sonos because they changed their business model and decided to put profits ahead of their customers and landfills, I see that others are giving up and are willing to drink the Sonos Kool-Aid by upgrading their components. This is what the Sonos Executives were hoping for and their plan is working as expected.

Quite interesting.

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User185629

Lyricist II

I would be fine if the dual-sonos platforms would co-exist. All I ask is it everything work together in sync. For that, I have to go into legacy mode. Great.

We, the sonos eco-system, have been dictated to. The rug has been pulled out. I personally have 15 devices of which only 5 or non-legacy. This has been a substantial investment for me over the years and Tossing out my old legacy devices is not an option. I am bent over and put into a bind just as the sonos brass has calculated. Has anyone noticed a rush of sonos posts on ebay and offerup all the sudden? Well I have. Thats the giant sucking sound of the sonos eco-system jumping ship.

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rwrgeo

Renowned Enthusiast II

I would be fine if the dual-sonos platforms would co-exist. All I ask is it everything work together in sync. For that, I have to go into legacy mode. Great.

We, the sonos eco-system, have been dictated to. The rug has been pulled out. I personally have 15 devices of which only 5 or non-legacy. This has been a substantial investment for me over the years and Tossing out my old legacy devices is not an option. I am bent over and put into a bind just as the sonos brass has calculated. Has anyone noticed a rush of sonos posts on ebay and offerup all the sudden? Well I have. Thats the giant sucking sound of the sonos eco-system jumping ship.

I was kindof ok with the concept of legacy or modern networks (since various clarifications that there will still be some essential support for legacy) and possibly even a split network as my newer devices are on a different floor. I am unsure what happens when my Play3’s go legacy. Do I end up with 2 different legacy networks or have to downgrade them to 2020 software? I suspect the answers may not exist yet. Either way I’m neither upgrading or ditching devices yet, May’s still a long time away, but my Move purchase is on hold for now.

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B

bigron

Lyricist I

Dear Customer,

We want to apologize. As many of you noticed, the recent email we sent with the subject line “Your question to Sonos”, exposed your email address to the other recipients. That was not our intention, and we apologize for this.

We understand you may have concerns about your information being shared. We did not disclose any personal data beyond your email address. Separately, we have taken steps to put in controls so that such a mistake does not happen again.

Again, we apologize for this, and if you have any questions or concerns please contact our customer care team.

Please find relevant contact details here: https://www.sonos.com/support#contact

Best,

Sonos Europe

unfortunately the personalised response was addressed to Sarah rather than Steve this leaves me slightly doubtful about the effectiveness of the Company’s data protection and control.

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K

Kumar

unfortunately the personalised response was addressed to Sarah rather than Steve this leaves me slightly doubtful about the effectiveness of the Company’s data protection and control.

LOL. Made my day!

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D

DK_Madsen

Enthusiast II

I would be fine if the dual-sonos platforms would co-exist. All I ask is it everything work together in sync. For that, I have to go into legacy mode. Great.

We, the sonos eco-system, have been dictated to. The rug has been pulled out. I personally have 15 devices of which only 5 or non-legacy. This has been a substantial investment for me over the years and Tossing out my old legacy devices is not an option. I am bent over and put into a bind just as the sonos brass has calculated. Has anyone noticed a rush of sonos posts on ebay and offerup all the sudden? Well I have. Thats the giant sucking sound of the sonos eco-system jumping ship.

I have yes

Looking at the local second hand market pages in my country, there has been a surge in the number of sonos for sale adverts.

Especially the Play 5, it is incredible how many are up for sale at “stupid high” prices for what is essentially an obsolete product.

There is even someone wanting to buy tradeup-bricked sonos play 5’s, he offers to pick them up at people’s home in his area and pay 20USD for them.

My guess is that he has found a way to reactivate them and want to sell them for profit as functioning legacy devices or maybe just reactivate them enough to be able to stick a echo dot on the back, hook it up to the jack port and sell it as an echo device.

Was actually thinking of doing something similar, but maybe only one or 2, so that i have spares for my “not deactivated“ play 5, if it fails me at some time in the future.

Or even as a device that i could take apart and inspect. Maybe read out the flash and see what’s inside.

Would be very interesting to do a complete readout of the flash of a working device and then do a tradeup and then, when it is bricked, read out the flash again and do a compare. Might give some insight into what they are actually doing to brick the devices, besides blacklisting the serial….Maybe it would even be possible to alter the serial to something that is not bricked.

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