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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G

Goodbye Sonos

Enthusiast II

I think you are right. What’s been missed is how many people have had their eyes opened to the possibilities out there for alternatives - some of which are very inexpensive and provide fabulous sound quality and usability

And what better time to tinker around when most people are going to both have all the time in the world sitting at home in some form of isolation, and a need to stay mentally occupied? All that Sonos offers is the passive pleasure of listening to music:-).

I am sat here now enjoying the passive pleasure of listening to music - seriously this is easier to use than the Sonos app

Take a trial of Roon … seriously it’s compelling stuff.

And that is said not to the detriment of the Sonos app … I like that and is still my primary tool on Win 10 but the Roon thing takes it to a whole new lever of music and catalog management. In some ways over complex, in some ways very compelling.

I have heard great things about roon - but for now I can’t justify $119 a year for it, so taking a trial would be a mistake for me in case I really liked it :)

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A

attacama40

Headliner I

I think you are right. What’s been missed is how many people have had their eyes opened to the possibilities out there for alternatives - some of which are very inexpensive and provide fabulous sound quality and usability

And what better time to tinker around when most people are going to both have all the time in the world sitting at home in some form of isolation, and a need to stay mentally occupied? All that Sonos offers is the passive pleasure of listening to music:-).

I am sat here now enjoying the passive pleasure of listening to music - seriously this is easier to use than the Sonos app

Take a trial of Roon … seriously it’s compelling stuff.

And that is said not to the detriment of the Sonos app … I like that and is still my primary tool on Win 10 but the Roon thing takes it to a whole new lever of music and catalog management. In some ways over complex, in some ways very compelling.

I have heard great things about roon - but for now I can’t justify $119 a year for it, so taking a trial would be a mistake for me in case I really liked it :)

You sir are a wise man. I made that mistake in exactly the manner you describe :-)

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A

attacama40

Headliner I

It’s been mentioned already in here by Smilja, so as you know now, the main article on our support page for this topic has been updated. Please read through it carefully if you have any questions because it answers most all of the questions we’ve seen so far. We will make sure to keep that article up to date with the most recent and official information that we’re ready to make public.

There’s also an article here on Using separate S1 and S2 Sonos systems.

And @Kumar,

Would you please confirm that if we say once to the quoted and bolded prompt in the quote above, that we will prefer to stay on S1 across the entire system, we will not be again prompted to update? In a way that carries a risk that inadvertently we will end up stuck with a split system?

That’s absolutely the plan, and if there are any issues, our support team will be around to help sort them out.

Ryan hi. Probably my limited skill set but after reading the (as I read it) positive news from Sonos I am uncertain if you mean that High Res will be available on all S2 approved devices after the June S2 update?

Is it the case that all all S2 updated devices will be able run high res material after this implementation in June?

Have asked the question to the forum but no answer as of now. Maybe I’m not alone in not being clear. Maybe it’s a really dumb question. I’m not sure.

Super stuff if it is the case. If not then just to check and not mislead myself.

Would certainly be a confidence builder if it was the case.

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G

Goodbye Sonos

Enthusiast II

I think you are right. What’s been missed is how many people have had their eyes opened to the possibilities out there for alternatives - some of which are very inexpensive and provide fabulous sound quality and usability

And what better time to tinker around when most people are going to both have all the time in the world sitting at home in some form of isolation, and a need to stay mentally occupied? All that Sonos offers is the passive pleasure of listening to music:-).

I am sat here now enjoying the passive pleasure of listening to music - seriously this is easier to use than the Sonos app

Take a trial of Roon … seriously it’s compelling stuff.

And that is said not to the detriment of the Sonos app … I like that and is still my primary tool on Win 10 but the Roon thing takes it to a whole new lever of music and catalog management. In some ways over complex, in some ways very compelling.

I have heard great things about roon - but for now I can’t justify $119 a year for it, so taking a trial would be a mistake for me in case I really liked it :)

You sir are a wise man. I made that mistake in exactly the manner you describe :-)

yeah it so easy to do it isn’t it :)

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C

castalla

Local Superstar

Here’s a taste of how the Material skin look (on a Linux PC)

The player is a set of BT headphones. Currently playing is So Cal via Tunein.

The album list shows albums from both Spotify and Qobuz (notice the small logo for each)

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It's the courageous bee's knees - all 6 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝. - - - - - Make Sonos Great Again - - - - -

C

castalla

Local Superstar

And … for Pi fans and Alexa users. Here’s the My Media for Alexa skill which let’s you play your local library on Echo devices

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It's the courageous bee's knees - all 6 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝. - - - - - Make Sonos Great Again - - - - -

G

Goodbye Sonos

Enthusiast II

This is material skin on Windows

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Ryan SAuthor

Retired Sonos Staff

It’s been mentioned already in here by Smilja, so as you know now, the main article on our support page for this topic has been updated. Please read through it carefully if you have any questions because it answers most all of the questions we’ve seen so far. We will make sure to keep that article up to date with the most recent and official information that we’re ready to make public.

There’s also an article here on Using separate S1 and S2 Sonos systems.

And @Kumar,

Would you please confirm that if we say once to the quoted and bolded prompt in the quote above, that we will prefer to stay on S1 across the entire system, we will not be again prompted to update? In a way that carries a risk that inadvertently we will end up stuck with a split system?

That’s absolutely the plan, and if there are any issues, our support team will be around to help sort them out.

Ryan hi. Probably my limited skill set but after reading the (as I read it) positive news from Sonos I am uncertain if you mean that High Res will be available on all S2 approved devices after the June S2 update?

Is it the case that all all S2 updated devices will be able run high res material after this implementation in June?

Have asked the question to the forum but no answer as of now. Maybe I’m not alone in not being clear. Maybe it’s a really dumb question. I’m not sure.

Super stuff if it is the case. If not then just to check and not mislead myself.

Would certainly be a confidence builder if it was the case.

Hey attacama40, we’ve shared that in addition to new features, usability updates, and more personalization moving forward, Sonos S2 will enable higher resolution audio technologies for music and home theater. Beyond that, we haven’t gone into a lot of details just yet, so you’ll just have to be patient until we’re ready to share more in the future. The latest information can be found here on our S2 article.

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Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.

G

Goodbye Sonos

Enthusiast II

..and this is material skin on android

Translate

A

attacama40

Headliner I

It’s been mentioned already in here by Smilja, so as you know now, the main article on our support page for this topic has been updated. Please read through it carefully if you have any questions because it answers most all of the questions we’ve seen so far. We will make sure to keep that article up to date with the most recent and official information that we’re ready to make public.

There’s also an article here on Using separate S1 and S2 Sonos systems.

And @Kumar,

Would you please confirm that if we say once to the quoted and bolded prompt in the quote above, that we will prefer to stay on S1 across the entire system, we will not be again prompted to update? In a way that carries a risk that inadvertently we will end up stuck with a split system?

That’s absolutely the plan, and if there are any issues, our support team will be around to help sort them out.

Ryan hi. Probably my limited skill set but after reading the (as I read it) positive news from Sonos I am uncertain if you mean that High Res will be available on all S2 approved devices after the June S2 update?

Is it the case that all all S2 updated devices will be able run high res material after this implementation in June?

Have asked the question to the forum but no answer as of now. Maybe I’m not alone in not being clear. Maybe it’s a really dumb question. I’m not sure.

Super stuff if it is the case. If not then just to check and not mislead myself.

Would certainly be a confidence builder if it was the case.

Hey attacama40, we’ve shared that in addition to new features, usability updates, and more personalization moving forward, Sonos S2 will enable higher resolution audio technologies for music and home theater. Beyond that, we haven’t gone into a lot of details just yet, so you’ll just have to be patient until we’re ready to share more in the future. The latest information can be found here on our S2 article.

Thanks for the quick reply Ryan. Appreciated.

Yes I did read the article … is good stuff by the way and helps keep us ‘dabblers’ in the fold :-) … and I’m continuing to read it to try really understand fully.

But it did not jump out at me if ‘enable high res’ means available at the beginning (June) or some way further down the development road.

For me, available June = great, available a bit later also = ok. It just did not jump out at me as being clear.

Maybe as we all had a bit of a time of it comms wise I’m over reading things a tad :-)

Can I twist your arm to clarify a bit more there. Question is purely at the beginning or a little further down the road for the High Res function.

Answer may very well be clear to other folks … just not me :-)

Cheers

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