Retired Sonos Staff

End of Software Support - Clarifications

December 8, 2022 at 11:29 AM
4256 replies
269756 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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Parafly

Trending Lyricist I

Trading up would be fine for me, but 30% is a joke, at 75% I would consider trading up. You lost a loyal customer that promoted your products to family and friends for over 10 years. This is a really bad move and I doubt your “damage control” is going to work.

Exactly, especially after prices were just hiked. All planned out, sadly.

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NeedSleep

Renowned Enthusiast I

I'm so confused. The first lines says this:

"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. "

then they say this:

" You can continue to use your whole system in legacy mode - in this case, it will stop receiving updates and new features. "

So, will they continue to support the existing experience on legacy speakers, or not? I’m OK with Sonos not providing new features on legacy equipment. But I’d like to keep using what I am using today for streaming services. The first sentence seems to indicate you will be committed to keeping the existing experience going (yay) but then the second sentence says you won’t do any more updates.

Which is it?

I asked this in the second post of this thread and did not receive a clear response.

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Mike Fenton

Contributor I

Are there any lawyers out there as it seems highly dubious to me for a vendor to take money off a customer for a product for that vendor to then by its actions render that product useless.. with no compensation

30% off! Really! What a F...g insult.. like i will ever buy another Sonos product after them treating their customers with such utter contempt…

What they should, do but of course wont, is fully compensate cost of scrapped products or replace with equivalent or upgrade existing… they wont do that as too expensive so they would rather screw us over and see their reputation collapse...

J

Joe_81

Lyricist I

I too have over $1000 in Sonos products, and have always been a promoter of the products! I find it terrible that the only way they choose to reward loyalty is by offering a discount and then bricking my perfectly working speakers that I paid hard earned money to buy. Why not give a discount and allow legacy equipment to still function! I was considering upgrading but not at the cost of bricking my old equipment! Time to research the competition!!

U

user_end_of_lifed

Enthusiast II

We could copy that onto pretty much any major electronics’ company message board, and it would apply to them. Apple no longer supports the iPhone 4.

And how many of your iPhone 5-11’s stopped receiving updates when the iPhone 4 got end of life’d?

A

avboothroyd

Trending Lyricist I

Not good closing a thread and opening a new one, just update the orignal!

Please can you explain why you misled people by saying only 10 weeks ago on Twitter that “We have no plans to suddenly make these devices obsolete. We're simply offering our users an eco-friendly way to upgrade their older players.”

Holy moly! I was already angry at the blatant money grab by a once reputable company. But this exposes them as downright liars as well 😱😱😱

I’m done!

U

User443206

Contributor I

So I have THREE Play 5 units but only two are eligible for trade in. Why? My Sonos Connect is not eligible but my Connect Amp is! What kind of support is that?!!!

@User443206, they all should be, you might need to contact our team directly to look into what might be causing the trouble with your account. I do know that recently registered devices might not show as trade up eligible for an hour or so after registration if you just plugged those in.

Ryan…..I have not just added anything but am, currently, checking when I last purchased a Sonos product as I think it may have been 2013/14 so I am not too happy at all. Quite frankly, 30% is an insult to your loyal customers considering the cost of these items in the first place and I, for one, not only do not have spare money to throw away on the next set of Sonos products that will, no doubt, also reach redundancy when I can buy perfectly good items that will be less ‘tech’ but deliver what I need. I will also be reading the ‘small print’ with a magnifying glass because, effectively, Sonos are making perfectly workable items unfit for purpose - I hope Sonos have enough money set aside for redundancy packages of staff because when sales take a nose dive, as they will I am sure, Sonos will have to think long and hard about the numbers they employ in my opinion. A very sad and frustrating time for everyone.

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peterbr

Avid Contributor I

Well you’ve lost an other royal customer. Reason, letting your exsisting customer base down. Why is it not possible to freeze the code base on legacy products and just provide bug fixes, including the UI app on IOS and android. Not having an app that works with older code releases is a definite killer. I’ve managed to fend off all upgrade requests after the CR100 debacle, but it is a real pain being forced to set auto app updates off on my phone just for the pleasure of Sonos not willing to maintain different versions for their app. I am a very pissed of customer who never ever will invest a penny on any sonos product anymore!!

A

attacama40

Headliner I

Everyone needs to go to trust pilot.com, and every review site they can think of, and let Sonos know how they feel!

tempting

D

duncanesmith

Lyricist II

Sonos NASDAQ: SONO share price is already dropping !!

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