I tip my hat to #Bose for giving owners of soon-to-be End of Life/support speakers the garantuee that the devices will continue to function and giving them the information needed to collectively build new tools to do even more with them.

@jwildeboer

That sounds nice ..

I inherited a Bose Soundtouch from my father, and that's at least a halfway positive outcome for a cloud solution. Normally, it's a case of unplugging the server and leaving the customer to figure out what to do with the electronic waste.

@danimrich @jwildeboer While I agree with you, I see why they won't. Unique features are the lifeblood of products like Bose and Sonos. Open-sourcing the features as it comes out is handing lots of R&D to their competitors.

Personally, once a product is EoLed and has external dependencies, companies should be required by law to release API specs so the devices can be maintained.

@jwildeboer Gives one confidence that their products will last even without support, I hope this is not a one-off.

@jwildeboer Yes; it proves that other companies can do the same. We need to legislate to make sure they do. The documentation could be uploaded at time of production to a locked database, that unlocks automatically if the producer goes into liquidation or is bought out. Too many good products are deliberately sabotaged by the manufacturer at the end-of-life to get people to buy new replacements. I'm not under the impression that Bose have done this for any reason other than good PR, though.

@jwildeboer Hmmm so not too many existing features will stop working ... I guess that means the second market won't be flooded with devices that only techies like us will want. Damn
But in all seriousness, this is a great approach from #bose. Full marks (even if, as per your other comment, the firmware isn't equally open!)

@hydrian I agree with the EOL law demand.
I see Bose and Sonos primarily as hardware manufacturers. I think in the history of tech, there are quite a few cases in which the more open, less restrictive hardware has had more success in the market (including licensing/patents).
I get that they would like to milk their customer base a bit more - but for me, possible vendor lock-in makes products less attractive.

@jwildeboer

@jwildeboer This is good to know for the future.

@jwildeboer

OH? Is that what it said because I read it as saying that your speakers will become bookends after a certain date.

@LaNaehForaday Not sure how you conclude from these statements that the speakers will become bookends? They will continue to work until they fall apart

@jwildeboer It's a big improvement, but should have been done like this from the start. The people working on #soundcork working on reverse engineering the server features already.
https://github.com/deborahgu/soundcork

@jwildeboer I wish more tech would do this. Actually, I'd like legislation requiring it. There are so many devices that went under in the "smart" era, leaving their owners with expensive paperweights. I'd especially love to see Logitech's Harmony remote system get opened up like this, since I still use mine.

@jwildeboer

Geez I have no idea how I concluded that they would not work when they said, they would not work

What will no longer work:
. Browsing or playing music services directly in the SoundTouch app

@jwildeboer

You are right

@jwildeboer I don't know about their new items, but I had the idea for "sound canon" before I saw theirs.
What I ended up using for my project at the time instead used multiple small speakers on the same baffle.
no big deal, who was I to pick a winner?

@LaNaehForaday Yep. The SoundTouch App will stop streaming. But all other sources and services, including Spotify, Pandora, ApplePlay etc. will continue to work. Including direct cable connections via HDMI and optical.

@jwildeboer This activity should be enshrined in law. Not to do it would have meant they sold a not-fit-for-purpose product.

@sentientsponge

I wonder how many of those gadgets have other uses besides the one their vendors sold them for.

I'm reminded of the CueCat. Its intended application was rather questionable, but it was repurposed as a general-purpose barcode scanner by enterprising programmers, and *that* was useful.

@jwildeboer

@argv_minus_one @jwildeboer There were so many kickstarters and whatnot trying to survive that it's hard to keep any track. I used to cover things like "smart" thermostats and doorbells and mobile tech as a tech journalist, so most I saw were pretty single-purpose. I'd say almost every company I knew that wasn't already a giant either failed outright or got bought up (and then usually got discontinued). I'm sure there are notable exceptions, but I can't think of them at the moment.

@sentientsponge @jwildeboer

It's not just specs we need though. I had a bose bluetooth speaker that became a paperweight when the battery wore out. We need things to be built for repair.

When a company announces End of Life (EOL) of a product, there should be a law or regulation that demands that latest at the day of the EOL all service manuals are made available for free to at least the owners of said product, better though to the general public.

#RightToRepair