Bose SoundTouch speakers were introduced in 2013, offering the ability to connect to online streaming services and play back audio on multiple speakers simultaneously using the accompanying mobile app. Now these features are about to be removed, including the mobile app, as Bose is set to discontinue support on February 18, 2026. From that point onwards, you can only use them via Bluetooth or physical connectors that may be present, like an audio jack or HDMI port. This includes fancy home theater system hardware like the above SoundTouch 520.
That is the official line, at least. We have seen the SoundTouch on Hackaday previously, when it was discovered how to gain root shell access to the Linux OS that powers the original SoundTouch system with Telnet access on port 17,000 to pass the listening service the remote_services on command before connecting with Telnet as usual, with root and no password. A quick glance at the comments to that post suggests that this is still a valid approach for at least certain SoundTouch devices.
The fallout from this announcement appears to be twofold: most of all that ‘smart’ features like WiFi-based streaming can be dropped at any time. But it also makes us realize that hardware hackers like us will never run out of new and suddenly obsolete hardware that need our rescue.
Another one bites the dust.
Really a shame how much the MBAs have ruined Bose.
I stay away for anything requiring network connection to work.
Unfortunately, if today m$ dies, all the computers with fenetre os will die since it keeps reporting to its home base, for the system and each program made by the said company.
If you wanna test it, unplug the external connection of your router and enjoy the slowness of the system and how much you have to wait until one speeadsheet program starts.
My experience differs somewhat. I’m actually running several machines that had an uplink to the Internet for exactly one time: during activation after installing.
They are running (besides other stuff) a full MS Office suite and they are doing it far from slow. No lag at startup.
Just my two cents.
Same experience here, I don’t use windows much, but it always feel faster without the net….
It has been tested that the taskbar is loading ads, slowly. Maybe turn off all the ads and stuff?
Yeah yeah, software with regular updates (and subscription based licensing) polls for a remote server on startup.
There’s plenty of legitimate things to rag on MS for, but Windows works fine without an open pipe to the Internet. You know they use it on critical systems on warships, right?
Just put M$ behind you and don’t look back. Pretty simple actually.
Furious, remotely ruining a perfectly good product and removing capabilities feels like robbery. This should be illegal or they should pay us cash for the forced downgrade.
I discount on products from a company I will never buy from again is just an insult.
A large amount of it seems to still continue functioning, you are just losing the internet connected elements, and apparently multiroom playback, which shouldn’t need to be connected to an internet service just network connected but I guess it is part of how the speakers all sync to each other and get controlled in the original configuration.
So in this case while I’d be very annoyed at an early and unexpected termination if I had bought one recently – really should be announced with a longer lead time and a price reduction on the products yet to be sold so everyone knows you are really buying a bluetooth/hmdi speaker with a short term bonus in the first instance.
I do agree I’d never buy a product like this, as I have the skills to roll my own with the feature set I actually need and nothing else, but for the normie that can’t DIY a decade or more of function without a subscription fee…. This isn’t the what Sonus IIRC did bricking old devices on you entirely, simply a removal of features that will have an ongoing cost to BOSE to provide after a long period of time.
That’s not a good excuse. Taking away functionality that is not cloud dependant because you only ever wrote your data stealing app to work with a cloud login is still theft.
Bose should have a buyback program for SoundTouch units. The whole reason I purchased them was for multiro playback and now that’s kaput.
Obviously any obstacle is enough when you don’t care; but I’d be curious if there is some specific thing they’ve run into(deeply entangled dependency got deprecated; or flash is filling up on the most cost-reduced control board they shipped or the like) that dictated the kill date.
Their announcement is sort of a generic “introduced 2013; but technology marches on”; but (in broad strokes) technology really hasn’t marched all that far on since 2013. Some older wifi radios that wouldn’t be software upgradeable, sure; and probably some embedded Linux whose security is only acceptable if your attack surface analysis is confined to whatever little proprietary service listener Bose is using; but 2013 would have had both TLS 1.2 and WPA2 as common and accepted; and in terms of design patterns and preferences that’s far closer to the present than the past(ie. probably a bunch of REST HTTP APIs; not some godforsaken CORBA hell).
Obviously it could just be indifference; but anyone know if there is some specific library deprecation or something that would have really hardened their timeline?
I’ll never buy Bose again, based on the two Bose devices I have. QC35, impossible to switch off the automatic mic gain. Bluetooth speaker with non adjustable EQ that has bass set to 10. What a total utter joke.
Would love to see an openWRT or postmarketOS style project for smart speakers. They’re much simpler hardware, with audio output chips and maybe some GPIOs instead of a ton of complicated sensors, a battery controller, a screen, and a cell modem.
Oh ffs. Stop creating problems. As long as your head or amp has connectivity or gasp you actually connect it to another device with those stupid streaming crapps, then you are set until those companies too go the way of the vaporbird. You remember when people used to just have their own music collections and and podcasts and could just hit shuffle? Me neither. Long live the aux in!
You can listen to your own music collections and podcasts on these Bose devices… until next February. They’re not just removing “apps” they’re removing the ability to control the device because they can’t be bothered to allow any kind of local access.
I have 8 different devices 10s, 20’s, 2 SoundLinks and even 2 S1 Pros (S1 are only partially affected) used all day long. If I were to purchased from Bose it will not be wifi controlled device again if I even purrchase from Bose again. After this experience I will dig out my old receiver, dust off my towers and plug my old MP3 player in for all the tracks I converted from CD to digital.