[HN Gopher] Bose is open-sourcing its old smart speakers instead...
___________________________________________________________________
Bose is open-sourcing its old smart speakers instead of bricking
them
Author : rayrey
Score : 1926 points
Date : 2026-01-08 15:07 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| Some good news
| ForHackernews wrote:
| Good for them! I own two sets of noise-cancelling Bose headphones
| and a (dumb) speaker, and they've all been pretty solid, and for
| half the price of equivalent Apple headphones.
| dominicrose wrote:
| I'm still using stereo speakers even though the local store
| seems to only sell single units. They have bluetooth but I
| don't see why they would need to be "smarter" than this.
| inetknght wrote:
| I recently posted a comment [0] critical of Bose for needing an
| app, and it's nice to see that Bose decided to take a much better
| approach to end-of-life.
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45373200
| utopiah wrote:
| Does it though? I'm using my QC on my phone without any app,
| just BT. Sure I can't adjust all settings but enough to be
| usable.
|
| Also FWIW first step for QC35 support on
| https://gadgetbridge.org/gadgets/headphones/bose/?h=bose which
| is IMHO the way to go.
| fkarg wrote:
| it's sad that this is not the default behaviour. hopefully the
| stop killing games movement will put something similar into law
| with potentially further-reaching side-effects eventually.
| Because frankly, sunsetting products like this should be common
| sense, not the exception it currently is.
| port3000 wrote:
| Good for them. Makes me more likely to consider buying a Bose in
| future, not just because I know it won't be bricked, but also for
| the environmental impact of this. Kudos.
| ebiester wrote:
| If only their sound signature was a bit better... they went all
| in on engineering tricks to make things small and cheap to
| produce, but it shows in their sound quality. Their QC
| headphones are the best in noise cancellation, and the sound
| quality is good enough that they're my pair of wireless
| headphones.
| bbminner wrote:
| A long while ago i heard something (that might have been a
| urban myth) about Bose putting useless weight into their
| headphones to make them appear more "substantially
| professional". Is that a myth or they have pivoted towards
| actual quality since early days?
| randall wrote:
| There used to be a whole culture of bose kind of being
| a-holes. (Like 20 years ago.) I used to work at CNET back
| then and there was a kind of "yeah bose is ok" kind of vibe
| but it was always tinged with "but they want to sue you if
| you say mean things" whether they did or not.
|
| As far as I know now, things have changed substantially. I
| would assume this includes engineering quality and honesty.
|
| This bricking avoidance seems like another note in that
| positive direction.
| Onavo wrote:
| Their aviation headsets are infamous for being heavy and
| the latest generation of the A30s haven't changed much
| except it's much lighter because they swapped out some
| metal parts for plastic.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| That was Beats. Pre acquisition IIRC, it was years ago.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| Can you give the source for that? The one posted shows
| the claim was debunked by the fact that they were not
| really Beats.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| You are right, my memory only includes the original
| report and not the follow-up that determined it was bunk.
| Sadly it is too far past my post so I cannot edit it.
| Apologies for persisting bad info
| mikestew wrote:
| You're probably thinking of Beats. But even then, it turns
| out that the original story was wrong because they were
| knock-off Beats.
|
| https://www.core77.com/posts/38311/Teardown-Reveals-Beats-
| He...
| joshtbradley wrote:
| Those were Beats, not Bose, and it was true. IMO Bose does
| a great job of being both consumer friendly and high
| quality. There are others with higher fidelity for the same
| price (Shure, Sennheiser) but you often lose the comfort
| and portability Bose offers.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| Can you give the source for that? The one posted shows
| the claim was debunked by the fact that they were not
| really Beats.
|
| https://www.core77.com/posts/38311/Teardown-Reveals-
| Beats-He...
| nogridbag wrote:
| I believe that's always been a thing. A long time ago I
| read this teardown article [1] of real vs counterfeit Beats
| headphones. And even the counterfeit versions had metal
| weight added to make it feel like the real Beats
| headphones!
|
| [1] https://blog.bolt.io/our-beats-were-counterfeit/
| arcfour wrote:
| My understanding of modern Bose kit based on RTINGS reviews
| is that it's fairly competitive in its price range. Still a
| touch pricey for what you get, but not bad by any means--
| like 2nd/3rd best, and occasionally punching above its
| weight for their midrange offerings. They seem to be #1 for
| comfort (headphones) though.
|
| I don't own any, I've just read reviews from when I was in
| the market for new headphones and earbuds.
| tyre wrote:
| Their headphones are remarkably comfortable
| brewdad wrote:
| I have a pair of Bose QC35s and a set of AirPod Pros.
| More often than not, for a late night YouTube binge in
| bed, I'm reaching for the QC35s.
| scrlk wrote:
| I know sound signature is a matter of personal taste, but
| FWIW, Bose QCs track the Harman curve pretty well.
|
| E.g.: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?thre
| ads/b...
| ebiester wrote:
| Yep, their QCs are good enough and the rest of the package
| makes up for it. It's their speakers of which I am still
| not impressed.
| treetalker wrote:
| _no highs -- no lows -- just Bose_
| Jaxan wrote:
| When I bought my Bose QC ten years ago, I tried a lot of
| brands and found Bose to have the most pleasant sound, very
| clear/neutral. I guess it's personal taste.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| If I'm understanding it right, any new speaker you can buy from
| them will still be dependent of some cloud service.
|
| On that case, no, that wouldn't make me consider buying them.
| Because the one I can buy lacks exactly the feature that would
| make me consider it.
| ww520 wrote:
| I used to have an unexplained resistance to buy Bose products.
| After the hinge of my Sony mx-1000 headphones broke in to two
| places, I gave in and got a Bose qc. Man, the build quality was
| insanely good. The sound was really good. And it's really
| comfortable to wear. I had changed my view.
| turblety wrote:
| This is amazing, and I hope this sets a precedent for other
| companies. Stuff like this would definitely sway my buying
| decision, if I know when a product becomes EOL I can tinker with
| it.
| ktg0215 wrote:
| This is how "end of support" should be handled. Instead of
| turning devices into e-waste, open-source them and let the
| community extend their life. Kudos to Bose for setting a good
| example.
|
| More companies should follow this approach - especially as right-
| to-repair becomes a bigger issue.
| jeffwask wrote:
| This def needs to be celebrated and rewarded. I am more likely
| to purchase Bose now.
| cipehr wrote:
| Agree. This is huge. Definitely makes me want to buy more
| Bose products for my house.
| dominick-cc wrote:
| Not huge, they didn't open source any code
| riedel wrote:
| Just to mention: Teufel has been even moving further with
| their fully open hardware design of MYND [0]. Hope others
| will follow.
|
| [0] https://teufel.de/mynd-107002004
| FredFS456 wrote:
| I bought one just this week because of this. They really
| went above and beyond:
|
| - mechanical CAD, schematic and PCB files: https://docs.teu
| fel.de/download/MYND/Open_Source_Hardware_Fi...
|
| - firmware: https://github.com/teufelaudio/mynd-firmware
|
| - Bluetooth API documentation: https://cdn.teufelaudio.com/
| image/upload/v1748589486/product...
|
| - battery repair/replacement guide: https://cdn.teufelaudio
| .com/products/MYND/pdf/Teufel_MYND_RM...
|
| I believe that they designed the mechanical parts to be
| 3D-printable as well.
| gaudystead wrote:
| This is really cool! I'd be curious if one could 3D print
| different resonance chambers to get different desired
| sounds from the speaker.
| FredFS456 wrote:
| They do have very basic EQ but for sure you have enough
| documentation to modify the speaker itself if you'd like.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Bose hardware quality is rather low and, and their sound
| quality is sub-par, while forcing you to pay the Bose brand
| tax, riding the corpse of Amar around for profit.
|
| I'd avoid, even if they happened to do this.
| makach wrote:
| Some of their high priced noise cancelling headphones have
| excellent quality. I purchased the QC-25 ages ago, and when
| it stopped working I reached out to support, this was
| beyond their 3y warranty, provided serial number and they
| sent me a new QC-35 no questions asked replacement unit.
|
| I am very happy with my QC-35 headphones. They are probably
| 5y+ now and they go with me everywhere. I think it is
| unfair to state their hw quality is low. It is much better
| than low.
| maximilianthe1 wrote:
| In current dynamic world product quality of a company
| 'today' vs '5y+ ago' may drastically change. Sadly,
| usually to the bad side
| stewarts wrote:
| Bose's QC/QC Ultra lines continue to receive praise for
| comfort, durability, sound quality, noise cancellation,
| etc. They make pretty great consumer quality headphones.
|
| Until quite recently, they were widely one of if not the
| most recommended wireless headphones. The new
| Sennheiser's that come with a USB-C dongle might have
| finally stepped past what Bose has been delivering, but
| at a higher price.
| wincy wrote:
| My wife normally isn't one to splurge but after her Bose
| headphones died, we tried a couple other brands, returned
| them, and went with the QC-35 II despite them being more
| expensive. The "comfort" part is key, she's on the
| spectrum and has a hard time with headphones irritating
| her, and these are hands down the most comfortable.
|
| We also like the Bose soundbar as it has a mode that
| makes dialogue more intelligible on our TV.
| bornfreddy wrote:
| I had the new QC Ultra and gave it away. The sound was
| mediocre at best and you can't turn NC off - a
| dealbreaker for me (no, passthru is not the same as off).
| Hope it helps someone make my mistake aa they are quite
| pricey.
|
| Now if I could change the firmware to turn NC off, that
| would be something entirely different...
| sleepybrett wrote:
| I love my QCII earbuds, comfort and noise cancellation
| blow the airpodpro3's out of the water. But sadly the new
| hearing aid features of the airpodpros are very handy to
| me, so I have both. I wear the QC2's when I'm at home
| alone, and the app3s when I'm out and about and expect to
| have to have some conversations. My ears aren't so bad
| yet that I need hearing aids, but they are bad enough
| that I'm forced to lean in more than I used to. Aging is
| the worst.
| Teckla wrote:
| My experience is the opposite: Bose hardware and sound
| quality seems excellent to me.
|
| This may be subjective. Bose might sound good to some
| people's ears and less good to other people's ears.
| kiney wrote:
| I don't know about Bose. But sound quality in general is
| absolutely objectively measurable.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| There's arguably a subjective quality to sound enjoyment,
| though. The fidelity of reproduction can be measured, but
| I'd argue there's personal preference in the types of
| artifacts generated by inaccuracies in reproduction.
| bombcar wrote:
| There's really two camps - "I like what I hears" and
| "this is as close to in-studio monitors as you can get".
|
| There's an argument for both, but frankly, if studio
| monitor setups don't sound "as good" why bother?
| lelanthran wrote:
| > But sound quality in general is absolutely objectively
| measurable.
|
| Sound quality is not the same as music quality.
|
| To be more specific, _Sound Reproduction Fidelity_ is not
| the same as _Pleasant Music_
|
| To be even more specific, _Signal Reproduction_ is not
| the same as "Pleasant Sounds*
|
| The goal of music is _not always_ high fidelity of
| reproduction; if it were, over-driven valve amps would
| never have been a thing.
|
| The only thing objective in this context is signal
| reproduction, which is not the highest concern for music
| production.
| jrajav wrote:
| Signal reproduction matters quite a bit more for music
| production than it does for music listening and
| enjoyment. That's why producers and engineers look for
| 'monitors', rather than hi-fi speakers.
|
| Hi-fi speakers, tube amps, and other accessories
| generally "degrade" the sound with added harmonics and
| natural smile EQs. That's what makes them sound more
| pleasing.
|
| (I'm not disagreeing with you, just adding more color.)
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > To be more specific, Sound Reproduction Fidelity is not
| the same as Pleasant Music
|
| If a speaker reproduces some music with 100% accuracy and
| the result is unpleasant, doesn't that just mean the
| original music--as created by the artist--is unpleasant?
|
| Where possible, I'd prefer a speaker that respects the
| artist's decisions instead of inserting itself into the
| creative process.
| sosborn wrote:
| Unless you are listening through the same studio monitors
| in the same room or headphones as the mixing engineer, it
| will never be the same.
|
| IMHO, people place too much importance on "accuracy".
| While accuracy might be objectively measured, it means
| nothing when it comes to individual taste.
| pete5x5 wrote:
| You can certainly measure it, but the catch is that there
| is not always a single "correct" value. So just because
| you can measure what the speakers are outputting and then
| adjust it, it doesn't mean there is one correct output
| value.
|
| A good example of this is a target curve, often used in
| room calibration. Dirac has a good explanation:
| https://www.dirac.com/resources/target-curve
|
| (highly recommend Dirac room correction, by the way)
| b00ty4breakfast wrote:
| you can absolutely quantify certain metrics, and you can
| even generalize what "good" is by surveying listener
| preference but that isn't the same thing as any one
| individual's subjective preference.
| JodieBenitez wrote:
| Bose in general (there are many models...) is not what
| I'd call high-fidelity. It doesn't mean you can't enjoy
| your music or your movies with it. Just don't buy this if
| you care about transparency, otherwise it's usually a
| pleasing hearing experience. Their PA line is IMO
| overpriced and sacrifices too much to the design and
| weight.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| I've been playing with the idea for a bit, can you give
| me an order of magnitude for "entry-level HiFi"? Even if
| that's an oxymoron, how many zeroes does it take to get
| an experience that's noticeably superior to, say, default
| car speakers or built-in Smart TV speakers?
| JodieBenitez wrote:
| It's like buying a gun or a car, there are all kinds of
| offers and all kinds of prices. You should be able to
| find great offers with amp+speakers under 1kEUR,
| including VAT. Probably even less with 2.0 or 2.1
| systems.
| t-3 wrote:
| It doesn't usually take much, because very few cars or
| TVs come with powered subwoofers or 6x9s or quality
| tweeters. Second hand amps, receivers, etc. are usually a
| good deal, entry-level speakers are pretty cheap new
| though.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Similar experience, even after picking up the new airpod
| pro 3's (the hearing aid stuff i great for my ailing
| ears) I still prefer, when I'm sitting at my desk working
| while listening to music, the quietcomfort 2 earbuds. The
| noise cancellation is hands down better than apple's an
| it's a more comfortable fit.
| 10729287 wrote:
| Typical so called audiophile stance here. I have numerous
| headphones (including high ends ones) and always been happy
| with my Bose. Sound is great and gently enhanced for
| listening enjoyment, whatever snobs could say about it, and
| the hardware is really nice. My Bose SoundSport earbuds are
| the best fit I ever had in 30+ years of wearing earbuds and
| my QC35 never failed on me. That move from them adds to all
| the great things I can say about this brand.
| senshan wrote:
| Please suggest better alternatives
| bee_rider wrote:
| If you were going to consider Bose, you should at least
| take a look at Sennheiser. They are similar in a "can't
| really go too wrong" sense. Nice build quality, generally
| pretty flat and analytical usually.
|
| They are such a standard response that presumably a real
| audiophile will come along to point out that their
| favorite model is much better, than a particular well
| known Sennheiser model, but as far as one can say in
| brand terms they are solid.
| dundundundun wrote:
| I loathe analytical sound. It destroys all listening
| pleasure for me. Give me nice warm coloured midtones and
| I'm happy!
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Sennheiser sold out to a Chinese factory, and recently
| even stopped producing their flagship stuff in-house.
| They're even shutting their "cheap" Irish factory down
| (where modern HD650s and HD660Ss were made).
|
| All the Chinese-made Sennheiser stuff has awful QA.
| drnick1 wrote:
| Beyerdynamic DT1990s run circles around consumer-grade
| stuff.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Beyerdynamic announced earlier last year they're finally
| exiting pro and flagship tier stuff, and selling out to a
| Chinese equity firm.
|
| Their build quality is exceptional, and they're built
| like tanks. The only problem, imo, is the Beyer house
| sound is very shouty and fatiguing, especially with the
| "990" versions of the product line over the years.
|
| Disclaimer: I owned a Beyer DT880/600ohm (the neutral one
| of the 770/880/990 siblings), paired with an amp that
| could properly handle it. Its one of the few headphones I
| sold and did not retain in my collection, it deserved
| someone that could love it. The new Tesla-based drivers
| are better (such as that 1990), but still retain that
| Beyer sound.
| cjk wrote:
| Oh man. I missed that announcement somehow.
|
| Where'd you see they're exiting pro/flagship tier stuff?
| Everything I can find says they're continuing to hand-
| make their higher-end stuff in Germany. One such source:
| https://www.whathifi.com/headphones/100-year-old-
| headphone-b...
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Sure. What exactly are you looking for?
|
| Also, there are multiple forums and subreddits you can
| ask this question on. You will get more answers than you
| would from me and the rest of HN.
| aethrum wrote:
| I'm an audiophile and very happy with one of their portable
| speakers. I wouldn't buy Bose monitors, though
| cjk wrote:
| If you're talking about their headphones, I agree they
| _feel_ cheaply-made, but they are by no means low-quality.
| When you make headphones with premium materials, they get
| heavy, and that makes them uncomfortable/painful to wear.
| Speaking from prior experience. It's an incredibly delicate
| balancing act. Bose optimizes for comfort, which is
| important for e.g. long plane rides.
| bartread wrote:
| Exactly this.
|
| "Bose blows" is a popular comment amongst the audiophile
| community but, to me, it seems like they don't blow at
| all[0]. In fact quite the opposite: this is a fantastic
| example for other companies to follow. Top marks, Bose!
|
| _[0] What is actually true is that they are opinionated
| about sound reproduction in ways that a bunch of people don
| 't agree with but which in the right context are often
| effective and enjoyable to listen to._
| reactordev wrote:
| Seems to me like an executive saw klipsch failures and saw
| an opening to kill two birds with one stone.
|
| One, to show their support for audiophiles who supported
| them.
|
| Two, make superior products to klipsch that - ummm -
| actually state the real ranges of the speakers and use real
| copper windings instead of "painted" copper.
| filoleg wrote:
| > "Bose blows" is a popular comment amongst the audiophile
| community but, to me, it seems like they don't blow at
| all[0]
|
| That comment is not wrong, you are imo just not making an
| important distinction that the criteria on which
| audiophiles judge Bose as "blowing" (which is almost purely
| the sound profile + a few other smaller things like
| physical comfort/connectivity/price/etc.) vs. what you
| judge it on (which is more in the long-term technical
| user/community product support, idk how to describe that
| area much better) are almost entirely disjoint.
|
| It is perfectly fine and valid for an audio product to
| "blow" from an opinionated audiophile perspective, while
| being exceptionally great from the long-term
| product/user/community product support perspective.
|
| I heavily agree with you btw, Bose should be heavily lauded
| for making a decision to open-up their speaker firmware
| after it reaches the official end of support deadline. The
| fact that this is an exceptional practice is imo, a little
| bit sad, because I believe that it should be way more
| common.
| bayindirh wrote:
| Came here to say exactly this. I consider myself an
| audiophile (the sane kind) and, if I want "that sound"
| and have time, I use my HiFi, but if I want to enjoy
| music and just relax, I use my Bose headphones with
| whatever thing I have close.
|
| I like how they color sound, and how they use
| psychoacoustics to do what they do.
|
| Audiophiles using music to listen their systems are
| missing the point.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Build quality of Bose products is good in my opinion. The
| headphones are alright but so are Sony, Plantronics and
| Apple. I love the sound of Airpods Pro in particular even
| if they don't want to stay in my ears [1] and the pairing
| experience even with the iPhone isn't what I expect of
| >$100 headphones in 2016.
|
| If you want really good stereo or 5.1 sound there is no
| substitute for big speakers that can move a lot of air.
|
| [1] maybe it is that gene polymorphism that makes my ears
| overflow with wax and has my doctor warning they will
| plug up one of these days
| filoleg wrote:
| Agreed on pretty much all points. There is no "ultimate
| audio equipment piece" that is just perfect in all
| aspects, and the choice criteria are spread across both
| user preferences and specific use-cases as well.
|
| I love the new airpods pro for my daily commute (subway,
| not a car; just clarifying before I get hammered down in
| replies for driving and using airpods at the same time),
| doubly so given their compactness+heavily improved ANC.
|
| For home, I love my open-back Beyerdynamic DT1990Pro
| pair, due to the audio profile + insanely good physical
| comfort when worn for prolonged periods of time.
|
| For gatherings with friends for when I need a somewhat-
| portable bluetooth speaker (that also happen to look good
| when sitting on a bookshelf outside of active use), I
| have a TE-OB4.
|
| If I had a larger living space, I would consider getting
| a pair of high-quality speakers again too.
|
| But there is not a single "this is it" piece of audio
| equipment that would just replace everything, so you
| gotta pick and choose your poison.
| tstrimple wrote:
| If you haven't tried foam replacement tips, they make a
| world of difference for me. I couldn't use the airpods
| (non-pro) at all. I could barely use the silicon tipped
| pros. But when I put a foam tip on them it not only
| blocks out ambient sound better, they stay in place.
| Unfortunately the foam wears out rather quickly and I
| replace them around three times a year.
| mike50 wrote:
| Build quality is trash consumer with a hefty markup. The
| older CD player era equipment has the cheapest CD
| mechanisms I've ever seen for the era. The audio pathway
| is the same hybrids that everyone else uses. Bose is 100%
| mass marketing. I'm old enough to remember the endless
| ads in the back of magazines.
| com2kid wrote:
| Until the rest of the market caught up, Bose's noise
| cancelling algorithms were top notch. As soon as Apple
| entered the fray a bunch of money was thrown at the
| problem, the bar was raised, and now good quality noise
| cancelling is the norm.
|
| But for awhile Bose's headphones had the best noise
| cancelling out there.
|
| Their old ads were super irritating though, and many
| people (such as you and me!) are still irritated about
| them decades later.
| filoleg wrote:
| > Until the rest of the market caught up, Bose's noise
| cancelling algorithms were top notch. As soon as Apple
| entered the fray a bunch of money was thrown at the
| problem, the bar was raised, and now good quality noise
| cancelling is the norm.
|
| A minor nitpick: while Apple entering the ANC arena
| certainly set fire under the existing mainstream brands
| to improve their ANC headphones, imo Bose started facing
| serious competition on that front even before Apple moved
| in.
|
| I remember Sony releasing their MDR-1000X par being the
| first crack in the wall. I specifically remember this,
| because I picked up those headphones in favor of Bose
| options at the time.
|
| P.S. Yes, the naming scheme on Sony's side is atrocious,
| because MDR-1000X is the first gen of their very popular
| WH-1000XM line of ANC headphones that people treat as a
| flagship ANC headphone pair (with the most recent one
| being WH-1000XM6).
| eikenberry wrote:
| Bose is fine for what it is, but it is overpriced for
| what it is. IMO the main point the audiophiles make is
| that you can get a superior product for the same cost.
| RajT88 wrote:
| > The fact that this is an exceptional practice is imo, a
| little bit sad, because I believe that it should be way
| more common.
|
| If we gave tax breaks for open sourcing EOL products,
| we'd see a lot more of it. Code escrow companies might
| not like it, though.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The audiophile community usually are people with more
| money than ears, their opinion on the quality of
| particular brands is easy to discard, it is usually
| correlated more with expense than actual measured
| performance.
| JodieBenitez wrote:
| > "Bose blows" is a popular comment amongst the audiophile
| community
|
| I have a 15 years old Bose system. Is it audio-transparent
| ? Absolutely not, its frequency response is well
| documented. But the sound is very pleasing, it's reliable
| and nearly invisble in my living room.
|
| I'm not an audiophile though, just a music lover.
| acomjean wrote:
| We have some really old Bose speakers my brothers and I
| bought 30+ years ago at my Moms place. Just listened to
| them over the recent holidays. Not ann audiofile but they
| sounded pretty good even now.
| juris wrote:
| not an audiophile but is it possible to tease out those
| aspects of sound reproduction if the software is open
| source?
| bartread wrote:
| My comment about sound reproduction was more a point on
| Bose's longstanding philosophy in building speakers than
| in anything about this specific software but, to answer
| your question... quite possibly. Bose intentionally
| colour the sound and apply, at the very least, EQ and
| some sort of active processing to it to get what they
| believe is the best out of the speakers and enclosures
| they use.
|
| And I'm couching this all in very neutral terms, not
| because I have an axe to grind with them, but because I
| don't want to get into a flame war with the kind of
| audiophiles who hate Bose.
|
| FWIW the Bose products I've heard and used all sounded
| pretty good. At the end of the day they're designed for
| people to enjoy music within a particular target context,
| not necessarily to be the most accurate at reproducing
| the recording exactly.
|
| (I'll say this as well: reproducing the recording exactly
| isn't necessarily what you want to get something to sound
| good. A lot of albums from the loudness war era benefit
| significantly from rolling off some of the higher
| frequencies, where clipping occurs, for example. So I
| have one amplifier that includes - gasp, shock, horror -
| tone controls that I sometimes use and, on another system
| where the amp doesn't have tone controls, I've hooked up
| a [true] stereo graphic equalizer. You also have to take
| the listening environment into account and when you do
| that some element of processing the sound before it comes
| out of the speakers can also prove to be beneficial.
| Anyway, I shall now go and brace myself for some
| righteous abuse from the purists.)
| tclancy wrote:
| Alternatively: Bose now provides highs! No lows.
| cjk wrote:
| In a previous life, I was the platform architect for the
| Bluetooth headphones at Bowers & Wilkins. We, naturally,
| did tons of competitive analysis, and I tend to agree Bose
| blows sound quality-wise, but their active noise cancelling
| is hands-down the best in the biz, and they have the weight
| and comfort extremely dialed-in.
|
| Glad to see them setting a great example here instead of
| letting these speakers become expensive paperweights.
| SoleilAbsolu wrote:
| Well, Bose has a long history of continually hyping
| whatever they're selling as the complete & utter pinnacle
| of sound reproduction technology, whether or not that's
| actually the case. Before the internet it was through their
| print media ads, starting with their Direct/Reflecting home
| speaker tech, continued through the 800 series PA speakers,
| Acoustic Wave tabletop radio, etc. Not to say there were
| not benefits, but that the choices they made -- single
| driver size, requiring certain room boundaries/geometry for
| optimal sound, need for active EQ/processing to get full-
| range response before the tech was really there to do so
| optimally -- did not always equal great trouble-free sound
| as advertised.
|
| That said their implementation of noise-cancelling
| headphones/earbuds was a legit game-changer. And good on
| them for open-sourcing these speakers!
| sleepybrett wrote:
| The audiophile community is so far up it's own ass it
| doesn't see a distinction between bose and a piezoelectric
| buzzer.
| com2kid wrote:
| "Bose blows" is typically in regards to their
| price/performance, and especially with how they marketed
| themselves throughout the 90s and early 2000s.
|
| Bose used to advertise that they were _the best_ sounding
| speaker out there, while also running advertisements that
| made claims which violated the laws of physics.
|
| For the same price as a Bose system you could get something
| much higher quality. Bose was selling at luxury prices w/o
| luxury quality. They got away with it because compared to
| the cheap garbage most people listened to, Bose's stuff
| _was_ nicer. Their quality was mid to upper mid tier, and
| the build quality was generally good.
|
| But people got irritated by a decade ads saying a tiny
| speaker is more powerful than a proper speaker setup.
|
| Now days Bose makes good quality noise cancelling
| headphones (and I suspect they made more revenue selling NC
| headphones during the open office and then COVID era than
| they ever did selling speakers in the 90s!) and they brand
| car stereo systems.
|
| Their noise cancelling headphones are good, even if the ear
| pads wear our way too fast.
|
| Pretty much no one has a home hi-fi setup anymore, everyone
| just has a sound bar. I do have a hi-fi music setup, people
| are rather shocked when they come over that I even
| bothered. I got it for $2k on Craigslist years ago, the
| setup cost someone a small fortune when they were brand
| new. IMHO buying new hi-fi gear is pointless, Speakers made
| in 2005 sound just as good as speakers made in 2025, the
| laws of physics haven't changed any!
| spogbiper wrote:
| i always heard "no high, no lows, must be bose"
| hamdingers wrote:
| Ironically this makes me want to buy this discontinued model,
| not anything currently supported by Bose.
| jcmfernandes wrote:
| It makes me want to buy both! Old to tinker with, new to
| support the move.
| inanutshellus wrote:
| A better way to say that is "This will boost the second-
| hand value of older Bose speakers".
|
| Budget-aware folks will buy these second-hand, neophiles
| will buy new, confident that long term solutions will exist
| even after "long term support" is over.
|
| Heck, even knowing there's a second-hand market makes me
| more likely to buy Bose new.
| castillar76 wrote:
| Many companies miss how important this is, too: they get
| caught up in "but if they buy it second-hand, they're not
| buying our new stuff!". When people buy the stuff second-
| hand, though, they become Bose fans -- that means when
| the second-hand Bose stuff dies, they're more likely to
| replace it with new Bose stuff. That's particularly true
| with audio equipment, where people become attached not
| only to how something works but how it sounds. If they
| like Bose's rather particular audio signature, they'll
| keep buying more.
|
| Between that and the good-will they're getting from this
| move, this is making a ton of life-long Bose fans out of
| a lot of audio geeks. And if there's a community well-
| known for creating religions out of their hardware
| preferences...
| freedomben wrote:
| Indeed, and also people buying second-hand are pretty
| unlikely to buy brand new if they aren't able to find the
| second-hand item (or use it). It's similar to piracy in
| that respect, that _some_ people who pirate _might_ have
| actually bought it, but the majority likely would not
| have anyway so can 't just say "1,000 people pirated our
| thing, therefore we lost 1,000 sales". The cynic in me
| thinks they know that and just use it as a convenient way
| to over-inflate the damage piracy is doing to them, but
| that's a separate topic
| InitialLastName wrote:
| On the other hand, lots of people buying audio gear new
| DO take the second-hand market into account, and will
| spend more on the initial purchase if they think the
| product will retain its value.
| jerf wrote:
| Another thing companies miss is that the second-value is
| priced in to the price. If I know I can resell a thing
| for some value, that makes it more valuable than if I
| can't resell it all, and I can pay more for it. Contrary
| to what the companies think, they were in fact
| compensated for the after market value, and it's even
| better then they hoped, because that compensation
| occurred at time of first sale rather than some random
| time years later.
|
| The most amusing anti-example of this was the Switch
| generation: $60 for a cartridge, or $60 for a digital
| license. Guess which is actually more valuable? Guess
| which you were more likely to find discounted, even if
| only by a marginal amount, by some store desperate to
| move stock out of the way?
|
| By contrast, I'm not worried about the fact I can't
| resell my copy of Game X I got on Steam when I only paid
| $5 for it in the first place.
| platevoltage wrote:
| Bose products seem like they are most popular with older,
| non-technical people who see it as a luxury brand. This is
| the same reaction that I would have with this news because
| I like modifying hardware/firmware, but I was never in the
| market to buy Bose products in the first place. My parents
| on the other hand have at least 3 wave radios in the house.
| layer8 wrote:
| I agree, but there can be IP rights involved that make this
| difficult.
| randall wrote:
| Sure but that should be an up front conversation. "OK, how do
| we make sure as few of these turn into bricks?"
| jan_Sate wrote:
| They're just publishing API documentation. No source code of
| the device got published.
|
| At least people can create their own implementation of the
| API tho.
| stavros wrote:
| If the publish the API for the server, as well as allow the
| device to specify the API hostname to connect to, that's
| all I need. We can write our own server implementation
| fairly easily, and this saves us the hassle of having to
| reverse-engineer the API, plus makes setup much easier if
| we can just tell the device where to connect.
|
| I wish more manufacturers would unlock their devices for
| local use when they don't want to support them any more. Or
| maybe even, hear me out, _before_ support ends! Maybe we
| could even vote with our wallets and buy open stuff instead
| of walled gardens.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Exactly. Open source is great and all, but all 99% of
| these devices need is simply a way to configure them to
| connect to a different server, when the manufacturer
| inevitably turns their own server down (usually) bricking
| devices.
|
| The open source community will happily reverse-engineer
| the protocol and clean-room develop their own server
| code.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| > 99% of these devices need is simply a way to configure
| them to connect to a different server, when the
| manufacturer inevitably turns their own server down
| (usually) bricking devices.
|
| The same can be said about a lot of games, and should be
| the case with them as well. Big MMOs for example. See the
| plethora of WoW private servers as an example of how it
| can be done.
|
| I think the stop killing games initiative in the EU was
| pushing for it but not sure how far they've gotten, but
| like with hardware, once a game studio no longer wants to
| run the servers for their game, they should be forced to
| turn it over to the community so the players can continue
| playing long after the studio is gone.
| eadwu wrote:
| This is not applicable to games.
|
| Bose's brand is built on audio quality. There is close to
| little negative impact open sourcing the API (server) in
| this case will bring to their brand.
|
| For a game, open sourcing the server generally means
| anyone can basically mess it up and with the internet
| make it available to everyone to see. Then the
| responsibility is on the developer to protect their
| "brand".
|
| The plethora of WoW private servers is not a good
| example. These are from individuals, or groups of people
| who willfully reverse engineered it on their own. This is
| different from a company expressly permissing and
| implicitly giving a grant on allowing a similar product
| to exist - the difference is that one gives credibility,
| which the other does not.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| That's exactly what the "NoLongerEvil" Nest thermostat
| server did[0]. They just injected their own CA bundle and
| modified the /etc/hosts file to "free" the devices.
|
| [0] discussed
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45813343
| monocasa wrote:
| They did not publish enough API docs to write an
| alternative backend.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/bose-open-
| sources-it...
| mrguyorama wrote:
| If IP rights make doing the right thing too onerous, we can
| always reduce IP rights powers in this specific situation.
|
| Or across the board, since they are absurdly powerful right
| now. Nintendo could not legally keep you from hacking a
| console before the DMCA.
| big-and-small wrote:
| It's not like consumer electronics contain top secret tech
| like EUV machines. All supply chain for firmware / software
| of 99.99% devices is very boring, contains absolutely nothing
| secret and the only reason why it's "difficult" is because IP
| owners was not bothered.
|
| Once single EU / US legislation introduced that force
| manufacturers into opening end-of-life products all IP right
| owners will either immediately make it possible or go out of
| business.
|
| Since everyone will be forced to do the same no one will gain
| any advantages.
| layer8 wrote:
| I'm more thinking of patents and licensed third-party
| technology and firmware. There are standard tech stacks
| controlled by industry associations that you simply can't
| open source because the association would sue you and kick
| you out.
| big-and-small wrote:
| These associations do not just exist in vacuum. They have
| licenses like this because law allow it and it's
| beneficial to them. Once there are regulation that demand
| something else they'll just follow the law.
|
| Also it's not like every single bit of firmware /
| software must be open sourced - it's could very much be
| trade off where devices just need to be unlocked for
| modification and documentation made available.
| jahnu wrote:
| If they know they have to do it up front the ip rights issue
| disappears.
| layer8 wrote:
| I'm all for that, but also the product might not exist if
| they can't use third-party protected IP for it.
| denysvitali wrote:
| I wish there was a law that forced them to do that
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| This should be added into write-to-repair laws.
| quijoteuniv wrote:
| This is the way! (And should be the law, maybe enforced by
| mandalorians taking greedy CEOs!)
| shrubby wrote:
| Yup. All the "bricked" cars should have their service
| software opened. All the old iPads that have perfectly good
| hardware.
|
| ...
|
| Planet is burning and the zillionaires have enough zillions
| already so I vouch for the Mando too.
| platevoltage wrote:
| All cars period should have their service software freely
| available. I shouldn't need to hunt down software on a
| Russian torrent site to help someone figure out why their
| ABS light is on.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Exactly, I wish EU enforced this.
|
| Maybe the general rule should be like, if something isn't in
| the users control and the user doesn't want it anymore or can
| no longer function despite not being damaged, then the company
| should take back the hardware and refund the user.
|
| So the company still have two options, either refund or open-
| source the systems needed for the device so that the user or
| third-party can continue supporting it.
| andrepd wrote:
| > More companies should follow this approach
|
| No, the law must _mandate_ that. You either provide active
| support, or if you end it you must open-source all tools
| necessary to perform maintenance. It 's one of those things
| that has to be mandated by law to provide a uniform floor on
| all companies and manufacturers, like food safety laws, fire
| codes, or accessibility for the physically disabled.
| torstenvl wrote:
| This comment strikes me as absurd. How exactly would you
| propose that something like that be done?
| ghm2199 wrote:
| I wish meta would do the same for its portal devices. The
| devices are solid hardware. They removed a ton of app support
| that needed cloud services.
|
| I loved their camera tracking and picture frame along with
| their speaker quality.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| This this also good marketing, if other companies I currently
| buy speakers from follow their footsteps I'll keep supporting
| them, but I might otherwise just move towards Bose in the
| future. I wish Apple would do this for their ultra legacy
| stuff, Microsoft does it for their legacy stuff. Not sure if
| we'll ever get a fully open sourced legacy version of Windows
| (ignoring the source code leak) but it would be cool to one day
| see the Windows XP source code on GitHub.
| vovavili wrote:
| It would be an unwise business move. The moment that is done,
| Linux/WINE will be able to run the bulk of the software that
| keeps a substantial number of people locked into Windows.
| Most people don't need the newest version of their software
| to stay productive.
| xnickb wrote:
| Those who are willing to move have already moved.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Yeah, I only use Windows when I am given a Windows system
| to do work.
| vovavili wrote:
| I myself would be more inclined to move if I had an
| option to run Adobe suite, Excel, TouchDesigner, Ableton
| and Recordbox through WINE without significant tinkering.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Idk enough about Ableton but theres definitely a few open
| source and proprietary alternatives that run on Linux.
| Try proton instead of Wine.
| pardon_me wrote:
| If society progresses as envisaged, people will always want
| newer and better technology. Living standards should
| improve for all, as the older technology is purchased
| second-hand by those who cannot afford the latest versions,
| and/or repaired as desired.
|
| When a businesses chooses to drop support for a product
| entirely (hardware or spares no longer produced, and
| software no longer updated), they've presumably already
| made the business decision to drop the product for sale. If
| the product were still in demand and the existing devices
| still function, dropping product support could effectively
| render the devices useless or destined for landfill.
|
| This often happens when: online services are dropped,
| devices cannot be repaired, or worse, software cannot be
| simply updated for security and compatibility reasons etc.
|
| If manufacturers want existing users with working
| technology to upgrade, they should design compelling
| improved products, not force a load of e-waste and bricked
| devices. There's little reason for a manufacturer to
| quickly drop support without following this model of open
| sourcing, unless they know they are forcing existing
| customers to an unnecessary upgrade.
|
| Manufacturers should support their products, innovate, or
| let them go over time. The "market" (consumer choice)
| should dictate when a product is obsolete. We own our
| products and should have the rights to maintain them. They
| should be paying _us_ and taxed for damaging the
| environment for dropping support early and /or without
| open-sourcing.
| soperj wrote:
| > newer and better technology
|
| Most newer technology hasn't seemed better in a while.
| It's almost impossible to find a phone with a removable
| battery, or one that's easily fixable, and has a
| headphone jack. My galaxy S3 was all of those things.
| USB3 is good though.
| rgregg wrote:
| The meaning of better isn't universal unfortunately. My
| iPhone is considerably better than my Treo 650 which had
| those features. I wouldn't go back.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Yes! This! If only my Sonos speakers were open-sourced....
| shmoe wrote:
| Looking at you, Sonos.
| KellyCriterion wrote:
| ++1
|
| I do not get why not more companies are doing this! Also it
| pays so much into your brand perception etc.; also you will
| always have all ecological folks on your side because of "not
| producing new stuff".
|
| This is the cheapest and best way to get the most out of your
| investment after it entered end-of-life.
| kenhwang wrote:
| I suspect it's because the technical staff have already been
| let go or replaced with outsourced maintenance-only staffing
| firms, which means the non-technical leadership doesn't know
| whether the source code would contain damaging information.
| hahn-kev wrote:
| The reason I've heard for games which I assume is similar
| here, is that there's licensed code used which the developer
| can not release because they don't own it (someone else does)
| prmoustache wrote:
| This should be in the law imho. No hardware or software should
| have its support abandonned unless the spec / schematics /
| parts list and/or source code is released in a public repo.
| notnmeyer wrote:
| i'd love for this to be required by law. i'm probably not
| thinking of some great reason why that might be a bad idea, but
| it seems like an effective way to reduce e-waste.
| Wafje wrote:
| Bose should not receive praise for this move. Bose only took
| this action after community backlash. In an older version of
| their end-of-life announcement, most functionality of the
| speaker systems would have removed and transformed the devices
| into dumb-speakers/amps.
|
| Good that they changed their statement and took the right
| action. Even better for the community for stepping up and
| 'forcing' Bose to do so.
|
| Sources:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20251201051242/https://www.bose....
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/10/bose-soundtouch-home...
| fortran77 wrote:
| I believe that if someone (or some company) changes their
| ways we should accept that and not condemn them forever.
| nish__ wrote:
| Honestly. Bro needs to chill. Big companies don't really do
| anything unless they recieve backlash. That's just how it
| works.
| filoleg wrote:
| > _Bose should not receive praise for this move. Bose only
| took this action after community backlash._
|
| They received the backlash, they responded to it by properly
| addressing the criticism and doing the right thing. It should
| be praised. Especially since it wasn't some PR-centric damage
| control, but an actual direct address of the specific points
| their original approach was criticized for.
|
| Compare Bose's response to that of Sonos (another large techy
| audio brand). Sonos had an absolutely massive backlash
| recently (within the past few years iirc) in regards to
| deprecating software support for their older speakers that
| I'd read about everywhere (including HN) for months and
| months.
|
| Afaik, it didn't lead to Sonos doing the right thing in the
| end (unlike the scenario at hand here), despite the online
| outrage being way more widespread than in the Bose's case.
| pixelready wrote:
| Yeah, it's good to see a sensible response to community
| pressure here. While I take the point that they only
| conceded after pressure, at least they did concede. I've
| upgraded their brand in my mind from "planned obsolescence
| e-waste villain" to "cares about PR and will do the right
| thing while being watched". I think the only truly
| trustworthy companies regarding end of support handling in
| consumer tech are those whose brand is explicitly tied to
| openness / repairablity ala home assistant, framework
| laptops, etc...
|
| Sadly those tend to be niche companies already focused on
| power users, but any other firms should be considered
| guilty until proven innocent of enshittification (forced
| bricking, closed source, subscription creep, privacy
| violations and data brokering).
| wwweston wrote:
| And some people have been advocating for Apple to do
| something similar with old iPhones and tablets for a
| decade, and there's no sign. Their privilege but not great
| for the world.
| dijit wrote:
| And?
|
| When presented with information that you're acting in bad
| faith, if you choose to change: that is praiseworthy.
|
| It's very brave to take that in, and not worry about "brand
| damage" or "appearing weak". It's brave to even challenge
| _yourself_ when someone tells you you 're wrong. It's
| entirely admirable.
|
| It's the default human behaviour to double-down.
| fainpul wrote:
| > transformed the devices into dumb-speakers/amps
|
| Isn't that still gonna happen now?
|
| From [1]:
|
| _What will no longer work:
|
| * Presets (preset buttons on the product and in the app)_
|
| Of course Bluetooth and AirPlay continues to work, but isn't
| that what a "dumb speaker" is?
|
| [1] https://www.bose.com/soundtouch-end-of-life
| JonathonW wrote:
| Bose's original plan was to remove all WiFi-dependent
| functionality (no AirPlay and no Spotify Connect)-- while
| they wouldn't quite be "dumb speakers" at that point (since
| Bluetooth would've still worked), it would've turned them
| into pretty much just overcomplicated Bluetooth speakers.
| tw04 wrote:
| > Bose should not receive praise for this move.
|
| Remind me of any other vendor in recent history that end of
| lifed a hardware product and then open sourced it whether
| they got backlash or not. Because I can't think of a single
| one.
|
| So yes, Bose absolutely deserves praise.
| ToniCipriani wrote:
| Arguably HP open-sourced webOS, but they did also got
| backlash because they killed that entire product line
| without warning.
| cogman10 wrote:
| They killed the product line almost immediately after
| release. And they fired basically everyone they acquired
| from palm.
|
| It was a real shitty move.
| sjs382 wrote:
| Google refunded all Stadia purchases, both hardware and
| software, after they discontinued the platform/product.
| Then they added functionality (the ability to operate the
| controller as a generic Bluetooth controller) afterward to
| keep the hardware from becoming e-waste.
| monocasa wrote:
| Except the title is wrong; Bose didn't open source
| anything.
| banannaise wrote:
| Don't punish the behavior you want to see. Would we rather
| they defaulted there? Sure. But it's arguably an even better
| signal to see that they're willing to listen to their
| customers even when there is no direct financial incentive
| for them.
| fragmede wrote:
| Their financial incentive is negative. They were hoping to
| force everyone to buy new speakers, driving sales. But if
| the community is able to get open source firmware to run
| spotifyd on them, there is a non-zero (not everyone, but
| it's non-zero) amount of people that will just not buy new
| speakers from them.
| bell-cot wrote:
| > Their financial incentive is negative. They were hoping
| to force...
|
| Maybe?
|
| People stuck with Bose bricks might show a preference for
| non-Bose replacements.
|
| People who though Bose speakers would stay useful longer
| might prefer Bose, or be willing to pay for a more
| expensive Bose speaker model.
|
| (Yes, I agree that some PHB's at Bose were almost
| certainly imagining that their customers would be forced
| to re-purchase Bose speakers. I'm questioning the
| validity of their initial assumptions.)
| x0x0 wrote:
| From talking to friends and family, so n=10-ish, non-
| computer people have not realized that sticking computers
| in things means they die on computer lifetimes, not
| appliance lifetimes. No more switches that last for the
| life of the house; no more speakers that your kids can do
| modest maintenance to and keep using.
| ted_dunning wrote:
| If they can make this OS story go viral, then they stand
| to have a lot of customers defect from their competitors
| even people who would never really care about open
| source.
|
| Could easily be net positive.
| nkrisc wrote:
| Well they still did it, thus praise (though less effusive
| than if they had just done it initially).
| tverbeure wrote:
| Is the world a better place before or after Bose decided to
| change course?
| nashashmi wrote:
| This could fail if too many players start to abandon/open
| source their products at the same time. It could lead to an
| overload.
|
| Plus, I purchased my product thinking it will last forever.
| Sudden announcements for EOL is a terrible trend. Laws should
| regulate having proper disclosures that a product is promised
| to be serviced for x number of years at minimum, and/or mandate
| manufacturers themselves provide updates to allow the product
| to work independently of them.
| looneysquash wrote:
| Or they could have offered local control from launch and not
| had this issue.
| ninjaoxygen wrote:
| Respect to Bose for taking a better stance on this. I still
| remember Sonos implementing "Recycle Mode" that they thankfully
| backtracked on.
| allarm wrote:
| Backtracked or not I won't ever buy Sonos because of that move.
| freedomben wrote:
| Yeah, I couldn't even get the damn thing to work reliably
| when it was new. Oh but you can rest assured that it had no
| problem exfiltrating all that precious data of mine about
| what I was doing, and any other things they could suck out of
| my Android phone. No way in hell will I _EVER_ buy another
| Sonos product.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| we've got a pair of Sonos One speakers airplay(2?)
| connected to our Apple TV (recent generation): the sound is
| excellent but connection over airplay regularly is dropped,
| which might be Apple's doing, since they may well favor
| device testing with homepods. it drives some here to
| anger...it is a pisser because the sound quality is great.
|
| I noticed Sonos speakers are featured in some upscale cars
| now, Audi for example.
| charlesabarnes wrote:
| I'm in the market for speakers and Bose definitely has rose
| higher on my list
| BikiniPrince wrote:
| The rest api was taken apart years ago for my old Sonos. They had
| originally promised to add AirPlay support later said, "Just
| kidding. Why don't you brick it instead." At that point I was
| finished with closed ecosystems for audio. At least someone made
| an AirPlay agent that lives on the home server. That speaker has
| survived many years too.
| freedomben wrote:
| https://archive.ph/Fzrqe
| QuantumNomad_ wrote:
| Direct link to the announcement (from the article):
|
| https://www.bose.com/soundtouch-end-of-life
|
| SoundTouch API Documentation (pdf) linked from the
| announcement:
|
| https://assets.bosecreative.com/m/496577402d128874/original/...
| thesh4d0w wrote:
| Providing API specs is not open-sourcing them. Where's the source
| code?
| adrianN wrote:
| Maybe Bose doesn't have all the rights necessary to open source
| their code, eg because they rely on libraries.
| dTal wrote:
| Yeah, it's kinda sad how much applause this is garnering when
| publishing API specs should be bare minimum for _any_ smart
| device, never mind EoL concerns.
| dahcryn wrote:
| what more do you actually need?
|
| Unless you want to actually develop ON the device (and build
| binaries etc...), this completely allows you to use the
| device and connect it to whatever, so I don't know what more
| we should expect.
|
| No one else is doing this, so yeay applause
| nemomarx wrote:
| Open sourcing the server code would make getting your own
| instance of it way easier, and maybe opening the app code
| so people should change the controls?
| freedomben wrote:
| Don't let perfect be the the enemy of good. I fully agree
| with you on what the bare minimum should be, but the reality
| is that our definition of bare minimum is currently a
| fantasy. Any steps taken toward our vision is good and should
| be applauded IMHO. Especially when it's a major player like
| Bose that hopefully sets a positive precedent and gets other
| manufacturers to realize this is not only possible but leads
| to applause and hopefully more sales.
|
| Evolution v. Revolution. I'd prefer the latter, but
| realistically the former is the more likely to succeed short
| of people like us getting control of regulatory bodies and
| forcing it.
| freedomben wrote:
| Yeah that's quite fair, the article is not very accurate.
|
| It sounds like there are two main pieces to me:
|
| 1. Removal of cloud dependency
|
| 2. Making usable the API (and providing documentation)
|
| With a minor 3rd piece:
|
| 3. The official app will be updated to support the "offline"
| mode without losing as many features as possible now that the
| cloud service is going away.
|
| All very laudable things IMHO. I'm actually going to buy one of
| these
| snackdex wrote:
| yes. especially when you consider that point 2 requires some
| amount of investment (writing the api docs, ensuring no ip
| leaks, etc.)
| pbasista wrote:
| Those APIs have already existed. So it is probable that
| they already had a documentation.
|
| Sanitizing an existing documentation for public release
| might take notable time and effort if there are 100s of
| endpoints. But I would assume that is not the case with an
| API for a speaker.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Source code to what?
|
| This is making them controllable.
|
| The headline may be inaccurate, but I'm not clear on what
| source code you'd even want. To the firmware do you mean?
|
| A documented API seems like the most useful option here.
| jan_Sate wrote:
| The title of the article is misleading. The API documentation
| is indeed useful but I wouldn't call publishing the API
| documentation open source.
| IshKebab wrote:
| There are several things they could open source: the
| firmware, the server, the app.
|
| I assumed they meant the firmware, and was quite surprised
| they would do that...
| dominick-cc wrote:
| The soundtouch web api which is what was "open sourced" was
| already an existing thing for a long time. You just had to
| access it from the bose developer portal I think. I don't
| think anything actually happened here. I'm so surprised that
| HN is excited about this story because nothing seems to have
| been released.
| Almondsetat wrote:
| Firstly, the source code is probably being used on newer
| devices, so Bose would not like sharing their proprietary
| solutions which might contain thirds party code they cannot
| share.
|
| Secondly, these devices are basically one step above embedded.
| It's highly unlikely you can load and run anything custom on
| them.
|
| Since they are opening up the API, you can keep using them for
| what they were made for, which is at least a solid basic
| liberty
| seemaze wrote:
| Agree that the 'Open Source' is misapplied in this instance. I
| do applaud Bose for providing a graceful EoL to their product
| and consumers.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| I admit that I expected more. They really did the minimum, as
| in, anything less should have been illegal. It is praiseworthy,
| but it is unfortunate that it is.
|
| Seeing that, I expected the ability to build and run a custom
| firmware, like with an Android device with its bootloader
| unlocked. But it is not that, and they didn't open source their
| app either.
|
| What they did is that they removed dependence on their servers,
| and opened their device to be controlled by third party apps.
| That is, they let users use their device past its end of life,
| including when the first party app will stop being maintained,
| but not to the point of letting user add features.
|
| In understand why they would do that, they don't want users to
| backport features only available on their latest models that
| are sold at a premium, therefore competing against themselves.
| After all, the value in smart speakers is not the sound
| producing device, which I think is a problem that has been
| solved more than a decade ago at the consumer level, it is all
| about software features.
| freedomben wrote:
| This might sound crazy to some people, but I think this is _much_
| better than ongoing support. Removal of reliance on cloud alone
| is a massive feature that gets me interested in buying one of
| these (I don 't currently own one). And the fact it has an API I
| can hit myself? Awesome!!!
| ryandrake wrote:
| Not crazy. I would be much more willing to buy a device, in
| general, if it was advertised as NOT cloud-dependent rather
| than cloud-dependent.
| neoCrimeLabs wrote:
| This makes me more likely to buy Bose.
|
| Why would I buy something that a vendor intends to kill off in an
| attempt to make me buy again?
| wrxd wrote:
| Happy to see this happening. You know what would make me even
| happier? Having open source alternatives available to use as soon
| as I buy the device, not only after it's discontinued
| neogodless wrote:
| Very nice!
|
| One time I got a free Harman Kardon bluetooth speaker from
| Microsoft (the Invoke from 2017). They were $100* but went on
| sale for $50 and I snagged one.
|
| Then Microsoft discontinued Cortana for it, but they didn't kill
| the speaker. They released firmware that turned it into a
| perfectly good bluetooth speaker (which I still use today.) And
| they sent me a $50 gift card* to buy something else from
| Microsoft. Good will! I was a big fan of Microsoft hardware.
| Shame about the software...
|
| * Apparently $200 initially but they had some steep sales because
| Cortana as a voice assistant wasn't reviewing well. Reviews are a
| bit negative on the sound quality. Probably true enough at $200,
| but for $0-50, I think it's actually really good sound quality.
|
| * https://news.harman.com/releases/releases-20200730
| richarme wrote:
| Cool to see the Invoke getting mentioned!
|
| I was the engineering lead on that product, and built a SW
| platform from scratch for it (Microsoft provided an SDK to
| Cortana which they developed in parallel.)
|
| The internal build could actually run Cortana, Alexa and Google
| Assistant simultaneously and you could e.g. set an alarm with
| one of them and query it with another, and they could interrupt
| each other based on priority. Obviously nobody wanted that
| feature, but it was hella cool that it worked. Oh, and you
| could make Skype calls from across the room, and the microphone
| array lived up to Skype's tough certification requirements
| which took weeks of testing in Microsoft's anechoic chamber for
| the DSP/algorithm team to fine tune.
|
| I tried to push for open-sourcing the platform but it was
| tricky because 1) the director of engineering in Harman didn't
| know what open source meant and for a hardware focused business
| to understand the value was a hard sell, 2) it used a HW module
| that came with a SW stack I mostly got rid off but a few parts
| were remaining that would need to be replaced which would
| require additional resources, 3) I was burned out at that point
| and had limited energy left to fight the good fight. Really too
| bad, it could have been a cool voice agent development
| platform, and I honestly think it would have sold in large
| volumes as a developer-friendly device.
|
| Glad you like it, sorry about the remaining Bluetooth bugs
| nobody got around to fix, since it basically flopped instantly.
| ricardonunez wrote:
| This should be standard practice. Some companies have terrible
| policies around bricking their products.
|
| When my kid was born, I bought a brand-new Snoo. After six
| months, I wanted to sell it since we no longer needed it. That's
| when I discovered stories of people whose used Snoos had been
| bricked by the company. For such an expensive product, that is
| such a waste. If I'd known about this beforehand, I never would
| have made the purchase in the first place.
| lysace wrote:
| The released documentation:
|
| https://assets.bosecreative.com/m/496577402d128874/original/...
|
| From a quick glance it looks like you are just able to do high
| level playback controls, similar to what you'd do using their on-
| device UI. Perhaps that's enough?
| Almondsetat wrote:
| I mean, suppose a CD player only used proprietary CDs. If the
| company dropped support and opened it to every other CD brand,
| would you complain that you can't load cassettes? Or burn ISOs
| with it?
| ljosa wrote:
| The speakers have a telnet interface and DLNA support, but no
| documentation and I was not able to make it work with MiniDLNA
| in a couple of hours of trying.
| smallvariance wrote:
| Great move Bose! I hope this trend continues - it's really nice
| to see a vibrant market for used/vintage electronic products in
| some categories (e.g. old iPods) rather than them just
| contributing to more e-waste.
| onemoresoop wrote:
| I think it would be a good idea to tax companies significatnly
| when bricking their devices, it's creating e-waste. Open sourcing
| them like this would be a way for them to avoid fines.
| Ergotamine wrote:
| Meanwhile they "bricked" the login in their app for some
| countries arbitrarily: https://www.reddit.com/r/bose/s/ijKcvl09FW
|
| Now users like me can't configure their devices (because the
| login is mandatory for using anything in the app). Some users
| report they aren't even able to use it with a VPN.
|
| The over-reliance on closed source apps with mandatory logins for
| configuring devices you own must come to an end.
| esskay wrote:
| Hey Sonos, this is how you handle old products, and this is why
| most of us wont touch your hardware ever again.
| s_dev wrote:
| I have my fathers Sonos soundbar and a pair of speakers at home
| that I bought for him as Christmas gifts years ago. I still
| can't believe they knowingly released an app that bricked older
| devices.
|
| I have to try and get them working again. The only solution
| I've heard of is to get an old version of the Sonos app APK, a
| dedicated old single purpose Android phone to acts as a bridge
| between your speakers and phone and connect that way.
|
| Stay away from Sonos.
| snide wrote:
| I have 2012 Sonos hardware. You can still get the original
| Sonos S1 controller, which works with old stuff. It's pretty
| annoying that all the new stuff is S2 (and that app is better
| supported), but it's not as hard as you're describing it. You
| can get it off Google Play and just use it.
|
| The quality of the software, and the fact that it isn't
| really updated, is another thing, but the actual software
| availability is there.
| esskay wrote:
| _Some_ of the software is there. They randomly
| intentionally broke the desktop apps for S1 devices.
| Hasz wrote:
| Hopefully, someone from Bose sees these comments. There is a
| serious segment of the pro and prosumer audio market that values
| open-source, interoperability, long service life, and is willing
| to pay a bit more for it.
|
| I hope Bose continues to do this for future products and is
| rewarded financially for it.
| isolli wrote:
| Nice. This reminds me of Logitech who open sourced LMS (Logitech
| Media Server) when they discontinued their multiroom product
| (known as Squeezebox before they bought it).
|
| Still a fantastic multi-room setup to this day... I run a server
| as well as a client from a Raspberry Pi.
| Fiveplus wrote:
| The hardware on the soundtouch 10/20/30 series was always
| surprisingly over engineered with heavy magnets, decent power
| supplies, and good enclosures but let down by a sluggish app and
| flaky mDNS implementation.
|
| With this, they just became the best value proposition on the
| used market. Flashing these with a minimal distro running
| snapclient (for multiroom audio) and shairport-sync (AirPlay 2)
| makes them infinitely better than they were on stock firmware.
| eBay prices are probably going to double by tomorrow morning.
| monocasa wrote:
| Except they didn't open source anything. They just published a
| simple API spec to allow play/pause/next button support over
| http.
| poolnoodle wrote:
| I have used a ST10 as my tv speaker for years and despite being
| mono it has such a clear and full sound. Spectacular little
| box.
| hkt wrote:
| I'm glad this has happened, but I'm be gladder if this was a
| legal requirement.
| encypruon wrote:
| Reword a public announcement [1], slap on a misleading title, put
| it behind a cookie banner and paywall and boom - Journalism!
| "Bose is releasing documentation for EOL smart speaker HTTP API"
| would be more apt. Not even Bose is claiming that anything has
| been open-sourced in their statement. Titling the section "Open-
| source options for the community" is as close as they come to
| that.
|
| Still, props to Bose for actively helping to keep their old
| devices usable.
|
| [1] https://www.bose.com/soundtouch-end-of-life
| dspillett wrote:
| This is not open sourcing any actual software or hardware it is
| "open-sourcing the API documentation for its SoundTouch smart
| speakers". You might be able to point them at an alternative
| back-end1 if you want the cloud features, but that will need to
| be written from scratch rather than being forked from code
| provided by Sonos.
|
| _> When cloud support ends, an update to the SoundTouch app will
| add local controls to retain as much functionality as possible
| without cloud services_
|
| This is a far bigger move than releasing API information, IMO
| bigger than if they had actually open sourced the software &
| hardware, from the point of view of most end users - they can
| keep using the local features without needing anyone else to
| maintain a version.
|
| --------
|
| [1] TFA doesn't state that this will be possible, but opening the
| API makes no sense if it isn't.
| danw1979 wrote:
| The question on my mind is will the SoundTouch app continue to
| be supported on new mobile OS versions ?
|
| Is it the same app that caters for other speakers too ? If it
| is, and Bose continue to include their old speakers on the
| functionality of the app, then I can hardly see how this is a
| true EoL. They're really continuing to support the speakers in
| their app, at least.
| egwor wrote:
| Considering that new speakers don't use SoundTouch, I wonder
| too. I hope that they keep the app running for a while. This
| kit is expensive and it can't have a short life time!
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| They're discontinuing support for SoundTouch Speakers. The
| SoundTouch App controls SoundTouch Speakers. Put two and two
| together...
|
| From their announcement: What will no longer
| work: * Presets (preset buttons on the product and in
| the app) * Browsing or playing music services
| directly from the SoundTouch app Important note:
| Your system will no longer receive security and software
| updates. Please make sure to always use your system on
| a secure, private network.
| samrus wrote:
| Yeah but writing that backend app will be much much easier now
| ahepp wrote:
| It's a very nice thing to do, but from what I have read it is
| very much not open sourcing anything.
|
| Maybe that distinction is too arcane for general technology
| audiences, but I don't really think it is?
| spencerap wrote:
| The Verge's headline is misleading
|
| > Bose is open-sourcing its old smart speakers
|
| Bose, though, makes a more nuanced distinction in their
| announcement, which is linked to in the article
|
| > Open-source options for the community | We're making our
| technical specifications available so that independent
| developers can create their own SoundTouch-compatible tools
| and features.
|
| Bose never claims they're making the speakers open-source,
| it's lazy reporting by The Verge. They're just making it a
| little easier for the community to build stuff if they
| want.
|
| While actually releasing the source code for the speakers
| would be best, there might be some legitimate business
| concerns. To me this is a step in the right direction, and
| their official announcement accurately represented that.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| One thing nobody is touching on: since it's not actually open
| source, when this thing is found to have dozens of security
| holes (or any bugs), they are not going to be patched.
|
| ( Their announcement: https://www.bose.com/soundtouch-end-of-
| life The API doc:
| https://assets.bosecreative.com/m/496577402d128874/original/...
| )
| fgeiger wrote:
| Also, when the likes of Spotify change their APIs, the
| integration will likely stop working too.
| Thaxll wrote:
| Ho no, XML.
| rcbdev wrote:
| IBM's opening of desktop PC standards also contributed a lot to
| computing.
|
| Sometimes, an open API is all you need.
| LetsGetTechnicl wrote:
| It was reverse engineered, not opened by IBM
| aeyes wrote:
| No, they published schematics and full BIOS source code.
|
| But it was not libre, they held the copyright to the source
| code. So to get around this, competing companies wrote a
| spec from the source code and then had another team which
| never saw the code implement a new BIOS from the spec.
| kitesay wrote:
| They are claiming open source, without doing it.
|
| Reality: users are still getting a feature cut with an update.
| pavon wrote:
| According to this comment[1] by an OSS developer working on
| reverse engineering the device, the documentation released
| doesn't allow them to implement an alternative backend. If I
| understand the purpose of the interfaces correctly from
| skimming the reverse engineering effort github[2], the API
| released documents the HTTP interface between the phone app and
| the speakers, which has been available for years, and covers
| functionality that isn't going away. The interface between the
| speaker and the cloud services that are shutting down is still
| undocumented.
|
| [1]https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/bose-open-sources-
| it...
|
| [2]https://github.com/deborahgu/soundcork
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| A comment here also says this is the case:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46544001
|
| Looking over the API docs seems to confirm what the comment
| you referenced and the poster I linked here is saying. I'm
| seeing calls to virtually press buttons on the speaker, set
| the input source, to query the presets, and some zone-relayed
| calls, but nothing about actually playing audio from network
| sources.
|
| For the call re: presets I see:
|
| > Description: Presets are a core part of the SoundTouch
| ecosystem. A preset is used to set and recall a specific
| music stream supported by the SoundTouch speaker
|
| There's a GET method that returns information about presets.
| Presumably you'd use a POST or PUT method to manage the
| presents. To that end, under POST, it says:
|
| > POST: N/A
|
| It looks like this API basically allows you to control it
| like an dumb speaker. That's not nothing, but it's not much
| either.
|
| There doesn't seem to be anything in the API about
| controlling how the speak communicates with a back end
| service.
| mrcwinn wrote:
| Good job Bose!
| nunez wrote:
| The folks on /r/bose were complaining loudly about this. I'm glad
| that Bose heard them and is allowing SoundTouch app development
| to continue!
| embedding-shape wrote:
| You know, it's human to err sometimes, and since corporations
| apparently are people too, so can they err, this was written.
|
| Sometimes companies fuck up, what's really refreshing is to see
| a company backpedal on a shit choice, and decide to do better.
| Nicely done Bose!
| walterbell wrote:
| Thanks Bose for opencycling Bose hardware into OSS audio
| ecosystems that could support multiple vendors.
|
| https://github.com/captivus/bose-soundtouch This
| library provides a clean, Pythonic interface to control
| SoundTouch speakers over your local network, ensuring your
| speakers remain fully functional even after cloud services end.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyrion_Music_Server
| Lyrion Music Server (LMS) is a streaming audio server supported
| by the LMS community and formerly supported by Logitech,
| developed in particular to support their Squeezebox [discontinued
| in 2012] range of digital audio receivers.. [LMS] also works with
| networked music players, such as the Roku SoundBridge M1001,
| Chumby, O2 Joggler, RPi and the SqueezeAMP open source hardware
| player.
| utopiah wrote:
| > opencycling
|
| Is that a word? Seems interesting but never read it before.
| walterbell wrote:
| If more vendors follow the lead of Logitech and Bose,
| opencycling would be a subset of
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upcycling
| cssinate wrote:
| I've just created a TypeScript version of the same API as the
| Python interface. https://github.com/cssinate/bose-soundtouch
| idiotsecant wrote:
| The headline is somewhat questionable, but that's not Bose's
| fault.
| d--b wrote:
| "Smart" things get old quickly...
|
| I think I bought one of these ten years ago.
|
| My parents' sound system is from the mid 90s
| aeturnum wrote:
| Oh cool! I got a set of SoundTouch speakers years ago because
| they supported simultaneous Bluetooth playback as well as synced
| cloud service playback. This was in 2018 so options were more
| limited then. Since it became clear Bose was shutting them down
| I've moved over to Wiims[1] for managing playback (the SoundTouch
| app was always kind of odd and hard to manage) - but allowing
| local control is really nice. Currently you need to hit a button
| to enable playing from AUX on the soundtouches - they won't stay
| on the "dumb speaker" mode unless music is playing. Hopefully
| after this I'll be able to set them up as permanent speakers
| driven by the wiims.
|
| [1] https://www.wiimhome.com/
| zippyman55 wrote:
| I am not a big fan of Bose for personal reasons, but they get my
| respect for this action.
| wg0 wrote:
| This is where EU needs to put its weight and at least in Europe -
| if you sell something but not willing to support - open source
| client, server and device all sorts of software.
| niuzeta wrote:
| I got my first Bose headphone in 2008 or so. It was a treat for
| myself as a poor university student after a paycheque. I loved
| the headphone and one day it broke down after several years of
| heavy abuse. I called their customer service for repairs and how
| much it would cost. Rather than recommending me to just buy a new
| one, the customer support agent asked questions about the model,
| what the issue was, and offered a replacement.
|
| I've loved their product and support ever since. Glad to see this
| happening as well. Kudos.
| rdiddly wrote:
| It's sad how surprised the author and all of us are. Has it
| really become the norm to create crap that you pay for, that just
| stops working one day and becomes e-waste? If that ever happens
| to me, that's a company I'm never giving money to again, ever.
| teejmya wrote:
| I really hope Logitech is paying attention, because when Harmony
| finally dies, I'm not sure how I'm going to replace it.
| 0xWTF wrote:
| Really glad to hear this, I've been so close to throwing out my
| SoundTouch 20, which makes me sad because it looks great and
| sounds better than my Google Nest speaker (placement issue? hard
| to say).
|
| Has anyone found or started related github repos?
| eduction wrote:
| On the one hand it's great Bose is doing this -- on the other it
| sucks that this is so remarkable. Having stuff you bought that
| does not actually _need_ the cloud continue to work should be the
| default.
| hardlianotion wrote:
| Something Sonos could learn from perhaps (sorry - I have an
| interest here).
| bentt wrote:
| Take that Sonos!
| bri3d wrote:
| They're not really "open-sourcing" anything in the sense that I
| would think about it. As far as I can tell they're doing two
| things:
|
| * Removing cloud-server dependency from the app.
|
| * Publishing API documentation for the speaker.
|
| I actually think this is worth noting not so much in a "well
| aktshully it's not open source!" kind of way, but as a good
| lesson for other manufacturers - because this is meaningfully
| good without needing to do any of the things manufacturers hate:
|
| * They didn't have to publish any Super Secret First or Third
| Party Proprietary IP.
|
| * They didn't have to release any signing keys or firmware tools.
|
| * They get to remove essentially all maintenance costs and
| relegate everything to a "community."
|
| But yet people are happy! Manufacturers should take note that
| they don't have to do much to make customers much happier with
| their products at end of life.
| LastTrain wrote:
| As others have said already, they are just un-obscuring the
| server API and restoring local control to your speakers when they
| discontinue the service. There is nothing noble about this, it is
| almost least they could do. I walked away from a large investment
| in Sonos gear over forcing legacy equipment into the cloud, this
| sort of thing is why.
| mayneack wrote:
| Fun fact: Bose is 51% owned by MIT (non voting shares)
| https://news.mit.edu/2011/bose-gift
| GaryBluto wrote:
| I wish Apple did this with the older iPhone models that can't
| even connect to cellular networks anymore.
| orefalo wrote:
| Great move Bose
|
| Shame on you, Google. You disabled my Nest thermostat and Nest
| Secure alarm -- I will never buy your products again.
| dominick-cc wrote:
| From https://www.bose.com/soundtouch-end-of-life:
|
| > Open-source options for the community
|
| > We're making our technical specifications available so that
| independent developers can create their own SoundTouch-compatible
| tools and features. The documentation is available here:
| SoundTouch API Documentation (https://assets.bosecreative.com/m/4
| 96577402d128874/original/...).
|
| AFAIK, the soundtouch web API was already accessible via some
| bose developer portal. It doesn't seem like they are open
| sourcing anything. This API just allows you to make basic
| requests to do things like change volume on the speaker.
|
| To support the smart features of the SoundTouch speakers, we
| would the soundtouch user management service. Speakers connect to
| this very frequently and its where refresh tokens for music
| services and presets are stored. The speaker firmware itself has
| lots of source code, including the bit to handle music services
| and playback. There is an abstraction layer for music service
| APIs. There is a process on the speaker that reaches out to a
| music service registry, which is an index of bose music service
| adapters. Each of these adapters essentially proxies a music
| service like tunein, spotify, and even the "stream a custom
| station" feature.
|
| If bose open-sourced the speaker firmware, we could make a
| firmware build which talks to a 3rd party user management
| service, and reaches out to a 3rd party music service registry.
| Then we could add and maintain music service playback for the
| community. But there is no open sourcing of any actual code here
| and this soundtouch web api cannot change the URLs on the
| existing firmware of the user management service or the music
| service registry.
|
| So to my eye this story seems misleading and just some PR
| nonsense. It's a little frustrating reading all of the "great
| job, Bose!" comments here like anything was actually done...
| Disclaimer: I used to work at Bose.
| sublinear wrote:
| This is a great PR move for Bose in a market that doesn't care
| about name brands like it used to. Maybe they can win some
| customers back and be considered cool again.
| patja wrote:
| On a related note, I'm eternally grateful for the conversion to
| open source of the Squeezebox platform (now known as Lyrion Music
| Server) and SageTV. I use both of these every day.
| interroboink wrote:
| Hear hear. I'm also a daily LMS/squeezebox user, across many
| years.
|
| In fact, given the full-throated open source nature of that
| platform (you can even build your own player with a raspberry
| pi[1]), I doubt I'll ever need to use anything else for the
| rest of my life for playing music in my home, even as my
| devices die and need replacement over time.
|
| ... which does make me wonder: that's great for me, but I can
| definitely see it as a deterrent for companies to do similar.
| If they want to make a competing future product, they'll be
| competing against an open-sourced version of their past selves,
| too.
|
| [1] https://www.picoreplayer.org/
| stivatron wrote:
| That's very good, props to Bose.
| drnick1 wrote:
| Why are these devices connecting to the Internet at all? Aren't
| they supposed to be connected to phones and TVs via cable or
| bluetooth? I would never allow any "smart" anything device to
| speak to the Internet in the first place.
| poolnoodle wrote:
| They can play Spotify and radio over the internet.
| dominick-cc wrote:
| You used to be able to walk over to a speaker and with 1 button
| click play music from a preset on a music service like Tunein
| or spotify.
|
| Now will need to fiddle with your phone to connect with
| bluetooth or something.
| ycombadmin2 wrote:
| ok https://itjustworks.pythonanywhere.com
| adolph wrote:
| ianal and kudos to Bose for their relatively graceful hardware
| depreciation approach and releasing their API documentation; the
| license for said documentation does not appear to be easily
| recognized as "open source" by using a standard GPL, MIT, Apache,
| etc license.
|
| Has anyone read the API documentation EULA and can comment on if
| it really meets some recognizable standard for "open source?"
| noname120 wrote:
| While laudable, the release of the documentation is completely
| useless. The protocol is rather simple and was completely reverse
| engineered already many years ago. In fact it's already
| integrated into several open-source home management tools e.g.
| Home Assistant.
|
| https://github.com/CharlesBlonde/libsoundtouch
| dominick-cc wrote:
| It was already released under the Bose developer portal. I
| don't see anything new here.
| cantalopes wrote:
| Finally someone!
| kn100 wrote:
| and suddenly Bose is on the list of consumer products I will
| consider for my home. Good job!
| easyKL wrote:
| Unrelated to Bose's open hardware: The project Gadgetbridge has
| headsets and earplugs from various brands, but almost no Bose.
| https://gadgetbridge.org/gadgets/headphones/bose/ The community
| show interest, but still nothing.
| https://codeberg.org/Freeyourgadget/Gadgetbridge/issues?stat...
| css_apologist wrote:
| this should be required by law
| calflegal wrote:
| The arguments in this thread about sound quality crack me up.
| Reminds me of when a famous mix engineer was in a best buy and
| the guy said 'These sound just like it did in the studio!' He
| said, no it doesn't. We used NS10s.
| fallat wrote:
| How do I upvote 3 times
| dashzebra wrote:
| Well done Bose! This puts you higher on the list for my next
| purchase.
|
| I don't understand why so many comments here are negative. This
| is a nice move, and Bose should be thanked and encouraged to do
| similar moves again. It's a step in the right direction!
| wkoszek wrote:
| This is an amazing idea - whoever came up with it, should get a
| promotion. I'd not be surprised that if this continues, Bose
| could be what e.g.: ThinkPad became and will have a steady
| customer and fan base
| aizk wrote:
| Sadly this is not the norm, but this is a great step in the right
| direction.
| NL807 wrote:
| Legends. Open source, create a community of hackers around your
| products, everyone is happy.
| BenWebbProject wrote:
| Interesting article - most products are treated as "delivered"
| the moment they ship. A project manager hands over, success is
| declared, and the organisation moves on. But physical products
| with embedded software don't stop being systems just because the
| project ends -- they keep accumulating risk, cost, and user
| impact right through to end-of-life.
|
| What usually gets missed is that end-of-life is still part of the
| project, even if it sits years downstream. When software support
| is withdrawn without a transition path, the hardware doesn't just
| lose features -- it loses trust. That's not a technical failure,
| it's a lifecycle planning failure.
|
| Open-sourcing at sunset is interesting because it's one of the
| few mechanisms that acknowledges this gap. It doesn't help most
| users directly, but it at least hands control back instead of
| silently bricking capability.
|
| I'm curious whether we'll start seeing project managers and
| product teams treat "exit conditions" as a first-class
| deliverable -- with explicit decisions about data, firmware,
| APIs, and ownership once commercial support ends -- rather than
| treating end-of-life as someone else's problem.
| cssinate wrote:
| Just a separate post in case people found this helpful. Here are
| some APIs available so you can build your own apps:
|
| - Python: https://github.com/captivus/bose-soundtouch -
| TypeScript: https://github.com/cssinate/bose-soundtouch
| yoavm wrote:
| After my last Sonos, I gave up on smart speakers. Recently I
| discovered Squeezelite-ESP32 / piCorePlayer and I'm not going
| back. I'm free to choose my own speakers (and people sell great
| 2nd hand dumb speakers for nothing!), I can stream, sync, etc -
| and they integrate great with Home Assistant. No more proprietary
| protocol for me, thank you...
| wwweston wrote:
| Putting software in long lived components -- screens, speakers,
| whatever -- is shortsighted as the industrial short term and
| barely engineered mindset.
|
| Maybe in an era where software can be carefully engineered to a
| point of actual _completion_ it will make sense, but for now it's
| mostly stupid.
|
| Open sourcing potential ongoing support and tinkering is good,
| but it doesn't get the core problem that it wad probably never
| the right thing to put the smarts in the speakers in the first
| place.
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