SONOS Announcement and Fallout..

SmithySeller

Hi

As a long-time customer Im interested to hear your view on the Sonos announcements, a retailers view?

On the back of my experience I have invested about 5K in Sonos Equipment. I have recommended many people toward you for Sonos products down through the years. I have installed and fixed many Sonos setups for friends.

Announcements can be seen here, with considerable row back from Sonos;



https://en.community.sonos.com/announcements-228985/end-of-software-support-clarifications-6835969


They have restarted the threads because of the overwhelming negative feedback.

More of that can be seen here, and not limited to the below either, the negative feedback has gone viral across the globe;


https://bgr.com/2020/01/22/sonos-speakers-customers-call-for-boycott/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51206604

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50948868

https://ie.trustpilot.com/review/www.sonos.com

 

Sonos is touted as a Modular System, that Grows old with you (their words). You add pieces as you see fit and your wallet allows!

Picture the Scenario,

I have purchased 8 Zones. 1 Connect Amp, 5 Connects, 1 Play:5 and 1 Beam.

Both the Play:5 and Beam were bought from you guys (-:, 4 years and 14 months ago respectively. Im pretty sure I bought some connects off you too.



From May all Legacy products are no longer supported and will not receive updates. This is everything except the Beam, yes, even the Play:5. On the face of it I can understand that, especially as I come from an IT background.

Now the fun starts;

Sonos works in a Mesh Network. All products must run the same firmware release or the whole system won’t work properly, if at all. What is this in practice?


As of May, my 4 year old Play:5 is obsolete

As of May, my reasonably new Sonos Beam will not receive any updates at all

As of May, I will not be able to add ‘ANY’ new Sonos device to my existing setup if it’s on a newer firmware release, which it obviously will be!

As of May, right now, you cant add a newer controller (phone) to a legacy setup

As of May you may not be able to join certain Streaming Services and integrate with Sonos.

My Sonos setup, in their words, “access to services and functionality will eventually be disrupted”, i.e. will STOP!.


Their solution is a trade up scheme, 30% off newer devices and they then deliberately brick the older devices (so you cant sell or use them), and not trade up like for like either in some circumstances. A connect these days cost €700 (a whopping two channel amp, €700….)

They have stated they will now do this every 5 years!


Before announcing this they stated that this was an eco-friendly way to upgrade older players. This has proven to be lies (fortunately for Joe Public, you cant edit an old tweet, I don’t think)


At first they stated that some newer features simply couldn’t be ported to older systems (so what, just leave out the feature on said device. This is Software!!). But alas, a leaked memo from Q3 2019, just yesterday has alluded to this being for ongoing cost reasons and they expect fallout from existing customers, and they need a sustainable approach to new Hardware.

That Memo seems to be gone from the Sonos Forums, but Im sure it will pop up again.



How will you approach new Sales, for example, me buying a piece of equipment would be entirely stupid now? 
But will you ask, how old is your Sonos setup and check against Legacy devices?

Upgrading everything is cost restrictive obviously, and defeats the purpose of a modular system anyhow.

What is your opinion on this?
Thanks

Smithy....

Richersounds.ie: DavidS

SmithySeller wrote: »

Hi

As a long-time customer Im interested to hear your view on the Sonos announcements, a retailers view?

On the back of my experience I have invested about 5K in Sonos Equipment. I have recommended many people toward you for Sonos products down through the years. I have installed and fixed many Sonos setups for friends.

Announcements can be seen here, with considerable row back from Sonos;



https://en.community.sonos.com/announcements-228985/end-of-software-support-clarifications-6835969


They have restarted the threads because of the overwhelming negative feedback.

More of that can be seen here, and not limited to the below either, the negative feedback has gone viral across the globe;


https://bgr.com/2020/01/22/sonos-speakers-customers-call-for-boycott/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51206604

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50948868

https://ie.trustpilot.com/review/www.sonos.com

 

Sonos is touted as a Modular System, that Grows old with you (their words). You add pieces as you see fit and your wallet allows!

Picture the Scenario,

I have purchased 8 Zones. 1 Connect Amp, 5 Connects, 1 Play:5 and 1 Beam.

Both the Play:5 and Beam were bought from you guys (-:, 4 years and 14 months ago respectively. Im pretty sure I bought some connects off you too.



From May all Legacy products are no longer supported and will not receive updates. This is everything except the Beam, yes, even the Play:5. On the face of it I can understand that, especially as I come from an IT background.

Now the fun starts;

Sonos works in a Mesh Network. All products must run the same firmware release or the whole system won’t work properly, if at all. What is this in practice?


As of May, my 4 year old Play:5 is obsolete

As of May, my reasonably new Sonos Beam will not receive any updates at all

As of May, I will not be able to add ‘ANY’ new Sonos device to my existing setup if it’s on a newer firmware release, which it obviously will be!

As of May, right now, you cant add a newer controller (phone) to a legacy setup

As of May you may not be able to join certain Streaming Services and integrate with Sonos.

My Sonos setup, in their words, “access to services and functionality will eventually be disrupted”, i.e. will STOP!.


Their solution is a trade up scheme, 30% off newer devices and they then deliberately brick the older devices (so you cant sell or use them), and not trade up like for like either in some circumstances. A connect these days cost €700 (a whopping two channel amp, €700….)

They have stated they will now do this every 5 years!


Before announcing this they stated that this was an eco-friendly way to upgrade older players. This has proven to be lies (fortunately for Joe Public, you cant edit an old tweet, I don’t think)


At first they stated that some newer features simply couldn’t be ported to older systems (so what, just leave out the feature on said device. This is Software!!). But alas, a leaked memo from Q3 2019, just yesterday has alluded to this being for ongoing cost reasons and they expect fallout from existing customers, and they need a sustainable approach to new Hardware.

That Memo seems to be gone from the Sonos Forums, but Im sure it will pop up again.



How will you approach new Sales, for example, me buying a piece of equipment would be entirely stupid now? 
But will you ask, how old is your Sonos setup and check against Legacy devices?

Upgrading everything is cost restrictive obviously, and defeats the purpose of a modular system anyhow.

What is your opinion on this?
Thanks

Smithy....

Hi Smithy,

Thanks for the post and apologies for the delay getting back to you!

In the interim Sonos have released a statement to say that they will continue to support legacy products for as long as they can:

[font=Arial, sans-serif]A letter from our CEO:[/font]
[font=Arial, sans-serif]All Sonos products will continue to work past May[/font]
[font=Arial, sans-serif]Published Jan 23, 2020[/font]
[font=Arial, sans-serif]We heard you. We did not get this right from the start. My apologies for that and I wanted to personally assure you of the path forward:[/font]
[font=Arial, sans-serif]First, rest assured that come May, when we end new software updates for our legacy products, [/font][font=Arial, sans-serif]they will continue to work as they do today[/font][font=Arial, sans-serif]. We are not bricking them, we are not forcing them into obsolescence, and we are not taking anything away. Many of you have invested heavily in your Sonos systems, and we intend to honor that investment for as long as possible. While legacy Sonos products won’t get new software features, we pledge to keep them updated with bug fixes and security patches for as long as possible. If we run into something core to the experience that can’t be addressed, we’ll work to offer an alternative solution and let you know about any changes you’ll see in your experience.[/font]
[font=Arial, sans-serif]Secondly, we heard you on the issue of legacy products and modern products not being able to coexist in your home. We are working on a way to split your system so that modern products work together and get the latest features, while legacy products work together and remain in their current state. We’re finalizing details on this plan and will share more in the coming weeks.[/font]
[font=Arial, sans-serif]While we have a lot of great products and features in the pipeline, we want our customers to upgrade to our latest and greatest products when they’re excited by what the new products offer, not because they feel forced to do so. That’s the intent of the trade up program we launched for our loyal customers.[/font]
[font=Arial, sans-serif]Thank you for being a Sonos customer. Thank you for taking the time to give us your feedback. I hope that you’ll forgive our misstep, and let us earn back your trust. Without you, Sonos wouldn’t exist and we’ll work harder than ever to earn your loyalty every single day[/font]

I found out about the stopping of support the same way as the majority of our customers, through the news but I have seen it met with quite a severe backlash from Sonos customers globally. Hopefully this will give confidence for customers to continue using Sonos because it is still one of the best multi room systems available.

At the same time we see this across the board on a lot of technologies, for example TVs will cease updates to apps and software but at least you can still use the TV as a TV when the apps stop working! Hopefully the continued support will allow continued use of the older Sonos speakers when integrated with newer products! We'll keep an eye on the updates though as more info comes through!

Let me know what you think

Kind regards

David

Richersounds.ie: Kenny

Hi Smithy.

Thanks for dropping us the post.

I can fully understand where you are coming from but unfortunately something like this is completely out of our control and completely down to the manufacturer.

It is not uncommon that a manufacturer stops support on old products unfortunately.
It happens with support for television apps every now and again.
Not that long ago Samsung dropped support for their Smart things app on their older series of televisions which caused a bit of a stink at the time.
Its also happened with Youtube support on older sets.

Unfortunately this argument is something that we can not get involved in as we are only the retailer and would never had been told or known any of this until it was released to the rest of the public.

There has been some retraction by Sonos overnight however with the following statement:
[font=Arial, sans-serif]A letter from our CEO:[/font]
[font=Arial, sans-serif]All Sonos products will continue to work past May[/font]
[font=Arial, sans-serif]Published Jan 23, 2020[/font]
[font=Arial, sans-serif]We heard you. We did not get this right from the start. My apologies for that and I wanted to personally assure you of the path forward:[/font]
[font=Arial, sans-serif]First, rest assured that come May, when we end new software updates for our legacy products, [/font][font=Arial, sans-serif]they will continue to work as they do today[/font][font=Arial, sans-serif]. We are not bricking them, we are not forcing them into obsolescence, and we are not taking anything away. Many of you have invested heavily in your Sonos systems, and we intend to honor that investment for as long as possible. While legacy Sonos products won’t get new software features, we pledge to keep them updated with bug fixes and security patches for as long as possible. If we run into something core to the experience that can’t be addressed, we’ll work to offer an alternative solution and let you know about any changes you’ll see in your experience.[/font]
[font=Arial, sans-serif]Secondly, we heard you on the issue of legacy products and modern products not being able to coexist in your home. We are working on a way to split your system so that modern products work together and get the latest features, while legacy products work together and remain in their current state. We’re finalizing details on this plan and will share more in the coming weeks.[/font]
[font=Arial, sans-serif]While we have a lot of great products and features in the pipeline, we want our customers to upgrade to our latest and greatest products when they’re excited by what the new products offer, not because they feel forced to do so. That’s the intent of the trade up program we launched for our loyal customers.[/font]

[font=Arial, sans-serif]Thank you for being a Sonos customer. Thank you for taking the time to give us your feedback. I hope that you’ll forgive our misstep, and let us earn back your trust. Without you, Sonos wouldn’t exist and we’ll work harder than ever to earn your loyalty every single day[/font]

Hopefully this release will mean that the Legacy products will run as they do now and still work together with the new range.

SmithySeller

Umm, I got the memo late last night. Talk about a PR booboo of epic proportions.

I think everyone expects cessation of updates, what people wouldn't accept is that something they bought a year ago to inherently become obsolete, and not interact with older products (the very essence of their modular product). They openly said that new devices wont work with old ones. Thats just suicide.

Hopefully it'll be sorted out to everyone's satisfaction. To be fair whatever about the consumer (me), I think there is an element of them shafting retailers also if a shiny new Sonos device doesnt work with a 4 year old device.

The cynic in me says we havent heard the end of this, but we'll see how it pans out. I think everybody got their attention...

Thanks David..

Richersounds.ie: Kenny

Hey SmithySeller.

Fingers crossed they can work out a solution that keeps as many customers as possible happy.

SmithySeller

Richersounds.ie: Kenny wrote: »

Hopefully this release will mean that the Legacy products will run as they do now and still work together with the new range.

Thanks Kenny

I think thats the crux of the issue. If they didnt, someone like me might as well never buy another Sonos product (cause they wont work with existing setup, which is crazy)

Anyhow, I wont waste your time any further, and await further announcement from Sonos and what exactly their plans are.

Thanks

Richersounds.ie: Kenny

SmithySeller wrote: »

Richersounds.ie: Kenny wrote: »

Hopefully this release will mean that the Legacy products will run as they do now and still work together with the new range.

Thanks Kenny

I think thats the crux of the issue. If they didnt, someone like me might as well never buy another Sonos product (cause they wont work with existing setup, which is crazy)

Anyhow, I wont waste your time any further, and await further announcement from Sonos and what exactly their plans are.

Thanks

Hey SmithySeller.

Its no problem at all.

I too have some legacy Sonos items and as a customer was a bit miffed at the decision myself.

Lets hope all the noise made by the people that own their products is continued to be taken into consideration as they now go forward.