Sonos recently announced, to the surprise of its many customers, that it would end support for home audio components, even as they are in perfect working order.

This coincides with an aggressive push by Sonos to buy upgrades to replace existing, equipment that consumers are very happy with as is.

In at least some “upgrade” cases, where consumers bought after their equipment was deemed a “legacy” product by Sonos —consumers report that their devices were “bricked” or set to a permanent, inoperable “recycle mode” —even after customers sought to cancel or return the new product! (Sonos normally accepts returns, like any other online seller). Really.

Consumers invest substantially in Sonos products, as they are components for a “whole home audio” system, which can cost several thousands dollars when used in multiple rooms.

Sonos claimed that “supporting” software on high end audio hardware is either impossible or too expensive for Sonos, even as the hardware continues to work beautifully, and affected customers don't want or need “new functionality” that Sonos says is coming.

Consumers got what they paid for, and are happy—why is Sonos forcing “new features” that they dont want, even as they advise that the hardware the wish to update cannot support it? 

The most obvious answer is, these hardware upgrades would generate billions in revenue.

The root of the problem is most consumers are already fully satisfied with the products they have. Sonos has failed to release new products that motivate and inspire upgrades (“the carrot”) and resorted to Planned Obsolescence (“the stick”) instead.

We met with a 20+ year tech hardware/software engineer recently and asked his opinion on Sonos’  claim that its “impossible” to support due to the hardware specs after studying he said "...its bullsh*t"  --he goes on to say “if they open sourced it tomorrow, there would be an open source re-write that could work for a long, long time, by people who's only goal was to make it work as long as possible --not to sell upgrades —and they have to know this”

Not surprisingly, Sonos’ approach has been met with outrage.

Notably we could not find any Sonos customers that said they would “upgrade” for the features or benefits of the new hardware alone. or because their existing hardware was “old” or wearing out in some way... if you find one, please let us know, we're dying to know what the "carrot" is in this scheme.

The resulting crisis of confidence in Sonos has been widely reported on Bloomberg, the NY Times, and “broke the Internet” with consumers sounding off in a tsunami of tweets, and social media posts.

Sonos’ approach is also problematic given the norms, beliefs, and expectations many of its users have, as most audio equipment buying consumers have no reasonable expectation when they buy a premium audio product that it has an “expiration date.”

Although Sonos policy does say equipment will be supported for at least 5 years, few consumers were aware the product might stop working beyond that date due to a decision by Sonos, rather than it simply wearing out.

Sonos customers on balance, have not bought the murky Sonos narrative of “obsolescence,” so much so that the CEO wrote "....we got it wrong from the start"

We simply expect Sonos and all companies that use online software updates must be required publish the “End of Support Impact” --that is how it will likely affect that customer, at the time of the sale —as clearly as the price and any features they promote.

Consumers deserve a fair chance at knowing what they are getting into when they buy Sonos.