Either I'm misunderstanding or this scheme is just encouraging people to throw away perfectly good Sonos equipment.
The way I read it, you "trade up" by selecting an eligible device and it then gets deactivated by Sonos for you to bin.
This is surely ethically wrong?
grazey I’m missing what Sonos is forcing you to do?
Everything I have seen on the Trade-Up program is optional and voluntary. What am I missing?
Sonos is t forcing me - yet, but it is coming. They are a company I no longer trust. You completely evaded the points I actually did make such as the aim of controlling the market, turning customers into cash cows, the fact that its not ethical to brick tech that works.
I didn’t evade. I ignored your opinions - not points, as points have facts behind them, opinions have feelings.
no you ignored my feelings based on facts. Sonos seeking to control the market is a fact backed up by experience. Sonos killing me using my iphone is a fact, not an opinion. Perhaps you are not capable of producing a coherent argument?
Other than enforcing their patents which is perfectly reasonable what is Sonos doing to control the market?
Why are you blaming Sonos for Apple dropping support for their older devices? Apple should follow Sonos’ path and keep their old stuff working, like my 13 year old ZP.
So I’ll wait patiently for your facts now.
Well, seems a lot has changed since you wrote this email!
Sonos removed the ability to play from my iPhone - an absolute key feature for me. I would NOT have bought my system without this which completely changed the way I interacted with the system which I had bought for my home and my office. I now hardly use either which has made me consider selling them…...that was until Sonos decided to brick old models so now I cant even do that as the used market has collapsed. Fact is people dont trust the brand now. Fact is people bought a hi fi and hi fi traditionally is kept for years and years. Fact is I was happy with my system just the way it was. Fact is that Sonos has, uninvited, stepped in and ruined my use of a system that has costs me thousands.
+22
I’m not concerned about my Gen 2 Play 5, it has the newer radio and far more memory than the products that were declared legacy. Even if Sonos released a Gen 3 tomorrow I’d have a minimum of five years of full support on it.
Only issue with the Gen 2 versus the Gen 1 is the loss of the headphone jack, that sucked until I came up with another solution.
+22
Killing the resale market as a Sonos motive is silly to even propose.
If that was the Sonos goal they could bought a decent sized pile of old Sonos gear off ebay for what they paid me in rebates that only got rid of one device each.
@Ryan S
If you have such good intentions; what is the idea in destroying the devise and making it irreversible?
You only incite/encourage to overconsumption when destroying perfectly good products.
When someone agree to the deal and regrets, they might as well have thrown their functional speaker in the trash..
Who is that helping? –Where is the ethics in this?
Nobody forces us, but it’s disapointing for me.
I own three “old” play:5, one play:3, five play:1, one connect:amp and a bridge.
If the offer was to replace old items for new ones with a 50% discount I would consider a good trade, and I would probably do the effort to take profit of it. But, with the trade up proposed by Sonos, I consider anoying to throw an excelent and working speaker to the rubbish just to get a 30% discount on new ones.
I was a happy Sonos customer just before reading the Trade-up message, now I’m thinking that my brilliant sonos system it’s getting obsolete much earlier that I supposed. For you, my system is just a 10-year old hardware, and for me it was a wonderful investment I’ve been doing during many years. I bought my first two play:5 with a bridge six or seven years ago, and after using them I decided to buy new speakers for the different rooms at my home. I bought my connect:amp just 4 years ago, and I bought the last play:1 couple just one or two years ago (I don’t remember right now).
After reading your trade-up offer, I believe you consider obsolete a 10-year old speaker even if I bought it just three or four years ago. I need to think carefully what to do now, probably if I decide to “replace” my working speakers I would be "forced" in the near feature (maybe in 5 years more? Maybe 7?) to replace them again (how much will it cost next time?). As I have said, this is very annoying for me. Your speakers are not cheap and even if I decide to replace my “old” ones… how long will they last? Now I feel I would be throwing one or two thousend euros just to renew my speakers, but let me insist… how long will last my investment?
Sorry but this is not what I consider a high quality product. I believe that you should offer a better way to renew “old” speakers to your customers.
Regards,
Manuel Martínez
I think also that Sonos should clarify what would happen in the future with the obsolete speakers. Would they work with new versions of the Sonos App? Could we keep a working version without updating the app? (that seems dificult to believe). Would they have a “first-gen” working app?
I think Sonos is a very good multiroom system with a good app and, until now, it allows you to mix different speakers of different generations… but now, things seems to get worse. To me, the trade-up offer means that they don’t want to continue working to update “old” speakers. I understand it, but one thing is not receiving updates with new features on them and the other is to be unable to use it anymore. to
I know that Sonos have not announced the end-of-life for old play:5 and connect-amp but that’s what I understand.
And about the 30% discount. It’s not a wonderful offer, it’s easy to have a 15% discount on Amazon and sometimes a 20%, so the trade-up doesn’t look like a good bussiness at first sight.
Regards,
Manuel Martínez
Note, there will not be any change in current functionality for the legacy devices, they will just stop getting software updates. They will continue to work. You are not being forced to buy new equipment.
No thank you. You misunderstood my point. Perhaps you can read my post again.
But if you have “mixed” Legacy/non-Legacy units, the Legacy units affect them all thus rendering the entire system a Legacy system; “Please note that because Sonos is a system, all products operate on the same software. If modern products remain connected to legacy products after May, they also will not receive software updates and new features.” In my case having both new/old, it does prompt me to look at Trading in my 3 effected Play 5’s.
Either I'm misunderstanding or this scheme is just encouraging people to throw away perfectly good Sonos equipment.
The way I read it, you "trade up" by selecting an eligible device and it then gets deactivated by Sonos for you to bin.
This is surely ethically wrong?
The whole thing is a huge insult to the loyal customers that were there first to help Sonos become an industry leader. I love Sonos, I think 99% of us do but 30% trade-up allowance? My Play 5’s still sound awesome and work just fine.
There are grounds for legal action as buyers were never informed of any lifespan of Sonos products.
Some have tried to defend Sonos by making comparisons to upgrading to new phones, “it’s just like upgrading your phone to get new features, the old Sonos devices won’t work so you have to upgrade”. What? That’s completely irrelevant as the phone companies and carriers have been perfectly clear to consumers about future upgrades to take advantage of technical advancement, BUT you are not forced to upgrade to use your device as old as it may be. My father still uses his iPhone 4 that’s over ten years old. I tell him, “Dad we should upgrade your phone”, he says, “why, it works just fine”. I try it and it’s painful to use, I think he should upgrade, but again, he’s not forced to upgrade, forced to pay to play.
It’s clear Sonos has a scaling and compatibility issue to address but I don’t think it’s intentional or a conspiracy to drive sales of new products. I think they honestly didn’t know at the time that the cutting edge products they sold and we paid a premium for, would, in their view, become obsolete.
The bottom line is that the devices are not obsolete, they work just fine, they still make the same sound as when purchased and they still connect seamlessly to a Sonos network. So they should continue to work but making devices backward compatible takes time and resources which could be used on future advancements. I get it and I’m all for advancement, but making me and other loyal customers pay for Sonos’ growing pains is the unethical part.
The decisions were made by the executive team at some point, it may have sounded something like this “look, guys/gals, it doesn't make any sense to support our legacy products as we continue to make advancements and refine our ecosystem. They just can’t keep up and we can’t be bogged down trying to support them, we have to move on and sunset those products.” It sounds good and it does make sense.
The problem, both ethically and legally, was in their decision to force customers to buy new components to stay current with Sonos.
There are thousands of companies out their still running legacy systems for their early adopters of software and other services. New customers can’t buy Version 1, but they still run Version 1 because they know they can’t force clients to pay for Version, 2, 3, 4, etc. Sooner or later the company hits the time when converting V1 customers to V2,3,4, etc. is more advantageous than continuing support. The company tells the client, “you’ve been such a loyal client for so long we would like to move you to a newer version for free, we’ll take care of everything”. The client is happy, the company strengthens the relationship and no longer has to support outdated technology. Wins all around!
Sonos, on the other hand, made a conscious decision to defray costs by making Sonos’ customers pay for new products. The 30% discount is just adding insult to injury especially when products on currently on sale at a 28% discount.
Sonos customers were hit with a new unforeseen expense to comply with Sonos or lose the use of the products they purchased.
What would you think would be the outcome If Sonos told customers in advance about product life span before they drop $800 on a set of Play 5s? Could you imagine?
“You’re going to love Sonos, wireless speakers are the future, but one last thing Mr customer, there is a very good chance that your new speakers won’t really work in a few years, is that ok?” “Oh what do I care? $800, ahhh, a mere bag of shells! I like to upgrade my entire audio system every two years!” Who cares about money? I don’t mind getting screwed every now and then as long as I get a discount!
Just bad all the way around. Knowingly taking products off support makes them defective and therefore Sonos customers are damaged financially. I’m still confused about why they haven’t come up with a fair solution. It’s only a matter of time before a class action suit hits which will cost Sonos 10X of doing the right thing in the first place.
Either I'm misunderstanding or this scheme is just encouraging people to throw away perfectly good Sonos equipment.
The way I read it, you "trade up" by selecting an eligible device and it then gets deactivated by Sonos for you to bin.
This is surely ethically wrong?
It seems that New Zealand’s Consumer organisation agrees with you. An article appears in their latest magazine and online here.
It’s hard to imagine how Sonos could have generated worse world wide publicity even if they had tried.
Most older SONOS gear is worth more than the 30% discount. So a better “trade up” is to liquidate current gear and buy the new gear. For instance; I can easily fetch $280 for a Connect Amp which will net me an additional $100.
I would just like to know if this is going to be like the old remotes which they ended up bricking after a brief trade in period (which I missed). It would suck to come home from a long vacation and find all of my SONOS gear inoperable (12 units).
Nobody knows, however I think expecting older units to operate and/or be upgraded in perpetuity is wishful thinking. Eventually, they are going to be retired, and it would not surprise me if this trade up program is in preparation for that eventuality.
What I don’t expect is the trade up program to end before the retirement takes place.
I still have audio equipment from the 60’s that works great. I don’t expect SONOS to “support” legacy gear forever but I also don’t expect it to stop working either. They could easily keep legacy equipment operable while only supporting new equipment. Not unlike old PC’s which still work fine they just don't support new OS’s or software.
In the Save the CR100 thread, Sonos stated that one option to continue using the retired units was to never upgrade. They didn’t recommend it, and it would eventually become incompatible with all but local library streaming, but it was an option.
I’m still confused about why they haven’t come up with a fair solution.
Everyone’s idea of “fair” is different. I’m sure that many users wouldn’t consider anything less than having SONOS simply ship out replacement products at no charge to be “fair”. However, if SONOS does this and wants to remain a viable company, they must increase the price for anyone purchasing new product. Is this being “fair” for customers purchasing new units? Would potential customers refrain from purchasing these more expensive units? Regardless, we will eventually be having a similar discussion regarding now current and yet to be introduced product.
One solution to this dilemma for SONOS and all other high-tech manufacturers is to lease the product. As EOL approaches, for any reason, the leased base is simply swapped out. The swap cost will be baked into the long term lease fees.
Would you be satisfied with a lease arrangement?
+9
The team certainly worked on a lot of options for how best to make this program work. While we’re proud of how long our products last, we don’t really want these old, second-hand products to be the first experience a new customer has with Sonos. We hope that in upgrading to the latest and greatest, people will recycle responsibly, and we feel it’s the right decision to make recycling a condition of this offer. The program itself is also entirely optional, and merely an offer for people with eligible devices.
Ok, I've missed a bit here. How is it a condition of the offer? Do they need to supply evidence that's it's been recycled properly (although reusing it is still the most ethical solution)?
Cheers
No evidence of recycling is needed, the retailer get a £15 credit / contribution to the recycling fee but you know retailers will throw away in general waste and make an extra £15 profit
Where does anyone get the idea that the retailer is responsible for the recycling? The recycling is expected to be done by the consumer.
+9
Where does anyone get the idea that the retailer is responsible for the recycling? The recycling is expected to be done by the consumer.
In Sonos’ T&C’s that have been sent to retailers. The customer brings in the old component and the retailer has to record and send off the S/N, then the retailer ‘recycles’ dumps the product
melvimbe wrote:
I think we could both agree that it’s not a very clear statement in that FAQ. “Performance” is too vague. I think it only refers to network performance, but I can’t say that for sure since I don’t know what I don’t know. And I can’t say it doesn’t leave room open for interpretation.
Well certainly I would think wireless network performance is one of the things - these models all lack the 5GHz wireless support. I had once asked why my Play:5 Gen 1s couldn’t be used as satellites in a 5.1 setup with sub and playbar, and the answer was they lack the wireless bandwidth as they have an “old” wireless chip. But, interestingly, the connect:amp can be used in such a setup to drive the satellites - but only if you connect both playbar and connect:amp to your network by ethernet cable.
So this is an example of simply not supporting a new feature on an old product (the Play:5 gen 1s), but without affecting anything else on the network. But why can’t I just connect the Play:5 by ethernet? Again, only speculative, but it could just be the lack of processing power.
I speculate on that because we have the recent surprise of the Sonos One gen 2. It seems the main benefits of that are improved memory and processing power - features that actually make no difference right now. So what gives?
Sonos said at the time:
Currently there are no feature differences between Sonos One Gen 2 and the original version. The original Sonos One will continue to support all its current features, and more, in the future. Over time, however, the increased memory, Bluetooth Low Energy, and processing power may allow us 1o bring new product experiences to the Gen 2 version that the original will not be able to support. That said, we have no specific Gen 2-only features planned at this time.
The other feature these models boast is a line-in. I’ve always been slightly in awe of how well that works - these are analogue line-in. So there must be a great deal of processing to present those audio inputs as digital streams to the network. Then there is the question of how much bandwidth that stream consumes and I’d imagine (again, just speculating) that means you need either a fast network or some form of very rapid compression at source. You can get away with a small delay at source here, as long as all the receiving devices can decompress at the same rate.
This all boils down to “network performance” as you say, but I suspect it’s more than just the performance of the wireless chip and/or capability to do 5GHz - it is also raw processing power. I’d think Sonos would want to exploit the increased processing power of new models by not being hobbled by the old.
Here’s where it comes to a trade-off: cool new features and support for cool old features. The Sonos ecosystem is great because it’s homogenous (almost) in terms of feature support. It could just be that, to keep offering market-leading new features, Sonos need to shake off the sluggish models. Google and Samsung are just two names doing cool new stuff in the same space and these guys are not so nostalgic. To stay competitive Sonos have to do new processor/network hungry stuff while at the same time maintaining their brand and premium marque qualities of supporting their entire legacy product line.
The so called “Connect Amp” has two different models, one of which is obsolete under this program, one is not. At the time when the hardware got rev’d there was a mix of the two Connect Amps in the marketplace, a person could have purchased one of each and inadvertently ended up with an end of life product. I’d call that false advertising, or some sort of violation of consumer laws.
How? There was no advertising about end of support life at all during the time of purchase, except for probably something about Sonos having the right to drop support at any time or a certain time. Both amps in your example would be covered under your scenario. At the very least it would not matter that one is continuing support and one is not. You might have a case if the devices you bought listed the tech specs of the device, and one of the devices didn’t meet that spec. But Sonos doesn’t release that information.
I’m not saying you have to be happy about this situation. I’m just not seeing how your scenario results in any unique kind of grievance.
Because since at the time I purchased both of them, one had a shorter lifetime than the other, even though they had the same name and price. This was not disclosed to me.
+26
Recycling the older products is a condition of the agreement for receiving the discount, and recycling locally is more eco-friendly and sustainable than packing up and shipping back to us. According to the terms and conditions of the program outlined here: https://www.sonos.com/en-us/legal/tradeup-terms Emphasis added to the specific note.
[quote]
ISSUANCE OF THE DISCOUNT CREDIT IS YOUR SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE CONSIDERATION FOR PLACING YOUR SONOS PRODUCT IN RECYCLE MODE. ONCE YOU HAVE INITIATED THE RECYCLING PROCESS AND RECEIVED YOUR DISCOUNT CREDIT IN THE “MY ACCOUNT” SECTION OF SONOS.COM, YOU SHOULD FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS IN THE TRADE UP TAB OF THE “MY ACCOUNT” SECTION TO SHIP YOUR PRODUCT BACK TO SONOS OR DELIVER THE PRODUCT TO A CERTIFIED ELECTRONICS RECYCLER FOLLOWING DEACTIVATION OF THE PRODUCT.
ONCE YOU HAVE INITIATED THE RECYCLING PROCESS, YOUR SONOS PRODUCT WILL NO LONGER BE USABLE. BY PARTICIPATING IN THE TRADE UP PROGRAM, YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT YOUR SONOS PRODUCT WILL NO LONGER FUNCTION AS A SPEAKER OR NETWORK DEVICE AND DISCLAIM ANY WARRANTIES RELATED TO THE SONOS PRODUCT, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, STATUTORY OR OTHERWISE, WITH RESPECT TO YOUR SONOS PRODUCTS, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT AND THE IMPLIED CONDITION OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY. YOU AGREE THAT YOU WILL SHIP YOUR PRODUCT BACK TO SONOS OR RECYCLE YOUR SONOS PRODUCT WITH A CERTIFIED ELECTRONICS RECYCLER WITHIN TWENTY-ONE DAYS OF INITIATION OF THE RECYCLING PROCESS.
[/quote]
There are also retailers that are participating in this program. They handle the process slightly differently, but they are also required to recycle the products responsibly, per our agreement with them.
My previous post was only a few sentences long so not sure how you still missed my point. I'll try and reword it for clarity.
1) Recycling is a good thing. Recycling things that don't need recycling is a bad thing.
2) To add to that, people do have a choice but Sonos is encouraging bad practice (see point 1)
Hope that helps.
Cheers
These units are more than a decade old in some cases. People are going to buy new stuff anyway. Encouraging them to recycle 10+ year old devices rather than pitch them out is far better than Apple encouraging you to toss your phone and buy the new model once every year. As to “recycling things that do not need recycling”, let’s face it: These decade old devices aren’t going to run forever, and a recycling offer is more than most electronics companies offer for near end-of-life units. Good of Sonos to get out ahead of it.
The insert shows products that are eligible for the 30% discount coupon through BestBuy. I find it odd that the Play 3 and Play 1 (especially the Play 1) are missing from the BB list of eligible products.
Question (I realize you may not be able to comment on anything):
Note: Just an observation...there seems to be several threads on this topic. Why not combine into one?
Cheers!
These units are more than a decade old in some cases. People are going to buy new stuff anyway. Encouraging them to recycle 10+ year old devices rather than pitch them out is far better than Apple encouraging you to toss your phone and buy the new model once every year. As to “recycling things that do not need recycling”, let’s face it: These decade old devices aren’t going to run forever, and a recycling offer is more than most electronics companies offer for near end-of-life units. Good of Sonos to get out ahead of it.
Eventually people will buy new stuff but not necessarily yet. My Play 5 gen 1 works just fine and I'd like to think it's supported for a few good years yet. Encouraging me to "trade up" under the guise of it being environmentally friendly is just a contradiction in itself.
Also, I don't want to compare Sonos to Apple or any other company. Judging bad practise against worse bad practise gets you nowhere.
I still think there's a better solution that they can come up with.
I’m still confused about why they haven’t come up with a fair solution.
Everyone’s idea of “fair” is different. I’m sure that many users wouldn’t consider anything less than having SONOS simply ship out replacement products at no charge to be “fair”. However, if SONOS does this and wants to remain a viable company, they must increase the price for anyone purchasing new product. Is this being “fair” for customers purchasing new units? Would potential customers refrain from purchasing these more expensive units? Regardless, we will eventually be having a similar discussion regarding now current and yet to be introduced product.
One solution to this dilemma for SONOS and all other high-tech manufacturers is to lease the product. As EOL approaches, for any reason, the leased base is simply swapped out. The swap cost will be baked into the long term lease fees.
Would you be satisfied with a lease arrangement?
True, “fair” is a relative term which is why there is such backlash. Some users may want new equipment, but answering your own hypothetical remains hypothetical. I’ve yet to see any company make public apology made for treating people fairly. Clearly, Sonos knows of the unfairness or there would be no need to apologize or offer a discount. They also knew of the impending issue while still producing and selling the soon to be outdated equipment, now that doesn’t seem fair or does it?
Leasing equipment? Do you mean like the cable companies do with modems? No thanks.
Just my observations. BTW anyone with 16,834 replies is far too biased.
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