
All Sonos products will continue to work past May - wlj
https://blog.sonos.com/en/a-letter-from-our-ceo/
======
zaroth
During a home renovation last year I added in-ceiling speakers throughout the
first floor.

I bought 8 Polk Audio speakers for $45 each plus a couple hundred feet of
speaker cable from Monoprice and an 8 channel amplifier off Amazon which takes
audio in from my receiver, which supports Chromecast and AirPlay.

I had the opportunity to do this because the ceilings were already ripped down
to redo lighting.

The installers asked why I wasn’t going with Sonos and I said why would I
replace a device which is literally impossible to become obsolete, requires
zero configuration, and is almost impossible to break with a device which will
maybe last 5 years if I’m lucky and requires configuration, software updates,
and license agreements?

I get it if you have absolutely no way to run the wires then a WiFi system
maybe almost makes sense. Otherwise how can you beat hard-wired speakers and a
dumb 8-channel amp?

~~~
linsomniac
You make a good point, but I have a counterpoint...

My Father-in-law had a house built a couple years ago. The guy that did the
A/V used the same setup you are talking about (Denon A/V receiver, multi-zone
audio for whole house music, IR blaster for A/V system in a cabinet in the
next room, 5+1 surround).

They struggle with that system. It required a dedicated smart remote to turn
on and control all the gear. But instead of a Logitech Harmony, he used some
other brand that "is easier for installers to program". I had to make YouTube
videos to remind myself and my FIL how to operate the system, particularly for
less used configurations like playing a DVD or playing music on the deck...

I was pretty shocked, because this was basically the A/V setup I had 20 years
ago...

My current setup is: Everything goes to the TV (PS4, Chromecast, soundbar),
Soundbar is controlled by the TV remote using CEC (Consumer Electronics
Control). Most things are controllable by the TV remote.

CEC allows the TV to tell the soundbar to adjust the volume, the Chromecast to
pause or play, though that doesn't seem to work when playing DVDs on the PS4,
where we use the PS4 remote. CEC can also tell the TV to change inputs, so all
I have to do is start casting to the Chromecast and the TV turns on and
switches to the right input, turn the PS4 on and ditto, etc...

Music in the bathroom? That's a Google Home. Music in the garage or back
patio? That's a Bluetooth Jambox. Though that comes with it's own issues.

Yes, simple is good. But these days I'd call this sort of CEC setup the
simpler option. I appreciate the Receiver option, but I'm reluctant to switch
away from this setup. I've been wanting to build some kick ass speakers using
my woodworking and electronics skills, but I can't bring myself to introduce
an amp/receiver to the mix.

Aside: Does anyone know of a CEC controller for embedding into DIY soundbars?
They make some that do amp+bluetooth+aux in, but I haven't found one that does
HDMI in with CEC.

~~~
hvidgaard
The key piece of equipment in this is what sits in front of the amplifier. If
you could "AirPlay" or "ChromeCast" to a room of your choice, it would be
significantly better than a whole house Sonos. If only the protocols was open,
so you could use an off the shelf computer with enough audio out, then it
would be nice.

~~~
shawabawa3
> "ChromeCast" to a room of your choice

This is actually what "Chromecast Audio" was, sadly now discontinued

I bought a bunch before they stopped selling and have them all over my house,
attached to cheap dumb speakers

They still work for now, hopefully they will for a while

~~~
Zigurd
I use a mix of Chromecast Audio, Chromecast video, and Google Home devices of
varying vintage. The Chromecasts are the audio source to a TV and a handful of
stereos in different rooms, some with really old gear. The Google things can
be grouped across types.

They used to be unreliable, but before I could get annoyed enough to get Sonos
gear, Google seems to have fixed the problems. I have whole house audio with
relatively little at risk of being EOL'ed, and individually pretty cheap to
upgrade if eventually needed.

The key thing is: Audio is not a moving target. My Klipsch speakers are over
40 years old. They are connected to a McIntosh receiver I found literally on
the scrap metal pile at the town dump.

This seems to be a more resilient approach than either going 1970's analog
with wiring in the walls, or buying a suite of proprietary speakers with audio
distribution built in. The expensive bits have an indefinite lifespan. Sonos
decided to combine that with microprocessors, NICs and software that, they
discover, has to have the lifespan of a PBX or airplane control panel, not a
mobile phone.

------
stirlo
I'm surprised they're issuing a statement admitting they made a "misstep".
Surely they knew in advance the original update (removing support for their
earliest adopters) would be received extremely negatively. I would have
thought their comms strategy would have been to hold the line and wait for it
to die down rather than revising their status so quickly.

Either way the damage is done. It's become clear through the "recycling"
program, the revision of the Sonos ONE after only 16 months and now the
lobotomizing of the original Play 5 that they are not going to stand behind
their products like they used to. I'm not buying more $400 speakers from a
company that's aim is to force upgrades by deprecating support to bring up
their quarterly sales figures.

Time to buy some Chromecast or Airplay 2 devices and sign up for an ecosystem
from a company that has a different revenue stream and doesn't need to force
rapid hardware refreshes.

~~~
taneq
The idea that $400 speakers should only continue to function under the
continued charity of the company that sold them is farcical in any event.

~~~
stanferder
Decent used equipment from the 1970s might well have more useful life ahead of
it than a brand-new Sonos setup purchased today.

~~~
taneq
It's the same with tractors from the 70s and 80s.

~~~
vvanders
Not always the case, we old our '81 Ford specifically because parts were
getting harder to come by and no one made them any more.

------
RyanShook
From the original blog post:

"We've now come to a point where some of the oldest products have been
stretched to their technical limits in terms of memory and processing power,"

Since when does playing back music files stretch the limits of what these
speakers were designed to do? I have invested pretty heavily in Sonos but now
realize I would have been better off connecting an Airplay adapter to a
traditional sound system...

~~~
rsync
"Since when does playing back music files stretch the limits of what these
speakers were designed to do?"

Playing back music files is a use-case that is antagonistic to their current
business model and something they would disable immediately if they could.

Playing back music files has no social component, does not require a mobile
phone app, and can be done without generating metrics and personally
identifiable information.

Playing back music files is the last thing Sonos wants you to do.

~~~
t-writescode
They’re literally in the speaker business, how do you get this argument?

I also have to be on my wifi to talk to my speakers. They don’t need to keep
servers running on the internet for me to talk to my speakers.

They have one job.

If they’re requiring internet connectivity for everything control or local-
stream powered, they’re absolutely doing it wrong.

~~~
unethical_ban
They're in the making-money business and their brand is associated with sound.
They will manipulate their product lines and revenue streams to maximize the
value of their brand, to maximize profit.

------
WheelsAtLarge
I get it. It's hard to maintain hardware forever but the current trend of
making hardware obsolete is just wasteful. These companies need to find a
business model for old hardware. I'm open to paying a maintenance fee that
would give me critical updates after a certain point in time. Maybe 5%/yr of
the original cost after 5 years.

Sending working hardware to the dump is not a long term fix.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
It'd be nice if more hardware had like a "logic board upgrade" capability, but
the business incentive just isn't there. Obviously most of the value in high
end audio is the audio components, and those are probably not obsolete. If you
buy a smart TV, most of the value is in the display panel which is probably
not obsolete.

But old processors, old software platforms, etc. tend to doom a lot of these
types of hardware, and I'd love to just replace the "computer part" of them.
But the only way I could see that making financial sense for these businesses
who'd rather just sell you the whole thing again, is if there was some sort of
financial penalty/tax for bricking hardware.

(I am currently lamenting that my 2016 TV, only around three years old, can't
get the CBS All Access app, even though it got Disney+. Apparently CBS and LG
thinks only people who bought TVs since 2018 want to watch Picard.)

~~~
dv_dt
At least with the TV, you can likely just add an external device pretty
easily. Though I would love a TV with a device bay that was designed to supply
a third party module power and an HDMI port - fewer wires to route would be a
selling feature for me..

~~~
jzwinck
Commercial TVs used in airports and museums often have device bays that can
interact with at least power and HDMI, sometimes much more. The problem is
they are quite expensive. Partly due to fewer being sold, but also engineering
the modular bus, fancy connectors, etc. Some of the plug-in boards are as
expensive as a whole consumer TV. Part of what we get now is simply the result
of our desire to buy a massive 60 inch screen for under a grand, a 95% price
reduction in less than 20 years.

~~~
dv_dt
I don't want a complex board interface, just DC power and an HDMI port... but
yes, unless some mass volume set builds that in, you can only get the low-
volume version of that.

------
mrich
How about enacting a law that you either need to keep your hardware running
via software updates, or you need to open-source all the software for others
to keep doing so the moment you cease support. Would prevent a lot of waste.

~~~
richardthered
Most people don't want to manually update code and patch their speakers. They
want to push a button, and get music. Not run a local IT department

~~~
misnome
Right, people don’t want to manually patch their speakers, but people probably
don’t want to throw them out after a few years either.

In any case, presumably in this proposed scenario secondary service industries
would pop up to do this for them/offer ongoing alternatives. Much like
computer maintenance and repair.

------
mattbee
This non-apology announces no changes, and does nothing for Sonos owners
worrying which product get cut off next. They're even still selling the
Connect on their site - with no warnings! [https://www.sonos.com/en-
gb/shop/connect.html](https://www.sonos.com/en-gb/shop/connect.html)

It seems completely incompetent, but makes sense if you believe they're going
to be acquired this year.

Ben Einstein said last in July 18 ([https://blog.bolt.io/sonos-
one/](https://blog.bolt.io/sonos-one/)) Sonos are "a traditional speaker
manufacturer incrementally adding technology in an attempt to keep up with a
fast-moving race". Sonos probably still have the best multi-room speaker
solution, but 1) their lead on that is slipping, and 2) I don't think new
buyers care about multiroom as much as they do streaming services & features -
i.e. the bits Sonos must be being squeezed on.

Their proposed solution for customers with old devices is a software-managed
network split between old & new - that will kills multiroom playback for
holdouts! That's the worst of both worlds - Sonos paying programmers to prop
up old devices, while owners still prepare to see a fundamental degradation in
their system.

Then the tie-in with IKEA seems like an enormous dilution of their brand. Now
you can buy Sonos components from IKEA, and the IKEA home app can also control
all of your Sonos speakers (not just the IKEA ones).

So that's that I think they have a deal in the works (IKEA?) - and they're
massaging a few quarters to show briefly increased profitability while the
long-term vision can go to hell.

In that light, cutting off old products in the face of so many angry customers
makes sense. They remove a legacy support liability instantly, allowing them
to be bullish about future R&D costs. And the angry customers are the ones
bought into Sonos' 15yo product vision - they just may not represent much
future revenue.

~~~
redsymbol
"Non-apology..." "Completely incompetent..."

What are you talking about? This letter _from the CEO of the company_ clearly
apologies, takes 100% responsibility, makes zero excuses. And among other
changes, it plainly promises the devices will be supported for the foreseeable
future.

To quote: "[T]hey will continue to work as they do today. We are not bricking
them, we are not forcing them into obsolescence, and we are not taking
anything away."

If you worked at this company in any role (CEO or something else - you
choose), what specifically would you have done differently so far?

~~~
mattbee
I know it's the CEO.

It doesn't say the devices will be supported for the foreseeable future! It
restates the woolly probability that you'll have to partition your system, and
lose multiroom at, without stating what features that is going to be traded
against after May, or at what point that will happen. That is absolutely
taking something away! It just doesn't say when.

It didn't acknowledge that only in November, Sonos reassured a customer on
Twitter that No, the Recycle function absolutely didn't mean they were about
to make products obsolete.

It seems incompetent because it doesn't acknowledge how the Sonos products
have now changed from permanent, reliable, expensive hifi units to fly-by-
night junk that will lose support after as little as 3 years, and thousands of
customers on their own community boards feel duped by a huge change.

In answer to your question, if the CEO were planning that change to the brand,
and it didn't matter to Sonos long term - maybe nothing different? They are
competing against low-lifetime electronic junk rather than quality hifi, it's
clear that's what Sonos now represents.

------
shanecleveland
I suspect a lot of this has to do with perception. Even though a phone or
laptop may appear to be in fine condition after several years and may even
work very well, we understand that the internals no longer support more
advanced, current hardware and software capabilities.

But I don't think the same way about speakers. The part that really matters
for a speaker is the construction of the cabinet and the quality of the actual
speakers (woofers, mids, tweeters, etc.). Traditional speakers have very
little electronics involved.

Too bad Sonos didn't design a more modular/swappable system. I can understand
needing to replace a central receiver/hub on occasion to take advantage of new
capabilities, and/or swap out a component of the speaker, such as a bluetooth
receiver. But to make all speakers in a system no longer supported is hard to
understand.

------
nl
People seem to miss the point of Sonos.

Yes, you can build a good stereo system, connect some kind of streaming system
and end up with something roughly the equivalent of Sonos.

But this is the whole Dropbox vs Git+Remote Backup+Your own server thing.

The ease of use and "it just works" simplicity is _the_ feature, and every
other setup compromises this to some extent.

I have a Onkyo & Dali hi-fi setup. It's a great system. And I've made attempts
to make it as easy to use as Sonos.

Let's go through the things I've tried and the compromises they have:

\- Harmony remote + CEC to control the TV and stereo. This is ok (the Harmony
products are good) but has *exactly the same issues as Sonos: a propriety
system that is subject to upgrades. I've had to throw away one system already.

\- Bluetooth streaming. Tried Airplay, but there is no reliable Android
support. Bluetooth is ok, but if the range is annoying if someone is walking
around the house.

\- Zones. My amp sort of has a concept of this, but I haven't even attempted
to get it to work. The wiring of speakers is enough to put me off it.

Sonos solves all these problems. But obsoleting their speakers is horrible,
and 4 years seems too short a time for this.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but some kind of maintenance fee is
something I'd consider - especially for older hardware. It'd have to be
substantially less than what I pay for Spotify though. Maybe after 5 years I'd
pay $10/year?

~~~
cr0sh
What about something like this?

[http://strobe.audio/](http://strobe.audio/)

I mean - that's just the first hit I found searching for open-source multi-
room audio streaming for the raspberry pi. There were others.

Seriously - once you got one node to work, at that point clone the sd card
(just dd it), and pop the image onto new cards for each new node. I don't know
what kind of configuration or fiddling you might have to do, and while it
isn't a "plug-n-play" thing like Sonos, you (and everyone else here) probably
have the smarts to figure it out.

And once you have it figured out for one - the copying it and duping it to the
other nodes and setting them up is probably not much of a stretch.

~~~
nl
It says on that site "the user interface is a work in progress".

There a lots of these projects. They all sorts, kinda work if you are prepared
to do work and ignore the faults.

For one, it doesn't do HDMI CEC. For another, no form of surround sound. No
Spotify support. Etc etc.

I just don't think that trade-off is worthwhile.

One you buy active speakers (which have to be wired to the raspberry pi,
sigh..) it isn't even much cheaper.

------
adamfeldman
Found this for further context -- January 21 blog post:

[https://blog.sonos.com/en/end-of-software-updates-for-
legacy...](https://blog.sonos.com/en/end-of-software-updates-for-legacy-
products/)

------
Unklejoe
You know what? I'm not going to let people gaslight me into believing that a
stereo system needs to be integrated into the "cloud" and rely on some third
party service to function.

I have HiFi equipment literally from the 1970's and 1980's that will continue
to operate well beyond the lifespan of any cloud-connected web-app-configured
third-party-controlled WiFi Sonos type bullshit.

It's not like there have been really ground breaking improves in speaker
technology since the 80's anyway. Maybe some material improvements? I'm pretty
sure my B&W speakers from the 80's can still hold their own against a decent
stereo today...

So what are you paying for? WiFi connectivity? Is that even really any more
convenient? How about when it stops working?

God, I'm triggered.

~~~
electrograv
Yeah, there’s a good chance your B&W from the 80s sound better than any of
Sonos’s speakers, and perhaps even better than modern B&W (since in modern B&W
regressed to less neutral speakers to demo a more sparkly sound in showrooms,
even though it limits their versatility of optimal music). I’m completely with
you about disliking this modern trend of disposable and brick-able “internet
required” speakers combined with modern software culture’s bizarre love for
this “service” model where you are expected to perpetually accept OTA updates
to keep using your product — mandatory OTA updates that are only good until
the company behind them stops caring about old products they’re no longer
making money off of, and decides to brick or cripple them.

But regarding speakers: There have definitely been advancements in modern
speaker design. Probably the biggest advancement is the state-of-the-art
science of psycho-acoustics, developed by the Canadian National Research
Council, and later continued by the research division of Harman International.
The results of this research has directly lead to better speakers by Harman
Intl. companies (Revel, JBL, etc.) and throughout much (but not all) of the
speaker industry.

Psycho-acoustics informs speaker engineers how to objectively measure flaws in
a speaker in ways that go far beyond an old fashioned on-axis frequency
response plot (which tells you nearly nothing): measuring FR and others in a
densely sampled sphere surface around a speaker in an anechoic chamber has
been shown to provide almost all the info you need to evaluate and design a
speaker.

The end result of this is pretty amazing speakers for great prices. A $500
pair of JBL 308p Mk II will probably get you 80% of the way to audio
perfection for most people, for example. A Neumann KH120A ($1300/pair) will
get you maybe 90% to perfection[1], though at the expense of some bass
extension which you may want to complement with a subwoofer.

And then we have some exotic speaker designs made affordable; for example, you
can get speakers with a RAAL Ribbon Tweeter from Ascend Acoustics which will
blow away any other modern speaker costing 2-3x as much. A $2k - $3k speaker
and subwoofer system from Ascend+Rythmik[2] will probably get you to 99% of
the best sound quality in the world.

For example, I’ve owned Bowers and Wilkins 702 S2 before discovering the
science and innovations of some exotic components like the RAAL tweeter. This
research later lead me to buy Ascend Sierra RAAL Towers, which while costing
significantly less than the B&W 702 S2 sound many times better. (Bowers and
Wilkins intentionally choose to ignore the science). The difference (to my
ears) is truly astounding — the Ascends are truly in another league of quality
and realism. And, the versatility improvement of neutral (flat frequency
response, on and off axis) speakers over colored ones is amazing if you like
listening to a wide range of music.

[1] [https://en-de.neumann.com/kh-120-a-g](https://en-
de.neumann.com/kh-120-a-g)

The Neumann KH120A is probably the most amazing sounding compact speaker I
have ever heard. It is seriously mind blowing how amazing such a small speaker
sounds, and how much quality bass it can put out. It also has some of the most
impressively perfect scientific measurements I’ve ever seen (which you can
review on the link above in the “data and diagrams” section).

The only thing better is Ascend’s speakers with RAAL tweeters, or Genelec pro
monitors (which are quite overpriced).

[2] Example: Ascend Sierra Luna pair + Rythmik F12 will probably get you to
98% of audio perfection:

[http://www.ascendacoustics.com/pages/products/speakers/luna/...](http://www.ascendacoustics.com/pages/products/speakers/luna/luna.html)
[http://www.ascendacoustics.com/pages/products/subs/f12se.htm...](http://www.ascendacoustics.com/pages/products/subs/f12se.html)

~~~
Unklejoe
Okay, I'm curious now. I'm looking into the Ascend Sierra RAAL Towers and it
looks like they're reasonably priced at around $2900/pair, which is right
around my budget for a pair of high quality speakers.

It seems like you've done a lot of research on this. Do you think these are
some of the better speakers in that price range?

I was looking at some Martin Logan ESL, but IDK if the electrostatic thing is
a gimmick.

~~~
electrograv
Yes I’ve done a ton of research here and have spent a lot of money on speakers
(both with good and bad results), so I am happy to answer all your questions.

In my opinion and from much research I believe Ascend speakers (with RAAL
tweeters) and Rythmik servo subwoofers are very nearly the best in the world
for probably the best price you’ll ever find. Others make comparable and
perhaps even better options but they’re generally _exponentially_ more
expensive and harder to obtain (not always mass produced).

Even some of the best within 2-3x the price aren’t as good. For example,
before I tried Rythmik, the best subwoofer I found was from JL Audio. A JL
E112 costs twice as much as a Rythmik F12, yet the Rythmik F12’s sound quality
is a league beyond (due to their servo feedback loop tech, the accuracy and
precision of their bass is just amazing). And the Rythmik F18 combines massive
power (for movies) and incredible precision (for music) in the same product
still far below the price of even JL Audio’s entry level stuff.

And other than the Sierra RAAL Towers, my second favorite tower speakers are
Revel F206. The Revel F206 are _fantastic_ speakers, but despite costing much
more, they still simply aren’t as good as the Sierra RAAL Towers!

I have several speakers from Ascend, Rythmik (subwoofers), Revel, and Neumann.
All of these brands are mindblowingly good, but Revel and Neumann are twice
the price to get maybe only 90% as good as Ascend. Brands I’ve owned but sold
or returned (due to poor performance vs price) include Bowers and Wilkins,
KEF, Paradigm, Axiom, and some misc others.

Martin Logan electrostats look very cool and also can sound very impressive
but they have two huge limitations:

(1) They’re far from neutral, which means they’ll make some music genres sound
great and others worse. With neutral speakers, you can equalize them to suit
your preference. But with colored (non neutral) speakers, you often _cannot_
equalize them to fix their flaws (I could explain more why this is, if you
want), so neutral is almost always the best choice.

(2) They ONLY sound good if your head is _perfectly_ on axis. If you are
seated in precisely the right position and don’t move your head an inch, they
can be quite nice, but it’s really annoying to have the sound degrade so
horribly everywhere else in the room.

But there is a certain magic to electrostats (when you are in that listening
sweet spot) you don’t get from most regular speakers, so it’s a shame they
have these flaws. Wouldn’t it be great if a speaker existed that combined the
magic of electrostats with none of its flaws?

As it turns out, the RAAL tweeter achieves just that! RAAL’s ribbon tweeter
(used in Ascend’s high end speakers) achieves the best of all worlds: these
are the only speakers I know that achieves that magical holographic treble
precision (detail without being harsh) usually associated with electrostats,
while ALSO achieving some of the widest and most consistent dispersion pattern
of just about any speaker in the world. The RAAL tweeter is a planar diaphragm
very much like an electrostat, so some of the same benefits are achieved but
with exceptionally wide dispersion rather than exceptionally narrow.

This amazing dispersion pattern not only makes for the most consistent sound
throughout the room I’ve ever heard, but also increases sound quality on axis
(because actually the majority of sound heard at any listening position comes
from wall reflections, not direct sound).

Note also that all ribbons are not created equal: most of them (e.g. Martin
Logan’s lower end hybrid speakers) sound (and measure) worse than a high
quality traditional “dome” tweeter. RAAL is fairly uniquely exceptional, and
BTW this is reflected in their objective measurements (not just subjective
descriptions of “magic”).

------
clement_b
Do they know that this tentative move highlighted how the entire conneced
device market is a bad deal for customers? Detractors of connected devices
often tout how useless these are when the internet is temporarily down, but
the biggest threat is not there (hopefully). The biggest threat comes from the
entity providing the link. Those guys need to be up forever!

And that's not the only issue. There is no economic reasons for companies like
Sonos to maintain devices for ever, for free. So either they stop doing so, or
a new business models will arise, making connected devices yet another
subscription-based play. Why not?

Connected devices exist because of our laziness at the cost of sustainability,
privacy, security, control.

Apart from that they are a great deal!

------
AndrewDucker
I miss the days of standards. Having to buy into an ecosystem for this kind of
thing is remarkably annoying. I want to be able to buy any "smart" speakers I
like and have them work together through a common control system. Not be stuck
at the mercy of individual company decisions.

------
strags
I have a Sonos that came with my house. It's actually the least of my worries.

The house was built about 10 years ago with what (I presume) was a state-of-
the-art system at the time - an "AudioAccess WHEN" system. It works fine -
there are keypads and speakers in every room, and I can pipe audio from the
Sonos (or an Airplay receiver) to anywhere.

It's a weird topology, however - the speakers in each room are wired to the
_keypads_ (which is where the amps live). Each keypad has a power connection,
and some kind of (presumably proprietary) Cat-5 connection to a central hub.
The hub in turn is connected via Cat-5 to a head unit with FM receiver, CD/AUX
inputs, etc...

When we moved into the house, the head unit wasn't working - it refused to
establish a connection to the hub. I managed to track down a working tech
support phone number, only to hear that they don't make this system any more,
and that the head units often fail in this way. I managed to find what may
have been the last replacement head unit in existence on Ebay - bought it, and
fortunately everything started working!

I am, however, dreading the day when it inevitably dies. Since the speaker
wires go to the keypad amps, and not to the wiring closet (where the hubs
live), I'm not sure what I could replace it with - beyond re-running new
speaker wire to a completely new system in the wiring closet.

~~~
cr0sh
If there's cat5 at the keypads back to the central hub, and the speaker wires
go to the keypads, then you can just hook the wires from the speakers to the
cat5 - choose one or two pair (depending on the distance, you might want to
"double up" to lower the impedance over the run), and hook 'em up. Then you
just need to figure out a distribution system at the central hub location.

If you find you can run the speakers on a single pair per speaker - that will
leave you with 2 other pairs on the cat5 - which you could use for control or
communication.

But what I would do before all of that is try to reverse-engineer the
protocols or whatnot that the whole system is currently using, so you can keep
the keypads/amps and such, and create some kind of custom main "head unit"
later.

------
dickeytk
To focus on one product: the original play:5 came out Nov 2009 (which is
impacted here). The replacement came out in Sep 2015.

For a company that builds their brand loyalty on keeping existing customers
happy with their purchases (via OTA updates and slow replacement frequency),
4.5 years isn't long enough in my opinion—hopefully there weren't a ton of
play:5 buyers in that final year. Forever isn't reasonable either of course
with how heavily cloud based they are. I think it should be closer to 10.

It's a little hard to imagine 2010 devices keeping up in 2020, but I'm sure
that 2030 will be kinder to 2020 hardware. In the same way a 1995 laptop is
far less capable than a 2005 compared to 2015. I think they could make that
commitment.

I give Sonos a longer time I would others because they justify their price tag
based on how unlikely you are to have to replace it. Rather—that's how I
justified all of mine.

And they should be up front with what that duration will be when you buy it.

~~~
lysium
These are speakers that play music. There is nothing „to keep up“. The network
is still the same, the codecs are, everything.

It’s ok if old products don’t have new features. It’s not ok if old products
don’t work anymore just because the company feels like it.

~~~
kevstev
This sums up my issue right here- its one thing if they said that they won't
support holographic 8k audio or whatever future thing they come up with, but I
can't understand what they would need more memory for in the end devices, when
their job since the day I got them, and all I ask them to do until the day I
decide to replace them, is take a stream of music, and play it. The "hard"
stuff should all be in my sonos app, which is on my ever updating phone.

------
LeoPanthera
Hugged to death, I think.

~~~
cushychicken
They emailed out the same statement to Sonos subscribers:

 _We heard you. We did not get this right from the start. My apologies for
that and I wanted to personally assure you of the path forward:_

 _First, rest assured that come May, when we end new software updates for our
legacy products, they will continue to work just as they do today. We are not
bricking them, we are not forcing them into obsolescence, and we are not
taking anything away. 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. If we run into
something core to the experience that can’t be addressed, we’ll work to offer
an alternative solution and let you know about any changes you’ll see in your
experience._

 _Secondly, we heard you on the issue of legacy products and modern products
not being able to coexist in your home. 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. We’re
finalizing details on this plan and will share more in the coming weeks._

 _While we have a lot of great products and features in the pipeline, we want
our customers to upgrade to our latest and greatest products when they’re
excited by what the new products offer, not because they feel forced to do so.
That’s the intent of the trade up program we launched for our loyal
customers._

 _Thank you for being a Sonos customer. Thank you for taking the time to give
us your feedback. I hope that you’ll forgive our misstep, and let us earn back
your trust. Without you, Sonos wouldn 't exist and we’ll work harder than ever
to earn your loyalty every single day._

 _If you have any further questions please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Sincerely, Patrick_

 _Patrick Spence CEO, Sonos_

------
wrsh07
I'm honestly quite confused why they can't revert to a "dumb" speaker mode and
then provide a proprietary Chromecast equivalent that only works with their
speakers that can be trivially replaced

This would mean that if you want continued software updates you just plug in
the expansion pack, like I did for my N64.

------
mikl
> 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.

As long as possible is not a super clear commitment, but otherwise I’m happy
with this. I don’t need new features, I just want my Sonos setup to keep
working.

Glad they listened.

------
DevKoala
The "smart" appliances sound so dumb in retrospect.

~~~
cafxx
They're smart all right. Just not for the customers.

------
ggm
Forgive me if I missed this in discussion, but I thought the bricking event,
was if you attempted to surrender the old licence rights, to enable a discount
code.

If the bricking happened irrespective, I think it maybe broke expectations
across the consumer/supplier boundary. If you are 'turning in' a device to get
a discount on a new device, I don't personally have a problem with them
bricking it, because you are doing the virtual equivalent of giving it back to
them, to get the new one.

e.g. Google say five devices. you want to add a sixth? you have to de-licence
one. If you do, its local copy of Google IPR protected content could wipe.
Switch google accounts? it can wipe. This is not "nice" but its not uncommon.

Did I mis-understand? (not a sonos customer btw, outside observer, un-
involved)

~~~
stirlo
This is a new user hostile move from them. They have announced they are
removing support for ALL older model speakers not just "discount code
redeemed" ones. Additionally they disabling updates for any new speakers that
remain in the same audio system as any old products.

~~~
ggm
Oh, thats pretty bad. "either buy new or we won't meet statutory obligations
regarding your old product" is really bad. This happened with some 2G handsets
in the 2G->3G cutoff: traders in the UK were selling 2G handset packages to
customers 2 days after the official cutoff date: the regulator made them
refund/replace.

------
slg
The page isn't working for me so I can't confirm this, but the headline is so
innocuous that it needing to exist at all probably shows a huge underlying
problem. Is there some name for that phenomenon? Is it some relative of
Betteridge's law?

EDIT: I just realized this is the equivalent of the "asking questions already
answered by my shirt" meme. The existence of this headline just causes people
to ask the question why the headline needs to exist.

[1] - [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/a-lot-of-questions-already-
an...](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/a-lot-of-questions-already-answered-by-
the-shirt)

~~~
wlj
I’d say your intuition is correct.

The headline makes you think everything is back to normal, and that they’ve
reversed course, but I can’t actually see that much has meaningfully changed.

It sounds like all your speakers will work after May, but if you have a mix of
legacy and modern speakers, you’ll be forced to split them into two totally
separate systems.

------
23B1
Solid response from a company that historically seemed deaf to customer
feedback. This is a move in the right direction for Sonos - but I definitely
will hold off on buying any new Sonos equipment until I see how they handle
this.

------
zweep
I feel like all of this IoT hardware should be rented rather than bought. If
your piece of crap can suddenly stop working, I don't want to own it. Rent it
to me and take it back when it's useless.

~~~
doublerabbit
No way. I don't want to rent a device, it's a principle that's flawed. Maybe
there are advantages to such but the disadvantages outweigh every time.

Take a car for example. You can now lease the latest and greatest car, but you
don't own that car, it's not your asset. If your in dire straits; where if you
need to sell, you cannot, you don't own it, it's not yours to sell.

Not forgetting that the vendor then decides the price you pay. "Cool, due to
climate change tax, we are increasing your payment". All you can do is pay the
demand or live without a car which if you need to commute, your screwed.

What you might own may be junk, it still has a value. When you lease, you get
none of all that. It's a worrying trend.

------
givinguflac
All you people suggesting chromecast as an audio solution are hilarious. It’s
literally already in the unsupported state without updates that Sonos is going
to do with products ten times as old. Wtf are you thinking? What is the
difference in your mind between Sonos issuing bug fixes but not new features,
and relying on chromecast audio which already stopped supports years ago? It’s
absurd to complain and then choose a product with even less support which was
dropped after like a year on the market

~~~
creaturemachine
I'm not going to try to change your mind, but the chromecast audio was a great
device that did exactly what it was meant for and nothing more. It didn't try
to be a voice assistant, or control your lights, or pump ads in your face. It
was also $35, which is pretty easy to throw away if and when it does get kill-
switched by Google. When that happens I won't have to scrap my speakers and
amp to chase the next streaming fad. If your crystal ball will choose the
Sonos product that will still be supported in 10 years, then by all means go
for it.

~~~
givinguflac
You still don’t get it. It has ALREADY been “kill switched by google” and
won’t get updates. It’s not even for sale! Why is chrome cast audio existing
in that state (functional, no new features coming) acceptable, but the
identical scenario is atrocious in your mind for Sonos?

~~~
creaturemachine
Because it just works, and I'll continue to get every cent of that $35 out of
it until I can no longer. But seriously, enjoy your Sonos.

~~~
givinguflac
Sonos just works too and I’ll get every cent out of it as well. You think it’s
coincidence google sold a cutthroat priced knock off of stolen Sonos tech?
It’s literally what Sonos complains about in their lawsuit. Enjoy your product
as well

------
doubtfuluser
i Think what they misunderstood is really their customerbase. Mid level
audiophiles who want comfortable music with good sound. I don’t care if I can
talk with my speaker and order pizza or not. And my rough guess is, that just
looking at the data their customers don’t change zones constantly but use a
few very often. The strategy that they currently seem to follow is a strategy
against service providers in the field of music, instead of working on what
they actually sell: hardware. No matter how many blog posts will follow, as
long as they don’t restart innovating in the interest of their core customers
(mid audiophiles looking for comfort and usability to listen to music), they
are losing me as a customer and i would bet they are also going to lose
against the echo/HomePods and so on. Sad to see a once innovative company
struggling because they try to win a box fight not realizing they are better
at swimming.

------
weq
Why is the advice to switch to Apple or Google ecosystems in lue of Sonos?

I use a 2004 era laptop to power my media experiences throughout my home,
connected to regular ole amplifiers of variying vintages. 10-15yrs old off
ebay seems to be a sweat spot, you pay ~10% the original 2-10k price tags
because these units are purchased by wealthy consumer audiophiles.

------
NoPicklez
I really hope I can continue to use my Sonos home theatre setup for years to
come. For atleast playing music through the Sonos app and watching TV.

I have two play 3's, playbar and a sub and after having them for 4 years it
still blows me away the sound and how convenient to is to use between watching
TV and playing music.

~~~
Marsymars
Even without the Sonos app, you could feed your audio sources through an HDMI
switch that sends a single optical output to the Playbar, and you could make
one of those sources an Apple TV or a Bluetooth receiver or whatever.

------
nsm
The first story in Cory Doctorow's book "Radicalized" is about toasters that
stop working because the company that sold them goes bankrupt, and how that
ends up in refugees being evicted from their homes. We aren't there yet, but
each of these devices is a small step in that direction.

------
lawlorino
This whole mess has got me thinking we'll start seeing more of this from other
manufacturers of "smart home" technology in the future as they realise it's
expensive to maintain legacy systems and force people to keep buying new stuff
every few of years.

------
mongol
I am very satisfied with my Snapcast + Home Assistant setup. I needed to spend
more time get my setup going than a Sonos user probably needs, that is not for
everyone, I realize that. I think it does what Sonos does. But maybe Sonos is
more advanced.

------
Hamuko
The title initially made me believe this was about the devices that they
purposefully bricked in order to sell new ones (at some discount). But
apparently it's actually about all Sonos products that they didn't
purposefully turn into waste.

~~~
Kalium
Sonos lets users choose to brick old devices in exchange for a discount. Ones
that don't will no longer get updates past May.

The way this has played out in social media has been weird. I've seen more
than one person turn this into "Sonos is going to brick all my devices!". It's
either the world's worst communication strategy at work or people deliberately
conflating two parts of one message.

~~~
sp332
_Ones that don 't will no longer get updates past May._

It goes beyond that, because they won't update any devices on the same network
as old devices either. [https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2020/01/sonos...](https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2020/01/sonos-sunsets-several-smart-speakers-software-support-
spurring-storm/) In May they plan to have a way to segregate old devices onto
a separate network, but they still won't work together with new ones.

~~~
Kalium
Having used and owned Sonos devices, this doesn't surprise me at all. The
devices expect to work together in complex ways. Expecting new ones to
correctly work together with old ones over the same network can be expected to
entail pretty much all the work of supporting the old devices. New devices are
now constrained by the networking hardware and protocols of the old ones...
forever.

Which is the whole thing Sonos is clearly trying to get away from. Supporting
legacy devices forever is clearly untenable.

With that said, I do see another angle they could have pursued. They could
have led with the network segregation approach, making it clear that the
legacy devices will still work perfectly with one another on their own
network.

Sonos could also have said that legacy devices may stop working as expected
without warning after any future update that applies to current devices only.
This strikes me as likely to work great until it comes down and then it blows
up catastrophically when the update lands.

Those are the best options I can see, but my vision is of course quite
limited. Perhaps you have better ideas!

------
rahilb
I have a connect amp: how would one go about trying to root it?

I have no experience with reverse engineering or hardware really, are there
any good resources for stuff like this?

------
microdrum
Maybe they should include an AUX port on their speakers.

~~~
Marsymars
The Play:5 does. (And their soundbars/soundbase have optical input.) They rest
of the lineup _should_ have aux ports.

------
acd
Or you could get Vinyl player and à Classic amp. Plus sides does not get
obselete. Doesn’t require software updates. Good stereo separation.

------
Angostura
I'm not looking forward to June.

------
metabagel
How do I tell if I have the older or newer version of the Sonos One?

------
yarg
The only viable solution to this is open source firmware.

------
jonplackett
I really don’t get why people want Sonos speakers in the first place. Linking
together two pieces of technology with different lifespans just seems silly.

Speakers are mature hardware. Sound is not going to get better any time soon.
They’ve been about as good as they can be for decades. A good speaker and amp
might last you 25 years or more. WiFi/AirPlay/etc is new and changing. Don’t
put these two together in an inseparable product!

It’s probably the reason Apple never released that smart TV everyone was
expecting - it’s just better to have a TV that you can keep for years + a less
expensive box you can replace as technology changes.

~~~
pivo
I bought them so I could put speakers anywhere I wanted to and not have to run
audio cable to them. Also, I don’t want a stack of audio equipment taking up
space.

Where I could run wires I used the Sonos amp and traditional speakers for the
reason you have described.

~~~
owenwil
Yeah, exactly this. The original comment misses a key point: speakers have
been the same for decades, but Sonos did add magic sauce that builds on top of
that legacy... multi-room audio. I'd argue that's worth the investment, and
it's a really great improvement to the audio experience. That's hard to
achieve without re-wiring your entire house, and arguably worth the risk/bet
on Sonos, which has had a historically really good track record with these
things.

~~~
jonplackett
Do you really need them ‘anywhere’ though? I just got a pair of really nice
speakers, a mini amp and plugged them into an old Apple TV. They sit happily
in the lounge and sound great. They’re not as pretty as a Sonos but they’ll
last ages and I can just replace any part of them that goes out of date.

I do like the look of Sonos but the price tag just seemed way too steep

