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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goodboyr

Trending Lyricist I

If you posted the specs at the best buy display beside each what customer in their right mind would pay more for a tech solution with one tenth the ram of their lesser product.

Sonos stood out for not listing specs for their speakers; rightly so because the usual ones from the world of HiFi kit are irrelevant to Sonos speaker selection.

Are you saying that Sonos should now list the memory size as a spec item? And even if they did, the typical customer would be able to figure out how to make sense of this spec?

This is exactly the point. Up until now there was no reason to quote specs, and as you said we appreciated why Sonos didn't. But Sonos has now created a differentiation in their products that has the potential to change the user experience after you buy. That's a prime reason (and in fact perhaps required by consumer protection laws) to be transparent. After all, the whole reason we are at 100's of pages in this thread is the lack of transparency.

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Obsoleted

Lyricist III

. Again, two weeks ago i wouldnt have worried about this and would have just happily recommended my friend buy the playbar. I can no longer do that.

The new Port has half the Ram of the One. Probably doesn't matter but how do we actually know a few years down the road?

Imo the cat's out of the bag with regards to specs and it ain't going back in.

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MikeOinToronto

Lyricist III

If you posted the specs at the best buy display beside each what customer in their right mind would pay more for a tech solution with one tenth the ram of their lesser product.

Sonos stood out for not listing specs for their speakers; rightly so because the usual ones from the world of HiFi kit are irrelevant to Sonos speaker selection.

Are you saying that Sonos should now list the memory size as a spec item? And even if they did, the typical customer would be able to figure out how to make sense of this spec?

This is exactly the point. Up until now there was no reason to quote specs, and as you said we appreciated why Sonos didn't. But Sonos has now created a differentiation in their products that has the potential to change the user experience after you buy. That's a prime reason (and in fact perhaps required by consumer protection laws) to be transparent. After all, the whole reason we are at 100's of pages in this thread is the lack of transparency.

Exactly. I believe there are many vendors still selling Play Ones. They are maybe 50 dollars cheaper than the sonos one. All the marketing suggested the main difference was voice integration, leading many who weren't interested in voice to purchase play ones instead of ones. Would they have made the same choice if they knew that the play one only had 128 mb of ram and the one has 1 gb? Would Costco buy massive inventories of under specd computers from a vendor. I highly doubt it. They likely felt they could do this because the specs were irrelevant in the past. Now they have to be the major consideration and new customers wouldn't think to dif for them.

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Kumar

All the marketing suggested the main difference was voice integration, leading many who weren't interested in voice to purchase play ones instead of ones. Would they have made the same choice if they knew that the play one only had 128 mb of ram and the one has 1 gb?

By selling similar looking and sounding speakers with such vast internal differences and future lives, I agree Sonos has created a mess.

But I can't see that quoting memory is the way forward. Imagine the consequence - a situation a couple of years from now if there are two speakers to choose from and the one that sounds better and/or has more features has half the memory of the other one. What then to the buying decision? Buy the poorer sounding one?!

One could say the same thing about intelligent web enabled fridges or air conditioners? That road goes to no sane place.

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goodboyr

Trending Lyricist I

I think that's a bit of a straw man scenario. I would guess that every new device now will have more of everything (including memory) just like in the rest of home automation. Once Sonos gets past this "speed bump" it will be full steam ahead for a yearly " more and better" product cycle like we get with everything else. Fact is they are competing with Google and Amazon who do this exact thing.

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Kumar

I don't know what you mean by exact same thing; and I also don't know when my Echo Dot of 2017 will be obsoleted and won’t work. But at USD 30 a pop, that is much less of a concern. Ditto for the Chromecast.

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audiophile99

Lyricist III

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.

Are you saying I’m from Sonos PR??? That’s is too funny, I have nothing absolutely nothing to do with Sonos, other than owning a few of their units.

I think I’m just someone who likes to look at the glass half full rather than half empty!

I never said that people are wrong with their frustrations, I just said that I am very surprised with the level of aggravation some people here are writing about this issue, especially the ones who write as if their equipment was going to stop working in May. I highly doubt this. Despite the most recent announcement, I don’t think Sonos will leave those “legacy” users at a complete loss after May. I think they are doing exactly the same as all software companies have been doing, just like you “can’t” use a PC running XP any more because it isn’t updated. You can still use it, just don’t expect Microsoft to support you in case of issues.

On the most fundamental level this is an issue of product misrepresentation. Sonos is a speaker brand, not a computer brand. SONOS does not publish processor and RAM specs on its product packaging. SONOS speakers were marketed as components of an integrated audio system which was "future proof" and expandable over time (just like wired speakers). This is why many people who invested in a house full of SONOS speakers were blindsided by its new 'disposable speaker' corporate philosophy.

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goodboyr

Trending Lyricist I

I don't know what you mean by exact same thing; and I also don't know when my Echo Dot of 2017 will be obsoleted and won’t work. But at USD 30 a pop, that is much less of a concern. Ditto for the Chromecast.

Well.....my original Chromecast is too slow, and doesn't do 4k like the new ones. Labelled differently so buyer is aware. But I get your point. We are talking about quite different pricing and functionality.

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jmw_sono

Chromatic Producer I

I think that's a bit of a straw man scenario. I would guess that every new device now will have more of everything (including memory) just like in the rest of home automation. Once Sonos gets past this "speed bump" it will be full steam ahead for a yearly " more and better" product cycle like we get with everything else. Fact is they are competing with Google and Amazon who do this exact thing.

Disagree slightly with the last statement.

They “think” they are competing with Google and Amazon. 30-100$ speakers vs 200-700$ speakers is two different markets.

I think this is what has sent them chasing and not maintaining this differentiation. They have the mid range whole home market currently but will lose to Amazon and Google on the low end. They should be focusing on their current/slipping market position.

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Playbar(2) Sub(1) Play:5(2) Play:3(6) Play:1(5) Connect:AMP(3) Sonos:AMP(5) Move(1)

melvimbe

I think that's a bit of a straw man scenario. I would guess that every new device now will have more of everything (including memory) just like in the rest of home automation. Once Sonos gets past this "speed bump" it will be full steam ahead for a yearly " more and better" product cycle like we get with everything else. Fact is they are competing with Google and Amazon who do this exact thing.

I don’t think we’ll start seeing memory specs posted for smart speakers going forward. I don’t think people have a really good feel of how much is necessary for smart speakers, they way they have a sense of it for other devices. Besides, it’s not just the memory that eventually becomes inferior to more modern devices as time goes on.

As far a yearly product cycle, that’s highly unlikely IMO. Sonos does not have the capability to produce an entire new product line at that sort of pace they way Google and Amazon do. Even if they did, they could not produce a significantly different feature set every year. Honestly, Amazon and Google aren’t really improving there products that much from year to year to warrant it, but their markets are large enough, and products cheap enough, that just being new will bring in a little extra sales to make the new product work developing.

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Danny

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