End of Software Support - Clarifications

I don’t think you can really narrow it down to two opinions so cleanly.  This thread has a wide range of opinions all over the board.  Some are claiming that the products should last atleast 20 years and continue to be supported towards hardware failure.  Some believe that the system design should have allowed for products of low capability to work with higher capability, the higher capability handling the heavy load.  Some are accepting the technical issues, but feel Sonos should have given more warning.  Some feel that Sonos should over more than 30% discount on replacement products.  Some feel Sonos should offer to modify your existing product to increase it’s capabilities.  Some think Sonos should be charging support fees.

I get an appreciate that you’re trying to make sense of it all, but the views we see here are rather diverse, some based on fact and some based on speculation.

New management?

I think many are also realizing that smart speakers are more like computers than traditional speakers in terms of how they age, further complicated by the fact they belong to a tightly integrated system. 

Another more philosophical thought came to mind last night now that my initial anger has turned more to apathy.

Many, if not most of your customers probably bought into the Sonos ecosystem because of our disdain for "planned obsolescence". Sonos appeared to be one of the few technology companies that didn't buy into this philosophy.  

Even more disturbing than the fact that specific products have become obsolete was the statement that we will guarantee products for five years after last production.  That is the very definition of planned obsolescence.  It puts any future purchase on a countdown to obsolescence and I suspect that in itself will turn many off of future purchases.  

I understand some would like to see a guaranteed time period but I personally would feel better with once again having faith that planned obsolescence was not at all part of the corporate culture again.

It isn't planned obsolescence st all.  It is just saying we cannot be sure what might be necessary so here is a worst case scenario.

It's not even obsolescence. 

I have not seen their letters as “This is worst case, we are going to do everything we can to prevent it becoming the reality”

I, and most others see it as a “This is what we ARE going to do….” …. But i agree on it being the worst case scenario.

Breaking the multiroom part OR keeping all the other modern units hostage, IS the worst case.

“Breaking the multiroom part OR keeping all the other modern units hostage, IS the worst case”

^ BUT this is what they are doing - split your system to get updates for your new units and you no longer have multiroom grouping available as confirmed on twitter by Sonos and reported earlier on this thread; otherwise run old and new as a legacy system and you get no updates cor your new units again confirmed by Sonos on twitter.

Is anyone aware of a commercial audio system that consists of a local/on premise streaming device that reads streams/audio from diverse sources, such as spotify, local file servers, CD players, and outputs streams to ‘dumb’ wirelessly connected speakers that can be grouped etcetera?

I bet no one would pay the prices sonos asks if they knew that they were essentially buying a “5 year lease to use”.

I mean, who in their right mind would go out and buy a playbar today. This was introduced in February of 2013, making it just shy of 7 years old.

I would think it was nearing its end of life, and would be slated for a gen 2 successor.

I would NEVER buy this one as i would always fear that it would be superseeded in 6 months, making the investment a 5½ year investment and then it would essentially be worthless.

From now on, sonos need to speed up their update cycle to sell, as no one would dare buy an “old” product out of fear that it would soon be obsolete

This is how i feel, i dont think i had the play 1 first gen more than a year before it was superseeded by the gen 2. Should have waited a year and gotten a gen 2, but when i bought it i was not aware that it was a ~6 year old model and at that time, what did i care, i “knew” that with sonos, it would not matter, as it would just continue to work and work until the day the hardware failed, and at that time i would replace it.

Now sonos is trying to force me into doing this prematurely, because of their appetite for my money.

The term ‘hostage’ implies that there are no technical reasons involved, and that Sonos could continue applying updates, they just choose not to. Since Sonos states there are technical reasons, and that they have a history of supporting updates on older units, there is reason to believe Sonos is telling the truth here.  You obviously don’t have to believe, but it’s not definitely incorrect either.

As far as worse case, it’s not hard to imagine other scenarios that could be worse.  Sonos could have opted not to provide to provide and support a legacy mode at all, and just cut out all the legacy products entirely.  Or they could have ended the product line and started a new one, with no compatibility between the two.  Or they could have just ended business altogether and provided no new products and features entirely.  Or may be sold to someone like Amazon or Google, who then choose to removed features that didn’t fit their corporate goals (like using their competitors streaming and voice services).

Is anyone aware of a commercial audio system that consists of a local/on premise streaming device that reads streams/audio from diverse sources, such as spotify, local file servers, CD players, and outputs streams to ‘dumb’ wirelessly connected speakers that can be grouped etcetera?

I also think a gen 2 Playbar is a likely  new product soon. So the main reason I would not buy one now is the hope of a better product  The fact that it might have a shorter period of guaranteed updates might be a minor factor but wouldn't be a big thing for me. 

The ZP80 has been kept alive and fully functioning for 16 years on 32MB, through many developments unthought of when it was designed. When you talk about buying for five years you are still repeating the error of treating a minimum guarantee as an expectation. 

I haven't yet thought of any product 'this product is only guaramteed for 2 ysars so they must be expecting it to fail then'. 

Just to be clear, what you are asking for sounds like sonos, but the distinction between Sonos and this solution you are looking for is “dumb” speakers? 

Is anyone aware of a commercial audio system that consists of a local/on premise streaming device that reads streams/audio from diverse sources, such as spotify, local file servers, CD players, and outputs streams to ‘dumb’ wirelessly connected speakers that can be grouped etcetera?

“Breaking the multiroom part OR keeping all the other modern units hostage, IS the worst case”

^ BUT this is what they are doing - split your system to get updates for your new units and you no longer have multiroom grouping (between old and new units) available as confirmed on twitter by Sonos and reported earlier on this thread; otherwise run old and new as a legacy system and you can still group old and new units BUT you get no updates to your new units again confirmed by Sonos on twitter - so you are held hostage at an old version of the system.

The term ‘hostage’ implies that there are no technical reasons involved, and that Sonos could continue applying updates, they just choose not to. Since Sonos states there are technical reasons, and that they have a history of supporting updates on older units, there is reason to believe Sonos is telling the truth here.  You obviously don’t have to believe, but it’s not definitely incorrect either.

Really? I would think you are in the minority if you aren’t concerned about updates. Some Connects sold in 2015 will only got 4.5 years of new feature updates. 

Pretty much but I was thinking more of one central streaming server to minimise the replacement burden if it goes obsolete or fails. Also is there such a thing as ‘dumb’ wireless speakers, if so is there a standard communications protocol between these and a sender/server?

The term ‘hostage’ implies that there are no technical reasons involved, and that Sonos could continue applying updates, they just choose not to. Since Sonos states there are technical reasons, and that they have a history of supporting updates on older units, there is reason to believe Sonos is telling the truth here.  You obviously don’t have to believe, but it’s not definitely incorrect either.

As far as worse case, it’s not hard to imagine other scenarios that could be worse.  Sonos could have opted not to provide to provide and support a legacy mode at all, and just cut out all the legacy products entirely.  Or they could have ended the product line and started a new one, with no compatibility between the two.  Or they could have just ended business altogether and provided no new products and features entirely.  Or may be sold to someone like Amazon or Google, who then choose to removed features that didn’t fit their corporate goals (like using their competitors streaming and voice services).

I also think a gen 2 Playbar is a likely  new product soon. So the main reason I would not buy one now is the hope of a better product  The fact that it might have a shorter period of guaranteed updates might be a minor factor but wouldn't be a big thing for me. 

The ZP80 has been kept alive and fully functioning for 16 years on 32MB, through many developments unthought of when it was designed. When you talk about buying for five years you are still repeating the error of treating a minimum guarantee as an expectation. 

I haven't yet thought of any product 'this product is only guaramteed for 2 ysars so they must be expecting it to fail then'. 

So you would gladly buy a 7 year old product that you expect to be superseeded soon and be happy about a 5 year support, when the new one would potentially be 12 years before being obsolete.

Yes it is 16 years old and in those 16 years it has been refined, but why is it that it is suddenly not possible to keep it doing what it has always been able to.

I have a 7 year old android phone in my drawer as backup for when someone in my house breaks their phone and need a backup.

The manufacturer stopped updating it many years ago, but it is still able to receive and make calls even though i might call someone with a modern android phone, i can still send and receive text messages and it will still accept any Mp3 i throw at it as a ringtone.

The core functionality of my android phone is intact,  even though it has not got all of the new features of newer phones.

What sonos does is a bit like if my new android phone would not update the firmware because it detects that my old phone is on the network and if i want to update the new android phone i first have to discard my old phone or put it on another network where i can not call my new phone.

No. Someone buying a Connect now has a guarantee of at least 5 years. You really have problems grasping this simple fact it seems. Besides, they wouldn't be buying a Connect now, but a Port.

Is anyone else having their posts “moderated” ?

Have I done something wrong?

I just tried to post and it said it needed to be moderated

This one went straight through and posted though

all very odd - especially as I was only trying to quote someone and say I agreed with them