Why I'm not buying Sonos again

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#2404513 22-Jan-2020 12:05

CYaBro:

reven:

selling them secondhand on TM would probably get you close to 70% of the original price. sonos stuff holds its price

Ummm not if they no longer work, which Sonos says may happen with the legacy products after May 2020.

I also received the email, and nowhere does it say they may no longer work. The email says they won’t get updates, and neither will newer units which otherwise would have.

Here is the support article https://support.sonos.com/s/article/4786?language=en&et_rid=202342359&utm_campaign=lifecycleeosu_announce_184988_1497710&utm_medium=email&utm_source=owners_legacy_110690607&utm_content=copy-t2-readarticle_NZ

It’s going to be worthwhile keeping an eye on John MacFarlane’s twitter account - he is going to get up to speed with this initiative. @JohnLMacFarlane.

CYaBro

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#2404517 22-Jan-2020 12:12

BlinkyBill:

CYaBro:

reven:

selling them secondhand on TM would probably get you close to 70% of the original price. sonos stuff holds its price

Ummm not if they no longer work, which Sonos says may happen with the legacy products after May 2020.

I also received the email, and nowhere does it say they may no longer work. The email says they won’t get updates, and neither will newer units which otherwise would have.

Here is the support article https://support.sonos.com/s/article/4786?language=en&et_rid=202342359&utm_campaign=lifecycleeosu_announce_184988_1497710&utm_medium=email&utm_source=owners_legacy_110690607&utm_content=copy-t2-readarticle_NZ

It’s going to be worthwhile keeping an eye on John MacFarlane’s twitter account - he is going to get up to speed with this initiative. @JohnLMacFarlane.

Taken from that page:

"Will I still be able to use my legacy products after May?

Yes, you will be able to continue using legacy products after they stop receiving software updates. However, some functionality will be impacted over time."

And this:

"Leave your system as is and stop receiving software updates in May 2020. Your Sonos system will work as it does currently, though over time functionality of features and services will be impacted."

So what does that mean? They don't say what that functionality is.
To me, that means it could stop working altogether, depending on what you use it for.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

Kiwifruta

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#2404538 22-Jan-2020 12:55

Thanks for the warning. I had been considering a Sonos portable speaker for backyard parties.

I’ll stick with my dumb B&W speakers and my dumb Yamaha amp that gets its signal from Tidal via a Mi Box S.

Kiwifruta

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#2404539 22-Jan-2020 12:56

CYaBro:

Taken from that page:

"Will I still be able to use my legacy products after May?

Yes, you will be able to continue using legacy products after they stop receiving software updates. However, some functionality will be impacted over time."

And this:

"Leave your system as is and stop receiving software updates in May 2020. Your Sonos system will work as it does currently, though over time functionality of features and services will be impacted."

So what does that mean? They don't say what that functionality is.
To me, that means it could stop working altogether, depending on what you use it for.

Can you supply a signal from an external source?

CYaBro

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#2404554 22-Jan-2020 13:06

Kiwifruta:

Can you supply a signal from an external source?

On some of the Sonos units yes you can, they have a line-in option.
Anything connected by line-in on one of your Sonos units can be streamed to any of your other Sonos units.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

dafman

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#2404555 22-Jan-2020 13:10

BlinkyBill:

I also received the email, and nowhere does it say they may no longer work. The email says they won’t get updates, and neither will newer units which otherwise would have.

But they do say in the first sentence: This will affect your listening experience

I could disconnect the Play:5, set it up as a separately, and continue to update the remaining speakers - but what happens in 6 months time when I receive a similar email out of the blue to say my Play:3's are now up for the chop as well - am I then going to run three unconnected Sonos setups in the one house? No, of course not. So do I keep everything connected and just wait and see how "this will affect my listening experience" or just cut the Play:5 loose now? Either way, I'm worse off, and not sure what to do as Sonos are short on any detail on what issues/impacts I can expect in future.

And, to be honest, the thing that really irks me is that there was nothing in the Sonos email to acknowledge this might be disappointing news to receive, they simply said: we are not going to support your speaker anymore.

Very glad I didn't go the whole hog a few years back and drop an additional $3k+ on soundbar and subwoofer.

I have always been a vocal supporter of Sonos kit, recommending it to friends based on my experience. Today they lost me for good.

eracode

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#2404665 22-Jan-2020 14:41

CYaBro:

On some of the Sonos units yes you can, they have a line-in option.
Anything connected by line-in on one of your Sonos units can be streamed to any of your other Sonos units.

Of the Sonos speakers, only the Play 5s (gen 1 and 2) have line-in - and that’s not available when two of those are being used as a stereo pair.

Connect and Amp products also have line-in.

Sometimes I just sit and think. Other times I just sit.

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afe66

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#2404666 22-Jan-2020 14:43

Letters like this are very carefully written to include certain things and not say other things.

They could have said..

"Older devices will not be updated after time xyz and may not work if external service providers make changes. Ie if spotify changes the api"

But core functionality will be maintained ie play mp3 or flac from local storage or direct connection functionality via phone or pc app. "

But they dont say that... so 6month or 12 months this will stop too.

Just like Vodafone cancelling local web pages as uneconomic then 12month later abandoning email addresses.

You know you are going to end something in 11onth just be honest and announce it now

Ge0rge

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#2404765 22-Jan-2020 16:23

Got the same email this morning, and am pretty dark about it myself too. I certainly won't be buying any more of their equipment as a result.

It's one thing to say "we're not going to update it anymore" but a whole nother kettle of fish to say it isn't going to work any more. How long before we get the same "Dear John" letter in regard to more modern stuff?

BlinkyBill

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#2404776 22-Jan-2020 16:46

Ge0rge: Got the same email this morning, and am pretty dark about it myself too. I certainly won't be buying any more of their equipment as a result.

It's one thing to say "we're not going to update it anymore" but a whole nother kettle of fish to say it isn't going to work any more. How long before we get the same "Dear John" letter in regard to more modern stuff?

i must have missed the bit in the email and the support advice where they said it wouldn’t work any more.

Ge0rge

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#2404778 22-Jan-2020 16:52

From their email
"You have options
Continue using legacy products
You can continue using legacy products after May, but your system will no longer receive software updates and new features. Over time, this is likely to disrupt access to services and overall functionality."

"Disrupt overall functionality" certainly sounds like it isn't going to work anymore - might not be today, sure.

mattwnz

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#2404780 22-Jan-2020 16:56

Products that rely on cloud based services to work, I try to avoid, as they have built in obsolescence. That is one rason I have avoided googles hardware as they don't seem to support their stuff for that many years. I have already had one product that had to be replaced by the retailer, after the manufacturer decided to turn of the servers, and the product lost almost all functionality to it. I was initially fobbed off by being told that the product only has a certain number of years support, and that support period had now ended, and I should buy a new product. The thing is that this also creates a huge amount of e-waste, and I think it needs regulation to prevent this built in obsolesce, where the company selling the device can dictate how long the product will last for.

The fact is that Apple still support the very first ipod inside itunes, which dates back to the early 2000's shows that companies often can keep these systems up to date to support older devices.

Dunnersfella

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#2404844 22-Jan-2020 17:41

Kiwifruta: Thanks for the warning. I had been considering a Sonos portable speaker for backyard parties.

I’ll stick with my dumb B&W speakers and my dumb Yamaha amp that gets its signal from Tidal via a Mi Box S.

THIS!

You get better sounds via components AND you can simply add / remove bits and pieces over time to keep things running.

Forget the latest trend...

Remember when Sonos was a disrupter and changed the market?

Now Google and Amazon are spanking them to all corners of the audio world.

Who will replace Google and Amazon?

Well, you won't pick it, that's the thing with disrupters...

But what you can do is plug in the new disrupters respective streaming box into your amp and keep everything trucking along :-)

eracode

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#2404847 22-Jan-2020 17:47

mattwnz:

The fact is that Apple still support the very first ipod inside itunes, which dates back to the early 2000's shows that companies often can keep these systems up to date to support older devices.

... except that the iPod is an exception in the Apple ecosystem in that regard (although I am an Apple fan).

Sometimes I just sit and think. Other times I just sit.

bendud

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#2404902 22-Jan-2020 18:53

I received this email today as well; the only item affected is my Connect. This fulfils a very specific requirement - it is connected to my HT setup and allows me to listen to the audio feed from the cricket on Sky Sport via the Play:1 I keep in the bathroom! Admittedly this may make me a minority usage case...

Initially I thought this was some kind of outrage but then again it is a very old bit of kit, the process has been pretty well signalled for the last few years (a consistent corporate line that they will keep things going for a long time but not forever - see the controller, for instance), and my reading of the email is not that it will stop working in 3 months time.

Over on What Hifi, the coverage runs like this:

"The good news is that these 'legacy' Sonos products will not suddenly stop working. On the (as yet unspecified) date that support ends, they should continue to work exactly as expected. And, in fact, Sonos has confirmed that it will monitor and deal with bugs in the future, should they arise. However, these products will no longer receive software updates or new features.

What does that mean in practical terms? Well, should a new and exciting music streaming service appear, it almost certainly wouldn't make it to these devices. Ditto any new streaming or wireless transmission standard.

What should probably be more concerning is the possibility that an existing streaming service could one day change something at its end that renders it no longer functional on these older Sonos devices. The sad fact is that you could one day wake up and discover that Spotify, Tidal, or any one of the myriad other services you know and love no longer works.

For some, that won't be enough to assuage the frustration of perfectly good, functioning streamers being rendered obsolete, even if gradually so. But, in fairness to Sonos, every product on this list was launched at least ten years ago and discontinued at least five years ago.

Sonos has an excellent record of thoroughly supporting its products for many years after launch (an astonishing 92 per cent of the products it has ever sold are still in use today) – something that's a real rarity in tech – and it was perhaps inevitable that the day would come that some products would have to be left behind for the rest of the range to move forward.

Of course, some Sonos owners will still be bitterly disappointed. Perhaps the question of whether the whole exercise has been worth it will only be answered when the new features that the old products couldn't handle actually appear. Could one of them be support for hi-res streaming? Here's hoping."

Re the trade-in program, this is available in NZ through a single retailer - from the Sonos website:

New Zealand

To participate in the Trade Up program in New Zealand, contact The Sound Store on (webpage)or (phone) or visit the store at Corner Kent & Crowhurst Sts, Newmarket, Auckland.

Opening hours: Mon to Fri - 9:30am to 5:30pm, Saturday - 10:00am to 5:00pm, Sunday - 10:00am to 4:00pm NZT.

The new Port is $699, so will be c. $210 less i.e. about $490 - still unjustifiable for listening to the test match while in the bath...

b

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