Retired Sonos Staff

End of Software Support - Clarifications

December 8, 2022 at 11:29 AM
4256 replies
269770 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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E

ewolkoff

Enthusiast II

Sorry but when you spend a lot of your hard earned money on a system, just to have a large part of that investment junked with little notice is shocking. I for one will slowly move to another solution as I have lost all trust in Sonos. I won’t just throw it all out but will plan and move as and when I can or when I need to. I won’t be held hostage to a company that treats its customers in this manner. Would also add that 30% discount is an insult, 50% would be a joke.

As I said, if you want to take a giant loss on all of that equipment just because you have the 1 Connect Amp and a Bridge, I’m prepared to be a buyer. I don’t mean that to be argumentative -- anyone you sell to will be investing in something you no longer believe in (i.e. they will believe in it). But I also am not sure which company everyone is going to switch to that doesn’t do this already -- or is guaranteed not to do the very same thing. The only real solution is to not invest in any of these products and wire your whole house with speaker wire.

The lesson for me in all of this is keeping a system more traditional and more modular. There are scores of incredible sounding “dumb” speakers available, just waiting to be fed by a very inexpensive streaming device (for pennies comparatively). The options are many, from DIY to turnkey. In many instances they’ll not be as robust or simplistic in operation perhaps as Sonos, but that changes more each and every year as the market grows and competition increases. Anything given up in the Sonos experience can surely be gained in peace of mind, whether or not as elegant. If a streaming device goes down and must be replaced, at the very least it will be a fraction the cost of the dilemma that the Sonos ecosystem now stands to position the user in every few years. There are quite a few lessons here.

Yes. I think that’s a reasonable position/choice for sure. If you wire everything, you will not have to worry about these issues. Or you could use cheap Alexa pucks on all your speakers and have powered speakers or an amp.

chickentender

Those of us who work in Tech are flabbergasted at this approach. Those of us integrating legacy mainframe and AS400 systems into modern Oracle and Teradata environments are looking at this and thinking they need to hire better people.

So I take it your familiar with Oracle licensing fees, support fees, and that Oracle does require customers to upgrade their servers, UNIX/lenox version, database, middleware, and application versions in order to stay supported? You’re familiar with the bad reputation Oracle support has (although it is getting better)?

This is simply continuing a poor analogy with additionally poor examples.

You’re adding apples and oranges to the pile you’ve already called apples and oranges.

What point is it exactly that you’re trying reach or illustrate?

I

IBarch

Lyricist I

I have a number of existing products that will now be “legacy”. If I choose option 1 and keep them, my software for my entire network will be frozen at the current version. If I were to buy any new products, they would also have to run on this old version.

Therefore please explain why I would ever buy Sonos again if all my existing products and any new products are treated as legacy right now and could potentially lose access to services and features they may ship with?

Do you only care about new customers or those who are prepared to re-buy the equipment they already own? You certainly don’t care about the rest of us.

B

Bobby3333

Lyricist III

Great to see SONOS getting a ton of well deserved negative press on this major debacle. I would just like to get my money back. Perhaps chief product officer Nick Millington who coincidentally just sold 1/3 of his stock before this announcement would like to pay me for my now obsolete gear.

https://boycottsonos.com

CEO: patrick.spence@sonos.com

Chief Product Officer: nick.millington@sonos.com

COO: david.perri@sonos.com

nice website!

M

mike Fendel

Lyricist I

I am appalled at total lack of support Sonos is showing to their loyal customers. I have 8 connect amps in my home and it would cost me over $4,000 with your discount to replace them. I cannot afford to do that. You are saying that eventually as streaming services change their systems my perfectly good system will become unusable.

This is total BS. I will have to look for a competitors systems to replace mine wihen that time comes as I will no longer financially support a company that will not support the equipment that I spent thousands with buying their systems.

Very disappointed.

Michael

C

cosmo35166

Enthusiast I

This may be the best stock to short sell on the market today. Just keep an eye open and quickly turn the position if they reverse this decision. I think they have about 24 hours to do it before the company’s reputation is damaged for a long long time. If not reversed, keep the short position open.

Sold my entire position today. Yeah, they say don’t trade based on emotions, but…………..

melvimbe

So Sonos will still release firmware to fix bugs. Will a streaming service that is currently supported changing API be considered a bug and receive a fix on legacy hardware?

This is the crux of the issue for me. If say Spotify changes something that means Sonos needs to change, then will it get fixed? I don’t see “upgrading” at 30% reduced price as an incentive, far from it.

@MrSwadge, I replied to this a few pages back, but I know some replies get missed. These legacy devices are stretched to the limits of their hardware already. Where possible, we will work to maintain the existing experience and conduct bug fixes on the legacy devices where the computing hardware will allow.

Ryan - this is the most concerning thing (for me at least) - you say: Streaming services will work the same as well, but at some time in the future, service software changes might cause it to degrade or stop working. - So you are confirming that you won’t be updating legacy devices to cope with service software changes. It seems unlikely that these changes would impose unrealistic demands on legacy devices, so why won’t you be updating the software?

@PeteD, as above, where possible, we’ll try to update legacy devices, but we might not be able to. The hardware might not be able to support whatever solution is needed.

“These legacy devices are stretched to the limits of their hardware already.”

But Sonos is already streaming Deezer and Amazon etc now… I’m not interested in any future new features gizmos, I’m interested in Sonos continuing to provide a service that I have been receiving over the years. Amending a line of code to ensure it aligns with external databases is hardly going to stress it any further. Just branch code the app based on Legacy / modern hardware to provide a basic no frills streaming / network service or full package all bells and whistles. There is no need to add extra code to the device.

This is just sounding like complete cut and paste BS and is only serving to make me even more angry and determined to kick Sonos into touch.

What did you think was Ryan meant when he said “Where possible, we will work to maintain the existing experience and conduct bug fixes on the legacy devices where the computing hardware will allow. “ It sounds like you’re getting what you’re asking for.

Danny

M

musicorum

Contributor I

"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."

I am facing a huge bill to upgrade my perfectly good "legacy" speakers that represent a considerable investment, but are soon to be useless. I'm now wondering how long before the rest of my system is deemed obsolete by Sonos.

There should be a commitment by Sonos to ensure that old Play units continue to function as they do today. This just isn’t good enough. There's no point in investing in this system anymore when the vendor can just turn off the switch when they choose.

And what about the huge environmental cost of sending these old units to landfill. Come on Sonos - what the f**k are you doing?

I was a loyal Sonos customer but not now. I’m very angry, disappointed and you can shove your upgrade offer.

A

allan1234598

Lyricist I

Really disappointed with Sonos over this announcement. Like many others I have been a fan of the system for many years and am frustrated that the many modern products in the house will be compromised by the only legacy (5) item in the house. I have been an advocate for your system and will certainly be reluctant to recommend it any more. My concern now is that you have found an easy way to force users to upgrade against their wish unless we abandon the system altogether. Fortunately there are many competitors now around to move over to. Really disgusted with such a callous and uncompromising announcement. A fan no more!!

X

Xoem

Lyricist II

Edit: did not read the annoucement properly

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