Sonos five dies out after 2.5 years

​@buzz i also don’t have hard data on how often power suppliers fail in Five before a reasonable period.

But, see this thread below of about 6 years and 3 generations of Five speakers where people find cheap and easy fixes to power supply issues (what i’m having).

Making fixing cheap or expensive is a design choice, and then a policy choice. It’s a choice the company made when they designed the product, and then again when they defined their policies - to use too much glue inside, and to demand that broken speakers be sent back for the discount. it’s not fate and it’s not an economical necessity that fixing would be is too expensive. 

I asked Claude (Opus 4.1 to summarize the thread):

Bottom Line

Success Rate: Very high for simple fuse/rectifier failures (most common issue)

Cost:

• Simple fix: €3-10
• Medium complexity: $15-30
• External PSU bypass: ~$30

Time Investment: 2-6 hours typically (mostly fighting glue)

Verdict: The thread shows overwhelmingly positive results. Even complete novices succeeded with basic soldering skills. The main barriers are:

1. Excessive hot glue (solvable with patience and isopropyl alcohol)
2. Identifying the specific failed component(s)
3. Desoldering the rectifier (universally described as difficult)

The thread represents a community-driven reverse engineering effort spanning 14 years, with users helping each other identify components and solutions. Most repairs cost under $20 in parts, making it very worthwhile compared to replacement.

Yes, the glue makes disassembly and reassembly tedious, but it minimizes miscellaneous noises.

Great,

This sort of brings up the question again - are there non official labs that will take this on?

Regardless of the point of principle here (should Sonos put their customer satisfaction first or short term profit)  

If the cost of fixing it is only a couple of hours work of a talented electrician, and the parts are negligible, i can probably find someone to tinker with it and maybe just get my speaker back...

Yes there are. 
 

Where do you live? 

Thanks ​@nik9669a, I’m in Tel Aviv. 

Ahh, not sure about there. In the uk there’s a company. Have you tried a google search for “sonos speaker repair”?

Yes, seems like the only lab that accepts them are the importer’s and they refuse to touch it because the warranty expired, they’d prefer i buy a new one...

​@Ronnno, As an math example: the unofficial Sonos repairshop (3rd party) in Germany charges €179 for the Five plus shipping. The 30% discount Sonos offers covers shipping and warranty (two years (?) provided by EU’s trade relations with Israel).

​@Ronnno 

Thanks for providing your location. As I guess from your comments there are no 3rd party repair locations in your area that you can find:

1. If there is a 3rd party that will repair the Five you have to weigh shipping and repair cost against the 30% discount or looking on eBay (or other similar website) for a refurbished or used unit.
2. Trying to find a YouTube video is a long shot especially if you can’t identify the faulty component 
3. Unfortunately, Sonos and/or whomever you purchased the unit seem to be non-starters to get a free replacement unit.

At this juncture IMO your best option is # 1 above. Used Five units are being sold on eBay averaging $350_USD. Of course you have to consider shipping cost depending upon where the used unit is located.

So you don’t think that you are the most unfortunate person in the world I offer this…

• I had a Sony TV fail a few days after the warranty expired
• I had a Panasonic TV fail shortly after the one year warranty’s expired. Luckily I had purchased the extended warranty so the motherboard was repalced. However, after one year the replacement motherboard failed.
• I had a LG refrigerator fail 6 months after the 3 year  warranty expired.

My point being that failures occur and sometimes the timing seems a bit suspect. However, that is the world we live in with electronics these days. However, we can’t say with surety that manufacturers build automatic failure into their products after warranty expiration.

I’m fortunate that the failures that occurred could have been repaired had I chosen that route. However, the TV failures gave me an excuse to upgrade 😂. The refrigerator was a repair cost vs new option. I chose new.

Regarding Sonos, I’ve been fortunate that none of my units have failed (as of now). However, regardless of the App problem of 2024 I believe Sonos to be a reputable product manufacturer. I also believe that if Sonos were receiving an alarming number of Five failures within 1-2 years they would have issued a recall or be more willing to replace the product for the original owner. 

I hope you are able to arrive at a satisfactory solution; be it a more favorable offer by Sonos or an option of your choice. Good luck!

I'm curious, do you know the make and model of the surge suppressor? Some are very good and some are worthless.

I have all my Sonos on good quality suppressors or a UPS, that last is silly but I had an open socket and it saved running an extension cord.