End of Software Support - Clarifications

This is so disappointing I almost cannot find words for it. But will give it a try. I have been a (very) loyal Sonos-customer for 10 years. And, all of a sudden, my fav speaker in the system I have built up over the years is deemed obsolete and “legacy”. What??

Sorry guys, but with these kind of products IT IS NOT POSSIBLE do go the “disposable” route. 1. To much time spent to get sound and placement right. 2. We have adapted parts of our home to the Sonos products. 3. Environment and sustainability. 4. Customer confidence. To name a few. You just HAVE to re-think this or my days as a Sonos customer, and ambassador, are over. 

The only good thing to come out of this is for guys that have gone short on the Sonos stock. Traders and investors track customer forums and the share  is gonna take another big hit today, trust me on this one… trying to please investors more than your loyal customers is, in the end, what kills companies.

I’ve been watching this whole thing unfold and I’m guess I’m fairly lucky in that I only have 1 “legacy” product (for now - the P3 is surely next to go), and I have had 10 years of use out of it. But the way this whole thing has been handled is a disaster - you would have thought they would have learned from the CR100 and trade-up backlash. For what it’s worth here are my thoughts:

•  The 30% trade-up is a joke. The discount is insulting given the heavy discounts that retailers have been offering on Sonos this Christmas.
•  There is no upgrade. The new speaker does the same as the old. So what is the benefit for me? I am Android, so no Airplay 2, I have echo dots - so I don’t need voice built in. The only benefit is for the shareholders - they take my old speaker and charge me £400 for a new one!
•  Environmental impact - I thought we were supposed to be moving away from this sort of wasteful practice?
•  This mostly affects the early adopters - the very people who have made Sonos what it is today.
• All Sonos speakers now have a very clear shelf life. Most people don’t go out and buy a whole home system, they build it over time. The problem is now that by the time you’ve finished building your system the first components are unsupported! Ideal for the Sonos shareholders!
• Why announce this without working out how it will work? Why do we have to wait until May?
• Why announce this at all, what is coming in May that won’t work on the old speakers?
• Clearly at some point the hardware won’t be able to handle the latest updates to Spotify etc, fine - make my speaker obsolete then, not now.

From reading Ryan’s replies I get the impression that the system is being split into 2, modern and legacy. Modern will get the new features (whatever they may be), and legacy will not. He has hinted today that legacy will get some minor updates to keep them working until the point where they physically won’t handle the streams from music providers. This is ok, but I would rather it was a GUARANTEE that sonos will keep the streaming services running until it is no longer physically possible (rather than they just don’t want to cost of supporting old devices). If this does turn out to be the case then it makes this whole announcement pointless and infuriating. I think they were hoping this would lead to a spike in sales - if so they have misread the mood.

Personally I will keep running the legacy as long as my Play 5 lasts, then I will slowly wind my Sonos system down. Massive backfire for Sonos, I was going to buy a Beam this year.

Really disappointed in the mentality, and I have not got any impacted devices. I’ve been slowly adding to my setup with the intention of adding a lot more for a long term sound solution. But that has stopped from today and I was looking at buying three extra speakers. I cannot trust Sonos anymore. I mentioned this to a friend and they have halted a purchase of two speakers. We have been looking at alternative solutions from other companies (with the intent of selling our current setup) and Sonos have just lost two loyal advocates.

Another thought from me:
I keep a spreadsheet of my medium and big-ticket purchases so I can apply depreciation costs and make sure I’m saving enough for replacements. As one does when applying depreciation, I’ve tended to use conservative estimates of how long things will last. I happened to look at it for other reasons yesterday, but noticed my Sonos items. Whilst in reality I’d expect my speakers to last 10 or even 15 years, I put them down at 7 as a conservative estimate. In reality, it’s only going to be 6 years before they’re no longer as functional as the speakers I purchased. It could have been five.

It simply doesn’t make economic sense to purchase your products if there is such a good chance they’ll only last 5 years without detriment. You need to come up with a better solution than this, or a lower price point, or I think you’ll be losing a lot of customers like me with mid-size setups (1x5, 1x3, 2x1). I was planning to expand to include a soundbar (imminent) and full home cinema (over time). I simply can’t justify the cost now.  

Well, this is a PR mess of epic proportions! 

I only own two Play 1s, bought around 2016, so not on the legacy product list but how long until they are and will no longer receive support? 

And if I were to buy a Sonos product today what is the shelf life of that product? I was eyeing up a Beam but given this news I think I’m going to wait and see how things develop over the next few months.

Surely, future-proofing the products is part of the development process? I appreciate it’s impossible to predict how technology will evolve but surely the products should be built with backwards capability so newer products can, at the very least, connect with older products? This would allow Sonos customers to buy newer products and keep using their existing products. 

Oh, and how come I can’t access music through “On This Phone” on my iPhone anymore? I have songs on there not available on any streaming services and would like to listen to them through my speakers. Is this not possible anymore?

Time to dust down the CD player and wallet and go analogue...

Are you having a laugh? I invested thousands in your gear over the years, just for you to decide you’re going to drop the ball - and doing so while pretending it’s all for the Greater Good ™

Have you ever heard about the concept of loyalty.

Can’t say I see myself reinvesting to exchange my older products when you clearly won’t mind pulling the same BS in x months/years time again. I’ll move my 8 zones to the competition, ciao. Greedy and shameless.

Now, we all can better understand what it feels like to be a Nexus 6. 

They are different models of the Zone Player, this is mentioned in the announcement. Any such device manufactured after 2015 is not included in this and will still receive updates post May 2020. Clearly the older players do not have the required hardware compared to the newer models and in any event they will still work as they do now, but just not get any further software updates. Hope that help clarifies things for you.👍

Spence’s 2019 salary went from $350K to $500K plus share options (should of sold some before this like the other board guy)……….bothered……...thats what i read yesterday, but google just gave me this

https://www1.salary.com/SONOS-INC-Executive-Salaries.html

total compensation $2,353,753

I purchased a new beam last year and it has voice control, I deactivated it as I had no need for it, I have echos for voice, don’t need it in Sonos speakers. I need a speaker to act like a speaker, not to have a conversation with it on the meaning of life!! 
 

the solution to this issue is simple, have 2 versions of the os, one for all the new equipment and one for the legacy equipment. The legacy is will need to be maintained to ensure all equipment continue to operate as is and talk to the new equipment. Strip out all the extra stuff from the legacy os that the old hardware cannot support and then the memory etc will be sufficient. They don’t want to do this as it will cost them money.
 

unless Sonos find a much better way out of this self imposed mess, I will move off their hardware over the next few years, lost all trust in them