Good design is long-lasting. It’s one of the Dieter Rams design principles.
Short lifespan’s for technology that often gets thrown into dumps in the ground isn’t good for the environment
Short lifespan’s for technology that often gets thrown into dumps in the ground isn’t good for the environment
Assuming every different version has a few quirks and bugs, maintaining compatibility between every version and every other soon becomes impractical, especially since you probably want to build some kind of integration test that checks this all works as it should, and that probably involves a lab with all the old hardware and a human running hundreds of tests by hand because it's hard to automate tests on embedded stuff that you can no longer compile software for.
I don't want to say that vendors shouldn't implement custom protocols for an enhanced experience. But, as a consumer, I'd be a lot more likely to shell out for a product like this if I knew that there were a wifi speaker equivalent of PostScript, and that the speaker supported it. That gives me confidence that there will be some least-common-denominator level of functionality that I'll be able to get out of it for as long as the hardware itself lasts.
As it stands, my impression is that these limited-lifespan IoT products are mostly for people whose disposable income is rather more disposable than mine is.
Then build the high-end audio gear into the chassis, such as a solid quality amp and speaker pair.
That way only the the electronics needs to be swapped should the audio quality still be sufficient.
I'm not an audiophile by any stretch, but I appreciate a decent speaker. That being said, solid audio equipment can last much longer than digital tech can.
A system like above could even bring about a new sub-market around swappable chassis. Allow a customer to purchase a chassis in multiple styles and colors for less than a full module. That might mean people would be more willing to buy a "fashion swap" should they redecorate.
This is just hardware integration. It's due to standard interfaces and being designed to last.
What we build with technology now isn't designed to last. It's an intentional part of what we build even if we don't think about it much. It has an impact on end users (and even the environment... think of all the trash).
The rate of interface change is intentional on some levels. And, it's something we can control.
What it requires is a well-engineered protocol (which is what Sonos apparently lacks) that allows for feature additions while maintaining backward compatibility for old hardware and software. The old hardware and software often can't use the new features, but it can continue to work as it always had before.
I've had some of this hardware they are discontinuing for over a decade.
My decade-old desktop PC would still work fine with Windows 10, and it’s far more complex than a speaker.
32MB of ram was enough to run graphical Unix back in the day.