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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
by ktg0215 9mo ago
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 9mo agoThis def needs to be celebrated and rewarded. I am more likely to purchase Bose now.
- cipehr 9mo agoAgree. This is huge. Definitely makes me want to buy more Bose products for my house.
- dominick-cc 9mo agoNot huge, they didn't open source any code
- riedel 9mo agoJust 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 https://teufel.de/mynd-107002004
- FredFS456 9mo agoI bought one just this week because of this. They really went above and beyond: - mechanical CAD, schematic and PCB files: https://docs.teufel.de/download/MYND/Open_Source_Hardware_Files.zip https://docs.teufel.de/download/MYND/Open_Source_Hardware_Fi... - firmware: https://github.com/teufelaudio/mynd-firmware https://github.com/teufelaudio/mynd-firmware - Bluetooth API documentation: https://cdn.teufelaudio.com/image/upload/v1748589486/products/MYND/pdf/OA2302-MYND_OPEN_SOURCE-App-SW-Requirements-2025-05-23.pdf https://cdn.teufelaudio.com/image/upload/v1748589486/product... - battery repair/replacement guide: https://cdn.teufelaudio.com/products/MYND/pdf/Teufel_MYND_RM_DE_V1.0_PD.pdf 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 9mo agoThis is really cool! I'd be curious if one could 3D print different resonance chambers to get different desired sounds from the speaker.
- FredFS456 9mo agoThey do have very basic EQ but for sure you have enough documentation to modify the speaker itself if you'd like.
- DiabloD3 9mo agoBose 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 9mo agoSome 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 9mo agoIn current dynamic world product quality of a company 'today' vs '5y+ ago' may drastically change. Sadly, usually to the bad side
- stewarts 9mo agoBose'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 9mo agoMy 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.
- bartread 9mo agoExactly 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 9mo agoSeems 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 9mo ago> "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 9mo agoCame 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.
- hamdingers 9mo agoIronically this makes me want to buy this discontinued model, not anything currently supported by Bose.
- jcmfernandes 9mo agoIt makes me want to buy both! Old to tinker with, new to support the move.
- inanutshellus 9mo agoA 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 9mo agoMany 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 9mo agoIndeed, 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
- RealSoyboyRoy 9mo agoI’m a restaurant owner. Starting February I’m gonna spit in your food before serving it. > Uhhh I’m gonna tell all my friends to stop eating there I have decided to not spit in your food after all. Praise me.
- layer8 9mo agoI agree, but there can be IP rights involved that make this difficult.
- randall 9mo agoSure but that should be an up front conversation. "OK, how do we make sure as few of these turn into bricks?"
- jan_Sate 9mo agoThey'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 9mo agoIf 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 9mo agoExactly. 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 9mo ago> 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.
- denysvitali 9mo agoI wish there was a law that forced them to do that
- Eric_WVGG 9mo agoThis should be added into write-to-repair laws.
- quijoteuniv 9mo agoThis is the way! (And should be the law, maybe enforced by mandalorians taking greedy CEOs!)
- shrubby 9mo agoYup. 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 9mo agoAll 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.
- worldsavior 9mo ago[flagged]
- swiftcoder 9mo agoEh, even if it just means that someone can offer a 3rd-party smartphone app to control them, it's a pretty big win versus the normal end-of-life support story
- function_seven 9mo agoYes. Like with Tuya devices (tasmota) or the WRT-54G two decades ago. Only takes one person to create the new firmware. Everyone else can follow whatever steps are needed to use it.
- worldsavior 9mo agoWho is everyone? Are you talking about people with familiarity with tech and hacking? Most people don't know how to write a URL in the browser.
- idiotsecant 9mo agoI'm not even sure what you're complaining about here.
- worldsavior 9mo agoEveryone here thinks that everyone="all hacking-experienced people", where I mean everyone is the whole world. MOST people are not going to hack their device.
- theglenn88_ 9mo agoHow would you like Bose to solve this issue, If open sourcing the firmware doesn't make cut it?
- 9mo ago
- mrtksn 9mo agoExactly, 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 9mo ago> 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.
- ghm2199 9mo agoI 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 9mo agoThis 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 9mo agoIt 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 9mo agoThose who are willing to move have already moved.
- giancarlostoro 9mo agoYeah, I only use Windows when I am given a Windows system to do work.
- vovavili 9mo agoI 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 9mo agoIdk enough about Ableton but theres definitely a few open source and proprietary alternatives that run on Linux. Try proton instead of Wine.
- pardon_me 9mo ago
- chrisweekly 9mo agoYes! This! If only my Sonos speakers were open-sourced....
- shmoe 9mo agoLooking at you, Sonos.
- KellyCriterion 9mo ago++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 9mo agoI 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 9mo agoThe 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 9mo agoThis 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 9mo agoi’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 9mo agoBose 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.com/soundtouch-end-of-life https://web.archive.org/web/20251201051242/https://www.bose.... https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/10/bose-soundtouch-home-theater-systems-regress-into-dumb-speakers-feb-18/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/10/bose-soundtouch-home...
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- fortran77 9mo agoI believe that if someone (or some company) changes their ways we should accept that and not condemn them forever.
- nish__ 9mo agoHonestly. Bro needs to chill. Big companies don't really do anything unless they recieve backlash. That's just how it works.
- filoleg 9mo ago> 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.
- nashashmi 9mo agoThis 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 9mo agoOr they could have offered local control from launch and not had this issue.
- jameshart 9mo agoIt's definitely laudable. But does raise the question... why was the API not open in the first place.
- 0xbadcafebee 9mo agoIt actually was. Everyone in this thread has completely missed the fact that nothing has been opened at all. (see other threads for details)
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- ubermonkey 9mo agoYes, precisely. I am no fan of Bose for a lot of reasons, but this is seriously standup behavior for sure.
- fridder 9mo agoIdeally this would be a legal requirement