Retired Sonos Staff

End of Software Support - Clarifications

December 8, 2022 at 11:29 AM
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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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joness6

Contributor I

I am very disappointed and angry about the decision to make my system, that includes 4 components that will no l be supported, obsolete. I was a (relatively) early adopter of SONOS in 2008 and have 8 devices in my home. In addition I have been somewhat of an evangelist for the quality and sustainability of SONOS products, as well as their customer care, which I know has resulted in many 10s of purchases by my family and friends.

The decision to render half of my components obsolete, when they are working perfectly well, is hard to understand. I have a number of concerns about SONOS’ proposed solution of offering a 30% on replacements, as follows:

I also have two Play 3s in my home. I am concerned that if I replace my Play 5s, the next announcement will be that the 3s will also be ‘obsoleted’. I think maybe it is time to move on entirely from the SONOS ecosystem to avoid this risk.

I understand that if I take up the 30% discount and buy replacements, the Play 5s will be remotely permanently disabled. This seems such a pointless waste of large, resource heavy, perfectly functional devices. How can it be ethical to do this?

The discount offered to the loyal customers who supported SONOS in it’s growth are being offered a deal little better than that offered to all customers during sales events, such as Black Friday.

Having been happy with the system for so long, I really haven’t kept up to date with the alternatives. Does anybody have recommendations on systems that offer the same sort of sound quality and useability as SONOS has done to date?

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N

ninjabob

Chromatic Producer I

It’s amazing that a device that has always been able to stream an MP3 or an audio stream suddenly can’t do that when the bitrate required hasn’t changed. I need a new device to stream a crappy audio file? What a crock of …..

This is an interesting point. From it's inception SONOS is a music system the is capable of decoding mp3, Flac and APPLE equivalents. What new developments are going to change the legacy units abilities to do that?

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busy trying to edit the queue

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PeteD

Enthusiast I

Quote from Sonos Annual Report: Our product roadmap is largely focused on delivering products with voice control.

Might be a nice to have, but not what I bought into Sonos for and not something I’m particularly bothered about. And still not a reason legacy products should stop working - no-one expects them to miraculously become voice-controllable.

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C

castalla

Local Superstar

Does anyone know how long other streaming devices will be supported, such as bluesound, as instead of upgrading, I’m looking elsewhere?

The classic answer is ‘ How long is a piece of string?’

Don’t spend money on a closed proprietary system - upnp/dnla speakers are the least likley to be ‘scrapped’ (but be aware that some manufactuers implment their ‘own’ dlna standard - Bose for example - and you could be equally screwed at some point.

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

S

Swedish Dude

Trending Lyricist I

I am no longer confident in getting more Sonos products since I don’t know when the next product will be rendered useless. Bye bye Sonos.

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H

HelterSkelter

Enthusiast II

Agree with the previous comments, the current price on the Sonos website is £499 and with a 30% discount I would still have to find £349 for each of the 3 legacy units I have. I won’t be paying +£1,000 to replace perfectly working products.

So I predict that the days of Sonos are limited, many cheaper alternatives available and the reason for continuing to buy Sonos products has disappeared. BUT!!!! we have a number of options:

Continue to buy Sonos, NO THANK YOU!!!!
Find alternative solutions
HACK our existing hardware and use alternative open source solutions.

Option 3, HACK is the most interesting option for us all as it allows us to reuse our exiting investment and at the same time say ‘up yours Sonos’ and probably more damaging for the Sonos business. Is this of interest and do we have people with the correct technical knowledge to explore reuse options?

I personally like the idea of hack. Surely somebody will come forward with a method to keep all this equipment going in the future.

Youtube will be very interesting on that subject over the coming year.

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5

5kidsdavies

Lyricist I

Well done Sonos had just saved up to buy some new speakers but thanks to yesterday’s announcement, I will not be investing in Sonos speakers any more. Outrageous customer care

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dingcuppie