Deliberate bricking, the Sonos way.

[RejZoR]

18 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

So because other manufacturers do it, that makes it fine for Sonos to be lying caring about the environment for a speaker to be bricked? No there is no reason for them to be bricking a speaker for a discount, all they would have to do is offer a discount if you send in the old unit, and if you don't charge you the rest. Clearly Sonos doesn't want people having older devices or anything ending up on the used market so why not bullsh*t people into thinking they need to upgrade.

I'm pretty sure the bricking is made in such a way that integrated capsule releases strong acid that melts the entire speaker. And not just a software thing that they can totally reverse in their facilities or via hidden combination of button presses. Not to mention YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO WITH THEIR METHOD. Shocking, I know, but you can literally SELL it on eBay without bricking it. Or buy it off eBay and probably save/gain more than 30%. It's why this entire thread is laughable as fuck. And people freaking out in it as well. This whole thing is a total non issue and a total manufactured drama over something that's not even "deliberate bricking" which suggests company screws you over so you can't use it for longer to artificially boost sales. Deliberate bricking would be laptop bricking itself because you changed storage drive in it or because you installed your own OS. Device where you may or may opt to or not to permanently disable is not any of that. The fact you all still argue and outraged about this is just mind blowing.

 

I bet they totally reverse this in the end and it's just a "safeguard" that once user decides for it, there is no way back for them and they need to go through with the upgrading. But hey, mega drama on forums yo!

[mr moose]

9 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

I'm pretty sure the bricking is made in such a way that integrated capsule releases strong acid that melts the entire speaker. And not just a software thing that they can totally reverse in their facilities or via hidden combination of button presses. Not to mention YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO WITH THEIR METHOD. Shocking, I know, but you can literally SELL it on eBay without bricking it. Or buy it off eBay and probably save/gain more than 30%. It's why this entire thread is laughable as fuck. And people freaking out in it as well. This whole thing is a total non issue and a total manufactured drama over something that's not even "deliberate bricking" which suggests company screws you over so you can't use it for longer to artificially boost sales. Deliberate bricking would be laptop bricking itself because you changed storage drive in it or because you installed your own OS. Device where you may or may opt to or not to permanently disable is not any of that. The fact you all still argue and outraged about this is just mind blowing.

 

I bet they totally reverse this in the end and it's just a "safeguard" that once user decides for it, there is no way back for them and they need to go through with the upgrading. But hey, mega drama on forums yo!

You don't read the articles do you? 

[Blademaster91]

27 minutes ago, mr moose said:

It's pretty obvious isn't it, there is literally no reason nor benefit to the environment to brick the device.  

I understand many companies do this, but Sonos really has no reason to besides wanting people to buy new devices. This also kinda ruins the 2nd hand market because how are people going to trust buying a used Sonos when some shady seller could have turned on "recycle mode" and leave the new owner with a bricked device. I wouldn't trust these Sonos speakers because the company could claim there's some "new feature" only the newer stuff supports and they could completely brick older devices if they wanted to.

 I dislike these IOT speakers anyway because a speaker shouldn't be landfill waste because it depends on software, unless you absolutely have to load up Pandora or Spotify on the device I don't see the point when you can do the same on your phone or tablet with about any speakers.

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, Blademaster91 said:

I understand many companies do this, but Sonos really has no reason to besides wanting people to buy new devices. This also kinda ruins the 2nd hand market because how are people going to trust buying a used Sonos when some shady seller could have turned on "recycle mode" and leave the new owner with a bricked device. I wouldn't trust these Sonos speakers because the company could claim there's some "new feature" only the newer stuff supports and they could completely brick older devices if they wanted to.

 I dislike these IOT speakers anyway because a speaker shouldn't be landfill waste because it depends on software, unless you absolutely have to load up Pandora or Spotify on the device I don't see the point when you can do the same on your phone or tablet with about any speakers.

Even with all that, this is still no incentive to recycle the unit.  IT is easier to throw it in the bin than mess around with postage or e waste facilities.   Recycling is something you can do without bricking the machine.     If they actually cared, they would offer a 30% discount for every returned unit or receipt from local e waste centre and no other requirement necessary. 

[Scheer]

11 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

So it’s not actually a speaker then.  It’s a headless computer with a speaker.  Well there’s another argument against the IoT.  “Sorry honey the toaster lost support.  It can’t make toast anymore because a new one is out.  It is 5 years old after all”.

 

Most other forums that argument would probably work, but here on LTT are you really saying you still have your 5+ year old gaming computer and if it was a noticeable discount to get the latest and greatest you would decline because what you have is good enough?

Everyone wants an upgrade, and if Sonos has a way to limit that upgrade path to only the newest speakers available, of course they are going to try it. Any sane CEO running a company would do that.

 

11 hours ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

If you wanted it to stop working, then you would lease it, not sell.

You don't carry your speakers around, they don't usually fall, are bent, take water, don't carry a battery, doesn't heat and cool as frequently, there is no need for super complex code to run in speakers (login, synchronization, remote control/procedure, TCP/IP stack). You're comparing different beasts. As the Play 5 has an analog input, it shouldn't be that big of a deal, unless they kill the circuitry and require you to mod your own speaker to make it work.

 

They are different, yes, but not THAT different. Maybe I'm weird, but I don't destroy my phones, they don't get dropped in water, thrown against walls, or put in the oven, and my old phones are still really slow compared to my S10. By that argument if you took a brand new HP TX2 with a Athlon processor since it wasn't ever used it should still be fine for general use in 2019. Hate to break it to you, but the world has evolved and 128MB of RAM isn't enough to load Myspace anymore. These are service connected speakers, designed well over a decade ago, they can't live forever and have honestly held up better than virtually any other electronic device of its vintage.

 

If all you wanted was to plug in a 3.5mm to RCA adapter cable from your VCR to listen to the music from your Chattahoochee music video where Alan Jackson is an absolute badass skiing with just his boots, you bought the wrong product.

 

 

(Three hours later I just realized I typed this while quite intoxicated, I'm sorry if its rude but it still seems okay-ish,maybe, sorta. Need sleep, happy new years.) P.S. I love lamp.

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, Scheer said:

 

Most other forums that argument would probably work, but here on LTT are you really saying you still have your 5+ year old gaming computer and if it was a noticeable discount to get the latest and greatest you would decline because what you have is good enough?

Everyone wants an upgrade, and if Sonos has a way to limit that upgrade path to only the newest speakers available, of course they are going to try it. Any sane CEO running a company would do that.

 

 

They are different, yes, but not THAT different. Maybe I'm weird, but I don't destroy my phones, they don't get dropped in water, thrown against walls, or put in the oven, and my old phones are still really slow compared to my S10. By that argument if you took a brand new HP TX2 with a Athlon processor since it wasn't ever used it should still be fine for general use in 2019. Hate to break it to you, but the world has evolved and 128MB of RAM isn't enough to load Myspace anymore. These are service connected speakers, designed well over a decade ago, they can't live forever and have honestly held up better than virtually any other electronic device of its vintage.

 

If all you wanted was to plug in a 3.5mm to RCA adapter cable from your VCR to listen to the music from your Chattahoochee music video where Alan Jackson is an absolute badass skiing with just his boots, you bought the wrong product.

 

 

(Three hours later I just realized I typed this while quite intoxicated, I'm sorry if its rude but it still seems okay-ish,maybe, sorta. Need sleep, happy new years.) P.S. I love lamp.

Any sane CEO of a drug company would also pump their prices by 800% too.  “Sane CEO” does not in any way imply ethical.  Unethical behavior by corporations is actually a legal mandate these days.  Doesn’t make it OK.

 

As for the forum thing I’ve got a z97 board I’m seeing beginning to be pushed out of usability even though there is slower stuff being currently sold.  Yes for a long time anything more than a few years old was totally eclipsed by the new stuff.  That hasn’t been happening really in the CPU end for a few years now.  I’m getting artificially obsoleted and it makes me want to kick someone in the googlies.

[TechyBen]

19 hours ago, goodtofufriday said:

Sonos arent bricking the ones units. Sonos has an option to disable the unit.

Users are the ones who, with full knowledge of what they are doing, select that option and then "brick" it.

Your title implies sonos is bricking units without user knowledge or by planned obsolescence.

 

You're basically saying shop gun owners are killing people. When it's the people who buy the guns that kill. 

 

But you know that your title implies as such and are just being as click baity as a lot trash outlets are these days. 

No. Sonos give the option and incentive too. Yes, consumers are deciding to do it. But that's STILL wrong for both parties.

[TechyBen]

2 hours ago, Scheer said:

 

Most other forums that argument would probably work, but here on LTT are you really saying you still have your 5+ year old gaming computer and if it was a noticeable discount to get the latest and greatest you would decline because what you have is good enough?

Everyone wants an upgrade, and if Sonos has a way to limit that upgrade path to only the newest speakers available, of course they are going to try it. Any sane CEO running a company would do that.

 

 

They are different, yes, but not THAT different. Maybe I'm weird, but I don't destroy my phones, they don't get dropped in water, thrown against walls, or put in the oven, and my old phones are still really slow compared to my S10. By that argument if you took a brand new HP TX2 with a Athlon processor since it wasn't ever used it should still be fine for general use in 2019. Hate to break it to you, but the world has evolved and 128MB of RAM isn't enough to load Myspace anymore. These are service connected speakers, designed well over a decade ago, they can't live forever and have honestly held up better than virtually any other electronic device of its vintage.

 

If all you wanted was to plug in a 3.5mm to RCA adapter cable from your VCR to listen to the music from your Chattahoochee music video where Alan Jackson is an absolute badass skiing with just his boots, you bought the wrong product.

 

 

(Three hours later I just realized I typed this while quite intoxicated, I'm sorry if its rude but it still seems okay-ish,maybe, sorta. Need sleep, happy new years.) P.S. I love lamp.

Lol What? My gaming computer is 6+ years old, and a 90% discount would not make me swap it. Stop letting the cons get you, and think properly.

[Curious Pineapple]

9 hours ago, Scheer said:

Most other forums that argument would probably work, but here on LTT are you really saying you still have your 5+ year old gaming computer and if it was a noticeable discount to get the latest and greatest you would decline because what you have is good enough?

I have a gaming machine that's in it's 11th year of usage. If I was offered a good discount on a more modern machine at the expense of every component of this one being crushed I'd say shove it up your arse. If it was recycled and put to use again then no problem.

 

Thats the problem here, taking a functioning device and effectively destroying it for a discount on a new one. Not saving the environment at all.

[Thaldor]

13 hours ago, Scheer said:

 

Most other forums that argument would probably work, but here on LTT are you really saying you still have your 5+ year old gaming computer and if it was a noticeable discount to get the latest and greatest you would decline because what you have is good enough?

Everyone wants an upgrade, and if Sonos has a way to limit that upgrade path to only the newest speakers available, of course they are going to try it. Any sane CEO running a company would do that.

 

 

They are different, yes, but not THAT different. Maybe I'm weird, but I don't destroy my phones, they don't get dropped in water, thrown against walls, or put in the oven, and my old phones are still really slow compared to my S10. By that argument if you took a brand new HP TX2 with a Athlon processor since it wasn't ever used it should still be fine for general use in 2019. Hate to break it to you, but the world has evolved and 128MB of RAM isn't enough to load Myspace anymore. These are service connected speakers, designed well over a decade ago, they can't live forever and have honestly held up better than virtually any other electronic device of its vintage.

 

If all you wanted was to plug in a 3.5mm to RCA adapter cable from your VCR to listen to the music from your Chattahoochee music video where Alan Jackson is an absolute badass skiing with just his boots, you bought the wrong product.

 

 

(Three hours later I just realized I typed this while quite intoxicated, I'm sorry if its rude but it still seems okay-ish,maybe, sorta. Need sleep, happy new years.) P.S. I love lamp.

The thing is, any designed obsolescence without good reasons (manufacturer not wanting to run a net service anymore isn't a good reason) is quite usually seen as a dickmove from a companies. There isn't a single reason why CR100 shouldn't work as AUX-controller for speakers, like yeah the internet services are down and obsolete but it doesn't mean it couldn't connect to older speakers (the ones it was connected earlier) and play stuff from it's AUX-connection. It's like company bricking a BT-speaker completely because Apple rolled out new AirPlay that doesn't have backwards compatibility while the speaker doesn't even really need the newest and shiniest iPhone to work because it has normal bluetooth connection and AUX-connector that doesn't need AirPlay to work and work even with the stereo set from the 70's which doesn't even know what an iPhone is.

 

To take part into the general discussion. This is really a dickmove from Sonos and a stupid one in that. "We care about the environment and with this you can do your part", like fuck off and quit that BS. Any person with even 1 working brain cell can understand that not working device is more wasteful than even somewhat working device. To make a very grim and way too harsh example: "You get 30% discount for a new puppy if you shoot your old dog! After all it's already too old to work as police dog and so has lived over its usefulness." Like a old dog couldn't live as lapdog if it doesn't have any mental problems (and even if it has they can be managed), but I guess it's more important to make sure every new dog owner pays for the breeders and don't even think about adopting an old dog. [Just pointing out the insanity of offering discount when bricking the device that is completely working otherwise and there is only bad reasons why it couldn't work and those same reasons work as why Sonos should be avoided. Do not harm your dog in any case and when getting a dog please consider adopting]

[TechyBen]

12 hours ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

You're in the gaussian tail where those things don't happen to you. That doesn't change the fact that those things happen every single day to a shit ton of people.
You're comparing general purpose devices that directly interact with us against devices that have very specific dedicated purposes that don't really interact with us.
If we were talking about a HP Pavilion Wave, that is a fully fledged computer built into a speaker (or the other way around), then I could agree with you, but that's not the case.

Smart speakers need the bare minimum processing power to capture input (ambient noise, voice commands, button clicks), transmit to the cloud, receive the commands/stream and play, plus a bare minimum storage to keep the playing buffer. Everything else is done in the cloud. Fine with me if the cloud functionality stop working after a few years or require a subscription, but not having at least a P2 socket and working offline is ridiculous.

Sonos specifically made their money by NOT having inputs for their speakers. Then charging more to add them in, via cloud/service/product purchases only.

[Scheer]

21 hours ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

Smart speakers need the bare minimum processing power to capture input (ambient noise, voice commands, button clicks), transmit to the cloud, receive the commands/stream and play, plus a bare minimum storage to keep the playing buffer. Everything else is done in the cloud. Fine with me if the cloud functionality stop working after a few years or require a subscription, but not having at least a P2 socket and working offline is ridiculous.

 

IIRC, the first CR100 issue was that it didn't have enough memory to support Google Play Music's way of showing playlists or something silly. The only work around was to add the Google Music playlist as a Sonos favorite and browse to it through there. Then I'm pretty sure the final straw was Airplay where the base coded needed too much added and there wasn't a way to implement it without effecting the CR100's connection. I can't find it right now, but there is a really long thread either on Reddit or Sonos's forum where an employee broke it all out and you can tell it was a really hard decision because they did try for over a year to keep it working, but just couldn't figure out a way to do so.

 

Sonos aren't cloud speakers btw, they can play music from Cloud services, but processing and control is locally handled on the speaker itself. Your phone is nothing more than a remote control telling it what to do, just queue up music and then you can turn your phone off and it continues playing. It is essentially a custom built low power PC inside of them, with mPCIe slots and all for their NIC cards.

 

17 hours ago, Thaldor said:

There isn't a single reason why CR100 shouldn't work as AUX-controller for speakers, like yeah the internet services are down and obsolete but it doesn't mean it couldn't connect to older speakers (the ones it was connected earlier) and play stuff from it's AUX-connection.

 

"You get 30% discount for a new puppy if you shoot your old dog! After all it's already too old to work as police dog and so has lived over its usefulness." Like a old dog couldn't live as lapdog if it doesn't have any mental problems (and even if it has they can be managed), but I guess it's more important to make sure every new dog owner pays for the breeders and don't even think about adopting an old dog. [Just pointing out the insanity of offering discount when bricking the device that is completely working otherwise and there is only bad reasons why it couldn't work and those same reasons work as why Sonos should be avoided. Do not harm your dog in any case and when getting a dog please consider adopting]

The CR100's did and still do work, so long as you don't update to get the latest features. I actually did hold back from updating for a while to keep using them until I got a Beam and you had to update to add the Beam. I still really miss having a little dedicated controller tho...

 

(Playing devil's advocate here again) I mean, I wouldn't do it with a dog... but we do it all the time with horses. Its way too expensive to keep all your lame horses around for sentimental value, we have a few 20+ year old ones we keep for young kids to ride, but once they get to the point they can't work or be used for cutting competitions they typically get euthanized. Sure they still function in a limited fashion, but really they are just hanging out in the pasture and you are only using the newer "feature rich" ones.

 

The older Sonos speakers are still working, but not as well as the new ones which Sonos could see as tarnishing the name. Say that someone purchases the old one to save some money and test the waters a bit before spending thousands on a whole system. They then find out it can't do this or that (because its an old one), which they saw in an ad Sonos speakers should be able to do, they'll likely never purchase a new Sonos speaker.

[Thaldor]

1 hour ago, Scheer said:

IIRC, the first CR100 issue was that it didn't have enough memory to support Google Play Music's way of showing playlists...

...

The CR100's did and still do work, so long as you don't update to get the latest features. I actually did hold back from updating for a while to keep using them until I got a Beam and you had to update to add the Beam. I still really miss having a little dedicated controller tho...

...

The older Sonos speakers are still working, but not as well as the new ones which Sonos could see as tarnishing the name. Say that someone purchases the old one to save some money and test the waters a bit before spending thousands on a whole system. They then find out it can't do this or that (because its an old one), which they saw in an ad Sonos speakers should be able to do, they'll likely never purchase a new Sonos speaker.

That is the part I call BS on. I know with Sonos we go dangerously close to the insane world of audiophiles with all of their snake oils in forms of +$2000 aluminum shelves and what else, but still if you go and buy 10 years old device and even remotely think it will support the newest features on the market, you are batshit crazy and it's totally on you. No one sane would even expect 10 years old device to be in anywhere near mint condition and even work as well as it did 10 years ago.

 

It's always good that the company tries to prolong the life of its products by developing more software features on it, but everyone knows there are limits to it and in some point the support stops and the product is what it is. The real concrete crap part in Sonos is that when they have got to that moment, they ship out device bricking update. Think what kind of hell would get loose if Microsoft or Apple or any other company would ship out bricking update when their devices/softwares support ends (and in few cases have gotten loose, like the Apples crippling phones because old battery to deliver better battery life with the cost of performance, all without asking the customer first do they either want poorer battery life or poorer performance).

 

Bricking devices is quite well generally thought as dick move except in very limited cases. Like very limited cases, like business devices which may include sensitive data and even then companies like Lenovo (IBM) has been in very bad light time to time because their business laptops have this feature of blowing a fuse and locking everything down if you try to format the storage or any other way try to wipe the device without BIOS admin password (because they are ThinkPads, 10 years in service and they are hardly run in for light use but mostly at that point no one knows the admin password and fuses blow and devices brick). Doesn't even matter if it's user choice or not.

Right way for Sonos to go with this would have been to make that feature but instead of bricking the speakers, it would just completely wipe them clean and return to the state the software was when it was first bought.

 

Also what the fuck? Are Sonos using some really cheap ass elements in their speakers and asking still that much for them? Like any a bit more higher-end speaker I have ever come across gets better when it has seen some use. Like I bought Audio Pro T3 some time ago and it's recommended to not even start to compare it's sound quality before at least 30 hours of use and the best I have seen were some headphones my dad bought back in the day that had warning labels that they need couple hundred hours of use before reaching their peak quality. "Oh, we must brick our older products that people who buy them second hand don't get wrong impression" you know what, I just got the right impression, their shit is so bad that it doesn't last longer than few years and so they must deliberately break it ().

[Scheer]

47 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

That is the part I call BS on. I know with Sonos we go dangerously close to the insane world of audiophiles with all of their snake oils in forms of +$2000 aluminum shelves and what else, but still if you go and buy 10 years old device and even remotely think it will support the newest features on the market, you are batshit crazy and it's totally on you. No one sane would even expect 10 years old device to be in anywhere near mint condition and even work as well as it did 10 years ago.

 

It's always good that the company tries to prolong the life of its products by developing more software features on it, but everyone knows there are limits to it and in some point the support stops and the product is what it is. The real concrete crap part in Sonos is that when they have got to that moment, they ship out device bricking update. Think what kind of hell would get loose if Microsoft or Apple or any other company would ship out bricking update when their devices/softwares support ends (and in few cases have gotten loose, like the Apples crippling phones because old battery to deliver better battery life with the cost of performance, all without asking the customer first do they either want poorer battery life or poorer performance).

 

Right way for Sonos to go with this would have been to make that feature but instead of bricking the speakers, it would just completely wipe them clean and return to the state the software was when it was first bought.

 

Also what the fuck? Are Sonos using some really cheap ass elements in their speakers and asking still that much for them? Like any a bit more higher-end speaker I have ever come across gets better when it has seen some use. Like I bought Audio Pro T3 some time ago and it's recommended to not even start to compare it's sound quality before at least 30 hours of use and the best I have seen were some headphones my dad bought back in the day that had warning labels that they need couple hundred hours of use before reaching their peak quality. "Oh, we must brick our older products that people who buy them second hand don't get wrong impression" you know what, I just got the right impression, their shit is so bad that it doesn't last longer than few years and so they must deliberately break it ().

But that is where the problem lies, people are buying these 10 year old speakers and upset that they don't have the newest features, as a response Sonos is trying a way to remove the old products from the market because general consumers don't understand how old it is.

 

Microsoft does cripple their OS after about 12 years, they stop support for it and its a huge risk to leave it on the internet to the point you flat out should NOT have XP on the internet right now. The Sonos update is optional, you can not do it and keep support and features right where they are at. (With the one huge caveat that you potentially can't expand your system anymore.)

 

You can do that, you just wouldn't get the 30% off trade in credit for it. So its completely up to the end user to decide to take part in this or not.

 

Sonos is the same way as every other speaker, it takes several hours for the speaker cones to properly break in. What are the cheap elements in them? It is my theory that they want to brick them because they have old software that doesn't have the newest features and that could tarnish the name. The whole point of Sonos is one unified system, it looks bad to have 10 different speakers in your house and if you start Airplay to them only 6 can actually do it, but then you can go into the Sonos app and have all 10 play from a different source. Then you have to remember which speakers can do what, and on a higher end system you shouldn't have to deal with compromises like that. If that isn't a problem for you then you wouldn't be buying Sonos anyway and probably just have a bunch of Echos.

 

Its actually the exact opposite, their products are so well built you rarely ever have to replace due to failure, or want to due to features because how well they support them, that they are trying to convince people to brick them so they can keep selling an increasing percentage of new products. Is it kind of fucked up and greedy? Yes it is, but its at least optional so really the only people getting screwed over are the ones not smart enough to think it through. I don't really buy the bad for the environment argument personally, while throwing anything away is bad, a few thousand fairly easily recyclable chunks of aluminum with a bit of plastic and PCB is a drop in the ocean compared to about anything else. IIRC from when I tore a Play1 apart it even had recycle marks on the plastic pieces.

[mr moose]

12 hours ago, Scheer said:

 

Sonos is the same way as every other speaker, it takes several hours for the speaker cones to properly break in.

Do you know why every speaker manufacture tells you that?  It's just like the tone wood argument in guitar circles.  The first manufacturer to admit it makes no difference is the first manufacturer to go broke because everyone is so naive about the myths of burn in that they would simply assume they are a shit brand and to avoid them.  In manufacturing you have to sell as many units as possible, if being a proponent of the burn in myth helps sell a few more then of course they are going to keep up the charade.

 

Long story short, anyone with have a clue about scientific methods and testing can punch holes in the burn in myth without even going near a speaker.

 

 

 

 

[Thaldor]

12 hours ago, Scheer said:

But that is where the problem lies, people are buying these 10 year old speakers and upset that they don't have the newest features, as a response Sonos is trying a way to remove the old products from the market because general consumers don't understand how old it is.

Then it's on them like always. If you go and buy 30 years old Toyota and go to the store or to Toyota to complain that the Carina II doesn't have keyless ignition or 5.1 audio system, you get a long and juicy laugh and after that tour around the new car models and offer to buy one that has what you thought your old rust pile should have.

 

Quote

Microsoft does cripple their OS after about 12 years, they stop support for it and its a huge risk to leave it on the internet to the point you flat out should NOT have XP on the internet right now. The Sonos update is optional, you can not do it and keep support and features right where they are at. (With the one huge caveat that you potentially can't expand your system anymore.)

You can do that, you just wouldn't get the 30% off trade in credit for it. So its completely up to the end user to decide to take part in this or not.

Difference here is Microsoft didn't make the decision for the consumer unlike Sonos did with CR100, Microsoft strongly adviced people to upgrade from XP when the support ended but in no way rendered XP machines unusable with update to force people to stop using them. Microsoft maybe should have done that but it's not up to them to do so like it isn't any other manufacturers place to do and in the past there's only one case where such doings by the manufacturer have gained acceptance for it (Samsung Galaxy Note 7), most likely if some manufacturer did so and got caught and it would rise enough noise, they would be keelhauled in at least EU courts so hard (too bad that in the end EU is just as corrupt... *cough* lobbyed... as any other government that passing the quite strict ban for planned obsolescence has been halted just like the strict order for all phones to use one single charging port standard).

 

And that being optional for the user is kind of moot point. We all know that the CR100 update is out there and everytime someone uses CR100 that still works, the device will whine about there being update and "you should update to get the newest features" and there is no HUGE red flag and notion anywhere that says "This is the last update and designed to render your device unusable, only update if you are sure you don't ever want to use your device again".

 

And stop the shit about new features and connecting to new devices. If you update the CR100, it cannot connect to anything anymore, there is no new features or ability to connect to new devices. It's fucked up, kicked the bucket, dead, unusable, broken and drawn it's last breath after the update and only new feature in the update is that you have a "great chance" to buy a new one (preferably from some other manufacturer than Sonos because you clearly can't trust them about when your device gets the literal "killer update").

 

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Sonos is the same way as every other speaker, it takes several hours for the speaker cones to properly break in. What are the cheap elements in them? It is my theory that they want to brick them because they have old software that doesn't have the newest features and that could tarnish the name. The whole point of Sonos is one unified system, it looks bad to have 10 different speakers in your house and if you start Airplay to them only 6 can actually do it, but then you can go into the Sonos app and have all 10 play from a different source. Then you have to remember which speakers can do what, and on a higher end system you shouldn't have to deal with compromises like that. If that isn't a problem for you then you wouldn't be buying Sonos anyway and probably just have a bunch of Echos.

Welcome to the modern world where things change as the time goes by. I would eat my hat if not 90% of the worlds population wouldn't understand that thing from the year 2000 isn't compatible with another thing from the year 2019 and mostly if the thing from 2000 worked with the thing from 2019 people would be pleased but no one in their right mind expects it.

 

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I don't really buy the bad for the environment argument personally, while throwing anything away is bad, a few thousand fairly easily recyclable chunks of aluminum with a bit of plastic and PCB is a drop in the ocean compared to about anything else. IIRC from when I tore a Play1 apart it even had recycle marks on the plastic pieces.

It's always better for the environment to continue using and repair than throw away and buy a new one. Recycling is never 100% and most of the time even that is extremely greed driven industry (PCBs are the best example of this: While it's completely possible to slowly heat the old PCBs to get the plastic and the metals to melt and create easily separable layers and it can be even done with chemicals without using heat at all, but they take far too much time and effort and are far less profitable than just burning the plastic on the PCB and collect the left over metals). And like in this case, even if it's optional, planned obsolescence is always totally wasting resources.

[Ethariel01]

30% off a 250 quid speaker? - Probably better off just going and trading your old one into CEX for a small handful of beer tokens or sell it on one of the online tat bazaars, however if you are thinking of upgrading to a several K sonos system then the 30% off actually starts to make sense, you get a lot more off something new than you would ever get flogging the old one and then you can simply toss it in a black bag, into your bin and leave it in landfill to be found by archaeologist's 2000 years from now.

 

Is Bricking it an ethical way to do things? - Hell no but it saves them on the postage and disposal fees of you sending something back to them!

[Scheer]

4 hours ago, mr moose said:

Long story short, anyone with have a clue about scientific methods and testing can punch holes in the burn in myth without even going near a speaker.

Interesting, this is really good to know. I had never bothered to verify if it was true or not because it made sense to me, but it looks like you are right.

 

I just assumed it worked like jeans and dress pants, takes about a dozen wears and washes until the fabric stretches in the right places and fits nicely. I actually thought the coil had to wear in to slide freely like a firearm slide on a frame taking a few hundred rounds to smoothen up, looks like most people thought you had to break in the rubber seal around the cone lol.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Scheer said:

Interesting, this is really good to know. I had never bothered to verify if it was true or not because it made sense to me, but it looks like you are right.

 

I just assumed it worked like jeans and dress pants, takes about a dozen wears and washes until the fabric stretches in the right places and fits nicely. I actually thought the coil had to wear in to slide freely like a firearm slide on a frame taking a few hundred rounds to smoothen up, looks like most people thought you had to break in the rubber seal around the cone lol.

Off topic I one, but when I was thinking about getting some q acoustic stuff I spoke to their rep at a show. His words were, I don’t really believe it but every brand says speakers need running in. It is probably more a case of your ears needing to adjust to the sound of new speakers. Worse still is the bullcrap we are often told about cables. I once had a sales rep try and tell me that I needed the more expensive (oxygen free blah, blah, blah) optical cable for my audios system as the signal over 20cm would degrade so much more with the £3.99 optical lead compared to the £89.99 optical cable. The arse even tried to tell me the gold plated ends(wtf) were really Important to good sound. It is a digital signal transmitted via light ffs. Same goes for these £200 HDMI audiophile cables, it is a sodding digital signal. Makes me want to scream. Don’t get me started on the £1200 per meter speaker cable.

[TechyBen]

12 hours ago, mr moose said:

Do you know why every speaker manufacture tells you that?  It's just like the tone wood argument in guitar circles.  The first manufacturer to admit it makes no difference is the first manufacturer to go broke because everyone is so naive about the myths of burn in that they would simply assume they are a shit brand and to avoid them.  In manufacturing you have to sell as many units as possible, if being a proponent of the burn in myth helps sell a few more then of course they are going to keep up the charade.

 

Long story short, anyone with have a clue about scientific methods and testing can punch holes in the burn in myth without even going near a speaker.

 

 

 

 

That and buy in/buyers remorse/sunken cost fallacy/getting "used to" the sound. So these wives tales help the company weave a feeling and mystic product line.

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, TechyBen said:

That and buy in/buyers remorse/sunken cost fallacy/getting "used to" the sound. So these wives tales help the company weave a feeling and mystic product line.

Now I cannot say how Sonos brick their mystical beasts here but after looking at a circuit diagram for one I can guess at a way it could be done. In one particular model there is a microcontroller. Many of these types of microcontrollers are programmable and they also contain a fuse. You can write to these chips as many times as you wish but you can also choose to write to them and blow the write fuse. Once done this is irreversible and the microcontroller cannot be written to again. So to brick the device is looks possible to write to these chips disabling outputs then blow the fuse. Effectively this kills the device. It is also hard to reverse engineer the outputs unless you knew the program before the device was disabled

[mr moose]

8 hours ago, Scheer said:

 

 

I just assumed it worked like jeans and dress pants, takes about a dozen wears and washes until the fabric stretches in the right places and fits nicely.

To be fair it does a very little bit,  the spider and the rubber surround are the only bits that really can but the change is so small you can only really measure it with highly accurate instruments.

 

[RonnieOP]

So from what I understand they dont force you to do this...so whats the issue?

 

If you dont want the speaker anymore then you can sell it. if selling it isnt worth your time but you still want to get rid of the speaker they give you an option to do so and get a discount.

 

Sorry but im having a hard time finding anything wrong with them giving people an OPTION on what to do with an old speaker. If they were forcing it then id understand but that doesnt seem to be the case here.

 

People just like to complain...

[mr moose]

19 minutes ago, RonnieOP said:

So from what I understand they dont force you to do this...so whats the issue?

 

 

 

The issue is it is very disingenuous to argue they are doing this for the environment when the reality is what they are doing is giving consumers a 30% discount if they do something that is worse for the environment.   Bricking the unit serves no value to anyone except their future sales and actually reduces recycling options.

 

 

[RonnieOP]

19 minutes ago, mr moose said:

 

The issue is it is very disingenuous to argue they are doing this for the environment when the reality is what they are doing is giving consumers a 30% discount if they do something that is worse for the environment.   Bricking the unit serves no value to anyone except their future sales and actually reduces recycling options.

 

 

You are recycling the old speakers are they not?

 

Considering most people would probably use it till it breaks and then toss it in a landfill id say that giving an incentive to actually take it to a recycling center or ship it to them to recycle for free.

 

I dont see how you can say its worse for the environment?