[Closed] Sonos killing off 'legacy' products?

When I first read your post I thought WTH?! That’s crazy.

But then, thinking about it, it is just the same as MS Windows becoming unsupported or a gaurantee on a TV expiring.

Aren’t SONOS just saying that they will no longer be able to support the older generation of speakers and they won’t release new features - but they should continue to work as normal (unless there’s a malfunction of course).

They are getting a lot of stick for their 'upgrade' bricking of trade-ins. Basically completely stopping re-use.

They are getting a lot of stick for their ‘upgrade’ bricking of trade-ins. Basically completely stopping re-use.

Why is this an issue? People want to trade the kit in, but then still want to be able to use it/sell it on? Saw a bricked Connect on ebay a few days back, still asking £120 for it, cheeky ****er. If it's traded in, it's not really yours any longer. Sonos can do what they want with it, even if they've not physically taken possession.

I think they're expecting hardware issues supporting upcoming services from third parties eg Spotify, and Sonos needs all hardware on a network to be running the same version of software.

I get that some products need upgrading but I get the feeling it is that they want to move further into the echo/pebble/alexa market, and as my speakers have no microphone, they won't be as useful to sonos.

As for killing the old products for trade in, I get the fact it stops you cashing in and reselling as well, but I am against killing technology for no real reason - if they cared they could collect them and recycle them, or not kill the old stuff and refurb them as speakers.

To trade up 2 working products for a cost of another £770 (allowing for trade in) seems a bad deal. Especially if I have to do it again in 5 years!

The original products were not bought or sold as consumables (as I view a laptop) but as audio equipment (audiophiles, don't laugh) that would last years...

Surely there is a way to keep the old speakers as Wifi Speakers run from phone/iPad and use the phone/tablet as the processor - speakers could be very simple that way? I need a phone as a controller anyway

They are getting a lot of stick for their ‘upgrade’ bricking of trade-ins. Basically completely stopping re-use.

How do any other trade in schemes work.

Evan's fairly regularly have them, pretty sure there's not a stream of refurbished bikes being given to worthy causes as a result. It's just convincing the ride a bike once a year market that they're getting a bargain on their bike for the next 10 years.

From their post it sounds like they will keep working on your system. They won't get updates or new features, but those are likely features you don't need if you've used the products for this long without needing them.

As they are integrated streaming, amplifier and speaker there has to be some level of compromise surely? If the amp blew in an integrated speaker after this much use would you be upset or think it had done it's work over the last X years?

I get that some products need upgrading but I get the feeling it is that they want to move further into the echo/pebble/alexa market, and as my speakers have no microphone, they won’t be as useful to sonos.

Very much this. There's nothing that unique to the Connect that means it'll work right now but will immediately stop on May 1st - it's more Sonos trying to roll more and more unnecessary sh*te into their already not-entirely-stable software.
Which wouldn't be such a problem if they didn't incessantly ram software updates down your throat.

Aren’t SONOS just saying that they will no longer be able to support the older generation of speakers and they won’t release new features

Yes, as far as it goes, but they're also saying:

"Systems containing older devices after the update in May will stop receiving updates, and will essentially be frozen as you said. Your Sonos products operate together as a system. As such, all products in the system need to be running the same software. If legacy products are part of a system with modern products, the modern products will not be able to receive the latest software updates as well."

Which will, sooner rather than later, mean that you can't add or replace items to an existing system because anything new will have new software.

So would be akin to Matika changing their battery mount for new tools.

Next - Tesla announce that they will be dropping support for 5yr old cars and will no longer be supplying safety patches. You're welcome to continue driving but there are some scenarios where a hacker in China can remotely disable the brakes.

How do any other trade in schemes work.

Evan’s fairly regularly have them, pretty sure there’s not a stream of refurbished bikes being given to worthy causes as a result.

They are donated to a network of charities - Recycle Your Cycle & Hospice UK being the largest with over 1500 bikes donated in just the last year. 90% of them are refurbished and sold to raise money for the charities.
There is a long list of other recipients at the bottom of this page:
https://www.evanscycles.com/trade-in

Obviously the most commonly known of kind of trade-in is the used car industry where they get resold and re-used as long as is economically viable due to wear and tear. It's actually a pretty green industry in terms of how much gets reused and recycled.

Phones are refurbished and re-sold.

Hard to think of a similar scheme to Sonos to be honest.

Which will, sooner rather than later, mean that you can’t add or replace items to an existing system because anything new will have new software.

I may have read this wrong, but if you've got a system with an old (v1) play 5 and a pair of play 1s, the play 5 will not be updated so the play 1s can't be either.
If you replace the old play 5 with a supported (V2 or newer) play 5 then everything will then be supported and therefore will receive updates.

Does that sound right?

Fundamentally I think you're better off decoupling yourself by getting quality non-smart audio/video devices and buying whatever the hot cheap smart adapter is. I'm using audio/TV chromecasts and home mini. Then you just upgrade the cheap thing over time, keeping the expensive quality gear that makes the most difference to music quality or whatever. The problem with Sonos, smarttv etc is that it is all bundled together so when the software is no longer economic to update, it's all screwed.

Hard to think of a similar scheme to Sonos to be honest.

If they had an aux input then possibly they could have continued to work as standalone units.
Shame.
But the legacy products will still work on a purely legacy product network.... So that's not so bad.

The price of used legacy kit should drop and then you could have a play 5 network instead of new play one's!
Seeing as Sonos say that products should/will have a ten year update window I'm fairly happy that the play 1s I bought from them last year are good for a while.

I had a similar gripe with GoPro. 5 year old camera bricked by crap software updates. So they are on the companies to avoid list now. I compare with Canon and Nikon who support stuff for time periods measured in decades!

The problem with sonos is that it’s a closed system.

I don’t have home WiFi (use a 4g router thing) so no use to me.

Have two play3’s I literally couldn’t give away a year or two back (people went and bought more open stuff instead).

We have sonos around the house and even though I am not currently affected, I will not be buying there products again after them doing this. I suppose I better sell before they become obsolete now I need to find a replacement.

Fundamentally I think you’re better off decoupling yourself by getting quality non-smart audio/video devices and buying whatever the hot cheap smart adapter is.

This.

My high quality seperates will always sound better than a Sonos and with a £20 adaptor plays stuff from wireless sources, pay more to get internet stuff.

You’ve paid the price for being duped into the latest music lifestyle fad. Overblown bass, mono sound and now planned obsolescence from the geniuses that sold you them? No thanks.

Another annoyed Sonos user here. In addition to the comments above I think this decision might relate to 24bit hi-res audio, which Sonos can’t currently manage.

What alternatives are there to a Connect?

I have two Play1s in other rooms which will continue to work but I use the connect mainly to play music through a decent NAD amp and speaker setup, mostly Spotify tbh but other stuff too.

Bearing in mind the current software works perfectly fine and works with Apple play provided you have at least one item that is compatible, I can’t really see why I would need any updates. Over the many years of having a Sonos system I can’t say I can remember a single update that resulted in a noticeable change to how the system worked.

Re Connect - you just need the newer version - now called a ‘Port’.

Standard hifi with Yamaha streaming separate WXAD10 will do for me. This and the longstanding Sonos requirement for them to listen in and flog your data for upgrades have convinced me that its equipment that won't be used here.

I got this as well. instantly annoyed me. as well as a couple of play 1's and a sound bar I've got a connect amp which is fully functional and giving new life to an old Bose wave radio with line in and a gen 1 5 that is still fine and in good condition that are now both going to be obsolete.

I guess std functionality will work (until they really turn up the heat?) and my system has been solid for years. will have to take my chances I guess.

Cant help thinking their comms team waited for the win 7 furore to hit and then get this news out!

One other issue is that even on current Sonos products IPv6 isn’t fully supported - which I only managed to pinpoint after a month of cursing at the system intermittently not working and having to be reset each time.

ot - Sonos app seems to being killing my iphone battery at the moment. I think there was a new app update in the last few days and now my battery on my otherwise healthy 7+ is dead by lunch and apparently the Sonos app is the bad guy according to my ios setting battery health check. I'm not playing anything stored on the phone so not quite sure why it is doing that.

Can anyone suggest an alternative to Sonos now that they are treating their customers like poo? I have two Sonos connects, and a Play 3, which are mostly used for Spotify, and a bit of BBC radio. There's a hard disc full of mp3s somewhere that I've been meaning to connect up too.

What should I be using instead?

Nice to have would be "casting" audio from phone (or ability to "catch up" Radio 4 somehow). I use a separate Chromecast audio to do this at the moment.

@convert. Probably 24 hour data slurping and phoning home to pass this on.

What should I be using instead?

Well, Ikea do either bookshelf speakers, or lamps with the base acting as a speaker that use Sonos connectivity, IIRC.
Yeah, Symphonisk
https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/news/symfonisk-collection-pubaafe6500

I recently bought 4 of the Symfonisk bookshelf speakers and am so far very impressed

They replaced a very knackered hifi setup so the improvement in sound quality was massive

I don't have any experience of other Sonos stuff, but reviews suggest it compares well to a Play 1

Back on topic, that's very crap about the 'legacy' products. Sonos has always had loyal followers which are going to be rightfully pissed off now!

I got the email this morning too and thought “meh” because the unit they’ve highlighted for me is an old ZP80 which I bought 5 years ago second hand. So feel like I’ve had a pretty good run with it.

It’s used in the bedroom and I’ll use this as an opportunity to upgrade the Connect in the lounge to the new version, can’t remember what it’s called, and move the Connect to the bedroom.

Slightly annoying but not the end of the world, I’m very happy with my Sonos system currently and AirPlay will be handy which I don’t have at the moment.

If you only upgrade one component than you’ll be stuck with the no upgrade option as the Connect and Connect:Amp are both on the ‘legacy’ list.
With 5 Connect Amps and one Connect nearly 2.5 grand to upgrade is a bit much.....

as the Connect and Connect:Amp are both on the ‘legacy’ list.

According to the “my system” section on their website my Connect ZP80 is legacy but the ZP90 is still current. I think.

What are the best options for cheaply allowing both Android and Apple phones to connect to old hifi equipment? I've a couple of zp80s in rooms I don't use much. Voice control not important. (It's been awful in my Sonos system anyway so we don't use it)

Alternatively is there a way of running 2 separate Sonos networks independent of each other from the same router? I doubt it...

Looks like the alternative is to turn off auto update in the system and computer app. Not a problem. But also turn off auto update (for all apps, not just Sonos) in each phone in the household and hope no-one does it by mistake. And put up with manually updating all the other phone apps from now on. Which is a pain....

Dougal365 - I bought an Arcam miniblink Bluetooth adapter. It connects into an aux input on my amp and I can connect the phone/tablet into that. Works well and im sure there’ll be cheaper options too.

Connect Amps are in the legacy list not just the older ZP80! I know people are going on about adapters for other audio components but this is in no way comparable to a Sonos across the entire home with every room controllable from a single App and a player connected to an existing hifi in one room. I’ve got 8 rooms connected and even if I did decide to go with a different system it would end up costing more and sounding worse.

Whilst it annoys me I’m guessing it’s unavoidable that hardware on older products will be unable to do things that newer updates will require. And 30% off is a pretty good deal, just not when you need 6 new amps...

@dougal365 There used to be a Jongo unit that allowed phones and tablets to connect to hifi. Mine was around £30. Still available too on Amazon for £35 try this. Mine was a bit of a faff to set up and update, with a couple of resets required.

Yup. I got the email yesterday to inform me the connect be legacy after May. I'm pretty damn annoyed about it as well. That box cost £250 (which i thought was quite excessive at the time as all it does it push output into an amp)

makes me wonder about buying more sonos products if this is whats going to happen in the futre

There’s a lot of talk about 5 year old systems being dropped but those devices actually date from 2005 connect amp(zp100 at the time), 2006 connect (zp80 at the time) and 2009 play 5 (zone player s5 at the time).

How many of us have a 2005 computer that you expect to run the latest os on?

The platforms that are being dropped are based on 11-15 year old platforms irrespective of when they were purchased.

Also we need to consider that it’s not simply Sonos making this call, changes made by the bbc, Spotify, deezer, tunein all have a part to play and require Sonos to release updated software.

I can remember when the bbc made changes to its streaming services and listen-again functionality was lost for a month or two, totally out of Sonos control.

There comes a point in all computers lifecycles where it’s no longer technically and / or commercially viable to continue support, 11-15 years doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.

I got this too. We have a ZP100 that I bought secondhand cheaply, mostly to keep on using the same Mission speakers I've had since I was 17. I've had a good 4 years or so out of it but mine was made in 2008, and the introduced it in 2005, a couple of years before even the iPhone.

In some ways I think I've got decent value from it, and 15 years of support is a good run, but the only direct replacement is the Amp which is still £420 after the discount.

Sonos are in a tricky position commercially - supporting stuff for so long is good for customers but they're publicly traded and have targets for sales and growth. Support, software updates, testing etc is all a cost. Their stuff is really well built and home audio gets treated very well for the most part - no big temperature variations or dangers like spills or drops that would kill off units. Something like 37% of their sales are to people who already have a Sonos device, which says a lot about how much people like them, but they'll run out of rooms to put them in eventually.

For me I guess it hinges on what happens after May. If I can still play off my home server, Spotify, Pocketcasts and TuneIn then I don't really care, I'll keep on using it. If any of those do end up broken I'll probably go the least-cost route of the Ikea Sonos speakers to replace it. I like the system (or rather really dislike the alternatives) so unlikely to sack it all off.

Hard to think of a similar scheme to Sonos to be honest.

Probably the car scrappage scheme was close, but I appreciate that was to help out the car industry by getting people to buy new cars get polluting cars off the road.

The IKea speakers are just Sonos, so you're supporting exactly the same company thats just screwed you over, if that worries you.

Its a bad doo this imo.

Sonos used to be proud that all its old kit was still in use. Last time i tried to use it it needed to upgrade and couldnt. I couldnt use it at that point. I had to re connect all my speakers via cable to the router and then update each individualy.

Sold it all and bought google home max speakers. No where near as good and i dont think they will be supported a long but there a lot cheaper and do the job.

For me I guess it hinges on what happens after May. If I can still play off my home server, Spotify, Pocketcasts and TuneIn then I don’t really care, I’ll keep on using it.

As I read it, if everything on your sonos network is legacy (i.e. in your case you only are using the ZP100, or you are someone with one or more gen1 Play5s and nothing else) then everything will continue to work exactly the same as it does today. It won't receive any updates after May, but it will still continue to work.

15 years of support is a good run

This. I'm not sure I can think of any other software driven item that receives that length of official support - certainly not phones, TVs or PCs.
Obvs... I might be wrong though.

I’ve 5 Sonos units , won’t be buying anymore after this.
Was already sick of the constant updates , sound quality nowhere near as good as my proper hifi gear .
Good luck to sonos

If they keep working why is it an issue? Security??? Not sure why my Sonos needs security anyway? As long as it can access my music library and Spotify I’m not sure it really matters.
Also ref sound quality - this depends on what speakers you use. Pair a Sonos Amp with some decent quality speakers and they compare very favourably to similarly priced separate amps. Please don’t expect to buy a single little Play 1 or something and then compare it to an audio separates system. For what they are they sound great.