[bathtub365]

They’ve actually done a pretty good job of being backwards-compatible and even enabling features on older speakers if they’re grouped with newer ones. For example, having an AirPlay 2 speaker in a group means that all speakers in the group will receive sound through AirPlay 2, even if they didn’t support AirPlay in the first place.

That makes this even more puzzling.

[cptskippy]

Didn't they face huge backlash a few years back when they EOLed still functional kit people owned and used?

* It was the CR100 Controller they updated to no longer be able to control devices it previously could.

[JonathonW]

Sonos EOLed their hardware controllers, since they'd moved over to their phone-based controllers almost exclusively several years before (it had been a while since you could buy the hardware controllers).

AFAIK they've never EOLed any speakers. Older speakers sometimes don't get newer features (like AirPlay 2), but they still work and can even play back AirPlay 2 audio if grouped with a newer speaker.

[davidy123]

Not really, if older hardware doesn't support newer features, you'll think about switching ecosystems when you need more speakers. This approach justifies more Sonos gear.