End of Software Support - Clarifications

Not if you want to continue receiving updates for the modern products from May forward.

The problem is that what sonos says is that the blood they already squeezed out of the stone can not be used any more.

The Play 5 and amp’s have a feature set TODAY…

If they just froze the development at THAT stage and THAT featureset and made the legacy units able to function in one big network, with the modern units but only support the features already there today i bet most people, would understand.

This is essentially what they suggest, if you keep everything legacy, but there is no REAL reason (Other than the desire to force people to buy a new speaker) the new devices could not be updated with new functions while keeping the older at the current featureset

The main advantage and brand identity of Sonos was wireless, multi-speaker INTEGRATION, and with this feature disappearing with the separation (dis-integration) of ‘legacy’ speakers, what market is Sonos trying to sell to? Sonos speakers are too expensive to compete with the likes of Amazon, Google, Bose, Yamaha, etc…, and high quality wired speakers will last for decades without threat of obsolescence or ‘bricking’ software (irreversible disabling of functional speakers). Why should new and/or existing customers invest in the Sonos ecosystem?

Correct.  And if you don’t know what functionality changes are going to separate modern from legacy, how can you conclude that the functionality changes would be compatible with legacy?  Maybe Sonos is only doing this break to make money, but they have no history of doing this in the past.  In fact, they have a history of trying to make modern and legacy products work together. 

Yamaha did  not tell you that ANYTHING in their modern equipment can be sent to a legacy product.  They only told you that Amazon music operates that way. Not all features are the same.  That’s where your logic falls apart.

I am not definitely concluding that Sonos has valid technical reasons.for this split between modern and legacy.  As you pointed out, there is not enough information to conclude that.  The lack of information does not mean that it’s only about money either.  The yamaha systems functionality about Amazon says nothing about Sonos. 

Correct.  The modern and legacy products need to be on the same system and the same software version

Until a week ago Sonos never even suggested that there were or would ever be legacy products that would not be able to retain the same level of functionality as it had at any given time, without sacrificing, the posibility to upgrade ANY device.

That alone is a change.

Sonos has NEVER to my knowledge said that it might be like that some day, and in fact i have seen multiple adverts and statements that has come from Sonos, that would suggest the opposite.

So, no they dont have a history of trying to make legacy and modern products work together...They have a history of making all their devices work together and have used the fact that it was a multiroom system that you just upgrade when the need arrives, in their advertising.

Deciding between :

Keep everything legacy and loose future upgrades for ALL units

Segregate legacy and modern devices into two networks that can not interoperate to get software and feature upgrades for modern devices.

Is a sudden kick in the groin for people that has always been told and believed that sonos is a premium multi room system that is a bit like a lego set...You just buy more bricks if you want to build a larger lego figure.

But that is only because sonos CHOSE that they should.

They could have made a final legacy firmware that would still be able to support the functions the legacy devices have today, and made the new firmwares talk to the speakers, using the limited featureset.

There is no law of nature that says that all speakers MUST be on the same firmware.

In a way, this philosophy is a major factor in the legacy units becoming legacy because they fill up the flash file with a firmware that also has all sorts of functions that the play 5 for example does not support.

Why not strip Airplay 2 routines, smart speaker / microphone routines and all routines, specific to the other speakers (sub, playbar etc) out of the firmware and only put core functions from the firmware on that speaker.

Maybe they would then suddenly have plenty of space to even update the legacy devices…

This is nothing more than an obvious money grab.

We can speculate on that, but without out knowing more details about upcoming functionality/changes, and possibly the inner workings of the code that Sonos will never tell us, you can’t definitively conclude that.  

Regardless of the answer, people can believe whatever they want, or conclude that whatever functionality change happens isn’t justification enough in their opinion.  That may very well be the case, especially for people who have no seen a benefit to any of Sonos recent software changes.  It sounds like a good reason to stay on a legacy system, or switch systems if you found a system that you believe better fits your needs.

How is it speculation….The Play 5 does this stuff “today”, why would it not be possible “tomorrow”

If the sonos code is so poorly written that it need the EXACT same firmware in every speaker to function, maybe this is the time to begin improving.

Make no mistake, i will stay at the legacy level, i can not remember getting any significant feature in my 5-6 years as a sonos owner, so ill be fine.

The problem is the day, the streaming service i use make some small insignificant change to their stream, that will not work without a small insignificant change, that will never arrive to any of my 9 sonos devices because i have 1 legacy device.

I am going to wait until May and hope they find a way to fix this mess, and if not, i am going to begin looking for alternatives and get rid of the rest of my sonos equipment before it, is also obsoleted.

I agree that the communication of this was rather poor.  In hindsight, I think they should have done things a lot differently.

Ok, I don’t really care to debate the difference between ‘trying to make’ and ‘making’.

That is a different point, and I don’t disagree here.  This is something that I somewhat saw coming based on my experience in the forums and general understand of IT, but I don’t think Sonos prepared and informed customers of this as well as they could have.  Again, that’s in hindsight, so it’s much easier for me to speculate on how things could have been been better if done differently.

So apparently I have one amp that is legacy and one that’s not.  How does that work?  Also the 30% discount just makes it cost the same as what I bought the original amp for.  I get that new one has more power, but if I needed more power I wouldn’t have purchased it… so not really feeling like a discount. 

Also by increasing the MSRP by 10% right before you notify everyone of the 30% discount off MSRP is stupid.  Since the street price is 10% MSRP they are basically offering a 10% discount to upgrade and brick my old amp in order to not have my entire system unusable at some point in the future or have to remove a zone from my system to maintain functionality.

Why is Sonos requiring the product to be bricked anyway?  I get that this is intended to be an upgrade but a much better solutions would have been to offer a discount on a new item if you owned a qualifying item.  Let me buy the new item and then find a spot of the old one that is outside of my ecosystem.  Maybe I put it up at the cabin where it won’t matter, maybe I give it to my kid for his dorm room or maybe I have a spot in my house where being legacy is just fine. 

Also  how about offering the 30% off of the price from a couple weeks ago? or raise it to 40% to cover the difference.  It’s terrible for a group that was all about brand loyalty.  These things are expensive.  More expensive than similar systems.  Why they have gotten the premium price is due to the “build your system over time” add which makes it a little more reasonable and the ability to work together.  

So my suggestion.

1. Don’t force the item to be bricked at all.  Let the item continue to be used but let folks upgrade the specific components to get the functionality they were expecting.  These are you EXISTING customer.  Why screw with them, your own investor calls cite how important we are to the bottom line (something like over 33% of existing customer add to their system every year) for you and that’s discounting the word of mouth contribution that get net new folks onto the system.  Actually reward your existing customer base.  If you didn’t force the bricking then 10% off of street price (which is really what the current 30% off MSRP equates to compared to the price a month ago) is at least something.  You aren’t forcing anyone off.  You are giving a discount to get your system fully functional with non-legacy components and you leave us with components we can use stand alone or potentially give to others to get them into the ecosystem.
2. OR Up the discount.  50% would be more in line with having to brick a component.  Bottom line is up it so that I’m getting more than a 10% discount to brick a perfectly good item

Not sure by ‘stuff’.    Don’t think I care to debate it any way.  This has drifted off from the point I was making.

I don’t know the innerworkings of Sonos code and what sort of firmware matches are required in order for certain functions to work.  I can’t claim that is poorly written or exceptionally written.  From my experience, I’ve seen code I thought was poorly written that actually turned out to be necessary and rather clever after further understanding and inspection.  I’ve also seen code that looked poorly written that actually was poorly written.

Sonos has stated that they will fix these sorts of issues within the limits of the hardware.  I get your point thought that your expectation is that code should be written to just make it work, with more modern hardware carrying the load for the legacy hardware.  I don’t know that I agree with that, but I see the point.

And it’s your choice to do that.  In many cases, that is the best option. I also have a single legacy product still in use, and I’ve debated whether I need that room to be a part of my Sonos system.  I have seen many people assume that company X or company Y is a better option for them without really considering the details, history of that company, and all that, just because they are currently upset without Sonos.  Having made similar mistakes myself in the past, I hope people make their choices with cooler heads and not simply just to ‘stick it to Sonos’.

Two times, as far as I can count - and the first two incarnations were used by a very few devices only - the current third version is integrated with a long list of products.

I believe that only way for SONOS now is to take the initiative to run with their system as open source, that will give them the initiative back, sort of setting the standard for multi room speakers Open source will sort fo force the competition in the same way over time.

First one out will have the advantage.

But I’am not so confident that they are so brave and belive in their system so much.

This could help bring some tranparency to their plans and help mitigate the situation, but they still need to promise what Yamaha does with their Musiccast

Hmm, crickets… Yup, didn’t think there would be many.

Wkelkel’s situation was either very unique or he’s a shill for Sonos (only a recent poster). Either way management’s lack of follow-up in the press, directly with impacted long-term/loyal/brand evangelists, and on these forums is telling none the less. 

Meanwhile my family and friends are also watching this from afar and while they might not be posting, they believe Sonos in no longer a good company to do business with (and I was the one who convinced them Sonos was the way to go… yikes). 

From a sage Professor at UW business school - “It’s the customers you don’t hear from that often just go away.  The few customers who complain are giving you important information that you need to heed while doing you a great service by providing it (as long as you don’t take it personally).” 

In my circle, which includes people that I have recommended investing in Sonos whole house systems since 2005 approx ,with hard wired integrated systems to their specific homes,  people are not understanding why it now looks like their system days are numbered.

These people bought into a system, spending large sums of money and employing AV resellers /Installers in the process to effect a system that simply worked.

If their system ends up not doing what they bought and paid for it to do, no end of tech geek gibber/knowhow that is presented here is going to convince them to continue with  Sonos.

There are a number of 10,000 - 15,000 post people that frequent this forum that devalue the comments that actual users, as opposed to the biased opinions that the disciples make . 

Sonos tested the waters with the de-activation of the CR100 ...met little real opposition because of the small numbers of remaining CR100 owners measured against a longer term aim of planned obsolescence.

Unfortunately, as Sonos success progressed based on simple numbers  sold , there are many more owners with a dog in the hunt regarding future obsolescence. What was easy with the bricking of the CR100 is not going to be so easy with the latest round.

All the disciples present on this forum have been remarkably quiet considering their input on the CR100 thread, Sonos no doubt monitor the threads on their own Forum and may have been influenced by the small numbers of CR100 owners expressing their disappointment at the bricking of the CR100  and the input from the long term dwellers of this forum. That most likely their only/easiest way of measuring potential backlash at that time.

Comments were made regarding numbers of unique posters in the CR100 thread by the 10,000 -15,000 post guys, a small number of very vocal posters apparently, that were dismissed  for a variety of reasons  for expressing dismay at the retiral of the CR100.

What a surprise here we are again , same situation , but many more people unhappy with the prospects that Sonos are proposing due to larger sales = larger number of unhappy people = even more larger number of people never even going to consider Sonos. 

Maybe time to find a new church to worship at.

This is very well said, and I agree.  I also can see Sonos’ side of things.  They have made some critical mistakes in the past and obviously lately with the emails.  Developing the software and hardware without a clear vision was a mistake.  Developing the software which requires the same version on very different products in a system was a mistake.  Making different versions of products that look exactly the same, are named the same,  but have different internals was a mistake.  Someone at Sonos (most likely developers) saw this coming a long time ago.  Ignoring those warnings was a mistake, and they apparently put it off until it’s at critical mass.

Having said that, I understand that future updates which are out of Sonos’ control will push the code over the line on the legacy devices. They can’t be supported forever. 

Frankly I’m disgusted with the whole situation.  They will have to do something different - create a device that allows modern and legacy devices remain in a group, or change/rewrite the code.  

There seems to be a debate which system is better, Yamaha sonos or other .As I pointed out many pages ago all these systems is prone to being dropped by the manufacturers. Your be better off getting a dedicated device to stream and output locally to the sonos devices. No waste at all then and sonos doesn’t get another penny from me. 

Difficult for me to think that a tech company enjoying such a high reputation would flush all approval down the toilet so arrogantly without the slightest concern for your loyal customers. I can’t imagine that you didn’t think to offer an add on device to existing legacy products that bring said devices up to par with your new products. I would have been grateful for that option or something similar. What you have done is announce to the world that you just can’t trust SONOS. To be fair, since the clarification has come out I’m satisfied for now but Sonos has lost my trust. I never wanted a 30% discount. I just wanted a product with a name brand I could trust. 

A few things. 

SONOS trialled the 30% upgrade offer in November. I recycled a Play:5 gen1 and got 30% off a beam 5.1 setup - I was not forced in to a like for like upgrade. Therefore it was about increasing sales. I listened to the earnings call and the smart people in Goldman Sachs et al did not askk to many questions about that.  SONOS knew that people were happy to brick/recycle a product to get a 30% upgrade. The did not just drop this out of the sky. The policy is to move to ;modern’ products whatever the damage. There are various ways that they could have solved/soften/mitigated this response we see now. They chose this course of action deliberately. If they did not then we have some serious idiots in the boardroom. 

They should have said - we are moving to a new ‘modern’ system and you can get a like for like replacement with a 50% discount when you return your legacy product to us. We will then refurb/check then and resell as a SONOS Legacy product - call it SONOS classic or something. You now have two customer bases. One who can get into SONOS cheaply and one who move on to the modern system. Eventually you convert the Legacy people to Modern over time. Natural wastage will reduce the number of people you piss off to a small number compared to now. Those will 70% legacy products stick with Legacy and those with mostly Modern stick with SONOS PLUS or SONOS V2 - and publish your new offerings at that point, be it Dolby ATMOS or more voice stuff (this is what I think they game plan is)

Offer some hope for the future. We are doing this because Modern products are going to be so great. You can keep the legacy stuff and we will support it but the future is looking amazing for those in the SONOS plus arena. 

I have just packed up my 5.1 bean to return and they are going to send me a Play:5 gen 1 which gets me back to where I was when I traded up in November. I told then I would not have bought he 5.1 beam setup had I know about LegacyGate.

I have told them I won’t buy or recommend SONOS any more. 

I think it’s rather easy to come to that conclusion now, but I don’t really know what everything looked like a decade and more ago when the basic structure was developed.  It seems to me that they did have some thought about leaving space for growth, but didn’t leave enough space.

I don’t think each product has fully identical sets of code.  For example, I doubt the play:5 gen 1 has any code related to airplay 2 on it, even though that is a part of the current version.  I do think there are certain aspects of the product code that need to be match.  What exactly that is, how much space it takes up, and why it can’t be done a different way, I don’t know.

I don’t think there’s a debate on this point.  I think the fact that Sonos One has a gen 1 and gen 2, with no visible difference or current functional difference between the two, shows that Sonos likely has learned their lesson on this.  

It would be an interesting story of how that came about through Sonos internal discussions.  I would guess there were conflicts between marketing and the developers, and how such an announcement would effect the bottom line, etc.  I am fully speculating here, but it is possible that Sonos originally intended to give a full years notice (or something), but plans had to change due to changes in the development schedule etc.  All things that we will never know.  As customers, really not things that we need to worry about too much, as the final result is really all that matters.

Sonos boxed itself into a corner early on by promising customers free software updates for life. Chief Executive Patrick Spence testified at a congressional hearing this month: “Our business model is simple — we sell products which people pay for once, and we make them better over time with software updates.”

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-01-27/sonos-software-updates

Pretty certain that a legacy route was discussed over 1 year ago when the CR100 bricking was announced .Dismissed as non viable……….How come viable now please?

Why is it being touted now as an option, when it could have been explored over 1 year ago…?

Really??? Sonos has flip flopped on a lot of things. Ugh they need to turn this around.

Well I just spat a cup of tea out whilst reading the latest reply form support, apparently some users are excited about not having to do updates anymore, for Christ sake are support real to say this