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Old 01-21-2020, 03:06 PM   #1
cupofjoe
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Default PSA for those who have or planning to get Sonos

Sonos announced end of life for the following products:

Bridge
Connect
(Manufactured 2011-2015)
Connect:Amp
(Manufactured 2011-2015)
CR200
Play:5 (Gen1)
ZP80
ZP90
ZP100
ZP120

So as of May 2020, they won't accept updates. If you have ANY of these products in your Sonos ecosystem, NONE of the your Sonos products will update (old or new). At this point, I am not sure how this will play out, but is possible an API change in Spotify for example will require a Sonos update. If you can't update, Spotify might not work on your system going forward.

DO NOT BUY ANY USED SONOS ON KIJIJI etc.

Many people are going to try to dump their EOL products, just be warned.

Last edited by cupofjoe; 01-21-2020 at 03:55 PM.
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Old 01-21-2020, 03:12 PM   #2
Fuzz
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Don't buy new Sonos products, either. Supporting companies that do this is bad for the environment, consumers, sanity etc.
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Old 01-21-2020, 03:49 PM   #3
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If you have ANY of these products in your Sonos ecosystem, NONE of the your Sonos products will update (old or new).
Holy crap, that's incredibly stupid.
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Old 01-21-2020, 04:18 PM   #4
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Don't buy new Sonos products, either. Supporting companies that do this is bad for the environment, consumers, sanity etc.
How long should a company be required to continue to update old equipment?

The list indicates this stuff is at least 5 years old.
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Old 01-21-2020, 04:55 PM   #5
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How long should a company be required to continue to update old equipment?

The list indicates this stuff is at least 5 years old.
It is more about not being able to update anything in your system new or old. If they only allowed the updates on current components and not EOL ones so the ecosystem can move forward if would be more tolerable.

Many people are going to be forced into component upgrades at a significant cost.
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Old 01-21-2020, 04:58 PM   #6
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How long should a company be required to continue to update old equipment?

The list indicates this stuff is at least 5 years old.
My god man??? 5 years old! What kind of animal uses such old equipment?

It's a speaker. It makes sound. They new this day would come, they could have put them in a legacy mode that is compatible with all current features, and just won't work with new ones.

What they are doing they are basically telling consumers if they want to keep using Sonos and expand their system they need to bin their old gear.

I'd actually really like to know what physical capabilities require this move. If the processors can't handle the new technologies, they probably should have foreseen this, and made the boards swap-able. They could have sold you an upgrade. There are many ways to handle this. Making your old equipment useless is not one of those ways. It certainly isn't good PR.

I'm still using 30 year old speakers and receivers. They work just fine. Throwing stuff out that is 5 years old? That's garbage.

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Old 01-21-2020, 09:48 PM   #7
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its just an attempt to get you to buy more of their product, which I would have probably done until this, now I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole
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Old 01-21-2020, 10:58 PM   #8
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I have Sonos speakers. I really like them. Luckily none of my products are listed there.

For now.

I won’t be adding to my Sonos collection.

When my Sonos products which work perfectly fine no longer get support, I’ll be done with Sonos.

I don’t expect I’ll be alone in this.

If I were a rival company, I’d get marketing on this right away.
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Old 01-21-2020, 11:02 PM   #9
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My god man??? 5 years old! What kind of animal uses such old equipment?

It's a speaker. It makes sound. They new this day would come, they could have put them in a legacy mode that is compatible with all current features, and just won't work with new ones.

What they are doing they are basically telling consumers if they want to keep using Sonos and expand their system they need to bin their old gear.

I'd actually really like to know what physical capabilities require this move. If the processors can't handle the new technologies, they probably should have foreseen this, and made the boards swap-able. They could have sold you an upgrade. There are many ways to handle this. Making your old equipment useless is not one of those ways. It certainly isn't good PR.

I'm still using 30 year old speakers and receivers. They work just fine. Throwing stuff out that is 5 years old? That's garbage.
So it will still work but you can’t use it with the newest stuff? Or it won’t work at all anymore?
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Old 01-21-2020, 11:35 PM   #10
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So it will still work but you can’t use it with the newest stuff? Or it won’t work at all anymore?
It will probably slowly lose its ability to play online material
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Old 01-22-2020, 12:14 AM   #11
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So it will still work but you can’t use it with the newest stuff? Or it won’t work at all anymore?
I might be interpreting this wrong, but it almost seems like cupofjoe is saying that this isn't a typical phase out situation.

Apple for instance will say, "This item is old. It will not receive updates past OSX something." which makes sense.

But what cupofjoe is explaining almost sounds like having any one of these Sonos hardware in a Sonos ecosystem would #### block all other non-end of life Sonos products in that entire ecosystem from getting updates as well? That's incredibly idiotic IMO if true and it doesn't seem normal of other companies policies.
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Old 01-22-2020, 06:41 AM   #12
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This is incredibly short sighted. Devices slowly becoming obsolete is understandable, but having those devices blocking updates to your other, newer devices is a huge slap in the face to those that invested early and/or heavily in their systems.

I only have one Sonos speaker and I like it. It isn’t on “the list” but this will keep me from buying any more. It leaves a really bad taste.

Apparently their stock price took a beating as a result. If this is a backhanded way of forcing people into hardware upgrades (what else could it be?) then it is probably going to backfire spectacularly. I wouldn’t be surprised if they backtrack on this.
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Old 01-22-2020, 07:45 AM   #13
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The company is going to stop shipping updates to those devices. If Spotify and Apple Music update their application programming interface in the future, your devices could stop working with those services altogether.
But Sonos has decided that your entire ecosystem of Sonos devices is going to stop receiving updates so that all your devices are on the same firmware version. For instance, if you just bought a Sonos One but you’re still using an old Sonos Play:5, your Sonos One isn’t going to receive updates either.
The company says that you can get a discount if you replace your old device. But it will still cost you some money. It’s also ironic as the company promises a seamless music experience but then requires you to swap out speakers altogether.
Sonos should use this opportunity to rethink its product lineup. Planned obsolescence due to end-of-life is a great business model for sure. But it’s time to think about ways to keep your speakers for 10, 20 or even 30 years.
People in the 1980s would buy beautiful speakers and keep them for decades. Sure, they’d have to add a CD player in their system at some point. But modularity is a great feature.
Sonos should add a computing card slot to its devices. As systems on a chip, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth get faster and more efficient, users should be able to swap out the computing card for a new one without replacing the speaker altogether.
That would be a more environmental-friendly process than bricking old devices with their questionable recycle mode.

https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/22/yo...an-old-device/


Some good points were made here. I mean, what are the odds Spotify or Apple update their apps in the next few years leading to incompatibility? I also see I'm not the only one who thinks swapable components woudl be a good idea.
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Old 01-22-2020, 07:55 AM   #14
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I have two Play 3's that were end of life a couple of years ago. They've been updating and working fine.
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Old 01-22-2020, 08:35 AM   #15
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Originally Posted by DoubleF View Post
But what cupofjoe is explaining almost sounds like having any one of these Sonos hardware in a Sonos ecosystem would #### block all other non-end of life Sonos products in that entire ecosystem from getting updates as well? That's incredibly idiotic IMO if true and it doesn't seem normal of other companies policies.
As it stands right now, this is true. Will Sonos feel enough backlash and offer a partial or full remedy, hard to say at this point.
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Old 01-22-2020, 08:41 AM   #16
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I have two Play 3's that were end of life a couple of years ago. They've been updating and working fine.
Play3 are not considered end of life, they are just not produced/sold anymore. They are not on list, so yes they will update. The products on the list will update until May 2020, then stop updating.

They likely will be on the next list, whenever that happens.
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Old 01-22-2020, 11:18 AM   #17
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And we wonder why the environment is going to crap. They're basically turning perfectly still useable speakers into paperweights, and bricking the rest of your system for any updates until you replace them in your ecosystem. What a terrible message to their consumers. What happens to these older speakers? They just get thrown out and contribute to even more waste.

I'm still running my dad's speakers that he bought back in 1999 and gave me last year because he finally upgraded. Still sounds awesome, and I'll probably be running them for the next 20 years unless they break (or my dad gives me his new, even better speakers lol).
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Old 01-22-2020, 12:12 PM   #18
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If you just want a way to play music stored on your PC ironically this is probably going to make second hand sonos gear a really cheap option, its the one function that will continue pretty much come what may
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Old 01-22-2020, 01:14 PM   #19
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This is what annoyed me about Google discontinuing the Chromecast Audio. Buying expensive speakers with the wireless functionality built in never made any sense to me, given that you're tied to what will soon be old technology and the chance of it working flawlessly years down the line is pretty much nil. And that's what we're seeing now. As new features and protocols get introduced, older hardware can't keep up.

But with the Chromecast Audio, you could achieve the same effect as a Sonos (Wifi streaming, synced multi-room audio, etc.) with a $30-40 piece of add-on hardware. And if standards change or it ever loses support, you just need to replace that one part rather than ditch a perfectly good speaker and amp. Not to mention, dollar for dollar, you can get vastly better sounding speakers than Sonos for the same money. But Google stopped selling it so that's not really an option anymore.

Also, one article I read said that all of your Sonos equipment will be kept on the same firmware, so if you have one or two older speakers in your system, then your newer hardware won't update either. I guess that makes sense, but it's pretty ridiculous.
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Old 01-23-2020, 06:52 AM   #20
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Originally Posted by DoubleF View Post
I might be interpreting this wrong, but it almost seems like cupofjoe is saying that this isn't a typical phase out situation.

Apple for instance will say, "This item is old. It will not receive updates past OSX something." which makes sense.

But what cupofjoe is explaining almost sounds like having any one of these Sonos hardware in a Sonos ecosystem would #### block all other non-end of life Sonos products in that entire ecosystem from getting updates as well? That's incredibly idiotic IMO if true and it doesn't seem normal of other companies policies.

Nm I didn't read the whole post

Last edited by gasman; 01-23-2020 at 06:55 AM. Reason: Clarify
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