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I'm a long time owner of Playbar and two play one speakers. They have been a very good surround system. I finally decided to complete the system with a base sub. Wanting the best hardware I bought the newest version, the sub 4.

I set it up with the app and found out it was not compatible with my old hardware.

All these products are connected via Wi-Fi and Sonos has decided that they don't want us to use the sub 4 with my old hardware. I'm sure this is a way to get us to buy new hardware where it is not needed. Backward compatibility is a good business model for the uses. They have decided they don't care about that, they want more money.

 

DON'T BUY SONOS.

Yes, I contacted tech support, their answer is send the sub 4 back and get the older sub.

Backwards compatibility is good... But for how long?

When was the Playbar last sold? 2020?

If memory serves, it came out in 2013. None of my phones or computers from then are still working / compatible, either. 
 

At least Sonos allows the PLAYBAR to continue to work, either on S1 or S2, but it can’t be bonded with the latest stuff. For some reason, I have trouble running those other computers on the latest OS as well. 

The connection between the devices is TCP. The data they send is their own format. If they wanted it to work it would work.

Your old computers still access the internet, right?

Sure old computers don't have the hardware capacity for new OSs, but they can still 'talk' to one another with a TCP connection. 

My PLAYBARs worked quite well under either S1 or S2, although I’ve since donated them to others, but they continue to work, as they always have, with Subs of their same time frame.

I have zero expectations that they would bond with ‘new’ hardware, changes are made to systems over time. The amazing thing to me is that Sonos continues to have them work and support them at all. Other companies, as I understand it, no longer support their own ‘older’ speakers. Your mileage, of course, may vary, I’m merely expressing my own opinion that tech moves forward. 

I understand your frustration, but it doesn’t seem reasonable to me to expect hardware from 20 years ago to mesh with hardware from this year. 

Get an older generation of Sub.

My Playbars still work great, fine devices.

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