Sonos 'End of Life' products to not get any new updates

[weeblord]

On 1/22/2020 at 8:31 AM, RejZoR said:

"Smart" devices are generally pretty dumb considering they just stop working over time coz "services"...

At this point it just seems like a marketing tactic to name your product "smart."

[Sauron]

38 minutes ago, Velcade said:

Did you read the release from Sonos?  They aren't disabling the speakers, they just won't receive new updates.  It'll work just as it does currently. 

It seems to me you didn't read it.

Quote

Without new software updates, access to services and overall functionality of your sound system will eventually be disrupted, particularly as partners evolve their technology.

 

[Velcade]

3 minutes ago, Sauron said:

It seems to me you didn't read it.

 

You quoted BBC not Sonos.  Of course BBC is going to offer up their opinion on the topic and slam Sonos.  Everyone is hoping on the Sonos Hate train.  Why would BBC be any different.

 

I offer you to read the press releases presented by Sonos and form your own opinion. 

 

[Sauron]

19 minutes ago, straight_stewie said:

Eventually this won't be true if you either stop turning it on (capacitor degradation), or keep turning it on (heat degradation).

This is a matter of the product breaking due to wear, not of it becoming unusable due to a lack of software updates. Furthermore you can install an up to date operating system on it if you want to. Not so with sonos speakers, at least not that I know of.

1 minute ago, Velcade said:

You quoted BBC not Sonos.  Of course BBC is going to offer up their opinion on the topic and slam Sonos.  Everyone is hoping on the Sonos Hate train.  Why would BBC be any different.

No my dude, that's a direct quote from the blog post.

 

[TechyBen]

New update:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/01/24/sonos_uturn_on_plans_to_drop_support_from_legacy_gear/

Apparently they are backtracking a little.

[Commodus]

2 hours ago, Sauron said:

It seems to me you didn't read it.

 

I don't think you completely understand what Sonos was saying, though.

 

That statement doesn't indicate that Sonos intends to break features.  It really says that access to features and services will diverge as time goes on, and that the company can't guarantee third-party services will continue to work (since they're not under Sonos' control).  It's a poorly-phrased statement, perhaps, but not as malicious as many people first thought.

[Sauron]

3 hours ago, Commodus said:

I don't think you completely understand what Sonos was saying, though.

 

That statement doesn't indicate that Sonos intends to break features.  It really says that access to features and services will diverge as time goes on, and that the company can't guarantee third-party services will continue to work (since they're not under Sonos' control).  It's a poorly-phrased statement, perhaps, but not as malicious as many people first thought.

I didn't say they were going to actively break features but in this case inaction has the same outcome, due to asinine design. And no, it's not just third party optional services - it's "overall functionality" as the blog post says. If it were just third party apps they'd have said that - there's no reason for them to dig their own grave any deeper than it needs to be.

[skywake]

Just saw the WAN show, thought I'd make a comment regarding something @LinusTech said that wasn't accurate. It's definitely worth noting that, for this round of legacy devices at least, all of the devices being made "legacy" bar the boost (which is just a WiFi repeater) and the CR200 (which is a controller) DO have AUX in. Which makes sense because all of these are products that launched before 2009, before Spotify's launch in the US. When these products launched Sonos was mostly about internet radio, playing music from your iPod and playing music off a network share. Music streaming services were a novelty

The Play3 was their first "no inputs" speaker in 2011, launching not-co-incidentally around the same time that Spotify launched in the US. That speaker and every product after this is not in the list of obsolete devices. Here's a graph that probably explains why this is, only two products SKUs on this graph are part of this group of legacy devices (note there were multiple Connects & Connect:AMPs). Node that both "legacy" devices have 32MB storage & RAM. Clearly they wanted a new feature they couldn't fit in 32MB

Honestly, it's pretty easy to get a bit worked up about this one. As someone who has multiple Sonos products I certainly was when I first skimmed through some of the posts about this. But the more I dig into it the less concerned I am. As someone who cares about the Environment does obsolescence by firmware update worry me? Of course. But honestly, there are far worse offenders for far less reasonable reasons than this.

[kokakolia]

On 1/24/2020 at 4:02 PM, straight_stewie said:

Eventually this won't be true if you either stop turning it on (capacitor degradation), or keep turning it on (heat degradation).

Or in other words, this isn't a valid argument against the point that @Velcade made when he said "when it's gone, it's gone", because, although your XP laptop currently works, it will fail, and the parts or software to fix it will no longer exist.

However, your point that "a speaker is a speaker and should still work as a speaker" is totally valid. This is one of the problems with IoT and smart devices. I have a Klipsch Tangent system that was bought new in 1990. I've replaced the head unit since then, but that was mostly due to physical damage that occurred during a move. The system still works fine, I'm literally listening to it as I type this. But, this is why you should always buy the not-smart version of things unless the products' "smart capabilities" are absolutely necessary for the product to be of any use.

Honestly, yeah... IMHO, the existence of Sonos relies heavily on the failure of Hi-Fi to offer comprehensive products that an average person can confidently buy and setup. 

 

- The wattage and resistance on speakers is extremely confusing. I could see people spending $1000 on a 100W amp to power small speakers rated up to 100W (but only require ~15W to work). 

- Amps, Pre-amps, Integrated amps, DACs, phono stages... where do you even begin?

- Effin' cables. From cheap and nasty to audiophile snake oil.

- Effin' outputs. Does it have optical? Yes? No? Perhaps you need to buy a separate DAC box for another $100 to hook up your TV. Wanna use a turntable? Buy another $100 phono pre-amp box. And then your living room is a rat's nest of cables and random little boxes. 

 

When I see the price of Sonos speakers... They're expensive so they must be good... right? Errrrr... But at the very least you can control your Sonos with your phone to play tunes! You can't say that with most Hi-Fi products! It get expensive really fast with fancy amplifiers and " streamer " boxes. 

 

So yeah, hopefully brands like Klipsch will catch on with powered speakers? Oh wait... 

[straight_stewie]

2 hours ago, kokakolia said:

- The wattage and resistance on speakers is extremely confusing. I could see people spending $1000 on a 100W amp to power small speakers rated up to 100W (but only require ~15W to work). 

- Amps, Pre-amps, Integrated amps, DACs, phono stages... where do you even begin?

- Effin' cables. From cheap and nasty to audiophile snake oil.

- Effin' outputs. Does it have optical? Yes? No? Perhaps you need to buy a separate DAC box for another $100 to hook up your TV. Wanna use a turntable? Buy another $100 phono pre-amp box. And then your living room is a rat's nest of cables and random little boxes. 

A Sonos 5.1 system costs between $1000 and $1600 USD.

For that cost you can beat the quality and feature level of the Sonos system with a traditional system. If you are using a smart TV, a computer, have an Alexa, or can find a good deal on a smart receiver, you can match or beat the smart capabilities of the Sonos as well in the same price range.

Your argument about phono stuff is invalid: I see no way to connect a turn table to the Sonos system other than the same way you would connect it to a home theater system anyways, so the additional cost to add a record player is the same in both systems.

For this price/quality level of home theater system, power ratings are nonsensical anyway: If the speaker cabinet says 100 watts, just get a 100 watt/channel receiver. Only when you start getting into custom stuff or high quality brands will those ratings even be close to the actual ratings. And, from the perspective of the person considering a Sonos system as a viable alternative, it's likely that those things will never make a difference to them besides "will it actually work"?

Wireless powered speakers of similar quality and volume to some given traditional speakers will always be more expensive than the traditional option. This is just because to do a wireless powered setup, each cabinet needs at minimum a transceiver, a power converter, a DAC, and an amplifier. With the traditional wired speakers option you need one amplifier, one transceiver, one power converter, and one DAC to take care of all of the speakers in the system.

[dalekphalm]

9 minutes ago, Fooshi said:

The problem is older generation products could stop functioning together with newer gen products in a multiroom setup. Having a gen 1 product suddenly stop cooperating with a gen 2 product, especially considering how Sonos heavily markets their products with a unified ecosystem, warrants a reason to "bitch".

I mean... not really if you think about it.

 

Especially since we're not talking about Gen 1 vs Gen 2. More like Gen 1 vs Gen 4.

 

Basically, if you buy a new gen speaker that requires features that the old gen speaker cannot support due to insufficient SoC power or resources, then it makes total sense that they would not be compatible in the same setup.

 

You have plenty of choice though - you can decide to keep using the old products with the old software, or look at buying only newer products that still run the older software. Or sell your old products if the new features are that important to you.

 

I mean... what do you want them to do? Basically they're saying that the old gen speakers have reached the point where they simply cannot handle the new software with acceptable performance (or at all).

 

If that kind of long term interoperability is important to you, don't buy a smart speaker. They can't keep supporting them forever. Eventually each generation will reach a point where it won't work with the new software anymore. In that case, you can choose to simply not update the software, and continue to run the old product. But if you buy a newer one that needs the newer software, you should know what you're getting into.

[Guest]

On 1/22/2020 at 7:56 PM, Commodus said:

In short: people decided Sonos was bad some weeks ago and decided that any action that could even be vaguely considered negative was a horrible, horrible crime.

Not at all in my case. Sonos are just one company that IMO are causing a number of issues. To me they are part of a general wave of companies building in obsolescence to devices. For the sake of the finite resources on our planet this ethos has to stop, and soon. We simply cannot continue to build stuff knowing that in a short period of time it will need to buried. We cannot for pure financial gain be deliberately bricking items, which is what Sonos do with the 30% upgrade thing. For me, Sonos are just the latest in a line of companies acting irresponsibly. The world is changing and people are realising we cannot continue wrecking the planet in this way.

[dalekphalm]

9 minutes ago, Phill104 said:

Not at all in my case. Sonos are just one company that IMO are causing a number of issues. To me they are part of a general wave of companies building in obsolescence to devices. For the sake of the finite resources on our planet this ethos has to stop, and soon. We simply cannot continue to build stuff knowing that in a short period of time it will need to buried. We cannot for pure financial gain be deliberately bricking items, which is what Sonos do with the 30% upgrade thing. For me, Sonos are just the latest in a line of companies acting irresponsibly. The world is changing and people are realising we cannot continue wrecking the planet in this way.

I think it would be good if Sonos created a program where old hardware could be sent back to them and the speaker components refurbished and used in newer devices w/ better SoC's and the capability to run the new software.

 

Because the built-in SoC really is the limitation here. The Speaker hardware itself will last for 10-20-30+ years. The SoC becomes quickly obsolete due to the nature of the quickly evolving compute industry.

 

They could of course over-built the SoC and put one way too powerful inside, but that'll just make the device cost a lot more. There's not really a great solution to this problem yet.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, dalekphalm said:

 

 

They could of course over-built the SoC and put one way too powerful inside, but that'll just make the device cost a lot more. There's not really a great solution to this problem yet.

I agree, and the more IOT devices we get the worse the problem will become. Imagine a washing machine for instance that is only controllable via an app, smart cameras when the company is sold and the new owner does not want the cost. Oh wait, that has already happened.

[dalekphalm]

Just now, Phill104 said:

I agree, and the more IOT devices we get the worse the problem will become. Imagine a washing machine for instance that is only controllable via an app, smart cameras when the company is sold and the new owner does not want the cost. Oh wait, that has already happened.

The thing is, alternatives to those exist. Most washing machines - even brand new ones - are not IOT devices. And even the ones that are, the vast majority of them still have physical controls on them so even if the App stopped working or was otherwise shutdown, you can still wash your clothes.

 

For Cameras, yeah - same thing. Some cloud only cameras exist. Most aren't like that though.

 

IOT devices aren't going to disappear, because people value the additional functionality. If you don't want IOT devices like that to exist, lobby your government representative to ban them.

[Nicnac]

I’ve only recently used my family’s Sonos system again when I was home and I was pissed when I found out you can’t stream from YouTube anymore and NOT EVEN MUSIC FROM iTUNES LIKE WTF

[Derkoli]

7 hours ago, kokakolia said:

Honestly, yeah... IMHO, the existence of Sonos relies heavily on the failure of Hi-Fi to offer comprehensive products that an average person can confidently buy and setup. 

 

- The wattage and resistance on speakers is extremely confusing. I could see people spending $1000 on a 100W amp to power small speakers rated up to 100W (but only require ~15W to work). 

- Amps, Pre-amps, Integrated amps, DACs, phono stages... where do you even begin?

- Effin' cables. From cheap and nasty to audiophile snake oil.

- Effin' outputs. Does it have optical? Yes? No? Perhaps you need to buy a separate DAC box for another $100 to hook up your TV. Wanna use a turntable? Buy another $100 phono pre-amp box. And then your living room is a rat's nest of cables and random little boxes. 

 

When I see the price of Sonos speakers... They're expensive so they must be good... right? Errrrr... But at the very least you can control your Sonos with your phone to play tunes! You can't say that with most Hi-Fi products! It get expensive really fast with fancy amplifiers and " streamer " boxes. 

 

So yeah, hopefully brands like Klipsch will catch on with powered speakers? Oh wait... 

I honestly think the best product for something like this is the SVS system, a little box with amplifier, subwoofer out, pre-outs, wireless stuff, streaming etc. and then two speakers.

 

And they also do a powered pair of speakers with everything in it, so essentially a stereo power amplifier, sonos connect and passive speakers all in one, no other knick knacks to connect.

 

https://www.svsound.com/products/prime-wireless-speaker-system

 

And I do agree that "Audiophile" setups can be complex. The minimum amount of components in my setup are 6, which is just for digital. A turntable or home theater setup are usually 7 or 9. All the inputs, gain settings, fixed/variable outputs etc. can be hard to wrap your head around when you are new to the hobby, My GF just knows how to use our Sonos system (sonos connect, 8 channel power amp, kef LS50) which is very easy to use, connect to the right sonos, play some music and done.

[RonnieOP]

1 hour ago, Fooshi said:

The problem is older generation products could stop functioning together with newer gen products in a multiroom setup. Having a gen 1 product suddenly stop cooperating with a gen 2 product, especially considering how Sonos heavily markets their products with a unified ecosystem, warrants a reason to "bitch".

Still doesnt warrant a reason to bitch.

 

It doesnt matter how a tech product functions. You should never expect for it to get updated for life. Theres 0 reason to expect that from any company.

 

 

[TechyBen]

34 minutes ago, RonnieOP said:

Still doesnt warrant a reason to bitch.

 

It doesnt matter how a tech product functions. You should never expect for it to get updated for life. Theres 0 reason to expect that from any company.

 

 

Which is fine. And why I never buy such "smart" devices unless I see it as disposable/only a few years useful. But akin to John Deere tractors, people will stop buying them.

[RonnieOP]

9 minutes ago, TechyBen said:

Which is fine. And why I never buy such "smart" devices unless I see it as disposable/only a few years useful. But akin to John Deere tractors, people will stop buying them.

Why would they stop buying them?

 

Its not like sonos is the only company to do this or the first.

 

Tech gets outdated and unsupported. Its been that way for years and years.

 

People still buy samsung, apple, oneplus, etc phones even though they dont support phones from 2010 still.

 

John Deere is still selling a shit load of products every year. Forecast for 2020 is like 3 billion. So not sure what you mean by people no longer buying them.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

The thing is, alternatives to those exist. Most washing machines - even brand new ones - are not IOT devices. And even the ones that are, the vast majority of them still have physical controls on them so even if the App stopped working or was otherwise shutdown, you can still wash your clothes.

 

For Cameras, yeah - same thing. Some cloud only cameras exist. Most aren't like that though.

 

IOT devices aren't going to disappear, because people value the additional functionality. If you don't want IOT devices like that to exist, lobby your government representative to ban them.

I only mentioned the above cases as they are things that have happened in the last month.  We are already in a situation where waste is being forced upon consumers.

 

As consumers we will take our hard earned elsewhere and many companies realise that, but others have a lot to learn. IOT can be great, but we all need to consider the implications before buying

[TechyBen]

17 hours ago, RonnieOP said:

Why would they stop buying them?

 

Its not like sonos is the only company to do this or the first.

 

Tech gets outdated and unsupported. Its been that way for years and years.

 

People still buy samsung, apple, oneplus, etc phones even though they dont support phones from 2010 still.

 

John Deere is still selling a shit load of products every year. Forecast for 2020 is like 3 billion. So not sure what you mean by people no longer buying them.

Who? Farmers? Yes they are buying less John Deer because of DRM/remote bricking. Yes they are still selling. But a monopoly/sunken cost don't change the change ahead (many companies no longer exist or had to pull 180s because of their decisions).

[RonnieOP]

3 hours ago, TechyBen said:

Who? Farmers? Yes they are buying less John Deer because of DRM/remote bricking. Yes they are still selling. But a monopoly/sunken cost don't change the change ahead (many companies no longer exist or had to pull 180s because of their decisions).

Im no expert on John Deere but just doing a quick google search and reading a bit I dont see any real threat they should be worrying about. 

 

From what i can see sales are going up not down. But again i havent looked deep into it 

[TechyBen]

1 minute ago, RonnieOP said:

Im no expert on John Deere but just doing a quick google search and reading a bit I dont see any real threat they should be worrying about. 

 

From what i can see sales are going up not down. But again i havent looked deep into it 

Boeing's sales went up with the 737max. But they pushed the risk too far. John Deere risk the same, and consumers (farmers) have noticed already.

[Velcade]

2 minutes ago, TechyBen said:

Boeing's sales went up with the 737max. But they pushed the risk too far. John Deere risk the same, and consumers (farmers) have noticed already.

Please link me to JD tractors exploding due to rushed engine design.