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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K

Kumar

The back pedalling by that Spence bloke is I fear too little too late.

What a shame!

I have to say I agree; this was just a business decision that could just as easily have been taken more than a month ago, by someone with some smarts and vision.

It is still a good thing to have done, but a company as small as Sonos is expected to be more agile.

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attacama40

Headliner I

It at least shows some listening and commercial common sense and environmental decency.

But no, entirely accept the point that it’s not addressing the split system discussion. That certainly remains open, alive and well and with high expectation for the May solution.

To the first: agreed, and it shows more listening than from some Sonos defenders on this thread.

To the second: if the May solution addresses this it will be a very pleasant surprise. To an extent to think that keeping it secret till May will have cost Sonos significantly, because with that solution in place there are no real issues left attached to this event.

Again 100% agree that sentiment.

I’m now 3 weeks into playing and buying Roon and Tidal. And I can see a very happy co-existence with Sonos and potential new boxes whereas it would have been a pure ‘white box world’ previously.

It may still end up that way if as you say, May’s solution is compelling and robust.

Is still time turn this tanker round.

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Kumar

I’m now 3 weeks into playing and buying Roon and Tidal. And I can see a very happy co-existence with Sonos and potential new boxes whereas it would have been a pure ‘white box world’ previously.

On that too I agree; I am a week into using - for the first time in my life - a raspberry Pi that supplies music from a local NAS with album art to a voice commanded Echo Show 5, with sound via Sonos Connect Amp+speakers. Or from a play 1 pair using a Connect I got for free from my daughter who has no need for it now she has Echo Dots in her home.

Regardless of what Sonos does henceforth, I see no need to add to my dozen or so Sonos bits of kit in future, now that I have my eyes opened to what is possible outside the closed world of white boxes. And Sonos have only themselves to blame for this expanding of my horizons.

Indeed, I am also grateful to this Sonos disruption because it has allowed me to get another Pi for my seven year old granddaughter, to introduce her to the world of Scratch programme/play. And using computers, in general, that do not have touch screens but terminals.

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G

Goodbye Sonos

Enthusiast II

I’m now 3 weeks into playing and buying Roon and Tidal. And I can see a very happy co-existence with Sonos and potential new boxes whereas it would have been a pure ‘white box world’ previously.

On that too I agree; I am a week into using - for the first time in my life - a raspberry Pi that supplies music from a local NAS with album art to a voice commanded Echo Show 5, with sound via Sonos Connect Amp+speakers. Or from a play 1 pair using a Connect I got for free from my daughter who has no need for it now she has Echo Dots in her home.

Regardless of what Sonos does henceforth, I see no need to add to my dozen or so Sonos bits of kit in future, now that I have my eyes opened to what is possible outside the closed world of white boxes. And Sonos have only themselves to blame for this expanding of my horizons.

Indeed, I am also grateful to this Sonos disruption because it has allowed me to get another Pi for my seven year old granddaughter, to introduce her to the world of Scratch programme/play. And using computers, in general, that do not have touch screens but terminals.

Can I ask what software installation you went with on the pi?

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K

Kumar

Can I ask what software installation you went with on the pi?

mymedia for alexa; details are in

https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers-software-228995/the-sonos-brexit-and-pragmatic-ways-past-it-6836056/index22.html

towards the last couple of pages on the thread. With many thanks to @castalla for the handholding support.

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G

Goodbye Sonos

Enthusiast II

Can I ask what software installation you went with on the pi?

mymedia for alexa; details are in

https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers-software-228995/the-sonos-brexit-and-pragmatic-ways-past-it-6836056/index22.html

towards the last couple of pages on the thread. With many thanks to @castalla for the handholding support.

thanks

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A

attacama40

Headliner I

I’m now 3 weeks into playing and buying Roon and Tidal. And I can see a very happy co-existence with Sonos and potential new boxes whereas it would have been a pure ‘white box world’ previously.

On that too I agree; I am a week into using - for the first time in my life - a raspberry Pi that supplies music from a local NAS with album art to a voice commanded Echo Show 5, with sound via Sonos Connect Amp+speakers. Or from a play 1 pair using a Connect I got for free from my daughter who has no need for it now she has Echo Dots in her home.

Regardless of what Sonos does henceforth, I see no need to add to my dozen or so Sonos bits of kit in future, now that I have my eyes opened to what is possible outside the closed world of white boxes. And Sonos have only themselves to blame for this expanding of my horizons.

Indeed, I am also grateful to this Sonos disruption because it has allowed me to get another Pi for my seven year old granddaughter, to introduce her to the world of Scratch programme/play. And using computers, in general, that do not have touch screens but terminals.

And I think Kumar that that is what the evangelists are not getting.

It’s not that I have any disaffection with Sonos, far from it. I want to maintain my relationship with the product.

But as you say, you had your eyes opened. Me too and I suspect a lot of other folks as well. Reasonable, middle of the road folks.

This is what will be of damage. Sonos have as you perfectly say, expanded horizons.

There is a famous study showing how folks who were Mercedes or Volvo or A N Other car loyalists who after hiring a car, have changed many years worth of purchasing behaviour in an instant. Why? Because they were dissatisfied? Not necessarily. But because they experienced change. They had no intention to do so and behaved like Teutonic buying robots until blinkers were ‘inadvertently’ lifted.

There are loads of similar stories over the years.

New knowledge aside, I still hope the May announcement are compelling and robust so that even the frustrated can have the option to change their mind.

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amun

But as you say, you had your eyes opened.

Quite…. I was already part way down that road, but it has focused my mind on the undesirability of mixing smart tech and expensive electronics… So any future scenario in our home will be very cautious about mixing the two...

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K

Kumar

This is getting to be like the world of fashion where things move in a cycle - from bundled consoles/ radiograms, people moved to stereo separates then back to all in one bundled boxes like Sonos and now back to separates?

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S

sjw

Local Superstar

It's great that Sonos have seen sense and decided you no longer had to throw away perfectly functioning devices. The people tirelessly defending the incentive will now think its the right thing too now presumably.

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