Sonos Upgrade program - up to 30% off Sonos products - any catches?

biga1 on 17/11/2020 - 08:13

I have a couple of Sonos products and received an email about a new "Upgrade program", https://www.sonos.com/en-au/upgrade
You can apparently request an upgrade of one of your registered devices, and depending on the age (the older, the higher discount) you will receive either a 15% or 30% discount off a new Sonos purchase.
Unlike the highly criticised "Trade-in program", this apparently lets your older device continue to be used, no bricking like the last time.
I've had a look over the details and read a few articles, on the surface it looks like a good deal, but I don't quite understand what's in it for Sonos (eg. you could "upgrade" and old Sonos Play 5 Gen 1 and get a 30% discount on an expensive item, like a Sonos Amp and save $300; yet continue to use the old Play 5 - so they're not really getting the old items out of market).
My inner cynic is that they will eventually stop supporting all those older devices and say "we gave you a generous upgrade chance, so that's on you", but that might not be fair ;)

What are others' thoughts on this, and has anyone used it yet?

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Comments

  • mctubster on 17/11/2020 - 08:42

    Looks fine to me, seems they have taken onboard the feedback re bricking old but still usable devices and letting you decide what to do with them. Looks like they link the discount with the device, so a second person can't use it.

    Good deal if you have these older devices!

  • [Deactivated] on 17/11/2020 - 09:30
    +1

    Your inner cynic is correct in that their older devices are and more recent ones almost certainly will lose support at some point.

    No catches though in current offer and intended to smooth-over the mentioned scandal

  • JohnDoh on 17/11/2020 - 10:29
    +1

    Basically they're trying to cushion the blow of shifting from the S1 operating system to the newer S2 OS, it's basically the same as the Trade in offer (they stopped bricking devices a long time ago). They are definitely ending support for S1 at some point, so eventually those speakers will stop working, but for now I suspect it's just going to mean they don't add new features. Having said that, I know the S1 App just got the new "Add speaker" experience which I had assumed was just S2.

    The other thing is you must buy direct from them for the discount, not via third parties, so they get all the income for these rather than having to give a 3rd party a margin.

    It looks like, if you have a device that can't run S2 you get the same 30% as the Trade-in offer, if it's an S2 compatible device but still old (for me that's most of my system), you get 15% off.

    • Chandler on 17/11/2020 - 11:03
      +3

      you must buy direct from them for the discount, not via third parties, so they get all the income for these rather than having to give a 3rd party a margin

      This.

      Instead of you paying retail to a 3rd party, you pay discounted retail to SONOS.

      SONOS either makes just as much as they would selling via the 3rd party but also gets brownie points for the discount, or they get more than they would via the 3rd party and gets brownie points as well. Likely the latter.

      • stirlo on 17/11/2020 - 17:33
        +1

        Plus you've locked yourself into their ecosystem for another few years minimum.

        Personally I'm never buying another product off them again. There's no technical reason why a Play 3 or Play 1 can support S2 but a play 5 cannot. Just money grabbing now that they're a public company. Better to just buy dumb speakers and a few echo dots to achieve the same thing but not end up in the same situation in 5 years again.

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