Sonos Docked with Class Action After Forced Phase-Out of CR100 Speaker Controller

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

A proposed class action lawsuit has been filed over smart speaker maker Sonos, Inc.’s decision to forcibly put out to pasture its CR100 hardware controller following a July 2018 firmware update.

First launched in 2005 in the days of yore before the proliferation of smartphone apps, the CR100 controller was a piece of hardware that allowed users to control their multi-room Sonos speaker systems, the lawsuit explains. Sonos reportedly stopped selling the device in 2009 in part because of the introduction of the company’s free smartphone app that performed the same functions as the nearly $350 handheld device. As one publication put it, Sonos CR100 controller owners were left to choose “between keeping the dedicated controllers that Sonos no longer sells—but that are still working more than a decade on—and continuing to get updates for their Sonos players.” 

The plaintiff argues that Sonos’s execution of the software update that effectively “bricked” users’ CR100 controllers was rolled out “as a means of gaining an advantage over its competition” by forcing consumers to purchase replacement devices. Sonos, the plaintiff says, was aware of consumers’ expectation that their CR100 controllers would operate using current or updated software regardless of the age of the device, and the controllers apparently continued to do so right until the software update was rolled out. According to the lawsuit, Sonos “did not announce that its software update would render” the devices inoperable, nor did consumers anticipate being unable to use their speaker controllers.

“With its update,” the lawsuit states, “Sonos acted by force to limit consumer choice instead of competing lawfully, based upon the quality and servicing of its devices.”

The plaintiff says that after both of his CR100 controllers failed, the devices displayed a message directing him to www.sonos.com/cr100, which states, in part:

Had he known Sonos would eventually cut short the lifespan of the CR100 controller, the plaintiff would have never bought (or would have paid significantly less for) the device, the lawsuit says.

“Sonos purposely caused the Class Devices to fail,” the complaint asserts.

Filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on June 21, the lawsuit has been removed to California’s Central District.