Sonos announces new operating system – Image and sound – News

Sonos will introduce a new app and a new operating system in June. This increases the audio bandwidth and puts more focus on personalization and user-friendliness. The manufacturer also announces the options for older Sonos products.

The new operating system is called Sonos S2. In app stores, it will inherit the name Sonos Controller from the old app, which will go live as a Sonos S1 Controller from June 2020. Current app users will be notified that they can download the new app if it is available. Sonos does not say much about the new software yet, but says it aims at more personalization and ease of use. Also, a higher audio bandwidth would allow playback of higher resolution audio files. A new feature that will be available from June is room groups. This means that speakers that are regularly grouped are remembered and designated as a zone.

Legacy products are not supported in the new operating system, according to Sonos due to processor and memory limitations. Users with these products in their Sonos network can continue to use the current app, but will no longer receive new functions. It is also possible to place the old products and possibly some new ones in a separate Sonos network, which runs on S1. However, the newer products in the network no longer receive new functions and devices from one Sonos network can no longer be grouped with products from the other.

Sonos announced in January that the original Zone Players, the Connect and Connect: Amp, the first generation Play: 5, the CR200 and the Bridge will no longer receive new functionality, but only bug fixes and security patches. These older devices could still be used after May 2020, but if there are other Sonos products on the network, they will no longer receive upgrades. Another option was to opt for the controversial recycling program. In addition, old Sonos products could be deactivated in exchange for a thirty percent discount on new products. After much criticism is Sonos stopped with the Recycle Mode and old devices are no longer disabled. Stopping support for the legacyproducts now appear to be related to the arrival of the new operating system and the new app.

Exchanging old products for a thirty percent discount on new ones is also still possible. Furthermore, Sonos says that it sometimes pays to test whether old products still add something to the network. The Bridge and CR200 are examples of this according to the manufacturer. Sonos products released after April 2020 will not be supported in the S1 operating system and so will not work with legacyproducts in one network.

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