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from the planned^Wscheduled-obsolescence dept.
Sonos, the consumer electronics company known for audio streaming and "smart" speakers, has decided that the music controller device, the "CR100", has reached end of life. By which they mean they will be pushing a software upgrade that will kill it.
... the next Sonos update in early April will turn off the CR100 connection -- unless you decide you don't want any updates at all. (Make sure you set that up in advance -- if you accept the update, you can't undo it and go back to using the old controller.)
That means if you want to keep on using a device you're happy with, you have to give up all the new features on all your Sonos speakers.
The company says its primary concern is the age of the lithium ion batteries in the controllers; although in that case an official device recall would be better than an update that stops them working - and a battery replacement scheme would handle the problem just as well.
Although the controller is old (Sonos stopped selling the CR100 in 2009) it is still perfectly functional for many users. However, according to a forum posting explaining the options these users will have to choose between the CR100 and the functionality of the rest of their system:
... opting not to update means you will not receive any new features or future security patches for your entire system – not just the CR100. For example, being on an unsupported version means that you might lose connectivity to music services, as is already the case for Google Play Music on the CR100. It is necessary to configure your system in advance to avoid future updates. Any update applied to the firmware and/or to the app, even unintentionally, is irreversible.
Originally spotted on The EEV Blog Youtube channel.
(Score: 4, Informative) by bradley13 on Monday February 12 2018, @12:32PM (3 children)
We have a couple of older Sonos speakers, which we use to play music from our NAS. Since they released their newest product (the one with a microphone, that supports Alexa, etc.) we have been bombarded with updates. Generally, you can't ignore them, because the system often stops working until you update.
This seems to be driven by the automatic updates to the Android app. Totally irritating.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by WizardFusion on Monday February 12 2018, @01:22PM (2 children)
I am on an older version of the firmware (7.3) because I disagreed with them collecting all my information. I block all traffic to *.sonos.com with my Pi-Hole.
the downside to this is that I can no longer use the android app as a reinstall needs telemetry access. The Windows client works fine for what I use it for.
I might look for a cheap CR100 on ebay :)
(Score: 2, Informative) by koick on Monday February 12 2018, @08:10PM (1 child)
I have two CR100's (got them over 10 years ago for the non-techy wife). I replaced their batteries about a year ago, and I'm miffed that they are being bricked, but not surprised because Sonos is a money grabbing POS company and I would never buy a product from them again. [Side story: I used to live in Santa Barbara, where they are headquartered. I walked over to their office to get a docking cradle for the CR100s because, they are a separate purchase, and I was basically told to fuck off.] I would sell you mine, but they won't do you much good for long, Sonos has said "The customer can choose to acknowledge the policy, or can accept that over time their product may cease to function" [extremetech.com]. So, your device running the older firmware may get bricked this summer (dunno, if you are router blocking all traffic to their website, maybe not, but it may only take one slip-up and bam!, gone).
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday February 12 2018, @10:34PM
I've been keen on getting a Sonos for years, partly for the non-techy Mrs Zombie, but also because the wireless streaming of my music collection from my Serviio server seems like such a convenience.
It turns out a Raspberry Pi, touchscreen and case paired with a pair of (quite nice) powered speakers and Volumio works really well.
Setting up some Internet radio stations was not hard and now all our music is available and easy to access.
I'm not exactly sure, but I think I saved about $150 (of my local dollars) and Mrs. Zombie can work the system fine.