Sonos One SL S1 compatibility

Looking at the link above and the comparison chart, it was posted a while back and in fairness to its author, we all know that with some older forum posts that their information/content may be superseded by newer posts, like we see mentioned much more recently by Sonos Staff and copied to a post earlier in this thread.

I think it’s reasonably clear in any event, that the One SL speaker was purchased with an honest belief it was/is compatible with an existing S1 setup. The next step must be to contact Sonos Support and seek clarification on the matter and see if they are perhaps able to assist in some way to resolve the issue.

Is there a link to where Sonos posted this? When I google the message I only get quotes, like the one above. It looks like this news was not very openly communicated.

As I read it only One SL’s are affected by this, probably coinciding with the new One SL (Gen 2). Though something like this can be expected any time soon, when the One gets to Gen 3 (to keep up with the One SL.

I can see why Sonos is trying to push people off S1 and personally I’m not affected by this. But I do think messages like this should be communicated very openly, maybe even months in advance. Sonos should have learned from the poor way they communicated S1/S2 in the past and try not to surprise people, especially on this subject. Even more so since it also can affect owners that until may 25 could switch their One SL’s between S1 and S2 systems and now can’t anymore.

I believe the info was only distributed to dealers — I haven’t seen any public notice from Sonos. I agree that it should’ve been announced more widely, and earlier, as I imagine Beleza Tropical isn’t the only one finding him or herself in this situation.

Note that this “new” One SL is not a new generation; the notice posted above indicates that the changes do not warrant a generational update.

Hi everyone,

Let me try to clarify things a bit here. 

Basically, if a One SL is upgraded to S2 it is unable to be added back to any existing S1 household. If a unit with a series ID of A100 is already on S1 then you can still use it as you do today. New One SL units with a series ID of A200 will be incompatible with S1 systems out of the box. Any newly purchased Sonos One SL units that haven’t been registered to an S1 household before May 25th 2021 will only be compatible with S2, regardless of manufacture date or series ID.

If I factory reset my One SL, can I add it back to an S1 system?

If your One SL was running the S1 firmware before a factory reset occurred, you will be able to add it back to your S1 system. In the event you upgraded it to the S2 firmware, it would not be able to be re-added to S1 after performing a factory reset.
 

If I purchase an older One SL, can it be added to my S1 system?

No. The changes being implemented will be occurring through the cloud, and make One SL compatible with S2 only. If you have a One SL on an existing S1 system, you can continue to use it as you do today while receiving periodic S1 updates. If that One SL were to be upgraded to the S2 firmware, it would not be able to downgrade back to your S1 system.

The “Transfer Ownership” function doesn’t transfer the units from one household to another, it simply allows you to change the registered email address assigned to that particular system. You can do this without affecting which version the One SL is on.

We’re taking all feedback on this very seriously, and I’ve passed it on to the team responsible for this change.

Thanks James, that’s all very helpful! In reference to the above, does that mean that if the second-hand One SL had been running S1 firmware before it was resold it could’ve been added to the new owner’s S1 system after a factory reset, or can it only be re-added as an S1 unit to the original system, and would have to be added as an S2 in a new owner’s system?

Thanks again, especially for clarifying the Transfer Ownership function.

Correct, it would only be able to be re-added to the same S1 system it was previously registered to. If it was added to another system, it would need to upgrade to S2.

EDIT: I was mistaken in my comment above, please see comment 31 below.

I spoke to a perfectly courteous Sonos customer service rep who respectfully noted down all my information and recorded my complaint (paucity of public information that this would be a problem, poor Sonos job of communicating with its customer base, etc.) and told me there’s nothing they could do for me — “at present, anyway.” Sigh.

It occurs to me to ask whether this downgrade prohibition for the One SL is happening with any other Sonos speakers. What about Play speakers used with the S2 app? Will they be able to join S1 systems?

I expect an updated One (to keep up with the slightly updated One SL) to have the same effect for older One’s.

So Sonos do not appear to have learnt their lesson yet. We now have yet another example of the company making decisions that will cause confusion, probably upset some of the existing user base, create fear about the future of other products and generally muddy the waters around the product line.

The tweaks to make the product more eco and the other changes seem to be good things to do but why oh why could they have not created a Gen2? To me this smacks of Sonos adding more pressure on existing owners to upgrade, poor show Sonos

Anyone owning a SL has now lost the ability of adding the device to a different S1 environment, so selling the product to someone else has become complicated, It may be difficult or impossible to move the device between two S1 locations (of the same owner).

If a device accidently gets upgraded to S2 then the owner is stuffed and that is definitely out of order. 

Sonos states

“One of the limitations we were clear about was that products launched after June 2020 would only be available on the S2 app. “.

Well the SL was released before June 2020 and the implicit understanding from that statement is that any product released before that date would continue to be useable on S1.

Having started down this road how long before Sonos decide to take the same approach to the other 17/18 products that are currently S1 & S2 compatible.

The more I think about this the more outrageous I think it is - Sonos this really is not acceptable