Do not buy from Sonos

There are very, very few apples to apples comparisons here (no pun intended). Your comparison definitely breaks down for people who have many Sonos devices. I have over 20 (and used to have over 30). So, if you’d be OK with losing support for something like texting (I’m going to make the analogy of streaming music services being like texting on a phone), after 5 years, but having 20 phones you need to replace, let us know. I’m not OK with that. Sonos is free to do whatever they want of course, it just that they may be losing an element of their business that they previously really had a strong ownership of and that is whole home or whole office audio. Having to replace 20 or more units every 5 years (possibly), with a 30% trade-in value is going to give a lot of people pause. I can afford it. I feel fortunate, that this type of expenditure would not really make much of a dent in my bank account, but I just don’t like to throw money away frivolously and can’t justify the ongoing expense based on principle.

Nobody in practice is going to have to replace all their Sonos gear every five years, or anything like it.  We don’t need analogies to say that.  You don’t even need to replace any of your gear now.

I’m not sure why people keep making statements that reflect what they want to be true as if they were the truth. The only information we have is that Sonos will only commit to updates for 5 years from when a device is last manufactured. Sonos devices may be sold through authorized retailers beyond this period of time for quite some time (as has happened to many people on these forums who have only owned their devices for a few years and will have legacy devices come May). We don’t know how often streaming music services get interrupted by code changes requiring Sonos to make updates in response. So, while you and I would both like to think that these features will continue to work for a long period outside of the 5 years, neither one of us has any guarantee that this will be the case. So, in practice, we all very well may need to replace all of our gear every 5 years if we want our devices to continue to work with services like Pandora, Spotify, Tidal, Deezer, etc. Maybe it will be longer. I’m not sure where I’d be satisfied personally. I think 10 years would do it, but that's probably a little too unrealistic/ambitious.

No, that is not the only information we have.  We also have the fact that Sonos supported some units for over 15 years from launch and over a decade from last manufacture.  We also know that all current legacy devices have the same 32 MB of RAM and storage, meaning that particular configuration was good for over 15 years of service.  In addition, we know all current Sonos devices have 16 to 32 times that in RAM and storage.  Therefore, while 5 years is what they have to state in some jurisdictions, the capability for far more years of support is there, and Sonos seems to have built that capability into currently sold products to the tune of 16 to 32 times the resources of the just now made legacy units.

Make of that what you will, but that is far more information than “Sonos will only commit to updates for 5 years from when a device is last manufactured”.  

Ok, yes, it’s possible that someone could happen to buy all the wrong speakers at all the wrong time for various reasons.  But is that a highly likely scenario?  No, not really.

How does that guarantee match up with Sonos competitors?  I honestly don’t know.

Yes, and consumers should take advice that buying products that have stopped production will have a shorter life.  And Sonos needs to make sure they clearly mark hardware changes in their products.  A mistake I think they have learned.  And again, this only apples to some of the legacy products, since most stop production longer than 5 years ago.

We don’t know, but we have an idea of the probability.

It’s matter of probability.    Yes, it is possible that I could buy a Sonos Beam today, it gets discontinued tomorrow, Sonos ends updates 5 years from now, and a streaming service changes it’s coding in 5 years plus a day….but that’s extremely unlikely.  Even going with an older product, like the playbar, the odds are that it will go much longer than 5 years,  Production may end soon, but it has signficantly more memory than the current legacy products.

But these products will not last forever, and not as long as ‘dumb’ traditional speakers.  If that’s more what you’re looking for then that is what you should be getting.

None of the information you provided makes your statements any more true. You are making at best educated guesses based on this information and thus you should state your opinion as such, not as a statement of fact. I have no problem with your opinion. We are all entitled to our own. It very well may come to pass as being correct, but we have no statements from Sonos to support it.

Not all current devices have 16-32 times the RAM and storage of the legacy devices. Some only have double the memory (64MB).

I haven’t seen any indication that Sonos has learned from their mistake. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if they mark their products with dates with wording that clearly explains the life expectancy or guaranteed updates. 

Yes, and it’s very probable that within the last 12 months both Spotify and particularly Pandora would have been broken. Pandora would have when they introduced the new tree that includes “my music” and split their service into Pandora one, plus, etc.

I’ve stated in other threads that I don’t think that updates can’t be expected in perpetuity, but I think that 5 years is too short. I have also stated that I personally would be willing to pay for ongoing updates that would keep my devices able to stream music services. I think this is a valuable service and would be willing to pay for it. I don’t believe the excuse that there isn’t enough RAM in legacy hardware to continue to do this. I have always understood and never expected that new features would become available to my devices. It has been a pleasant and unexpected surprise that I can now control my zones with a voice assistant.

I’m not here to bash Sonos. I don’t think they are making a good business decision, but only time will tell. I used to be a very big Sonos supporter, but simply can no longer recommend them at this point based on their statement and lack of clarity. Sure, I could tell someone anonymously on the internet that I love Sonos, but if a close friend or family member asked me what they should buy, I’d have to strongly caution them about the potential for a limited lifespan. While other companies such as Bluesound may end up doing something similar, they haven’t yet and until they do, I will give them the benefit of the doubt. Sonos has already burned some of its customer base with this decision. Fool me once and all...

Yet it is information, something you claimed we didn’t have, and I never claimed my statements to be true. However, I did back up my statements with facts, facts you willfully chose to ignore, citing only those that paint Sonos in a bad light.  Sorry, I'm not so quick to wield that brush in the face of other, just as relevant evidence.

And yes, the Sub is an older product that has 64 MB.  The Sub is a special case (not really a smart speaker, only plays a single stream from a master device).  A couple others only have 4 to 8 times.  My mistake.   Still multiple times the legacy 32 MB that sustained some devices for 15+ years, so my point stands.

Your statement, “Nobody in practice is going to have to replace all their Sonos gear every five years, or anything like it.” could absolutely be untrue. 5 years from tomorrow, all current devices could be transitioned to legacy and Sonos would be able to say that made a statement that this was possible and didn’t give anyone a reason to believe they would support devices longer than 5 years. They would be entirely correct.

My only issue is you making this statement like it is fact when it is only your “educated” guess and you should acknowledge it as so.

Everything is information. I never claimed we didn’t have information. What kind of statement is that? I said that we don’t have information that guarantees that devices will be able to stream longer than 5 years. What Sonos did with their first components does not guarantee anything moving forward. Expectations have changed them they decided to put out a their Legacy statement. “Past performance is not guarantee of future results”.

There are other products besides the sub that also have 64MB ram (some of the Connect:AMPs and Connects) that are not going into legacy come May. So, yes, your point still stands as being incorrect. I’m not trying to be a jerk, but your tendency to state factually incorrect information along with stating your opinion as fact makes reading the thread difficult and potentially misleading.

To the bolded - I never said anything of the sort.  It’s not “(my) statement”, you’ve mixed me up with someone else.   

here are other products besides the sub that also have 64MB ram (some of the Connect:AMPs and Connects) that are not going into legacy come May. So, yes, your point still stands as being incorrect.

Connect:Amps and Connects are no longer being sold, which is what I meant by “current devices”.  Sorry if I was not clear on that, but yes, my point does stand.