End of Software Support - Clarifications

You should be able to send them back and get a full refund, I’d have thought...

I’m so furious about this situation I can hardly bring myself to type something that’s politely worded. Many of my fellow Sonos customers have already expressed very eloquently how we all feel in terms of the betrayal and the huge sense of disappointment that we are now feeling toward a brand that we have, until now, long held in high regard.

Like many others, I have invested my hard earned British pounds in this high end equipment, carefully building my ‘whole home’ sound system over time into something that I was, until yesterday, very proud of.  It’s not just the Sonos components but the complimentary items like cabinet designs, racking systems and the £4,000.00 of matched ceiling speakers etc.

Worse still, I’ve been an excellent salesman for Sonos over the years with many of my family and friends now heavily invested into Sonos thanks to my personal recommendations and enthusiasm for the product.  It’s flexible, future-proof and you can take it with you when you move.

This has been a massive wake-up call for me. My investment in Sonos will stop right here.  I had planned to add these items this year: 2xsubs; 2xPlaybars; 2xPlay1’s; 2xAmps.  A reasonable new spend I would say (the word investment clearly being wholly inappropriate now).  My existing spend on Sonos components has been around £4,000-5,000.00.

You’ve screwed-up Sonos,  You’ve driven an extremely loyal customer to now look elsewhere.

Hey guys don’t just post here… leave reviews on Amazon, John Lewis (UK) - all the big suppliers where you live... people need to know they cannot buy this stuff anymore - or at least know the risks that in a few years it will stop working…

people are already doing this 

until Sonos fix this their 5star reviews need crashing... 

And to make the matter worse, the legacy equipment isn’t even worn out like a car, mine are all still in pristine new condition 😢

I believe short selling is the way to go.  That way I might recoup some of my investment to pay for whatever I find to replace SONOS.

So did not receive the update email, maybe it will come later. I suspect most here, in truth, understand that it is not possible to continue to update the older equipment for ever. But the “solution” proposed just does not go far enough. And given the response it is clear that a split two independent systems solution will not be sufficient as the answer. Many including myself have said that you need to find a way to enable Legacy and Modern work together. Clearly the legacy will not get new features and will not be able to initiate activity that is ‘modern’ but should be able to fully participate in groups. If the initiating device is modern it should be possible for it to send the audio stream to legacy devices.

It might even just be acceptable to push further devices into legacy if the amount of code required to recognise that modern is talking to legacy pushes the ‘old’ modern device to its limit

I am not a Sound bar user but I can see valid logic that says a new sound bar could only be paired with modern devices or even a more limited set of the modern product group. 

It is still possible to turn this situation around

I have 4 modern and 2 legacy units. If I can freeze the whole system from new functionality and have it work like it does now, I can accept that. I can under no circumstance accept if I am forced to split it. Then the whole point of Sonos is lost. So, the question is: Are we going to be able to have a complete system as now or not? If not, I’m out. 

Perhaps you should re-read it - without blinkers this time… 

Sonos knew this would be contentious - they said as much in their 10k filing. They went ahead anyway. I’ve not seen anything in the statements that allays my fear that my sonos kit, on which I have spent thousands will not be bricked in the very near future. I’m not looking for new features, just that it continues to operate as it did when I purchased it.

My sentiments exactly.  Said another way:  “Buying smart speakers is DUMB!”

As many have mentioned, the most recent letter from the CEO does not help us in any new way and provides no new concessions. “We hear you, we are sorry that we didn’t communicate properly. To make it up to you, we are going to allow you to buy more of our product for 30% off of items we recently raised the price by 30% on.”

But, what I find the most annoying is the way he tries to make it seem like the legacy products will continue to work with streaming music services like Spotify, Pandora, etc by saying come may, they will work. What he doesn’t address is that yes they will work in May, but how about June, when Spotify makes a small change to their streaming service that would require a line of code rewrite by Sonos to continue working properly. This won’t happen, so while Mr. Spence isn’t telling us anything false, he is essentially lying by omission and intentionally deceiving us in an attempt to quell the rebellion. I find this particularly offensive. It’s likely that he feels that it’s less likely that there will be a critical mass of angry users after May when the streaming services stop working one by one, but unlikely to be all at the same time like the current situation.

App reviews & trustpilot are other options

Dear Patrick

Who thought Splitting your Sonos systems was a good idea?  I would find that person and escort he or she out the front door.  
 

Yeah, I bought all my Sonos gear from Amazon from 2012 to 2019.  Just wrote a warning on Amazon for all 9 purchases with a one star review, explaining about split systems, how a system bought just 2 years ago will ruin a whole speaker installation, etc . . . and provided a link to this string.  Hope everyone else does the same . . . let’s drive the Amazon reviews of Sonos down to 2-3 stars (it will take a lot of us) . . . if that happens Sonos will be decimated and have two choices - listen to their customers or die.  I know the only way my one star reviews and warnings go back to 5 is if split systems does not happen, new equipment gets new software updates even with legacy units in grouping, or they create a box to allow legacy pairing with new if they can’t figure out how to do the above with Software, or the replacement discount goes to 50% or higher.  I feel like a chump for spending so much money on Sonos over the last 8 years (timing saved me from worse as I was about 2-3 days from buying 4 more components).  I also feel bad for probably convincing 10 other friends to deck out their houses with it too over the years.  If you bought it on Amazon, go make your review 1 star - say why, and link to this string.

I hope Sonos doesn’t go out of business because then I’ll really have bricks, but I can be rather spiteful when someone makes me feel stupid like they have, and at the moment I’d be OK if they did fail because of this debacle . . .

Go to Amazon if you bought from there!

Is it just me, or does the CEO letter change nothing?  They are forecasting a split system that everyone knows is antithetical to what Sonos is all about. Why do all the work to make a split system even operate?  They know that sucks!  
 

I feel like they know way more than they are letting on. I found it odd that they were creating gen 2 product labels for the Play1with no discernible benefits. Something is coming and they know exactly what it is.  It will cause them to split your system to keep it working. 
 

What is coming, Sonos?  Your ecosystem has appealed to some pretty sharp folks. They see through all of this, especially the latest BS apology letter. You wouldn’t even suggest a split system solution unless you know what’s about to happen. 

The only thing truly new in today’s CEO email/letter is that “legacy” products will continue to get bug fixes and security updates.

The rest is still fuzzy hand waving or was already clarified in this forum. But there’s also the reality that yes, Sonos is listening at the top level, even if they aren’t directly or fully addressing many of the issues raised by the notice of two days ago.

It’s a start. Small, but a start.

Neither Ryan’s original statement or the CEOs statement say that your kit will be bricked. It will become less flexible, and certain bits might stop working in time to come, but no-one from Sonos has said that it would actually be bricked - not unless you choose to brick them by picking the upgrade option….

My guess is that they will license the use of Sonos’ software to other companies who then can build speakers based on Sonos, and to do that they need new, more powerful specs so that the licensees are not limited in what they can do. Thus the need for this whole fork thing. If this is what is happening, the acquisition of the voice-recognition company makes more sense. 
 

if this is true, I think they should offer people with legacy products to freeze the system at the current functionality. A split system would suck. I have so far used only two upgrades since 2007: I have added Spotify and I use the iPhone app. I think I won’t need any more. 
 

Just speculating, mind you. 

I’m hearing that dealers are catching the heat from customers.  How long until dealers start selling other systems that are supported by a company that stand by its products 

everyday that passes by is only going to make this worse without providing a real solution.  This is not going away.  Sonos has crapped on too many loyal customers with a considerable investment over years of saving and growing their systems. 

If they won't refund it, file a dispute with your credit card company.

CEO Patrick Spence email just makes me feel jerked around again.  I’ve spent my career in IT and I totally understand end-of-life / end-of-support announcements.  This is all about cost-costing and chasing the customers who want the next shiny thing.  Not what I expected from Sonos.  What an enormous amount of angst, energy, second-guessing, why-did-I bother-to-learn-Sonos,etc. 

My feeling is keep my investment going but with the ABSOLUTE MINIMUM AMOUNT OF BUYING ANYTHING NEW FROM SONOS in the future.

Like a lot of people on here I have a lot of gear. 4 play bars, 6 play 1s, sub, boost, play one, 2 play 5 gen 2, 1 play 5 gen 1. The latest back and worth, on support, is bothersome for several reasons. 1) it was either thought through poorly or the backlash from the exposure is too hot. 2) the message pushed me to “recycle” my play 5 gen 1 and I don’t want to do that. I paid for it and it should work. 3) the optics around this just suck. Your being told you really don’t own the device. Your investment is at the whim of Sonos. 4) reaching a human to get help has been impossible. Basically Sonos is treating its customers like trash, to be recycled. 

Just sent this to: 'Patrick.Spence@sonos.com', 'nick.millington@sonos.com' 'allen.mask@sonos.com'

Find the rest of the executive team here: use their name in the same format as above for email. 

https://investors.sonos.com/corporate-governance/default.aspx

The board here: https://investors.sonos.com/corporate-governance/default.aspx

It’s not pristine, but I don’t have any more time to waste on this company or it’s products. 

Dear Mr. Spence

For 10 years I’ve been accumulating Sonos Audio equipment while expanding wireless audio throughout my home. I did this because Sonos advertised and marketed their Whole Home Audio System as a way to hear music/audio throughout the home without running speaker wires.  The high-end products were marketed and sold in high-end Stereo/Audio stores as well as the HiFi/audio departments of better electronics stores.  The sales staff were trained by Sonos to push the quality of the sound, the beauty of the speakers, and the flexibility of the whole home audio solution.  This BS about older Sonos products being outmoded/throw away computer products is just that... BS!  It’s a pivot to get all of us to shift our view of Sonos as just another piece of electronics that is outdated by updates and eventually abandoned even after a very short 4-5 years after purchase.  This is AUDIO gear!  It’s sold and marketed as AUDIO gear; it’s not sold in as a computer, a phone, or a throw-away-junked chunk of electronics.  It’s marketed as a way to distribute SOUND (sonos) throughout home and/or office/business. 

Splitting the system is a NON-STARTER; therefore your letter today does NOT help in any way!  I was planning on expanding my system with a Move, so you can believe that’s not going to happen now.  That and you’re alienating your reseller community while destroying your brand by insulting your best product/brand advocates you could ever have – your loyal REPEAT customers!  

I think the other huge blindside for your management team is just how many savvy tech industry folks invested heavily in the Sonos solution only to be jabbed in the eye with this horrible PR disaster.  Your blunder has clearly woken the sleeping giant on this one! 

I won’t even get into the environmental disaster the stupid “trade-up” plan produces… that is just too sickening to even discuss given the current state of our planet.

XXXXX, once evangelist/loyal-repeat customer. 

This is the answer.  I would pay a reasonable amount to upgrade my equipment.

Very simply… these two statements from the update email are not congruous. 

• ... come May, when we end new software updates for our legacy products, they will continue to work just as they do today ...
• 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. 

Patrick Spence

CEO, Sonos