Why I'm not buying Sonos again

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dafman

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#265446 22-Jan-2020 08:42

I have five Sonos speakers: a Play:5, two Play:3 (all purchased 2012) and two Play One's (purchased 2015).

I received this email from Sonos today:

"In May, the following products in your system [Play:5] will be classified as legacy and no longer receive software updates and new features. This will affect your listening experience."

"Legacy products were introduced between 2005 and 2011 and, given the age of the technology, do not have enough memory or processing power to sustain future innovation."

"Please note that because Sonos is a system, all products operate on the same software. If modern products remain connected to legacy products after May, they also will not receive software updates and new features."

To date, I've been very happy with Sonos and it has always been my intention to continue using and purchasing Sonos products. However, my Play 5 is less than eight years old, cost in excess of $800, and is now obsolete. So that's it for me, I won't be setting myself up for more expensive future planned obsolescence by purchasing further Sonos kit.

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#2403340 22-Jan-2020 08:53

Is there a smart device, i.e. phone, TV, smart speaker, that this doesn't happen to? Their reasoning is pretty sound IMO. Older kit would have been constrained by the CPU and Memory of the time they were designed. It's not a bad reflection on the company, it's just how electronics work in this day and age. Would you have preferred to spend twice as much at purchase time so they could include enough memory and CPU to account for changes for however many years you think you might want them to last?

Sonos have supported these products with updates for 15 and 9 years respectively which is a lot longer than most companies support their devices. It's also not as if they will stop working, you just won't get new features.

sen8or

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#2403341 22-Jan-2020 08:55

You'll also have to add windows operating systems, xbox and ios to your "not buying again list"? All have end of life / no further updates similar to Sonos

Doesn't sound like they'll stop working, simply there will be no further innovations or alterations to them.

Storm / teacup?

darylblake

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#2403343 22-Jan-2020 08:56

To be fair, if the product is still working after 8 years. Its obviously not that bad, some barely make it to 2-3 years.

It just going to be a bummer that it is not going to work with the rest of the setup once the rest has been updated.

8 years is quite a long time. I suspect you will see this with lots of other IOT products.

SirHumphreyAppleby

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#2403348 22-Jan-2020 09:02

geekiegeek:

Sonos have supported these products with updates for 15 and 9 years respectively which is a lot longer than most companies support their devices. It's also not as if they will stop working, you just won't get new features.

Nine years may be well above average for device support (which in many cases, such as Android, is pathetic), but...

"If modern products remain connected to legacy products after May, they also will not receive software updates and new features."

I.e. Replace all your gear with modern hardware or your new gear doesn't get updates. That, IMO, is unreasonable. Moden equipment should be supported, and with its additional capabilities should easily be able to cope with a bit of legacy gear in the mix. It's planned obsolescence.

davidcole

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#2403353 22-Jan-2020 09:05

Yes I agree that 8+ years is a good run....but there's nothing wrong with the hardware, and you can't fiddle with it. Maybe products like this should be open sourced after a certain period. Anything to stop people from saying, or well this is rubbish now, off to the landfill. Because that's how some people with see it.

Where as I'd love to get my hands on some older products, especially if it was opened up so that you could run it locally (ie like volumio), to put your olwn flavour of software components on it to keep it running how you want.

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dafman

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#2403357 22-Jan-2020 09:14

geekiegeek:

Is there a smart device, i.e. phone, TV, smart speaker, that this doesn't happen to? Their reasoning is pretty sound IMO. Older kit would have been constrained by the CPU and Memory of the time they were designed. It's not a bad reflection on the company, it's just how electronics work in this day and age. Would you have preferred to spend twice as much at purchase time so they could include enough memory and CPU to account for changes for however many years you think you might want them to last?

Sonos have supported these products with updates for 15 and 9 years respectively which is a lot longer than most companies support their devices. It's also not as if they will stop working, you just won't get new features.

I did spend twice as much at purchase time. Well, maybe not quite, but you do pay a significant Sonos price premium over competing less-expensive options.

And the cost is the issue for me. I'm not questioning their reasoning, I'm just saying I'm not prepared to pay Sonos premium prices in future for planned obsolescence. The Play:5 has cost me more than $100 a year to own, and that's $100 per year for just one of the five Sonos speakers in my set up. I'm simply going to be looking for less expensive options going forward.

geekiegeek

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#2403366 22-Jan-2020 09:21

SirHumphreyAppleby:

geekiegeek:

Sonos have supported these products with updates for 15 and 9 years respectively which is a lot longer than most companies support their devices. It's also not as if they will stop working, you just won't get new features.

Nine years may be well above average for device support (which in many cases, such as Android, is pathetic), but...

"If modern products remain connected to legacy products after May, they also will not receive software updates and new features."

I.e. Replace all your gear with modern hardware or your new gear doesn't get updates. That, IMO, is unreasonable. Moden equipment should be supported, and with its additional capabilities should easily be able to cope with a bit of legacy gear in the mix. It's planned obsolescence.

The issue would be that they would still have to test all updates with older kit in the chain to insure they remain compatible adding additional cost and time.

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evilengineer

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#2403373 22-Jan-2020 09:26

Beside the point, but I've got an internet radio that's 11 yrs old and that got an update last year to support server side changes.

Given that Sonos is mostly app controlled I'm struggling to see why it needs much local processing power at all to stream music.

Do multiple Sonos speakers still create their own proprietary mesh network? That might explain why a new device could potentially be constrained in a legacy set-up.

It still seems a bit harsh that you potentially won't be able to mix and match old and new speakers on what is sold as an expandable multi-room system.

richms

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#2403386 22-Jan-2020 09:51

Could be worse, you could have LG ones where the only update they did to add chromecast multiroom support, broke their own much better multiroom, they sweep the product range under the rug by breaking the support forums, hide any support information on non googleable pages and offer no email support anymore for them.

Richard rich.ms

richms

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#2403387 22-Jan-2020 09:53

evilengineer:

Beside the point, but I've got an internet radio that's 11 yrs old and that got an update last year to support server side changes.

Given that Sonos is mostly app controlled I'm struggling to see why it needs much local processing power at all to stream music.

Do multiple Sonos speakers still create their own proprietary mesh network? That might explain why a new device could potentially be constrained in a legacy set-up.

It still seems a bit harsh that you potentially won't be able to mix and match old and new speakers on what is sold as an expandable multi-room system.

They will have to update api's that it uses with newer https etc, they may want to support some newer DRM that the old ones do not have the CPU to deal with. They may be sick of building things for old speakers that are now well outside the length of time that they budgeted for.

Richard rich.ms

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#2403391 22-Jan-2020 09:55

Yet another reason I dont buy into anything ;) https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/01/smart-scale-goes-dumb-as-under-armour-pulls-the-plug-on-connected-tech/

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CYaBro

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#2403392 22-Jan-2020 09:55

I understand why this happens with technology but I'm also a bit miffed that my Sonos gear may stop working in the future.

I will be emailing the CEO directly about it.
They should at least be offering a trade-in deal, with good payouts, so we can upgrade to new Sonos equipment without having to pay too much.
That way they can recycle the old equipment appropriately as well rather than just ending up in the landfill.

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Jogre

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#2403399 22-Jan-2020 10:01

Sonos arbitrarily dumped support for the Desktop/PC app/controller even though that was how I used to manage the system remotely for my tech-illiterate mother (she can't get Newstalk ZB and my sister recommended she get a Sonos system 🤪)

reven

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#2403400 22-Jan-2020 10:04

If all my old gear didn't get updated, I could be fine with that. as long as I could still use the sonos android app to stream/control music playback. if that stopped, then yeah.... that would be a big no no.

I get why they won't upgrade everything. the speakers are connected to each other. eg my playbar, 2x play 1s and subwoofer are my surround sound system.

jonathan18

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#2404398 22-Jan-2020 10:08

I totally get your frustration.

It does support my theory that a modular approach is more sustainable; we elected to 'smarten' our existing equipment via the use of Chromecast Audios, and even the speakers we purchased last year for our bedroom are 'dumb' (other than BT) and have a Chromecast Audio attached. Maybe not as convenient, but at least the future of every single one of these six Chromecast-enabled stereos is not dictated to by the whims of the manufacturer.

I get the appeal of a single box approach, but there are real risks attached to doing so; we decided against a Sonos for our bedroom based partly on their closed system, and this provides another reason.

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