Sonos - where are we? anyone for Port?

There has been a lot of hoo-hah in the press at the moment about Sonos. Fair or not fair, the original press release was going to get the reaction it did… What my product no longer works with 4/5 months notice after an Xmas spend!!!???? A faux pas of epic proportions perhaps?

But this should not put anyone off buying Sonos Products to my mind. They are working on implementing the synching together of the newer non-legacy products like the Sonos Port I tried recently with the so called legacy items (to no longer be supported after May for new feature firmware updates). This original press release was the weather before the storm;

My latest Sonos film

And Sonos is one of the best in the business at implementing apps and development. So buy your new Sonos product now with careless abandon as you know they will put it right. In fact they did with that embarrassing release that got the media going. Even the BBC, bless them, were quick to ignore the fact that Sonos were working on supporting bug updates of legacy gear – any a quick Google would have shown. And that was even before CEO Andrew Spence came on the scene proclaiming Sonos are a) working at integrating legacy and non legacy products and b) bug updates will be supported on legacy gear. It’s not like that when May comes your device will stop like a car with no fuel!

So CEO Andrew Spence was quick to say they had got the original press release wrong and this is what he had to say in full;

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 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.

Patrick Spence
CEO, Sonos 23/1/2020
Sonos Website / Blog

A list of the scheduled legacy products are ;