End of Software Support - Clarifications

End of Software Support - Clarifications
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J
Userlevel 2

I think it is time for some open source firmware development for “legacy” Sonos devices that will allow us to flash the devices and move off these silly limits.

L
Userlevel 3

Nothing has changed with the CEO’s email. Still very vague and not ideal outcome. Moving on after 8 years of loyalty. 

P

I must say I was really disappointed when I received the email the other day. I have regularly sung the praises of Sonos, having been very pleased with my setup. To be told that half of my system (I have a ‘legacy’ 5 and a ‘current’ 3) might be unusable at some indeterminate point in the future has not made me happy. The recent update message from the CEO is a small improvement on the first communication, but we need some assurances if any confidence in Sonos is to be re-established.

M
Userlevel 7
Badge +4

If you continue to not like the messaging, I encourage you to rate their products on retail sites. I voiced my concerns with 1 star ratings. 

L
Userlevel 3
Badge

Since this announcement a few days ago the share price has dropped 6.5%.

Thats a billion dollars wiped off the company value.  A fair few “trade ups” would need to be sold to recover that.

Hows about just going back to plan A and not treating your existing customer base like a cash cow adn expecting them to just suck it up that their home sound system which has been added to over the years is about to get ripped apart.


Good thing Nicholas Millington, Chief Product Officer, sold 30% of his shares on January 2nd for $500,000.00 before the share price started going down.  Shrewd trader that Nicholas :wink: .

http://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001314727/5e4c0a01-abfa-4ea8-bf30-6a97f31fb24d.pdf

It’s probably already been asked, but isn’t that type of activity illegal? Knowing sh1t is about to happen and offloading your stock before the market knows??

R
Userlevel 3
Badge

And so it begins

retailers-move-to-dump-sonos

T
Userlevel 2

18 months ago, July 2018 I outfitted my entire home with “New” Sonos equipment. Now I get an email that 1 of my 3 Connect:Amps is not a “Modern Product” and needs to be replaced???? All of my other equipment is ok. When I called my Sonos Salesman, he basically said that there was nothing he could do, other than sell me another “New” Connect: Amp with a 30% discount?? How long is my other equipment going to considered “Modern”?? I am a Realtor and I always recommend Sonos to my clients. What a huge disappointment! 

C
Userlevel 3

If you continue to not like the messaging, I encourage you to rate their products on retail sites. I voiced my concerns with 1 star ratings. 

Exactly!  I went ahead and reviewed the products I own today on a few retail site.  Please everyone, do the same.  

User884294
Userlevel 2
Badge +2

If you continue to not like the messaging, I encourage you to rate their products on retail sites. I voiced my concerns with 1 star ratings. 


Very good idea. 

I have some outstanding Amazon reviews to post.

T
Userlevel 3

Since this announcement a few days ago the share price has dropped 6.5%.

Thats a billion dollars wiped off the company value.  A fair few “trade ups” would need to be sold to recover that.

Hows about just going back to plan A and not treating your existing customer base like a cash cow adn expecting them to just suck it up that their home sound system which has been added to over the years is about to get ripped apart.


Good thing Nicholas Millington, Chief Product Officer, sold 30% of his shares on January 2nd for $500,000.00 before the share price started going down.  Shrewd trader that Nicholas :wink: .

http://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001314727/5e4c0a01-abfa-4ea8-bf30-6a97f31fb24d.pdf

It’s probably already been asked, but isn’t that type of activity illegal? Knowing sh1t is about to happen and offloading your stock before the market knows??

Yeah, it's called insider trading....

V
Userlevel 2

I love my Sonos system, I’ve had it for years and was about to buy an extra unit for my bedroom - not now.

Like a lot of folks on this thread i bought my system as a high end system (which is what it was marketed as) for digitizing my extensive CD collection. I’m not interested in subscription music services and never will be. I want a reliable good quality system to run high quality music from a NAS. I deliberated for a long time and eventually bought Sonos on the recommendations from Sonos community users and never regretted it. Multi-room was a very welcome bonus that i love, dare i say it feels indispensable. However now i’m thinking… why didn’t i bite the bullet and buy a Cyrus!

If i buy relatively expensive audio equipment i don’t expect to get held to hostage after i have purchased the system. I expect it to do what it says on the tin, and what it was promised to do, until it breaks.

I can understand that there may potentially be issues running old sonos kit with new, but i don’t see that they would be insurmountable, and i don’t see why they can’t keep legacy systems so they continue to do what they have been doing for years - it’s a steady state system.

As others have said, it smacks of cynical attempt to drive sales. I fail to see how anyone with a brain cell would think the 30% discount would tempt sonos stalwarts to fork out their hard earned cash to replace legacy hardware… only to face the same situation in 5 years time. Do they really think we are that stupid?

The final straw is Sonos bricking perfectly good hardware - about as un-environmentally friendly as you can get.

It breaks my heart, and will be a pain in the arse for me but i will be switching. I will be doing my homework on network music players (aka CambridgeAudio) and look for separate multi-room solutions.

So congrats Sonos, rather then me spending my money on more Sonos kit, you’ve pushed me into the arms of your rivals.

 

 

 

 

N
Userlevel 2

And so it begins

retailers-move-to-dump-sonos

I emailed John Lewis and advised them to return their stock and seek a refund immediately as the products will soon be worthless, they are investigating.  If we all put pressure on where we bought from to suspend sales, Sonos will hear the message.

S
Userlevel 1

Afraid the damage is already done and trust is broken.

Really happy with all my Sonos products - both new and legacy, but I can’t risk all my Sonos gear going to waste. Selling out all my Sonos equipment ASAP and getting something else.

Advice everyone else to do the same - just let me out of this first. 😊

 

 

C
Userlevel 4
Badge +3

Couple this with the advent of cheaper devices from companies with much bigger financial clout such as Amazon and Google means this is truly the beginning of the end of SONOS.

I agree.  The cheapest way of doing whole house audio may just be buying powered ‘dumb’ bluetooth speakers and connecting them to a few echo dots.  $85 gets you a 4 pack of dots.  The dumb speakers will last 50 years.

And now that you can get in wall/ceiling speakers with bluetooth, you won’t have to worry when your “Sonos by Sonance Architectural “ $600 speakers are kicked off your SONOS network because they don’t have enough memory.  Maybe your echo dot will be too old for updates someday, and I’ll have to get another $80 four-pack.

L
Userlevel 2

I own, not kidding here, 15 Sonos speakers.  Not including those I have bought for family as gifts.  I have saved and abstained from other home improvements because the product has great value to me.  I like music.  I like listening to music all the time. The average Sonos listener spends 103.7 hours per month listening.  My household is minimum of 213 to up around 380. 

Frankly, I feel like a fricking idiot for investing so much money now that I hear it will be a cycle of obsolescence.  I own Bose speakers from 1987 that still sound amazing over thirty years later.  This announcement is totally beyond the pale.  If your products have a planned shelf-life, that is something that would have been nice to know, I don’t know, seven years ago?

A
Userlevel 4
Badge +2

And so it begins

retailers-move-to-dump-sonos

 

I hope the CEO WAKES UP and realises the consequences of the company gamble that backfired & takes drastic action to mitigate quickly, as I fear for the future of the brand.

Customers have every right to be furious with Sonos as according to the news report the intentions of the company were clear in scope from the outset, which only serves to confirm what most customers knew all along...

https://www.channelnews.com.au/retailers-move-to-dump-sonos/

 

(from the link)

….Sonos is trying to get dealers to force an upgrade on a customer  “When an upgrade is not needed as the current Sonos speaker is working perfectly”.

Pete Pedersen VP, Global Marketing & Communications at Sonos who is believed to be behind the program to force consumers to upgrade to a new Sonos speaker due to the Company struggling to compete up against superior speakers from both Google and Amazon has not explained what he will do when consumers vent their anger with Sonos by buying another brand of speaker….

…..This is a Company who likes to be in control and expects media to toe the Sonos party line as one executive said, “Because we are Sonos and we are number one in speakers so we must be doing something right”.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Patrick,

I don’t know you, but loyal customers do not appreciate being taken for fools, particularly after the last correspondence. 

Is this what’s meant when you promised Sonos would ‘work harder than ever to earn your loyalty every single day’ ?

Please do not continue to insult our intelligence & do the right thing by your loyal customers before the house of cards collapses  :neutral_face:

B
Userlevel 2

Excellent idea re leaving 1 star customer reviews. Just to repeat something a few people have said, what really upsets me is that I’ve recommended this equipment to family and friends. I really feel as I’ve let them down.

S
Userlevel 1

I own 9 Sonos products and more than a half of those are about to become useless in the near future, certainly to be followed by the rest of them in a couple of years.

 

I even own two expensive third party hardware just to trigger Sonos (iPort xPRESS Audio Keypad). I used to love my Sonos equipment.

 

Due to the recent announcements, I do not trust Sonos any longer and I am going to slowly move to another brand. Maybe Bose. I feel terribly betrayed by Sonos and deeply regret to have convinced many people to buy it.

 

Bye, Sonos. 

S
Userlevel 4
Badge +3

I agree.  The cheapest way of doing whole house audio may just be buying powered ‘dumb’ bluetooth speakers and connecting them to a few echo dots.  $85 gets you a 4 pack of dots.  The dumb speakers will last 50 years.

 

Or just hook up Echo Dots to your Sonos components with a Line in. Then just keep ‘em around in Legacy mode until the hardware dies. Use Sonos as the dumb speakers and Dot as your streaming service provider.

A

I’ve spent a small fortune on Sonos throughout my house. I was just about to buy the Sonos Move. Luckily this wake up call came when it did. Even though I have only one “legacy” product (3 years old!) it’s a indication of the future approach. Pity! 

User884294
Userlevel 2
Badge +2

This can’t end well. If/when Sonos goes under what happens with all our products, legacy and new. Management will move on leaving chaos behind. Will any of the bigger players find anything to pick over amongst the rubble. As the main thing was customer brand loyalty rather than innovative technology, I suspect not.


The writing is on the wall, and in theory the SONOS app is all that holds the SONOS ecosystem together.

N

I’m not adding much to the thread as the anger and disappointment by all of us loyal Sonos customers are obvious. But I will add my voice and encourage all of you who read this to leave comments (shame on Sonos for delegating the other thread). 
I have like many here spent thousands. Back of the envelope well north of $5,000.

And I’ve been a huge Sonos advocate, convincing family and friends to check it out, with many of them signing on as they loved the product. And that’s the worst for all of us, the absolute shameless breach of trust. We love the product. Now we have been fooled in a massive way. Never was any word of “your product will one day be obsolete due to software” shown on Sonos ads or web site. Still doesn’t.
But we have all now learned of Sonos view on customer loyalty.
I’m done. Not a cent more for new Sonos products (that we all have to assume will be shelved in a other few years), and beyond that I will be active on the web, on retailer sites, encouraging customers to invite Sonos.

Guessing the new leadership thought they could be like Apple.  They thought wrong. They should think Boing instead, to understand customer reactions when loosing trust. This will be a Harvard Business Review case in a couple of years. A marketing 101 student gets the stupidness of this move.

”It takes twenty years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” W. Buffett
 

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
C
Userlevel 5
Badge +3

Since this announcement a few days ago the share price has dropped 6.5%.

Thats a billion dollars wiped off the company value.  A fair few “trade ups” would need to be sold to recover that.

Hows about just going back to plan A and not treating your existing customer base like a cash cow adn expecting them to just suck it up that their home sound system which has been added to over the years is about to get ripped apart.


Good thing Nicholas Millington, Chief Product Officer, sold 30% of his shares on January 2nd for $500,000.00 before the share price started going down.  Shrewd trader that Nicholas :wink: .

http://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001314727/5e4c0a01-abfa-4ea8-bf30-6a97f31fb24d.pdf

It’s probably already been asked, but isn’t that type of activity illegal? Knowing sh1t is about to happen and offloading your stock before the market knows??

Yes, it very much is.  If you are aware of information that is likely to have a significant impact on share price, and act upon that information before it is made public, it is insider trading.  Which is certainly illegal.

J

Wow, this isn’t even the first thread on this topic.  Unbelievable.  I, like so many others in this forum, have spent an incredible amount of money on multiple systems (home and business).  Now they’re looking at ditching the very customers that allowed them to grow to the level they’ve grown.

Sure, I can spend even more money and replace my system with your upgrade incentive.  That’s fantastic for you, and terrible for me and the environment.  What are you doing guys?  The moment my play 3’s and play 5’s stop working at my locations is the moment that I will properly recycle the speakers and never purchase another Sonos product.  I will also ensure all of those that I know with the same products, many of whom I recommended they purchase, knows not to support a company who will not back their products.  

I find the response from the CEO to be pretty weak.  In essence, we’ve already made the decision to kiss our past customers good-bye was the message, and just tie a bow around it to make it look pretty.  

Disgusting for all of us, and the environment!!!

L
Userlevel 3

So the CEO email is simply:

 

patrick.spence@sonos.com 

I just sent the email below.., doubt I will get a reply… but...  

 

Dear Patrick 

 

I have loved Sonos for years. I have loved the equipment, the flexibility and the sound.

 

I have bought equipment over the years, most recently an amp only 2-3 years ago - which is now ‘legacy’. So much for the claims you make about 5 years plus.

 

I was looking at the new Move at the weekend  - to buy 2 for outdoor use. I don’t need outdoor speakers - I have excellent Bluetooth ones - but the idea of weatherproof outdoor speakers linked to indoor ones was very tempting

 

Thankfully I did not buy and of course will now never ever buy - not at least until you guys find a way to enable us to use old and new kit grouped together with new kit still getting software updates. 

 

Until you do that, there is no way I am buying anything else from you. You probably think you can ride out this storm, that people will forget, the world will move on and so on. 

 

You should check sites like trust pilot and other review sites and reflect on how likely that is going to be.

 

I have gone from loving my kit to barely being able to look at it in two days. 

 

I was really angry when I first read what Sonos was doing. I am not any more. I am deeply deeply sad and feel completely betrayed. All of your customers do.

 

It takes only one decision to destroy a brand’s hard worked for reputation... looks like this is the one for Sonos - unless you retract the May 2020 deadline and work something else out.

 

Bye

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