My understanding is that once you “trade” the PLAY:5 in, it gets deactivated  permanently in 21 days.

Fortunately, not all of us are choosing to take this action, and they’re not deactivating all devices, this is just a promotion for those who want to update their equipment.

Thanks Bruce. I was concerned that somewhere in the not too distant future they'll not be supported and cease receiving updates.

There’s no indication of that, so far. They currently still support the first devices they released, it would be hard to conceive of them dropping support for the PLAY:5 anytime soon 

I see this much more as a consequence of the company being forced to remove the “play from my iOS device” by Apple’s changes, and attempting to help those who have that need to upgrade to a device that has AirPlay 2.

But I’ve been accused of being a fanboy before, and I’m not a Sonos employee, so what they are really thinking is opaque to me. But I’d be stunned if they were intending to stop supporting these devices in the near future.

That being said, each speaker is a computer, with a processor and memory in it. At some point, the older devices with slower CPUs and restricted available memory will be challenging to support. I don’t think these devices have infinite life, as Sonos continues to need to update the software in order to stay relevant. I just don’t think that’s any time soon. The only devices they’ve had to stop supporting so far are a remote control, and a dock for 30pin iOS devices. Not a single speaker has been removed from their lineup.

I am still considering whether I want to take advantage of this offer myself. I’ve got a device or two that are eligible. Fortunately, Sonos has made this optional, and not required, which I would think they ‘might’ do if they were considering forced retirement of these devices. 

I just recycled my ZP-80s and Gen 1 Play 5s, part of the agreement was to either ship them back to Sonos or recycle them locally and that they would not be left able to connect to the internet. Too lazy to go back and look up the exact wording.

I’m expecting Sonos to have to reduce the functionality on the older gear as the operating system and proprietary code keeps growing. I’d hope that they’d avoid reducing what we have now and just skipping adding new stuff but that may not be an option.

Thanks Stanley. Hopefully not going down the built in obsolescence path and that they remain functional.

Cheers, Steve