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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M

MIBUK

Enthusiast II

Hello everyone,

I’ve been watching this issue and reading this thread with total fascination! It is quite astonishing for me to see some of the reactions posted here, towards an absolutely non-critical issue. It’s only a music system we’re talking about here and it isn’t going to go up in flames after May.

The way I always viewed Sonos as a company and the system is that it is a mid range, good quality system with very good service by their staff (even for old products). I’ve used the service on very few occasions when something wasn’t working and they were excellent.

I have devices dating back to approximately 2006 and I also have some new devices, including a MOVE.

I’m betting on the following:

My legacy items won’t have any new updates with features added after May this year. They will continue to work at least another 5 to 7 years (unless the electronics fail). This will be a very decent “shelf life” in the case of WiFi connected devices.
My newer devices will continue to get updates and work at least another 7 to 10 years. This will be a very decent “shelf life” in the case of WiFi connected devices.
Sonos will figure out a way to use one controller app to control both systems, but separately. The way I am thinking about it is that the app will have 2 sections: System A (legacy) with rooms A, B, C etc. and System B (new devices) with rooms D, E, F etc. You can then toggle in between system A and B before selecting your room / music on the App.

Why do I think this way? Because Sonos has shown over the last many years that they can maintain products with very old, outdated technology for a very long time.

Yes, it’s “only a music system” - but a relatively expensive one. Personally I don’t consider 7 to 10 years to be a decent shelf life for a premium price product.

Regarding point 3 - I have an device arrangement where a Connect:Amp is always used with some Play 1s. So, a “sectionalised” system will not do what I am used to (paid for).

I’m feeling quite pragmatic about this - I don’t expect Sonos to deliver a solution that will enable me to continue using my system as I want to. I’ll move on, but it won’t be with Sonos as I feel let down them. In some ways that’s a shame as until two weeks ago my experience as a customer had been great.

HighEndMusic I’m afraid your assumption that your legacy products will continue to function for 5 to 7 years is a little flawed. Ryan S has already confirmed in a much earlier post that they will do what they can but as soon as any of the streaming services update their software there is every chance it will not run on the legacy units. So it could be one week, one month or even a year but at some point nothing streamed will stop working at which point you are left with a product that will only play your local music library, and as Ryan S pointed out, that is only until the OS of your library system gets an update and then that too may cease to function. The speed with which updates to software happen now really does not lend itself to your 5 to 7 years, more like 5 to 7 months!

Hence why they need to offer a Sonos box that can take new updates and then stream to the legacy units. I’m not going to buy new Sonos gear if they don’t implement a solution that in my mind is possible. If they don’t offer this, I will look at a migration program over the next few years and I won’t be the only one.

Build the box or another alternative, I will buy it and then despite the recent announcement, I will probably stay with Sonos. Sonos meant longevity. It meant great support and I was happy to pay premium for that. Please listen and understand. If for business reasons, you choose another path. Fine, thanks for the last decade of a great system, but I won’t pay premium anymore.

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Act in haste, repent at leisure.

R

Rob NYC1

Enthusiast II

Hello everyone,

I’ve been watching this issue and reading this thread with total fascination! It is quite astonishing for me to see some of the reactions posted here, towards an absolutely non-critical issue. It’s only a music system we’re talking about here and it isn’t going to go up in flames after May.

The way I always viewed Sonos as a company and the system is that it is a mid range, good quality system with very good service by their staff (even for old products). I’ve used the service on very few occasions when something wasn’t working and they were excellent.

I have devices dating back to approximately 2006 and I also have some new devices, including a MOVE.

I’m betting on the following:

My legacy items won’t have any new updates with features added after May this year. They will continue to work at least another 5 to 7 years (unless the electronics fail). This will be a very decent “shelf life” in the case of WiFi connected devices.
My newer devices will continue to get updates and work at least another 7 to 10 years. This will be a very decent “shelf life” in the case of WiFi connected devices.
Sonos will figure out a way to use one controller app to control both systems, but separately. The way I am thinking about it is that the app will have 2 sections: System A (legacy) with rooms A, B, C etc. and System B (new devices) with rooms D, E, F etc. You can then toggle in between system A and B before selecting your room / music on the App.

Why do I think this way? Because Sonos has shown over the last many years that they can maintain products with very old, outdated technology for a very long time.

Yes, it’s “only a music system” - but a relatively expensive one. Personally I don’t consider 7 to 10 years to be a decent shelf life for a premium price product.

Regarding point 3 - I have an device arrangement where a Connect:Amp is always used with some Play 1s. So, a “sectionalised” system will not do what I am used to (paid for).

I’m feeling quite pragmatic about this - I don’t expect Sonos to deliver a solution that will enable me to continue using my system as I want to. I’ll move on, but it won’t be with Sonos as I feel let down them. In some ways that’s a shame as until two weeks ago my experience as a customer had been great.

HighEndMusic I’m afraid your assumption that your legacy products will continue to function for 5 to 7 years is a little flawed. Ryan S has already confirmed in a much earlier post that they will do what they can but as soon as any of the streaming services update their software there is every chance it will not run on the legacy units. So it could be one week, one month or even a year but at some point nothing streamed will stop working at which point you are left with a product that will only play your local music library, and as Ryan S pointed out, that is only until the OS of your library system gets an update and then that too may cease to function. The speed with which updates to software happen now really does not lend itself to your 5 to 7 years, more like 5 to 7 months!

@highendmusic - most readers of this thread are able to recognize a post by Sonos public relations, so nice try. Moreover, I suspect every post insinuating (or flat out stating) that consumers are wrong in their frustration/anger/feeling-of-betrayal/etc with Sonos does nothing but cement those feelings further. This thread extends to 127 pages so all points that could be made on this topic probably have been; so there isn't much left to say after calling you out. Hopefully, Sonos management will admit to itself that it made a tragic mistake and change course. From my discussions with other Sonos costumers (including some woman I was randomly sitting next to on a plane) its clear to me that Sonos’ consumer base will not forgive and forget any time soon.

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Smilja

But losing essential functionality such as "synchronous multi-room sound" is not acceptable for me, especially if there's no reason for it - other than limited investment in software development.

Couldn’t agree more

Maybe it's just greed, but then it obviously backfired...

I don’t think that I’d class it as ‘greed’, although it’s certainly financially motivated. Revamping the way that Sonos works would be a big undertaking, although IMHO this should have been undertake a number of years ago - in which case we wouldn’t be having this discussion at all.

You would need a ‘master device’ in every room where you have a ‘slave device’, because a slave would not be able to fetch a stream autonomously ; and a ‘master device’ would not be capable of fetching and coordinating multiple streams to multiple speakers at the same time.

More to the point, customers would be required to undergo a training in order to use Sonos for they would need to grasp the conceptual design behind the ‘master device’ and the 'slave device’ beforehand. Anyone care to assist Sonos on this - unpaid?

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»And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space, Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.« (›Windmills Of Your Mind‹ [1967]. Music by Michel Legrand ; English lyrics written by Alan & Marilyn Bergman)

G

Goodbye Sonos

Enthusiast II

But losing essential functionality such as "synchronous multi-room sound" is not acceptable for me, especially if there's no reason for it - other than limited investment in software development.

Couldn’t agree more

Maybe it's just greed, but then it obviously backfired...

I don’t think that I’d class it as ‘greed’, although it’s certainly financially motivated. Revamping the way that Sonos works would be a big undertaking, although IMHO this should have been undertake a number of years ago - in which case we wouldn’t be having this discussion at all.

You would need a ‘master device’ in every room where you have a ‘slave device’, because a slave would not be able to fetch a stream autonomously ; and a ‘master device’ would not be capable of fetching and coordinating multiple streams to multiple speakers at the same time.

More to the point, customers would be required to undergo a training in order to use Sonos for they would need to grasp the conceptual design behind the ‘master device’ and the 'slave device’ beforehand. Anyone care to assistant Sonos on this - unpaid?

Smilja you wouldn’t need to train anyone…

You simply code the ‘slave device’ to forward any requests it gets to a master for processing - the master can then stream the response back to the ‘slave’ for audio output.

Also you wouldn’t need a ‘master’ in every room. The concept of grouping speakers together for synchronised output in a group does not need to affect the physical topology of the networked system - remember within a wifi or ethernet network every connected device can ‘see’ every other device at all times.

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K

Kumar

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.

Are there any reports of the bolded working? It is possible that whether it will depends on what was set for their line in setting at the time they were bricked by Sonos after being marked for recycling.

My testing of unbricked units suggests that it may even be possible to get these to do perfect sync multi room, by wiring a cheap Dot to each and multi rooming the Dots via the Alexa app.

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D

DK_Madsen

Enthusiast II

Are there any reports of the bolded working? It is possible that whether it will depends on what was set for their line in setting at the time they were bricked by Sonos after being marked for recycling.

My testing of unbricked units suggests that it may even be possible to get these to do perfect sync multi room, by wiring a cheap Dot to each and multi rooming the Dots via the Alexa app.

I have not seen anyone claim to be able to reactivate them.

But i would think that the bricking is “just” a killswitch feature in the software...maybe even just one bit that is flipped to indicate that it is deactivated.

From what i have heard, this feature is already baked into the firmware, and actively used for theft deterrent. If my speaker that is registered to me gets stolen, it goes on the blacklist and the first time the thief or the person that bought my sonos off of the thief connects it, it will be “killed”

Depending on how thorough they have been, it would probably not be THAT hard to detect what they actually do, by reading out the flash, trading it in, waiting until it is being bricked, and then read out the flash and doing a file compare.

If you can reactivate it again, you would only need to enable the line in, and then you could use the device as a speaker.

Alternatively, this person might have found a way to hardwire the line in function inside, to directly connect the line in to the amplifier and thus bypass the sonos part of the speaker.

Or maybe even rip out the electronics and retrofit a raspberry pi with some cheap amplifier inside to make a SonosPi<tm>

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K

Kumar

@DK_Madsen anything that reduces landfill load get a ringing endorsement from me. And Sonos would find it extremely hard in today's environment to stop any one doing this via a Sonos legal recourse. Even if their PR head was stupid enough to let such a recourse happen.

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Smilja

You simply code the ‘slave device’ to forward any requests it gets to a master for processing - the master can then stream the response back to the ‘slave’ for audio output.

Also you wouldn’t need a ‘master’ in every room. The concept of grouping speakers together for synchronised output in a group does not need to affect the physical topology of the networked system - remember within a wifi or ethernet network every connected device can ‘see’ every other device at all times.

Don’t confuse standalone devices with a multi-room system, the way they work is fundamentally different; the former is not required to establish a networking environment where all participants call for being equally privileged in order to deliver what they are designed for.

Do you have a basically understanding of how Sonos works - can you distinguish between standalone, grouping and bonding in Sonos terms?

A slave is a subordinate by definition, and you can’t heave a slave to peer level, not even through ‘clever’ software engineering, when the participants are running on different firmware versions.

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»And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space, Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.« (›Windmills Of Your Mind‹ [1967]. Music by Michel Legrand ; English lyrics written by Alan & Marilyn Bergman)

E

Emanuele74

Lyricist I

Hi,

I'm from Italy and I've been following the whole thread, since I have 6 Connect Amp and one Connect which are all legacy except one Connect amp (build on 06/2017)

I think that Sonos could have an easy technical solution for legacy device to continue to work and not handle the cost of development support for it.

Sonos can bring us a SONOS SERVER (or legacy bridge if you prefer), a little linux based device with cheap Arm or Intel processor, with at least 4 GB of ram and 4 GB of storage.

This device could have the power to stream at least 16 stream of lossless compressed audio (which would be just around 10 Mbit of traffic) or uncompressed audio (around 20 mbit of traffic).

Such a server would cost less than $ 50 dollar to manufacture and Sonos could sell us for 200$, so it would cover all the development cost and still make profit.

Then convert all our old legacy Sonos Amp and speaker to DUMB network connected speaker that just reproduce a stream of music that come in, or send a stream of music from Line in to the SONOS SERVER.

The SONOS SERVER would have enough ram and processor power to handle all the update with new functionality and new service, and interoperate with newer devices.

For example it could handle Airplay, Chromecast and Bluetooth, so existing users will be willing to update and spend a little money for it, not only for keeping their legacy device running but also for gaining new functionality.

The only drawback for it, is that Sonos customer will keep their legacy device forever and not going to upgrade those to new Sonos model 😉

I think that something like that would be a smart solution, which can bring back the Sonos reputation, and keep it ahead of every other company, since this kind of support has never happened in the industry.

Ryan, do you think could be feasible, technically speaking ?

Has Sonos evaluated a solution like that ?

Thanks, and please help us to trust Sonos again !

Emanuele

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User694694

Enthusiast II

For me, the only thing that upsets me is the lack of a commitment to keeping streaming music services functioning. Many people here (and especially elsewhere) seem to be fooled by the CEO’s intentional misleading statements. The original letter said that updates would stop after May and that devices would slowly lose functionality as streaming music services make small changes to their code that would require Sonos to make small changes to theirs in the form of updates. People, including me were upset. The CEO then made a “clarification” which was not a clarification at all, it was an omission. He stated the exact same thing, but left out the part about the consequences. He says that updates will continue to May and come May your devices will work as they did before. He just leaves out that AFTER May, they will slowly stop working. It's like telling prisoners that we are going to continue to deliver water to you up until may. Don’t worry though, come may, you will still be OK! What about June and beyond? He chose his words very carefully to insinuate that they’ll continue to support streaming services, but he definitely does not say so. Unless “bug fixes” encompass this, but I doubt that is the case. The CEO is acutely aware of the concern about streaming music services, so if he wanted to say that they will continue to support them, he would have and not just hinted at it.

When I purchased my equipment, I had no expectation of added functionality, so I don’t think I am entitled to new features added to my equipment. I don’t care if newer devices can do things that my Legacy ones can’t, but I had the expectation that the basic features that I purchased my devices for would continue to work until equipment failure. This includes playing my own music from my own sources and playing streaming music services like Spotify, Pandora, Tidal, Amazon, etc. Dropping this support entirely would show horrible lack of integrity.

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