We need a law that companies provide device owners root access for every end of life device.
Bose open-sources its SoundTouch home theater smart speakers ahead of end-of-life
Submitted 3 weeks ago by yesman@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
Zachariah@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
That’s something the EU would do, but never America.
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
How about a free gun at the end of life of any product?
felixwhynot@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I think medical device manufacturers should have to support their products for some definite length of time—maybe 10 years?—or not be allowed to make devices at all
Miaou@jlai.lu 3 weeks ago
This type of laws already exist in some cases, but realistically no one knows that the company won’t just go bankrupt in 5 years. Open sourcing things is a “reasonable” last resort option, or rather, the only viable one
6nk06@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Medical devices are already supported for a very long time. At least the official ones used in hospitals.
floofloof@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
For software too, if a company has sold software and then goes out of business, it should have to give all licensed users permanent access to use it. Ideally also the source code.
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Yes! Exactly. I buy, I own. That’s what it SHOULD be.
Phones are the worst example. Pay 1500 moneyz and still it’s not yours. You may only use it in the way they want you to. Ugh.
acockworkorange@mander.xyz 2 weeks ago
GrapheneOS is your savior. I should donate, their work is only getting harder.
OctopusNemeses@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It would be one thing for a corporation to misuse the term open source as they’ve been doing lately. It’s pretty bad for one of the biggest and oldest tech news sites to be doing it.
StupidBrotherInLaw@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
More like ArseTechnika, eh?
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
No thanks. I had like 20 sonos speaker, and then, one day, sonos decided to fuck the app up, making it impossible to use my library anymore. This was the day I sold them all, ranted like a pissed off babuskha and never thought of buying similar products ever but make my own.
Real open source or go fork yourself in the eye. I’m so done with this corpo-crapshit
BeyondRuby@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
You sound like an extremist brother. If they lie and dont do it (seems like they already have made it open-source) then get mad. But it sounds like you are upset because you got screwed by Sonos and Bose actually are attempting to do the right thing for their customers.
NovaTheFluf@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Thing is they didn’t actually open-source it, as stated in other comments. They just released the api documentation. While, yes, it is a step in the correct direction, it is definitely not open-source.
Open source would be releasing the source code for all the software involved, which they haven’t done.Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Extremist? Nah, I’m just old enough to have been fooled and fucked way too often by the enshittification, so that I have serious trust issues with corpo promises now.
I try to stay away from big tech crap as far as I can. If there’s no open source alternative, I make my own (if complexity allows) or just don’t use it at all.
And I’m not upset at Bose. Great if they really deliver. I just doubt they will. And if they do, it would be the one shiny example that stands out. But it would make Bose a bit more attractive to me then. At least the older ones.
phx@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
That kinda sucks, especially since even the older ones work with Home Assistant etc directly now
Lifter@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
Not without internet access and Sonos cloud servers, it doesn’t…
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I was on iobroker at that time and HA still wore diapers 😁 So today it Wouldn’t be as bad, but at that time they were just effectively rendered dumb cubes to us.
SapphironZA@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Basic documentation does not equal open source.
Toaster ovens from 40 years ago did better. They came with a technical diagram.
Wren@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
We need to start demanding technical diagrams again. I’ve fixed up antiques where the schematics were printed on the inside, even for a simple flashlight.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
But that means you’ll repair it rather than just buying another. We can’t have that! Think of the GDP!
panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
That’s a pretty cool thing to do
acockworkorange@mander.xyz 3 weeks ago
They didn’t open source anything.
panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Yes, but at least documenting the API and saying “have at it” is better than dropping it
floofloof@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
And they didn’t do it. The headline is misleading.
just_another_person@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
PDF reference of the API here: cdn.arstechnica.net/…/2025.12.18-SoundTouch-Web-A…
racketlauncher831@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Is there any quality, real open-source speakers? Or it’s way better not bother with it and get dumb speakers and an SBC?
tal@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
I don’t use openHAB or HomeAssistant, but I’d be extremely surprised if they don’t have existing functionality for connecting microphones, speakers, and LLMs to set up voice-controlled stuff.
searches
Willow Is a Practical, Open Source, Privacy-focused Platform for Voice Assistants and Other Applications
Willow is an ESP IDF based project primarily targeting the ESP32-S3-BOX hardware family from Espressif. Our goal is to provide Amazon Echo/Google Home competitive performance, accuracy, cost and functionality with Home Assistant, openHAB and other platforms.
100% open source and completely self-hosted by the user with “ready for the kitchen counter” low cost commercially available hardware.
rhasspy.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
Rhasspy (ɹˈæspi) is an open source, fully offline set of voice assistant services for many human languages that works well with:
- Hermes protocol compatible services (Snips.AI)
- Home Assistant and Hass.io
- Node-RED
- Jeedom
- OpenHAB
IMALlama@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
For passive, and even now some active loudspeakers, very much so.
Links for passives: sites.google.com/site/undefinition/diy www.zaphaudio.com www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/speaker-kits/ (etc)
Active speakers are usually things like this and use commercially available parts with commercial software. But if you want you can build a DIY DSP and DAC and DIY amplifier. Note that there are tons of other designs for both available.
The DIY audio community is very vibrant. [There](www.diyaudio.com/community/] are tons and tons of forums collaboratively iterating. You can build [DIY headpy](github.com/ploopyco/headphones] and DIY headphone amplifiers. Hell, you can even build [DIY speaker drivers].
Anything I missed was not an intentional omission, lol.
bastion@feddit.nl 2 weeks ago
Chad Bose.
nroth@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
They’re never getting those integrations back though, e.g. Spotify. Those are usually implemented in each company’s servers rather than something that can be brokered locally through an API. That needs to change
MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
No.
SeaSgt@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
That’s fantastic. Can Apple Pay attention to this?
tal@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
“Open source” really isn’t the right term here, if they’re just releasing API specifications. “Open sourcing” the speakers would be releasing the source code to the software that runs on the speakers.
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yes, the correct term for this would be “open api”
dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
“documented api”
bear@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
There is a Soundtouch extension to Music Assistant, which which is part of Home Assistant. Last I checked the developer is unsure how functional the wireless speakers will be after the app shutdown.
COASTER1921@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Indeed it’s misleading wording but credit where credit is due, this is far better than turning them all into e-waste. It’s not like anyone bought these with the assumption they would have any sort of official API someday, especially after seeing how Sonos handled their similar situation…
AA5B@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It’s misleading wording by arse-technica, not Bose. The quoted wording from Nosebis correct and it looks like they’re doing the right thing. After originally announcing they would be dumb speakers, now they’ll continue to be useful and third party apps can continue to use them. Applaud Bose for doing the right thing
Direct your Boos to arse-technica
andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
I appreciate the distinction, but open source is always a spectrum, so I think the description is a reasonable application here.
Shadow@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
The source code is private, how can you call that open source?
danc4498@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Is it? I’ve only ever heard “open source” to refer to the source code being released.
Maybe there’s a different term they meant to say other than “open source”
forrgott@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
But the source code isn’t available. The source isn’t open. It’s not open-source, by definition.
The “spectrum” you refer to us about how free you are to publicly make use of the code, not whether or not you even have the code.
This situation does not fall inside that spectrum.
acockworkorange@mander.xyz 3 weeks ago
You’re shitting out of your mouth, son.
e8d79@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
pogmommy@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Even if it were this would be like saying neon green is greyscale
Passerby6497@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
One could make that argument, but not in this case. Documenting an API has nothing to do with the open source status of the product.