Sonos Replacement?

Answered
Munroe
  • Edited

I have invested thousands in Sonos over the past decade or so. Today they announce that all my older hardware is obsolete and will be unsupported past May 2020. I am getting rid of it all and will be replacing it. 

If I invest in Bluesound, what assurance do I have that the same thing will not happen in 5 years? 

Can I get a discount on equipment? SONOS are offering a 30% discount which I consider a kick in the balls and slap in the head for an investment of several thousand dollars.

There are many many people in my situation who would jump ship if the incentive was there! Great sales opportunity for Bluesound in my opinion. 

Thank you.

Sincerely,

An angry long time SONOS user.

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Comments

9 comments

Date Votes
  • Official comment
    Tony W.
    Product Support Manager

    Hi Munroe

    Thanks for the feedback. The original Bluesound NODE was released in December of 2012. We still to this day support it with our firmware. We currently have no sunset plans for development with it. Any discussions we have had regarding this situation have revolved around how potential hardware limitations with future models be alleviated so the older models can easily co-exist.

    As for the sales part of your question, it has been passed along for review...

  • Diederik
    • Edited

    Thank Tony, provides some expectations for the future.

    I’m already part of the Bluesound family (from Sonos as well) and never regretted it.

    We do have Sonos players in our business though which were declared end-of life in an Sonos e-mail yesterday. We wish to use future players longer than a couple of years. 

    What, in a hypothetical case, would be Bluesound’s perspective on running a circular portfolio of products. Meaning, what would happen with the devices that may become obsolete for software reasons, not hardware related. Would Bluesound for example consider “software-unlocking” these devices to allow usage by “the community” in any way imaginable?

    I’m just curious. This helps understanding what kind of responsibility Bluesound (and the mother company) is willing to take in a sustainable and circular economy.

     

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  • Tony W.
    Product Support Manager

    Would Bluesound, for example, consider “software-unlocking” these devices to allow usage by “the community” in any way imaginable?

    I will be forwarding this thread along so other product managers etc may (or may not) comment but before our loyal fans start speculating. It is something we probably would not consider as much for business reasons. The current firmware running on these older Players also runs on the latest models (such as the NAD T778 which is about to start appearing in consumers' homes any day now) so it is opening us to possible malicious exposure. We also work closely with other business partners with regards to music services and integration software so we will also be exposing their software as well as ours.

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  • Diederik

    Running a sustainable and (partly) circular business has proven to be a challenge in almost all cases (so far). But it being difficult does not mean one should not try ... :) Good luck!

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  • Jeremy Allison

    I'm also a Sonos refugee (3 Sonos Connects and 3 Play:5's about to be bricked).

    I'm very interested in exploring what Bluesound has to offer as I'm not intending to continue with Sonos.

    What Bluesound products should I be looking at ?

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  • treade

    SONOS did a 180 and are now going to continue to support, they posted letter this week:
    https://blog.sonos.com/en/a-letter-from-our-ceo/

    One solution even if they discontinue is just to stop upgrading...I'm still running Mac OS X High Sierra because it works better with other software I use. I never want to be on the latest and greatest OS. So why do we always need to be on latest SONOS OS unless there is a feature you REALLY need? 9/10x that new feature isn't something you needed to begin with. SONOS is a great product, works well with a lot of services, easy to connect to network.

    I'm just getting into BlueSound stuff and excited to see if I can integrate somehow with my home system which also uses SONOS speakers in certain rooms. Look forward to seeing if they can work together in the near future.

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  • Miles Mandelson

    Hello treade, I am in the same situation as you, having accumulated a variety of Sonos gear over a period of 15 years or more.  I am currently trialling a Node 2i as a hi-res streamer as part of my hi-fi setup and think it would be great to be able to send music to the Sonos devices in the rest of the house.  I'd be very interested to hear how you get on in your investigations.  Replacing five Sonos players with Bluesound equivalents could prove very expensive.

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  • Darell Sison

    Be careful, BluOS has been a disappointment for me. Alexa integration is a joke and frankly the only thing working thats advertised is MQA. Other than that it actually sucks. I know that hires audio is the feature that sets Bluesound apart but honestly when S2 Sonos software arrives I am worried about my Bluesound investment since they have really stopped innovating.

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  • Miles Mandelson

    I've been very happy with my Bluesound Node2i and the controller apps.  Wifi connectivity is rock solid and streaming HiRes from a NAS or Qobuz has been faultless.  I don't have any other Bluesound products so can't comment on multi-room operation.

    One possible solution to combining Bluesound with Sonos is to use a Connect Port (https://www.sonos.com/en-gb/shop/port.html) or its predecessor the ZP90 Connect (available on eBay).  These devices have RCA input and output connections that allow a Sonos signal to be played through a Bluesound device or a Bluesound signal to be shared across a Sonos network.

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