Tech Nostalgia: Incompatible ⭐

In January 2020, smart speaker maker Sonos explained that it would phase out support for its oldest products, devices that had come to market 12 to 15 years earlier and had since been replaced by more modern and capable offerings. The company's rationale was solid: Like smartphones and PCs, Sonos speakers contained microprocessors, RAM, and other hardware components, and these components were all horribly out-of-date in the older devices, making it increasingly difficult for Sonos to add new features to its platform and release new products with improved functionality. Since those same customers were accustomed to upgrading phones, PCs, and other devices on much shorter timelines, the company figured they would understand the need to move on.

But the company also understood that some customers would be disappointed by this shift. To ease the transition, it offered those with older Sonos devices a 30 percent trade-up bonus so they could get new hardware more affordably. Sonos would put older hardware into a Recycle Mode after it was used to get that bonus, and it would provide free shipping so customers could return the older devices to the company for recycling.

Logically, this offer should have appeased most customers. But in this modern era of instant outrage, it did not. Within days, Sonos issued a public apology and cancelled its plans for a Recycle Mode. Instead, older devices would continue working and Sonos would now deliver bug and security fixes to them for as long as possible while it worked on an "alternative solution." Shortly thereafter, it split its mobile app, previously called Sonos Controller, into two apps, S1 for older hardware and S2 for newer hardware.

More importantly, Sonos also changed how it develops new hardware. Today, all its hardware is user serviceable when possible and its speakers come with USB-C ports (for a line-in adapter) and Bluetooth so that they can continue working outside the Sonos ecosystem if desired. In short, Sonos learned to future-proof its smart products as much as possible, a capability the small company didn't even consider when it had started out in the early 2000s because it was too busy inventing an uncertain future.

To its customers, though, Sonos had committed a sin tied to compatibility. And though it's not clear why modern smart speakers are different from phones or computers when they are built with many of the same components, the affluent customers who had spent a lot of money on Sonos equipment clearly expected longer support than they get from Apple, Microsoft, or other Big Tech companies. And the Sonos response did, at least, address the concerns. As a result, modern Sonos products are far more sustainable than those made by its competitors.

It isn't always be that way. Compatibility means many different things, and compatibility needs can vary across hardware, software, and services. Evolution occurs with each, and new technologies emerge as older technologies...