Well for me it was 3 years.. They are counting the date of release not the date they stopped selling them. That means you buy when a new model comes out or are potentially screwed with a much more limited support lifetime.
Heos.
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Mine has always been a glorified, multi-room, jukebox. I hardly ever use any streaming services. I have a library of music that has been ripped to flac files and lives on a NAS. I am hoping that basic functionality, playing locally stored files, will continue for a few more years.
I may have to break out the old Pioneer PL-530 turntable - vinyl is making a serious comeback!
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This is why i use cheap echo dots and inputs connected to sound bars around the house for whole home music. If Amazon pulls the plug on the echos/dots my investment was very low for each $9.99~$30.00 each.
Are the Bose devices a viable alternative? Assume they don't work with Hubitat
Ugh.
Mine are all still new enough, but the whole "speccing them out for the new house" thing seems to have just dried up and blown away.
Damn shame.
That's the key: play local and don't rely on updates to keep your system alive. My music is on a local server, and an independent app to link them together and Rock'N'Roll !
Update/Upgrade my speakers :
Agreed, I use the basics. Pandora, maybe Google Music, but I also listen to my local music as well. But. Still afraid they may come back again and disable all old systems with a lame excuse.
Heos has a major audio delay issue well document online. I know they say you can get it to work by pausing and restarting audio, but I have seen situation where the audio fields do not line up. Not enjoyable to listen to audio that is not synchronized.
I have never had a single issue using Sonos. Granted I am not happy about this news, but I do not think Hoes is a better system.
I never said it was. I was simply providing an alternative, in response to a question asked above, that's readily available and similarly priced.
Engadget posted this today, interesting that obsolesce in cloud supported hardware is becoming a major talking point across the internet:
Hmmm.
Is this just for US users?
Did not get that mail...
we have a law here and these products is in the 5 year warranty group, so maybe we still are included within this time frame?
Just a thought.
Sponsored or bought by Amazon or NSA? (Sarcasm) They want us to force Alexa on us? Hehe...
RogerThat
I got the mail yesterday. I have one Play:5 gen1. The rest of my Sonos are still considered “new”...
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I'm still using my Squeezebox system.
The Logitech Media Server software is now user supported, being maintained, and it works just great with non-Logitech squeezeboxen. (i.e. rPi's with DAC HATs, etc). There are a few different linux variants geared specifically to running them (piCorePlayer, Max2Play, etc). In fact, its possible to run LMS on an rPi, and put your music library on a NAS.
There's also a new board under development by a few folks on the Squeezebox forums that looks really promising.
Not planning on giving up on my Squeezebox platform any time soon. 
Doesn't help resolve Sonos planned obsolence though...
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I think the wording is interesting on their statement, if you have even one obsolete Sonos device connected to your others, none of your other newer devices will receive updates.
Here's hoping some additional audio drivers make it into Hubitat. I was looking into Autonomic Mirage for a whole home system alternative, but they only have drivers for the dealer driven automation systems like Crestron, Savant, C4, etc.
Sonos has alawys been over priced. But until a few ears ago, they where the best. Today they are not that good for the price you pay. I havent, for a few yers, and will not buy another Sonos over priced speaker. This move by Sonos is maybe the finala nail in the Sonos coffin...
They will happily permanently brick your old equipment for you so that you don't accidentally pass it on to somebody else.
But if you keep your otherwise perfectly functioning legacy devices they will helpfully keep any new purchases from accessing those pesky new features.
Yikes!
This is the part I really don't get. I can understand not coming out with any new firmware for older devices. Phone manufacturers will usually only update 2 generations of pone to the latest OS release. But if you have an old one, they don't brick it on you, forcing you to buy a new phone.
Yeah, seems a rather short sighted plan. They should ask Logitech how well that worked out when they bricked the Harmony Link products.
But it says that bricking the old device is part of the trade-in process to get a discount on a new one. That’s quite a bit different than bricking a “legacy” product that’s old but the consumer intended to keep using...
