End of Software Support - Clarifications

Have Sonos closed the other thread to stop the negative feedback? They clearly do not know who to deal with customers. I am yet to come across a customer who thinks this is a good idea.

Sonos has some of the loyalist consumers you will find I imagine as we buy products to extend our current system without giving much of a thought to other manufacturers. For me that will change and almost ten years of loyalty to Sonos has ended and I will look to replace my “legacy” Play:5 device with something non sonos and leave the rest of my “Modern” Sonos system intact.

We’ll have more information on how to do this in May when you can take that action.

Any reason you need until May to tell us the finer details of Legacy product operation due to your decision? 

I suspect this thread will continue to grow with complaints and more questions.

Why not tell us now? Hopefully you have figured out the details and aren’t making things up as you go.

Sonos looks like it underestimated the furor the announcement would cause.  I think the legacy products will remain functional longer now based on the feedback. 

None.

Dont buy sonos.

Your overpriced equipment will be 'bricked' by the company on a whim.

Check out Bluesound…

A disgruntled ex-sonos fan now stuck with year-old play5s ehich woll be landfill in June. 

Shame on sonos.

As long time loyal customer and shareholder with now 5/13 devices being threatened to be disconnected from the network I’m very upset. 
 

sonos was a brand which grew off of a loyal following of customers / advocates who touted Sonia’s merits to friends and family. Who bought Sonos as gifts for friends and family. 37% of your sales are to existing customers. 
 

This is one of the key points that supported you valuation and IPO. In one action you’ve destroyed so much good will. Your recycling scheme was an own goal promoting customers to destroy good hardware and this step goes further and promotes it. 
 

Please listen to your customers!

It wouldn’t surprise me if the 56 page thread disappeared altogether.

That’s how I now feel about Sonos, all trust has gone.

I’m not going to repost all my annoyances from the other thread but I would like to state again on here that Sonos has now become a company that I have very little trust and confidence in.

After 24 hours and 55 pages of comments (before it was closed) none of which are complimentary, here is my 2p worth.

As a past product marketing manager, here are a few key points to take into consideration when announcing a products end of support.

1. Give lots of notice and take into account how recently customers have purchased the product.

> 4 months is no notice at all really, I would expect 12 months to be reasonable, or 6 as an absolute minimum. I bought my first components in Jan 2015 and now my Connect Amp and Play 5 are declared end of support after this relatively short time.

2. Offer a painless route to upgrade the system.

> Offering 30% discount is far from painless, it is a significant additional investment just to retain current functionality. The idea also of scrapping the old hardware to recycling or worse landfill is outrageous. At least leave the units to be used for as long as they can, as by your own admission, that may not be long.

Consider a swap out at cost plus support expenses to make the exchange palatable. The current discount must still bring a good profit unless your margins are poor.

3. Be VERY clear about why you are doing this, the future benefits and the implications of retaining the current hardware.

I expect cost is the real driver here, memory and processing power is just a limitation as branching code and distributing two versions is  not rocket science, but at least he honest. I understand that sonos cannot predict what may happen with future changes to streaming services, but the total lack of clarity and certainty beggars belief. How long till the rest of my system is obsoleted as I now know I will be lucky to get 4 months notice. What great new ground breaking features are coming in May that is forcing this end of support for older speakers? The dual system possibly seems to something that may or may not work, but little information is being offered about it, we are promised more info in May. Will there still be an upgrade offer when the system breaks eventually, or is this just a short term offer? 

So in all you have made a real error of judgement here and have an uphill climb to resolve it, if that is even possible now. The sonos name is now badly tarnished and only a retraction and complete rethink of this proposal has any chance to recover the mess created. I really do hope some people from sonos are taking action based on this thread. Having closed the old tgread, posted a few minor clarifications and started a new one, I fear sonos simply aren't listening and underestimate the impact this will ultimately have on the company. 

Agree with others was really bad to close that thread!!  Will this one be closed too when it hits 50+ pages?

I will reiterate:

Long time Sonos user, eight zones, many legacy.

Very disappointed.

Sonos needs to revisit this decision and find a way to enable older devices to keep working in the network with updated newer devices.  Clearly the older devices won’t have the latest features, but they should be able to interoperate with similar functionality to today.

Sonos is an expensive product.  As an example, we just bought two Sonos Ones for children’s bedrooms.  The alternative was two echo dots.  Clearly inferior product, but would have been ¼ of the price and would have kept the kids just as happy.  The draw of staying with the Sonos ecosystem was the interoperability with all the existing zones, including the now legacy products.

Was planning to scale up number of zones.  Seriously reconsidering now.

Sonos - please try to come up with another solution here.

“We don’t expect any immediate impact to your experience, but access to services and overall functionality will eventually be disrupted, ...”

Sonos, please commit to maintaining integration of legacy equipment to platforms like Spotify.

If Sonos is unwilling to take that little step, can Sonos at least commit to open-sourcing the software that supports the legacy system so that the community can provide legacy support?

How can a company decide to treat its early adopters and greatest advocates so poorly? Sonos is turning its greatest advocates into its harshest critics.

Methinks this may be the end of Sonos as a viable company.

What well-informed person would buy Sonos equipment now?