Sonos End of Life Announcement

[Pale Rider]

My friend has spent an absolute fortune on Sonos over the past 5 or 6 years. He's not very chuffed at all with this announcement.

As an aside - I can't say I'm massively impressed with the sound tbh - it's ok but way off the pace vs decent audio kit.

Agreed. And there are no updates either!

Is Sonos Bose in disguise?

 

[KneesUp]

Meanwhile my £60 Raspberry Pi and DAC combo still works fine connected to my old Arcam.

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

My B&W Zeppelin "died" last year. 2 HiFi shops said they couldn't fix it and B&W themselves said the same, offering me a discount to buy a new one instead. To me it looked like planned obsolescence and I wasn't chuffed. So after looking around (and asking on here) I bought 2 Sonos One speakers and was very pleased. I'm no audiophile, I have tinnitus and my wife says I like too much bass but she agreed the sound quality was excellent. So to supplement them, I bought a Sonos Beam to make the telly surround sound. Again, this was excellent...but... I had it 4 days and had to totally re-install it on 3 days because it kept dropping the wi-fi connection. So it went back. Wireless electro-Mctrickery is all very well but life is too short. I bought a German Cantor soundbase instead and although it isn't surround sound, it works with a wire, never fails and has great bass

Sonos is too clever and complicated for its own good imo. This news of further planned obsolescence means it joins B&W alongside the "stuff I won't buy again"

 

[Milkfloat]

This is the bit I just don't understand. According to the report in the Independent:

View attachment 502268

Um, hang on. The lack of ongoing support has - according to this - two consequences:

1. They will stop receiving new features
2. They will be unable to be in a system with newer products

Ok, so how do we get from that to 'as they gradually stop working'?

My guess is they won't gradually stop working at all. They won't get 'new features', whatever they might be. Who cares. And they won't work with new Sonos products. Which might be a bore for some Sonos owners. But it doesn't mean people who have old systems and stick with them will have any problems at all.

Unless I'm missing something, it looks like a cack-handed, short term-focused attempt to drive new sales, and one which seems likely to backfire horribly, with its major consequence being, as others have said, a body blow to the brand. It all looks staggeringly inept to me. Almost up there with Gerald Ratner.

Sonos have clarified the 'gradually stop working'...

"Instead we’ve got an apology from CEO Patrick Spence, and an attempt to better explain just what will happen to these older models.

According to Spence, Sonos is committed to keeping its legacy range running “as long as possible.” There’s no guarantee as to just how long that actually means, but it seems like bug fixes and security patches at the very least are on the agenda.

The most important part, though, is that even without software updates for the older products, “they will continue to work as they do today,” Spence highlights. “We are not bricking them, we are not forcing them into obsolescence, and we are not taking anything away,” the CEO says. “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.”

Meanwhile, Sonos is looking into how it could have older products co-exist better with newer models, without the latter losing access to the latest firmware. That hasn’t quite been figured out yet, Spence admits. “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,” the CEO explains. “We’re finalizing details on this plan and will share more in the coming weeks.""

 

[Fab Foodie]

Is Sonos Bose in disguise?

Not to my knowledge! Both have their place....just not mine ;-)

 

[keithmac]

Sonos is it's own company (Sonace).

I have a fair bit if kit, Playbar 5.1 setup (Sub+Play:1s) Play:3's and a Sonos One.

Most of my kit will be mothballed on "Phase Two" of legacy (you'd be a fool to think they won't do it again..

No updates will mean if Deezer, Spotify, Tunein etc change their protocols your Legacy system will no longer be able to stream from your provider.

Splitting the system as they suggest is just daft, it was always sold as a "Whole Home Audio" system.

Why they won't introduce a "Legacy Hub" to keep old equipment grouped with the new is anyones guess but they've ruined the integrity of the brand.

The graph below shows the memory of all units, Play:1 Playbar and Play:3 don't fair well.

A real shame, I love my Sonos setup but how they've hung early adopters out to dry is frankly shocking.

 

[keithmac]

I'm sure every Sonos owner is on their forum, there's talk now of Spotify not being supported after May 20th on Legacy systems, it just gets worse!.

https://en.community.sonos.com/anno...-support-clarifications-6835969/index114.html

 

[Grant Fondo]

Happens to all of us. My Naim streamer isn't up to playing Qubos as too old so you need to invest £2200 in the new model...lovely!