Bose kills SoundTouch: Smart speakers go dumb in Feb

Audio equipment biz Bose is discontinuing cloud support for its SoundTouch product line, effectively reducing the premium devices to basic speakers with limited functionality. The company is pulling cloud support for all SoundTouch products from February 18, 2026. After that date, streaming services like Spotify, TuneIn, along …

[abend0c4]

I have like $3k invested in these.

"The value of your investment may go down as well as up".

Also, you have to recognise the difference between an investment and a rental contract with a punative deposit and no guaranteed term.

[Nelbert Noggins]

Re: I have like $3k invested in these.

When did "investing/invested" become a replacement for "buying/bought"? Or are people in denial that they spent money on an item that depreciates faster than a car as soon as they buy it and try to make themselves feel better it's an investment and might increase in value?

Saw the same rubbish all over the Sonos forums when they messed things up. People claiming to have invested in X amount of Sonos products and demanding Sonos fix it.

No.. you bought some electronic things that may or may not do what the marketing claims when you bought them, with no guarantee things "coming soon" would arrive or the software would continue to provide the current services.

You didn't invest in anything unless your idea of investing is giving money away in return for items.

[TVU]

Re: I have like $3k invested in these.

Yes, these equipment entertainment companies have form in introducing shiny new pieces of kit only to abandon the products and their customers a few years later. If you're lucky there's some residual function but a lot of the time the products end up as landfill which is not exactly environmentally benign.

For music, videos, etc, I think the thing to do is have your own custom system at home that is not dependent upon these vagary companies.

[jdiebdhidbsusbvwbsidnsoskebid]

Re: I have like $3k invested in these.

I presume people mean invested as in committing to something for the long term, not in terms of expecting a profit return. And buying an expensive premium product can feel like an investment if you expect it to last a long time.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/invest says "to involve or engage especially emotionally, e.g.

were deeply invested in their children's lives"

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: I have like $3k invested in these.

"You didn't invest in anything unless your idea of investing is giving money away in return for items."

While I agree with you, I feel you a ranting over a single meaning of the word "invest" in relation to money only. Sometimes the "investment", while costing money, is in the quality or "experience" (yuck, did I just say that?), eg buying all your kit from the same manufacture with the expectation that it will all work together seamlessly. Or just being an Apple (or Bose) foinboi :-)

[Recluse]

Re: I have like $3k invested in these.

Time to investigate open source and self build - I have a whole home system based on Picoreplayer. There are additional plugins to extend functionality for the likes of BBC Sounds, Spotify etc.

https://www.picoreplayer.org/

[HorseflySteve]

Re: open source & self-build

I'm running moOde on a 1st gen. Raspberry Pi Zero with music stored on a 128Gb memory stick.

It's a very capable solution & works very well - check it out @ https://moodeaudio.org/

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: open source & self-build

I have a quaint old-fashioned device where you need to push buttons with your fingers (I fortunately have several!) and feed it little flat plastic disks. It won't even automatically upload to the social media which hip new artist I'm currently listening to (if only because I don't listen to hip new artists).

_{Get of my pure class A lawn you whippersnappers!}

[Tron]

Re: I have like $3k invested in these.

If something requires a service to work - an app, cloud storage, maintained server, subscription service or LLM - then you are not buying it, you are renting it. At the end of the rental period you will have a free paperweight and the thanks of the CEO for contributing to his yacht. Plus you learned a lesson.

Just buy cheap, generic, standalone stuff and it will work until it dies. You might be able to fix it, but if you can't, it wasn't expensive. Get another one.

If it isn't standalone, just avoid it. That includes software (SaaS) and storage (cloud services). Because those providing services do not consider you as valued customers but as sheep to farm. And you know what happens to the sheep in the end.

[John Robson]

Re: I have like $3k invested in these.

There is no reason not have smart things which have local controls.

It's now number one on my list of things to check before I buy anything... I don't care about the cloud version, I care about what I can integrate with and control when my ISP goes offline - because that will happen multiple times in the life of a product, and not being able to control things because of something like that is irritating at best, downright dangerous at worst.

[Doctor Syntax]

What did they expect? They bought a product dependent on somebody else's computer so shouldn't be surprised when it gets switched off.

You'd expect that be now people should have learned better but, no, the Gadarene rush continues.

[Kraft]

I’m still astounded by how quickly people tend to blame the victim instead of the perpetrator. This issue is not with the customers, but entirely with Bose. I genuinely hope that this decision will have lasting repercussions for them.

It’s unreasonable to expect people to be knowledgeable about the concept of “cloud,” how it’s integrated into the products they paid a couple of thousand dollars for, and its future evolution. When you purchase a product, you don’t expect to be an expert in its workings. They’re buying an appliance, not a complex puzzle.

[BartyFartsLast]

It's really not unreasonable to expect people to know what they're buying.

But, if you're absolutely sure I'm wrong, I know a bloke who's got a bridge for sale.

[Fred Dibnah]

"It's really not unreasonable to expect people to know what they're buying."

At what level should they "know what they're buying"?

When they buy a fridge, should they know the about setting the correct temperature and putting food on the correct shelves, or should they know the thermodynamics of the refrigeration cycle?

When they buy a lawn mower, should they know how to add petrol and use it safely, or should they know how the Otto 4-Stroke Cycle works?

Joe and Jane Public already think their home wi-fi is their broadband and Google is the Internet, so IMHO it's reasonable that they expect audio products to just work, without needing to know in detail how the sound comes out.

[Martin an gof]

But they should understand that the "smart" features are effectively subscription services. The difference between a Sonos or a Bose and a Netflix or a Spotify is that the subscription is paid monthly with the latter and is made clear(ish) at the time of sign-up, while the former adds a premium on to the initial cost to pay the subscription.

It is, in many ways, a pyramid scheme. The more customers there are, the more infrastructure is needed to support them and the more expensive it is to run. If the only source of income is new customers then you must ensure a steady (and increasing) supply of new customers or else the whole thing falls apart.

Personally, I have never bought anything by Bose. I first met their PA speakers back in the 1990s and they use a similar technology to this day. Their small drivers, resonant "waveguides" and EQ'd-to-heck amplifiers just set my teeth on edge from an aesthetic point of view and I can't say I've been terribly impressed with the quality of the sound produced by any of the kit I've heard. Volume, yes; the darned things can certainly be loud and it's impressive how well a small, battery-powered Bluetooth speaker can fill a small room full of small children in pink tutus, but "no name" kit at a quarter the price can be sourced which is just as loud, and almost as "HiFi".

M.

[ChoHag]

(ish) is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

The blame is 100% on the corporation. Don't give them excuses.

"This is cloud-connected and it definitely won't stop working whenever we just can't be fucked any more" is the modern equivalent of "sure I just packed this meat yesterday it's totally fresh and it's supposed to be green".

I should be able to assume that the food I buy from a supermarket won't kill me despite now knowing knowing what a fungal spore is or how it facilitates their reproduction.

[Martin an gof]

(ish) is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

Not sure what you mean by that. I was making the point that anyone signing up for Netflix knows it is a subscription, though they might not realise that the Ts & Cs could change at the whim of the supplier. The same cannot be said of people buying cloud-reliant speakers, which is a shame. They should be more interested in educating themselves but as an alternative they must made aware of what they are buying.

M.

[Chet Mannly]

"

But they should understand that the "smart" features are effectively subscription services."

Sorry, that's utter rubbish. Netflix and Spotify are subscription services. The Bose speakers (of which I have none) sonnect to the internet and receive those streams, just like TV's do with regular TV, my phone does with Spotify et al. As far as a customer is concerned they supply the internet connection and the speakers just connect to it like every other device that streams.

Blaming customers for expecting their smart speaker to act like every other internet connected device they own is simply ridiculous.

[Alumoi]

Funny, my 'smart' TV is now a real TV because the manufacturer won't update the 'smart' part of it.

Blaming me for expecting the smart TV to act like every other internet connected device is simply ridiculous. Right?

Let's face it, if it's internet connected it means that sooner or soonest your precious will be bricked by the manufacturer. We've had a lot of stories confirming this, so people should already know this.

[Anonymous Coward]

> my 'smart' TV is now a real TV an increasingly dyfunctional TV because the manufacturer won't update the 'smart' part of it.

FTFY, unless you're one of the lucky few whose "smart" device hasn't metaphorically just exploded and sank in the swamp as the so-called "smart" misfeatures stop working. :/

Not looking forward to buying a new TV; recommendations for "least amount of useless unsmart crapware" all point to models that a) have "meh" image quality at best and b) aren't readily available to me anyway.

[John Brown (no body)]

I believe there are some "smart" TVs out there that don't work if not connected to the interwebs. ie they don't even let you switch video source until after it's finished booting up the OS and phoned home. We really are reaching the stage where buying a TV is pointless when all we really need is a display panel with one or more inputs on it.

[SundogUK]

"The more customers there are, the more infrastructure is needed to support them and the more expensive it is to run."

This is 100% backwards. Increasing users decreases the unit cost of sales.

[Martin an gof]

The. per user cost may go down, but the total cost will go up, and since only your most recent users are paying, you might as well only count them, so the per (paying) user cost will also go up.

M.

[JamesTGrant]

I’m not blaming anyone for putting their faith in a large privately (sorta) owned company who should do better for their customers. It’s a shame that BOSE didn’t guarantee the service for x years. That’s the let down, a trusted brand letting its customers believe one thing and not delivering.

Immediate cynicism required - ‘what happens when this gadget can’t talk to the Internet?’, and ‘can company X remotely knacker this product?’ are the two questions everyone should learn to ask because you’ll always find out the answer, either before or after you hand over money for it.

[BartyFartsLast]

If you really want to persist with stupid analogies, it's like selling lawnmowers that will only run on one specific fuel whict only you can make and sell, then stopping production after a few years when you've created a new, single source fuel.

Consumers don't need to know how a connection is instantiated to a server or get down in the weeds with IP, they just need to know that things will stop working if it doesn't happen, same as they need to know what happens when their lawnmower runs out of petrol.

[John Brown (no body)]

"Joe and Jane Public already think their home wi-fi is their broadband and Google is the Internet,"

Worse, and thanks to both the "meeja" and marketing and the confusing 5G mobile signal and 5g WiFi, they think anything "wireless" is "WiFi" now and constantly confuse mobile data with their home wireless router. I heard one wag wondering why he had 6g "wifi" at home but couldn't seem to find a 6g mobile phone yet and when were they coming out?

[Nelbert Noggins]

There is blame both sides.

Manufacturers tethering products to the cloud, for whatever reason, without understanding/caring about long term costs/implications and not informing buyers.

Buyers spending significant money on internet connected products without finding out what happens when there is no internet.

The EU Petition to stop killing games, really needs something similar for products which depend on cloud services to work and cannot provide their primary sold purpose without the cloud.

Or maybe manufacturers need to be legally required to put large warning messages making it clear no internet servers = useless product or what stops working when they decide to stop supporting the product.

[Anonymous Coward]

Manufacturers should either offer or be forced by law to offer minumum operation and support periods with financial penalties for not complying. It's not just cloud and app support that's a problem. When my vacuum cleaner recently broke terminally after 30-years' use I looked at the market and found that many new ones are battery operated. I contacted the suppliers to find out how long they would gurarantee to supply new batteries. Without exception they all replied that they would support their products for a minimum of two years. Fucked if I'm spending that sort of money on a product that could be useless after only two years. I bought one that plugs into the wall - it might not have the bells and whistles of the battery ones but it'll still be working in ten years.

The problem is that people are growing up today with stuff which costs £££ and has a lifetime of just a few years and they are assuming that it was ever thus. I've just replaced my fridge/freezer after the old one, bought in 1993, gave up the ghost. About ten years ago I had to buy new a inlet valve for my washing machine - and I bought a couple of spares cos the machine will probably outlast the spares. Ditto the elements for the grill and oven in my 1980s oven and the spark igniter in the gas hob - I've got spares stashed for all of them There used to be a shop in the next town that seemed to be able to get parts for any household appliance going back to Edison but it closed recently, not because it couldn't get parts but because people were no longer using it.

[werdsmith]

I have various cloudy, internet enabled things and when I bought them I was fully in the knowledge that there would only be a few years of use from the internetty bit. If I am lucky that is, and if no hacker has used it as way in to my home network before then.

Like when I bought my VHS player, nobody told me that BlockBuster was going to close down. What an absolute bugger.

Oh no, my Hutchison Rabbit phone, my pre-GSM 1G analog built in car phone. What am I to do with all this terrible treatment of consumers?

I just heard that loads of medium wave transmitters have closed down and my radio is now useless.

Devastating.

[werdsmith]

And…

I just found out that analogue tv broadcasts ceased years ago. All this time I thought I was watching a nature documentary about snowstorms in the arctic.

Very disappointing, my Pye dual standard set should work for many more years.

[Anonymous Coward]

All TV's continued to work with a cheap upgrade box, your Pye included.

The other things you mentioned were superseded when technology advanced. Annoying, but not the same as someones speakers not playing their locally produced sound just on the whim of some company.

Did your mobile stop working because the company that made that particular model gave up on it?

Did your VHS player stop working because blockbuster shut down, and did blockbuster sell you the player in the first place?

Are you pissed because all the other Hutchinson Rabbits continue to work, and not your model, which is still technically capable?

[JT_3K]

The PYE is a great point because you need to understand you need a set top box and the ability to connect it to the TV in question, plus you may have to sort an external aerial, noting it has to be DVB compliant. Analogous to this your Bose "smart speaker" may soon (hopefully if someone is sufficiently motivated) be revived by a community RasPi type offering in which you create your own service. Complexity may be too high as a barrier for entry to most however, or hassle (do I really want to compile a RasPi image and get it off the ground, or mount an aerial on my home and run coax).

As to the Rabbit, I know of one set still operational in the Algarve with a handful of handsets, although I can't expect them to either venture to the Underground, or expect to function there if they did...

[Fred Dibnah]

If the Pye TV is currently in use it will almost certainly have an external UHF aerial which is already able to receive DVB broadcasts, so all they need is a STB with UHF output and an extra coax cable.

Anyone trying to reverse engineer the Bose system is likely to fall foul of DMCA section 1201, particularly if they share their code.

https://www.eff.org/issues/coders/reverse-engineering-faq

[John Brown (no body)]

He did say it was one of those newfangled dual standard ones, so maybe he only has a VHF "H" aerial on the roof and a UHF one :-)

(I'm pretty sure PYE had stopped making TVs well before the digital switch over, so by "dual standard", I'm pretty sure he meant black & white VHF 405 line reception and the modern UHF 625 line reception :-) I can just about remember our old Bush TV that was 405 line VHF when I was very, very young!)

[werdsmith]

Did your mobile stop working because the company that made that particular model gave up on it?

Did you wake up on the wrong side and fail to get the facetiousness in my comment?

Did your VHS player stop working because blockbuster shut down, and did blockbuster sell you the player in the first place?

Blockbuster example is supposed to be symbolic of the end of VHS, not specific them. New titles on VHS are not generally available.

Are you pissed because all the other Hutchinson Rabbits continue to work, and not your model, which is still technically capable?

I don't know where you are going with this, but Rabbit stations that used to be in all the High Streets were withdrawn. I never actually owned a Rabbit handset, I am just messing about, taking the piss out of the whingey whiners like you.

What you ignore and fail to get in your whingey miserable response to my tongue in cheek comment is that when I first "invested" in some of these items, I didn't expect the tech to be around forever.

All TV's continued to work with a cheap upgrade box, your Pye included.

Wouldn't take much to knock something up for the Bose things. Much easier than sourcing a 405 line adapter for a dual standard TV.

[Mr Tinkle]

I quite agree. In my loft there's a box marked 'Frankenmatic'. In is the electronic guts of an old Servis washing machine. It was perhaps the first domestic washing machine to have a digital display on it. It used to wash clothes far better than most of the modern machines do. Done and dusted in about 40 minutes. No lies about how long it's going to take.....oh this is going to take 2hr and 20mins...no wait...how's about 2hrs. Ha no.... let's call it 1hr 50mins. No stains of washing powder because it was washing and rinsing the clothes in a puddle of water. And, and, it had a HOT FILL. Why on earth, in these days of solar heated water have they removed the hot fill connection from a lot of the washing machines?

And if the old Motorola MCU in it will let me download the code in it, it will become immortal courtesy of ARM.

It lived for 22 years When it was 21 years old I made it a cake and we had a party for it. By then it had had more than one set of inner and outer bearings, and a new drum, 2 pumps. When I have the time I'll find it, or make it a donor body and FrankenMatic will_live_again.

[brainwrong]

"Why on earth, in these days of solar heated water have they removed the hot fill connection from a lot of the washing machines?"

Combi boilers is probably why. Most people have those. The inlet hoses can't cope with hot water at mains pressure (look at one to see), internal hoses and other parts may not either, and the water hammer is likely bad for the boiler.

[The Travelling Dangleberries]

The budget Indesit washing machine in the cellar was cold fill only when it was purchased about a decade ago. It is now connected to a thermostat controlled shower mixer tap turning it into a cold to hot fill washing machine depending on the temperature setting.

The hot water comes from a coil in the first accumulator tank of the central heating system and the water in the accumulator tanks is heated by three wood burning ranges. This setup reduces the amount of electricity the washing machine uses considerably, especially so for hot washes.

It has been working fine like that for over a year now.

[Jellied Eel]

The budget Indesit washing machine in the cellar was cold fill only when it was purchased about a decade ago. It is now connected to a thermostat controlled shower mixer tap turning it into a cold to hot fill washing machine depending on the temperature setting.

Oh.. I'd wondered if that would work. So basically feeding it 35°C water instead of cold, and wondering if the machine would sulk. Or sulk again when it didn't have cold water to rinse with. Figured that probably wouldn't stop it unless the machine is 'smart' and cares about the rinse water temperature. Then I guess if 'smart' washing machines can get their thermostat settings intercepted and fed to a smart thermostat mixer.. but trying to intercept messages from machine to 'cloud' would probably be more hassle than it's worth.

[Martin an gof]

It's not really the strength of the hose, it's the fact that (European-style) washing machines use so little water these days that be it combi or stored, the machine will likely have finished filling before the hot water has got to it. Our LG also "pulses" the water flll which really wouldn't do a combi boiler any good. Shame, as I installed a hot water circulation system in our new house so hot water is never very far away from the taps.

Conversely our dishwasher, while single-fill, specifically says that it is happy to be connected only to the hot supply. Can't do that with the washing machines as they need cold for rinses.

M.

[John Brown (no body)]

"Can't do that with the washing machines as they need cold for rinses."

But do they really? Hot water dissolves more stuff than cold, so rinsing in warmer water should probably need smaller volumes of water. All this CPU power in a washing machine (AI coming Real Soon Now), should be able to adjust the water requirements based on incoming temperature. It doesn't even have to come from the boiler. On hit summer days, it's not uncommon for the "cold" water from the mains to be a bit warm for the first few gallons in the pipes from the mains to the valve before it turns proper cold from the more deeply buried main pipe in the street. Or, as mentioned above, people with solar water heating.

[Martin an gof]

rinsing in warmer water

It's the rinses after the wash which need to be cold. These serve two purposes as I understand it; to rinse the remains of the soap / detergent out of the clothes, and to cool the clothes before spinning, thus reducing the severity of creasing, especially if it's a while before the machine is emptied.

Not sure on a pre-wash rinse. I think these are also often cold. Their main purpose is to remove large, loose dirt so that the main wash has cleaner water to start with. Rugby kit, for example. A large amount of mud will come off with a quick rinse and then the wash proper is easier. You'd do the same if handwashing.

M.

[The Organ Grinder's Monkey]

Ref hot fill, you've answered your own question. Modern machines use so little water that, unless yours is right next to a hot water tank / combi boiler, the washing machine will have finished filling before any actually hot water starts to arrive.

(Bonus irony for me from your post in that Servis were the UK importers for Asko, & when they went tit's-up, no more Askos for the UK until quite recently.)

[Anonymous Coward]

Washing machines take in short bursts of hot water. That makes it inefficient as most of the energy is used to heat the pipes from the boiler, whilst the machine waits for the hot water to come - it also means that for most of the time, the required hot water is cold.

It's more efficient to heat it locally under these conditions.

Now, whilst not many people have "free" solar heated water, even if you do, that is still wasted energy that could be used to charge a battery or two.

[John Robson]

Solar thermal panels exist...

But the pulse is no detriment to a reasonably local hot water tank.

[John Robson]

" And, and, it had a HOT FILL. Why on earth, in these days of solar heated water have they removed the hot fill connection from a lot of the washing machines?"

Here I was thinking that it was because the machines use so little water that all a hot fill would do nowadays is take cold water from the inlet pipe - but no...

If I assume that 1kWh of the little over that the machine uses for wash cycle is heating water then that's 1000*3600/4200 ~ 900 litredegrees of heating (i.e 900 is the product of the litres and the temperature change). Taking ~40 degree difference from groundwater temp that's a little over 20l of water being heated... definitely enough to benefit from a hot feed.

That's more than I was expecting, but correlates reasonably with the 35-50l per wash that is regularly quoted (and that surprised me), particularly if you do things like nudge up that 1kWh assumption to 1.3-1.4, which is more likely.

[jdiebdhidbsusbvwbsidnsoskebid]

I always presumed that having a hot fill only would prevent you from doing a cold wash, unless you had dual hot and cold feeds and a thermostatically controlled mixture which presumably costs a few more pennies than a heater element in the bottom of the drum.

I'm sure years ago I remember plumbing in washing machines with hot and cold feeds.

[John Robson]

I've had them with both as well - though not at the moment.

If it's a limitation of the hose then that's a bit daft, I've got plenty of flex hoses which can deal with mains pressure hot water - and they'd need to in an unvented tank based system as well.

[Jellied Eel]

I always presumed that having a hot fill only would prevent you from doing a cold wash, unless you had dual hot and cold feeds and a thermostatically controlled mixture which presumably costs a few more pennies than a heater element in the bottom of the drum.

It's one of those horses for courses things. I'm not sure when or why dual feed machines disappeared and if that was some regulatory change, or just the way homes have moved away from having hot water tanks to on-demand hot water from gas heaters. Now that might be reversing with decarbonisation policies making gas more expensive and a drive to using electricity.. But then a lot of homes, especially new-builds don't have hot water cylinders, or space for them. And then if you add solar PV or combi PV/thermal panels, it makes sense to get 'free' hot water..

Which then means space and sizing those based on hot water needs, so enough hot water for heating, washing and a pet peeve of mine.. relaxing in a nice, hot bath. Which seems to be one of those things that's gone out of fashion because it isn't 'efficient'.. Which it might not be if incoming water is metered and expensive, along with heating that water. But if the house has a well, that becomes mainly an issue of managing 'grey' water, especially when some of that could be used for things like flushing that doesn't need potable water. Which is then one of those 'eco home' issues, like cost of having a grey water system, load on filtration and difficulty/cost of trying to retrofit that into an existing home.

On a new build, the costs can be a lot lower, relative to total project cost. So then use 'free' solar to charge a heat store, ie water which can be done with cheap hot water cylinders and heating elements that are close to 100% efficient, and don't care if they're being fed AC or DC. Then the gas boiler induced lag on filling washing machines kinda goes away, and I very rarely do a cold wash. And arguments about 'wasting heat' also become a bit irrelevant, if that heat is being wasted into an area I want to keep warm anyway.

So if hot water is in the roof, and laundy room in the basement, sure, there'd be more heat loss into the structure, but not necessarily 'wasted'. But then this is another pet peeve about inefficient house designs.. So I'll have laundry in the bedroom space because that's where most of the laundry gets created. Plus stealing a tip from Adam Savage and having space for thinglings laundry baskets & shelves. Any noise can be managed by having bathrooms next to laundry room and it also makes plumbing easier if water users are clustered. But that's been an interesting project, even if my architect might curse me sometimes, but then I'm paying them to humor me.

[John Robson]

"Now that might be reversing with decarbonisation policies making gas more expensive"

Nope - almost all of the decarbonisation costs are on electricity rather than gas for some perverse reason.

[The Organ Grinder's Monkey]

Dual fill was the norm, in UK at least, for decades, certainly from the advent of front-loading machines (& possibly even on the twin-tubs that preceded them?)

Most of the hot-fill only machines that I've taken apart over the last 20 years have clear provision for a hot-fill valve & pipework, & often reference same in the manuals as something only fitted in certain markets / optional extra.

Asko will happily sell you (or so they say in the manuals) a hot-fill kit as an add-on to any machine sold in the UK.

Asko are an expensive brand, & I've never tried to buy one of those kits, but I'd be confident that such kits are available for some other brands if you're prepared to do a bit of digging & possibly import from abroad?

[The Organ Grinder's Monkey]

I have my late mother's 1957ish Prestcold fridge in the garage, still works perfectly but it's now too scruffy for a place in the kitchen.

Several 22ish year old Asko washing machines here still working as they did when new, none have ever needed any kind of repair.

28 year old Volvo V90 just beginning to show it's age, possible V8 swap contender. Just returned from a 10 day 2000 mile dash round Northern Europe completely problem free, unlike the 5 year old Audi A5 that we were travelling with that put up an engine management light on day 7 (though in fairness continued to drive perfectly.

Curiously all this stuff works fine works fine without an Internet connection or any kind of cloudy cobblers. Where am I going wrong?

[simonlb]

"Manufacturers tethering products to the cloud"

These devices aren't tethered to the cloud, they use an app to allow streaming which Bose are ceasing to support; all other methods of using the devices - HDMI, optical or bluetooth - will still work, so saying the devices are now bricked is disingenuous as they will still function as any other portable speaker or soundbar. Whilst some owners will be unhappy about losing that functionality, if you bought one of these devices purely on the basis of the cloud streaming via the app, you have to accept that at some point the vendor almost certainly will turn that functionality off. And regarding open-sourcing the app, the vendor is under no obligation to do that. As the saying goes, if it needs an app, you are the product.

[Martin an gof]

Not having one of these, I was under the impression that the app did things other than mediate streaming? Doesn't it allow you to change things like speaker EQ? Set up groups of speakers to play in synch? Presumably these functions also cease to work when the app is switched off?

M.

[jake]

"It’s unreasonable to expect people to be knowledgeable about the concept of “cloud,”"

Nonsense. It's long been well known that one shouldn't buy a pig in a poke. In fact, going back 2,000+ years, one might have advised one's child "Caveat emptor, quia ignorare non debuit quod jus alienum emit".

Ignorance can, and should be, cured through education. Investigate your world, people. It's for your own good.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

There's your problem. You buy a perfectly good aphorism and then the empire collapses and the legions depart, leaving your Latin totally useless

[Anonymous Coward]

"leaving your Latin totally useless"

Don't know.

Boris "Bloody Stupid" Johnson used the odd Latin aphorism to great effect (or affect) convincing the polloi that he wasn't just great pillock.

[SCP]

... then the empire collapses and the legions depart, leaving your Latin totally useless

C'est la vie!

[Anonymous Coward]

Speakers have existed for generations. So have electronic and computerized white-goods gadgets.

You can't expect Joe Public to realise that all of a sudden, his new one won't work if his phone line is broken, or the company he bought it from goes bust.

[John Robson]

"Ignorance can, and should be, cured through education. Investigate your world, people. It's for your own good."

That's all well and good, but the world nowadays is significantly more complex, with various areas of specialisation encroaching into the daily life of those who are not specialists in any/all of those fields.

[keithpeter]

Perhaps a large sticker with some text like "This product requires an Internet server provided by the manufacturer for full service. The manufacturer may cease to provide the required server at some point in the future".?

[ChoHag]

"Clouds can go down as well as up"

[Paul Herber]

Some people have mist the point.

[Jamie Jones]

A clouds pun? You cannot be cirrus.

[kmorwath]

So they should take it as a (expensive) lesson about "the cloud" and how devices depending on someone else's systems may stop working anytime they need to sell you new ones.

Vote wit your wallet, next time.

This is no longer innovation - is plain, simple enshittification.

[hoola]

Whilst I agree with that viw a big part of the problem is that people buy into all this IoT/Smart tech because it is trendy and cool.

They are all just fashion accessories and do nothing that a phone with a Bluetooth speaker, or heaven forbid, a traditional amp and speakers can do.

[MachDiamond]

"They are all just fashion accessories and do nothing that a phone with a Bluetooth speaker"

Bose stuff doesn't sound that great, but it is much better than every BT speaker I've ever heard.

[Martin an gof]

I beg to differ. The kids have some very cheap BT speakers which make just as much noise as a similarly-sized Boze unit.

If it's quality you are actually after then a lot of "HiFi" amplifiers these days come with BT receivers built-in, and if your priority is volume then there is any number of portable speakers at any conceivable price point.

M.

[Jellied Eel]

They are all just fashion accessories and do nothing that a phone with a Bluetooth speaker, or heaven forbid, a traditional amp and speakers can do.

They allow people to use ther 'smart' phones as expensive universal remote controls. Providing they have an app for that, the app doesn't stop working and the 'smart' device maker can monitor their customers and flog even more PII.

[MachDiamond]

"When you purchase a product, you don’t expect to be an expert in its workings. "

If you don't, be prepared to lose lots of money.

If you buy an automobile, you have to understand that it requires external suppliers to keep it going. For petrol/diesel, there are loads of companies and locations that are happy to sell you some. For an EV, anywhere there's an outlet you can use, you can recharge but you need to understand charge rates/time, driving efficiency and your immediate needs. If you get a Hydrogen car, you may only have one place to refuel and while there can be more, for the time being it's like Bose having you as a captive audience except Bose isn't going to let anybody else be your supplier.

When travel was by horse, you had to know about horses far more than most people know about cars these days. It's not being an expert, but knowledgeable enough to understand what you need to understand.

With a tiny amount of education, people could figure out that instead of spending thousands on Bose landfill, they could buy a cheap used computer to interface with online music services and connect that to a good amp and set of speakers for far far less and much better quality. My old MacPro 4,1 cheesegrater is my media server. I could use a $50 Mac Mini, but I had the MP just sitting. It stores all of my audiobooks, music, podcasts and loads of movies and other video and spits it out on command locally or to some other place on my home network. It runs headless. If I need to do some recovery, I can hook up a KVM to get it going again. It's not rocket engineering. Everything it's doing has already been implemented and it was just a matter of learning how to work the dials.

[Roopee]

Mac Pro

You forgot to mention that it also doubles as a fan heater!

[MachDiamond]

Re: Mac Pro

"You forgot to mention that it also doubles as a fan heater!"

It was the first really cold night of the season last night. A bit of heat is not a problem. I don't leave the computer running all of the time. If I'm streaming something or repacking an iPod, it's on and off otherwise. I used to have all of my media on my MP 5,1 but moving it off of that meant a couple of drives that I didn't have spinning while working on that computer.

[that one in the corner]

> instead of spending thousands on Bose landfill, they could buy a cheap used computer

But, but - just think of all the industrial design they'd be losing out on!

Ok, Bose aren't up there with Bang and Olufsen levels of brushed metal and weird "nicked off the bridge of a starship" looks but man, you just aren't going to get curves like that from a used computer.

[John Brown (no body)]

"you just aren't going to get curves like that from a used computer."

Did you miss the 90's "beige box" period when all most manufactures could do was make weird shapes out of the front facia to differentiate from all the other beige boxes? Lots of weird curves, sliding panels, "hidden" doors etc :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

>>> "With a tiny amount of education, people could figure out that instead of spending thousands on Bose landfill, they could buy a cheap used computer to interface with online music services and connect that to a good amp and set of speakers for far far less and much better quality. My old MacPro 4,1 cheesegrater is my media server. I could use a $50 Mac Mini, but I had the MP just sitting. It stores all of my audiobooks, music, podcasts and loads of movies and other video and spits it out on command locally or to some other place on my home network. It runs headless. If I need to do some recovery, I can hook up a KVM to get it going again. It's not rocket engineering. Everything it's doing has already been implemented and it was just a matter of learning how to work the dials." <<<

Oh come on! I wouldn't expect that of any intelligent person not working in our field, but do you really expect that of Joe Public? Have you seen the sort of people that live in our society?!

[Anonymous Coward]

> It’s unreasonable to expect people to be knowledgeable about the concept of “cloud,”

For products they bought in 2013 or later?

Guess that means that all the TV, subway/underground and glossy magazine ads that have been running for years (decades!) have all been a waste of time and money for IBM, Microsoft etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a difference between "buy this computer that just stores everything on the cloud and not your computer", and "your fridge/stereo/central heating will stop working"

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't just cloud based services that are posing the risk. Anything that requires an app on your phone will become an issue as the app maintainer stops updates and it no-longer works on newer phone OS versions.

I'm on the lookout for a new universal remote and nothing out there is taking my fancy as they all rely on something that might not outlast the remote. The only remote I've had where the service outlasted the hardware was a logi harmony 895. They finally ended support 19 years after first launch. I foolishly backed the NEEO remote on kickstarter and that was pretty much out of support by the time I got it.

[MachDiamond]

"The only remote I've had where the service outlasted the hardware was a logi harmony 895. "

I've got a couple in good condition I could sell cheap if you want more. More stuff that's part of estate sale hauls that I haven't got around to checking and flogging off on eBay.

[John Brown (no body)]

If the phone app is just being used for in-home IoT cloudy stuff, why does it need the OS updating anyway? Just pull the SIM and keep using that phone as the remote for your $whatever. My preferred remote control app for KODI is long deprecated, but I kept a copy of the APK file, just in case. The app is currently running on an ancient Galaxy Note 2. It's been, and still is, doing sterling service for so long now that I noticed the other day the screen has the remote buttons image burned in now :-) That phone has been used exclusively as a remote that it's been through the usual drops etc and there's a slight crack in the screen and the back cover is partially detached. So I dug out an old Samsung J3 and installed the Kodi APK on that just the other day ready for then the Note gives up the ghost. Installing it on a slightly newer Android was a little problematic and Android whinged about it being targetted at an old OS, but it went on and works :-)

[that one in the corner]

Couldn't guarantee long-term performance

When connected to AUX? Can't guarantee performance over a signal coming in over a piece of wire? Ok, at some point the capacitors are going to dry out, but other than that, surely...

Bluetooth is *almost* as solid as a wire, although it is possible for your next BT *source* to no longer support the specific protocol (but that wouldn't be Boses's fault).

[Mr Tinkle]

Re: Couldn't guarantee long-term performance

"Bluetooth is *almost* as solid as a wire"

Gosh that's a stretch. Bluetooth here sometimes doesn't want to connect to sensors about 10 feet away if the moon is in the wrong phase. You can't beat a wire.

[Martin an gof]

Re: Couldn't guarantee long-term performance

You can't beat a wire, agreed, but my experience with BT audio receivers at work is that they can work over longer distances than you might expect. I've managed 25 to 30m if there aren't too many obstructions in the way, though human flesh is very good at reducing range. However, I have two "pro" receivers, one of which is rock solid up to 20m in most circumstances and manages 30m regularly, while the other struggles above 10m, even when I am streaming from the same phone.

M.

[The Organ Grinder's Monkey]

Re: Couldn't guarantee long-term performance

Ref BT audio range, fwiw I finally tired of repairing the fragile cables on the small foldable headphones that I've always used when working alone (which is my usual situation) & switched to a s/h pair of Sennheiser PX210BT ones. No more snagged cables, no more failed jack plugs, cables & sockets. Battery that lasts for hours & which can be swapped instantly & recharged out of the device. Perfect.

I live in a three storey house & quite often have made it to the top floor having left the 'phone in the basement kitchen, with only an occasional slight glitch to show for it.

They really don't like microwave ovens though. Even walking down the street I can tell who's using theirs.

[that one in the corner]

Re: Couldn't guarantee long-term performance

Yeah, bad choice of words.

Was trying to suggest the likely ongoing availability of generic BT tech, more than whether any of it is actually any good.

Just to be ornery, although family members use BT speakers, BT connections from fitness trackers to smartphones and all that jazz, I can't think of anything that the wife or I use that does BT. I have bought a few BT dev boards, especially when BLE came out, so their addresses are still listed on this tablet, but the experience wasn't terribly exciting so those are back in the drawer. In fact, I'm building a LEGO Technic model with a "BT & smartphone required" control hub inside it, but I'm hoping to get an R'Pi Pico plus Raspberry Pi Build Hat[1] to talk to the motors etc, and add IR receiver to listen to an old style remote control instead of using the hub. Like I say, ornery.

[1] yup, want to use a Pico instead of the full-fat R'Pi that this Hat is meant for; why make life easy for myself!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bose has forgotten their roots

I dumped all my Bose kit after they refused to add AirPlay 2 to their SA4 amp around 6 years ago - Despite there being known solutions they refused to consider.

Bose's founder Amar Bose was known to have made great products that lasted the test of time - Supported for decades - He will be rolling in his grave !!!

[PRR]

Re: Bose has forgotten their roots

> Bose's founder Amar Bose was known to have made great products that lasted the test of time - Supported for decades

Is there another Amar Bose? The Bose gear I knew in the 1970s didn't last, puked its cones out because you can't make big bass with small cone, or even many small cones. "Support" was paying the dealer about $50 each for $3 drivers, waiting 9 months for stock to come in. Right, the cornerstone 901 didn't change, because Amar had invested in a driver factory and needed to work-down that investment.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Bose has forgotten their roots

Bose inadvertently spawned an entire industry just re-coning the drivers in 901s and 802s. I swear there was a period where every school, church, community hall and small business had a pair of 802s.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Bose has forgotten their roots

"you can't make big bass with small cone, or even many small cones."

Sure you can. Sound is air in motion. Add up the surface area of the cones x the displacement. Many bass guitar players like the Ampeg SVT rigs that use a load of 10" drivers as it provides low frequency performance with much better top end (punchier). There are 21" woofers to be had, but they are not very good above ~100hz and get very direction at the top of their range as well.

What many Bose systems lack is a flat midrange. They are mostly "boom-sizzle". I've heard some that could acoustically remove the saxophone from a track. Since many people will chop out the mids via EQ, Bose just came up with speaker responses to do the same thing without EQ.

[The Organ Grinder's Monkey]

Re: Bose has forgotten their roots

+1 for the Ampeg SVT reference. Just add an original Musicman Stingray for the full effect.

(Awaits down votes from P/bass fans, of which I am also one, confusingly.)

[MachDiamond]

Re: Bose has forgotten their roots

"(Awaits down votes from P/bass fans, of which I am also one, confusingly.)"

I'm not much of a musician, I'm a drummer, but there is a purple Pbass copy hanging on the wall that I take down and ruin the peace and quiet of the neighborhood with. The speaker cab is a bass 4x10 Peavey with a TC head. A SVT would be silly for my needs.

[Irongut]

Re: Bose has forgotten their roots

> Amar Bose was known to have made great products that lasted the test of time

When was this, 100 years ago? Bose have always been poor quality crap that my sound tech friends laugh at.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Bose has forgotten their roots

I wojldn’t buy anything again from Bose as they are a bunch of useless wankers. Their support is God-awful - worse than Vinted, Boo-Hoo and (South Urfrican offshored) John Lewis combined - and they are very slow on refunds. For some reason fulfilling UK out of Netherlands and trying to shaft customers with EU power cords and remote controls that don’t work with products supplied that also have unresolvable firmware issues with Alexa on Smart Soindbars.

Amar Bose must be spinning in his grave…. Their business seems to have been heading towards the toilet ever since 2013.

Shame as I quite like my Soundlink Mini Speaker.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Bose has forgotten their roots

"Bose's founder Amar Bose was known to have made great products that lasted the test of time"

Mr Bose was a character and a real audio nerd. When he stepped back from having a very active role, the MBA's stepped in and "optimized" profit margins (built crap and cut corners).

I got to meet Amar and Paul Klipsch ages ago at an AES convention.

It's much the same with Sony. Their Profeel monitors were the pinnacle in video displays. They then leveraged that reputation and name value by bringing out lower and lower quality products until they mainly sold market average product at premium prices.

[jake]

Open letter to all who bought into this scam:

Told you so.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Open letter to all who bought into this scam:

The AI scam will just multiply this to the nth degree and make it a hell of a lot worse when all of that stuff is binned off as ‘being too old’.

[Pascal Monett]

Congratulations

Thank you, Bose, for applying another layer of knowledge paint on the idiots who persist in buying into The Cloud^TM.

I agree that, if by now they haven't yet got the message, it is high time to apply the good ol' two-by-four to the wallet so they might finally be enlightened.

Kudos to you for bearing the heavy weight of this education.

[Fred Dibnah]

Sonos

The correct parallel with Bose bricking their hardware isn't the Sonos app debacle, bad as it was. It's what Sonos did five years ago, where they said all their older products would stop working after May 2020, but which they tempered with a truly generous 'offer' of a discount on new hardware if you sent the bricked units to them. Understandably the customer backlash was swift and vigorous and they quickly backtracked, introducing the S1 and S2 apps for controlling older and newer hardware respectively. I still have the email from CEO at the time (see below). I notice that my copy of the email has British English spelling, which is nice :-)

If Bose customers are able to generate a similar amount of noise, perhaps the company will back down (although I doubt it).

"We heard you. We did not get this right from the start. My apologies for that and I wanted to personally assure you of the path forward:

First, rest assured that come May, when we end new software updates for our legacy products, they will continue to work just as they do today. We are not bricking them, we are not forcing them into obsolescence, and we are not taking anything away. Many of you have invested heavily in your Sonos systems, and we intend to honour that investment for as long as possible. Whilst legacy Sonos products won’t get new software features, we pledge to keep them updated with bug fixes and security patches for as long as possible. If we run into something core to the experience that can’t be addressed, we’ll work to offer an alternative solution and let you know about any changes you’ll see in your experience.

Secondly, we heard you on the issue of legacy products and modern products not being able to coexist in your home. We are working on a way to split your system so that modern products work together and get the latest features, whilst legacy products work together and remain in their current state. We’re finalising details on this plan and will share more in the coming weeks.

Whilst we have a lot of great products and features in the pipeline, we want our customers to upgrade to our latest and greatest products when they’re excited by what the new products offer, not because they feel forced to do so. That’s the intent of the Trade Up programme we launched for our loyal customers.

Thank you for being a Sonos customer. Thank you for taking the time to give us your feedback. I hope that you’ll forgive our misstep and let us earn back your trust. Without you, Sonos wouldn't exist and we’ll work harder than ever to earn your loyalty every single day.

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Sincerely,

Patrick

Patrick Spence

CEO, Sonos"

[Lusty]

Re: Sonos

If only that was their first snafu. Zero trust for sonos, they keep trying and failing. Hoping they will slowly go out of business.

https://www.theregister.com/2017/10/11/sonos_privacy_speakers/

[IGotOut]

Oh dear

"Been Bose customer for over 40 years. Will never buy from them again"

Now's your chance to buy some speakers that don't sound shit, given the price bracket.

[PCScreenOnly]

Cloud based - forget it

Bose, sonos, Google.. all had cloudy products that are now dead (sure there are many more)

I have a hive thermostat and they keep asking if I want this, that and the other.. no thanks, only have that because it was installed with the new boiler

If it pisses me off again by loosing connectivity it is out of the door, but hive think I want more if their Iintegrations... What for an I vestment into their products for them to drop it and leave me lumbered ?

I have some squeeze devices. Sold to logi who killed it off pdq (why buy them then?)

At least their server is open source so still working well.. even had firmware updates for some players recently too

[MachDiamond]

Re: Cloud based - forget it

"I have a hive thermostat and they keep asking if I want this, that and the other.. no thanks, only have that because it was installed with the new boiler"

I'd immediately switch out any "connected" thermostat. In the many decades I've been around, I've never had the thought that it would be handy to be able to change/check my thermostat remotely. If I'm going to be gone, I make sure heating and cooling is set appropriately. Heating is really easy since I'd just leave it as is since it's solar and costs very little. It's 4x 28w fans and two temp controllers. Cooling would be off. When my cat was still with me, I'd leave it on and not worry about it.

What would be a concern is somebody remotely accessing my thermostat and "having a bit of fun" by changing the settings.

A programmable HVAC control at the house I used to rent was just fine. I could warm up the house during winter in the morning before I had to get up, let it cool off during the day to a lower temp and have it warm up again before I'd normally be home. My schedule was consistent so programming was set and forget. My goal now is to add solar (passive heat and PV) to the point where I can just keep the house at a comfortable temperature all the time and not need to worry about cost.

[PRR]

Re: Cloud based - forget it

> I have a hive thermostat and they keep asking .....only have that because it was installed with the new boiler

On an HVAC forum, the pipe-wrench guys despise Nest. Default it needs one more wire than is customary in the US. Then it doesn't work. When it does work, it doesn't save any money.

I was hoarding true Mercury thermostats. Dumped them on a Toxic Waste Day, use the minimally micro-processed 5+2*4 -- programmed by finger, not by strangers' computers.

Honeywell Home RTH2300B 5-2 Day Programmable Thermostat $29 On the backup gas fireplace I found a bimetal t-stat like a good Mercury only with contacts, $13.

[The Organ Grinder's Monkey]

Re: Cloud based - forget it

I seem to be posting a lot in the comments for this article, sorry about that.

Nest stats are the only IoT devices I have, having generally avoided them for all of the excellent reasons widely understood on ElReg.

I would take issue with the "Nests don't save any money" statement, though. This is an 1864 3 storey terraced townhouse with big sash windows front & rear. I've draft proofed & insulated as far as is possible without turning it into a modern box, but it will never be a fuel efficient building. Gas ch controlled initially by a single programmable room 'stat on middle floor & TRVs on all rads.

That' stat had a miserable UI & I got bored of fighting with it & replaced it with a Nest. Immediate reduction in gas consumption & a generally more comfortable house. I hadn't attempted to program it beyond just setting temp in daytime at 18°, evening at 20° & overnight at 16 (all by twiddling the temp knob when passing during first few days, no scheduling).

When I finally got round to hooking up the zone valves that I'd installed years earlier to give individual temp control to each floor (bedrooms only on top floor, so rarely occupied in daytime, kitchen / diner in basement) I put a nest on each & we now have a genuinely comfortable house through out that uses maybe 30% less gas than it did when it was uncomfortable with a single programmable t/stat.

I know, ymmv, just 'cos it works for me doesn't prove... etc.

[Evil Scot]

Re: Cloud based - forget it

It could be said for all "microprocessor based" thermostats.

They are aware of the latency of heating the water in the system compared to heating the home.

Five minutes for the water to be heated...twenty minutes later the house is warm.

I wrote software to program industrial thermostats at the turn of the century.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Cloud based - forget it

"I was hoarding true Mercury thermostats."

Ook!

I see those all of the time at estate sales. I'm going to start getting them for the Mercury. I have a bunch of ignitrons that have loads of mercury, but I'm not going to bust them up as they are useful.

[tin 2]

Re: Cloud based - forget it

Logi's discontinuance of squeezebox appears utterly knuckleheaded, considering it's still going strong (relatively speaking for something with no new hardware since 2012) and smart speakers etc are all the rage.

[Mr D Spenser]

Sounds like a lie

"We're no longer able to sustain the development and support of the cloud infrastructure that powers this older generation of products."

I'm sorry, but in this day and age where everything is virtualised, why can't you leave the infrastructure running in its own cloud instance? Corporations do it all the time with legacy systems.

[Nelbert Noggins]

Re: Sounds like a lie

When MIT is the majority owner, you'd think they might have some understanding of what is involved and the future issues when tethering their products functionality to the cloud.

Then again, they might just want rid of the peasants buying soundtouch now they have the bottomless pockets of McIntosh and Sonus Faber buyers to empty. $1500 for a McIntosh mono streaming speaker is likely the more profitable market to want, along with McIntosh's car audio business.

Unless there is a completely different sounding set of Bose Products only available in the US, I have no idea why anyone raves about Bose sound quality. Apart from the Noise Cancelling headphones I've not heard anything I'd spend other peoples money on, let alone my own, with a Bose badge on it.

My current car has a Bose sound system, it is supposed to be a Bose premium sound system. It is one of the worst things about the car and I'd be ashamed if that's what I created as a sound engineer. Both my previous convertibles had much better sound systems even with the roof down

[Brewster's Angle Grinder]

A ponzi scheme

But this is not something that can be isolated from the internet and left unpatched. These are cloud servers and there are a bunch of ongoing support costs.

The client made a fixed cost purchase which turns out to be an unfunded "promise" to spend on them for the long term. New purchases may have covered the support costs for a while. But costs can change and it stops looking economical.

[Michael Strorm]

Re: Sounds like a lie

Funny, I was about to hone in on that quote too...

"We're no longer able willing to sustain the development and support of the cloud infrastructure that powers this older generation of products."

FTF them. They're quite capable of doing so, they just don't want to.

I doubt the cost would be that high, as you imply, but there's nothing in that for management who don't care and can be seen to be cutting costs.

Also, if they keep supporting existing systems, how would they incentivise people to waste more money on new stuff?

"We remain committed to creating new listening experiences for our customers built on modern technologies."

Yeah, I bet you do. Nice weasel-worded gloss on the fact you'd rather sell people more new, overpriced landfill-to-be rather than continue to support the stuff they already forked out for on the basis of services you're unwilling to provide because there's no further return of the 3p a year it'd cost you to continue support.

[Neil Barnes]

You'd be amazed...

just how many products I don't own that require a network connection to work... if it won't work without (external) network connection, I don't use it - beyond things like browsers.

Yes, I am a luddite; I rip my own CDs but I have the originals; I use a Kobo but I have never bought¹ a book from them; instead, I either scan/ocr/edit books I own, or seek out copies that others have made. Every time a company wants me to install an application to my phone, I see it as not only a security risk but also an avoidable point of failure.

But damnit, for people forty or fifty years younger than me, it's just too damn easy...

[1] I do buy Analog magazine in epub format. Direct from Analog, and unencrypted, with a perpetual licence. Copies stored locally.

[werdsmith]

Re: You'd be amazed...

I own CDs and rip them.

Pay for my music once, not eternally for the privilege of letting me listen to it.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: You'd be amazed...

>I own CDs and rip them

Aren't you supporting terrorism and funding drug smugglers?

Is the DMCA just a bunch of letters?

[Neil Barnes]

Re: You'd be amazed...

Outside the USA, yes.

[Fred Dibnah]

Re: You'd be amazed...

True, although other countries have implemented anti-circumvention rules along similar lines to DMCA 1201, under threat of sanctions by the USA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-circumvention#

Cory Doctorow has written at length about this.

https://pluralistic.net/tag/dmca-1201/

[MachDiamond]

Re: You'd be amazed...

"Is the DMCA just a bunch of letters?"

If you are ripping CD's to shift media or backup for your personal use, it's doubtful a court would entertain a case and your lawyer would have a good basis to petition for their fees from the plaintiff.

[Like a badger]

Re: You'd be amazed...

I own CDs and rip them. Pay for my music once, not eternally for the privilege of letting me listen to it.

Each to their own. I find streaming gives me access to a far wider library than I could ever possibly afford to buy, introduces me to music that matches my tastes but otherwise I would not have even heard of, allows me to listen to something I may or may not like without risking a tenner, allows me to be selective about tracks rather than paying for an album largely of unmemorable filler tracks in order to get the two decent tunes, and offers a range of pre-assembled playlists for specific genres or occasions.

[I could be a dog really]

Re: You'd be amazed...

The two don't have to be exclusive.

I too am in the "buy the disk and rip it" camp - but I also use some streaming to find new stuff, try out other stuff, ...

[MachDiamond]

Re: You'd be amazed...

"I own CDs and rip them."

I do the same thing as it's not a convenient media for much these days. I put the music on iPods and thumb drives that plug into the Android head unit in my car so there's always a catalog of my most favorite songs. I haven't been able to sort out how/if I can load music on the device and be able to play it that way. Not to worry since it's not been an issue.

[Nelbert Noggins]

Re: You'd be amazed...

I buy my music DRM free as Flac and download it from the Qobuz store.

Download straight to my NAS and shuffle across disks as time goes on. Far less bulky than the boxes of CDs I have from before.

Day to day even though I own them so won't loose them anymore than I would a CD, I still stream music more often than play from my server along with internet radio. Similarly I have DVDs, Blu-ray and a blu-ray player which I rarely use.

I even have CDs and Movies I've bought and still haven't bothered ripping yet because I just stream them for now. One day I'll get around to it. Probably find my usb dvd drive has given up and the discs are unreadable by then anyway :D

Was interesting to hear my Son's view. While he occasionally buys films, he doesn't see why anyone would buy music when so much is available to stream free or paid online or failing that via an aerial. to him it's just transitory noise to listen to, not something he's attached to.

I don't mind apps using external services for products if they're providing extra functionality above the core features, where I draw the line is when the app is just a remote for a cloud control centre to talk to a device in my own home. If something won't operate locally and can't be configured without the internet, then it's either not coming in the house or it's cheap enough for what it does that I don't care when it becomes a brick.

[The Organ Grinder's Monkey]

Re: You'd be amazed...

"my Son's view. Music...it's just transitory noise to listen to, not something he's attached to."

I've heard what today's kids are listening to, & I reckon he's bang on the money there, (apart from the listening to bit, obvs)

[that one in the corner]

Re: You'd be amazed...

My Kobo has its SD card filled with books from the Gutenberg Project or bought, DRM free, from Humble Bundle and the like. Thankfully, read all the complaints about the software update a few years ago, the one that tried to make the Kobo Shop the centre of the UI, so knew not to install it - dodged a bullet there!

[ChoHag]

Do you remember when you used to buy things and they would last until they wore out or the kids got to them?

Pepperidge Farm remembers.

[tekHedd]

"introduced in 2013, and things have since moved on"

Oh no, it's TEN YEARS old! Might as well set fire to it. Bose lost the plot when old man Bose passed on (as he apparently foresaw). Even this article suggests that it's reasonable to expect to stop using *speakers* after 10 years.

Ridiculous. Streaming radio hasn't gone away. Spotify, last I checked, is still in business. The hardware doesn't wear out. The speakers in my front room are a 30 year old pair of Definitives (Craig's list), powered by a 50 year old Carver and a $11 bluetooth receiver. Last I checked, WiFi was still backward compatible with 2013 standards. Firmware is updatable.

Everything these days is built to a 4 year refresh cycle, like American cars from the '90s. It seems like a good idea from a corporate standpoint, but it really kills the brand. Example: UA Project Rock headphones by JBL: replaceable earpads! But you can't replace them because they stopped making the pads at 4 years when they stopped making the phones. (And it's actually worse than other brands because they use a proprietary attachment mechanism instead of a simple stretch-on pad.) "Repairable" is meaningless branding now, like "green" or "washable."

We complained about planned obsolescence in the 90s, but those companies lacked vision.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: "introduced in 2013, and things have since moved on"

My NAD3020i I bought with my first student job is still going strong, the classic NAD 3020 original I bought in a junk shop probably still works.

Of course I can only play 70s prog-rock on them until I install the 80s compatibly pack

[The Organ Grinder's Monkey]

Re: "introduced in 2013, and things have since moved on"

I see your Nad 3020 & raise you an A&R A60...

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: "introduced in 2013, and things have since moved on"

Valve amps? My DAC uses relays...

[abend0c4]

Re: "introduced in 2013, and things have since moved on"

My LS3/5As are over 40 years old now and even allowing for inflation are worth more now than when I bought them. There are places that will still repair or refurb them if needed.

On the other hand, I no longer have the top-loading CD player that was very much new technology at the time of purchase: subsequent iterations were better. I also no longer have the Quad 33/303 because, despite being perfectly functional, it generated more heat than sound. I think we have to accept that technology will move on - we no longer have analogue TV and mechanically-propelled recording media are disappearing. The actual problem is either inadvisable integration - where technologies of very different durability are brought together in the same box so that the expiry of one means the expiry of all - or proprietary interfaces which mean that components that are otherwise individually functional cannot be used together if any one of them becomes obsolete.

I think it's now long overdue that it should be a requirement that the interfaces of all products that depend on external connections to operate should be documented publicly.

[Like a badger]

Re: "introduced in 2013, and things have since moved on"

My LS3/5As are over 40 years old now

Pah. Modern day toys! A pair of Quad 57s from 1964 are the thing in this household.

[MachDiamond]

Re: "introduced in 2013, and things have since moved on"

"Pah. Modern day toys! A pair of Quad 57s from 1964 are the thing in this household."

One of these days I'll get on a project I've been sitting on parts for. 15" Stevens Trusonic FR-150s reconed with Altec 416 kits. 6" Polydax mids and JBL 2405's or Emilar ECVH tweeters. A friend did a set of those using Altec 515 woofers for a recording studio and it was bangin'. The current issue might be where in the house I'd put them.

[MachDiamond]

Re: "introduced in 2013, and things have since moved on"

""Repairable" is meaningless branding now, like "green" or "washable.""

I've had to learn the sewing machine again so I can make and mend things. It's sad that Joann went out of business in the US as it was great to be able to shop fabrics to find what I needed. Headphone ear pads might be something I'll have to give a go. The faux leather material on mine is flaking away and going everywhere. If I can remove the old pads and use them as templates, it's down to finding a suitable fabric to make new ones from. Thrift stores can be good for this as cloth is cloth for small projects even if it currently looks like a shirt.

[Wade Burchette]

BOSE

Buy Other Sound Equipment.

As the saying goes, "a fool and his money are soon parted." With Bose, you are just paying for the name. You can get better sound equipment for less money.

[Tim99]

Re: BOSE

Also, back in the day, when my hearing still worked: Bass Overwhelms Sound Experience...

[Korev]

Re: BOSE

What's in a Naim?

[Tim99]

Re: BOSE

Well I found the NAC of pairing stuff with my Linn LP12 - A few Snaps of the fingers and it worked. After a while I did have to take a NAP.

Caveat: Mrs Tim99 bought me one of the first neon switch LP12s in the early-mid 1970s. Spent 25 years buying stuff to match. Final systems based on upgraded LP12/Ittok/Asak/ 32s/NAP250 with assorted Naim power supplies and Sara speakers (Should have kept the Kans). Just got to where I wanted to be with it; then an RTA gave me hearing, brain, and coordination problems. Sold them all and bought a B&O all-in-one which was "OK". These days, hearing nearly completely shot, a pair of Apple HomePod Minis are fine.

[NXM]

Re: BOSE

That's a sad story, sorry to hear it.

I read of a bloke in the states who became obsessed with building the perfect LP sound system. Self-built deck with 3 tone arms for different types of music, self-built amps, self-built speakers, special room in the house for it all. He roped the kids in to build and constantly tinker with it, but they flew the nest eventually. Wife left him. The whole thing cost decades of life and >$1m.

Then when he died it was split up and sold for a few thousand.

Stick with the HomePods.

[MachDiamond]

Re: BOSE

"Sold them all and bought a B&O all-in-one"

Broken & Over-priced?

[Tim99]

Re: BOSE

Passed it on - Much of it still working, but needs a new belt on cassette mechanism. Owner not happy that will be $1,300. When I passed it on (for free) everything was working, but told them that I couldn't help them after initial set up. I suspect that the service company is trying it on, as a new belt is ~$60. Overpriced - possibly/probably? At the time the complete set was ~$8,000 whereas the new price for my Linn/Naim stuff was ~$50,000?

[nijam]

Re: BOSE

> You can get better sound equipment for less money.

Yes, yes, yes. Since forever, as it's Bose.

[Anonymous Coward]

I’ve got a SoundTouch 20

Just for those times when we like to listen to overseas radio.

We don’t use it often and the SoundTouch app is a nasty piece of work.

Bought it cheap, the missus worked in retail. Customer return or something.

To the shed of old tech you go son!

[b1k3rdude]

This is WHY you NEVER buy a fucking product with any kind of CLOUD functionality as part of its core functions. WHEN will people EVER LEARN...!

!!

[trev101]

Very disappointing

I have 2 and use the soundtouch app daily to stream radio stations from tunein and radioplayer built in to the app. The app also allows you to manually store radio streams. I assumed this would be a lifetime device, my devices stills look like new and I have no intention of changing them for something new from Bose.

[that one in the corner]

Re: Very disappointing

> I assumed this would be a lifetime device

It was.

Just not the lifetime of anything within thirty metres of you*

As you are that rarity that has admitted to buying these things, can you recall what you were actually promised with regards to the service life of the product? 3 years? 5? 10? Serious question.

* assuming you aren't working at Bose, because then you ought to have known...

[frankvw]

Is this even legal?

So we've got the "Right to Repair" moving into legislation. But what about the right to simply keep using the stuff we already have, that's working perfectly, and that we paid good money for???

[Like a badger]

Re: Is this even legal?

This is most certainly legal. UK (and EU) right to repair rules apply to availability of spare parts for white goods and TVs, not other tech. And enabling software or enabling services are not covered.

Policy makers might get around to addressing this if enough people kick up a stink over "bricking", but it would take some years to do, and I'm unclear how long is reasonable that a company should support cloud-driven services for a perhaps small and declining group of customers.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Is this even legal?

"So we've got the "Right to Repair" moving into legislation."

That would let you keep the hardware going, but firmware/software would still be out of bounds.

For loads of stuff I couldn't give a toss whether it got new software updates or not such as my car, but anything that is 'net connected, that doesn't work.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I like speakers with "limited" functionality.

They're speakers. They let the sound out of the amplifier.

You can listen to your CDs and LPs through them.

If you rely on the so called "cloud" and "smart" devices to listen to music - there's a misnomer if ever there was one- you're doing it wrong.

[MachDiamond]

"I like speakers with "limited" functionality.

They're speakers. They let the sound out of the amplifier."

Speakers with built-in amplification can be really good as it gives the opportunity to match the electronics to the transducers. Not that much useful is done on the low end of products, but big PA systems often have built in amps/processing. I have a pair of Rush 433's "self-propelled" speakers that sound awesome. The designer must have been paid by the component so I hope they never break as they will be a right bastard to troubleshoot and fix. They aren't around anymore so no schematics are available.

[headrush]

We own a relatively old Panasonic smart TV. Apparently if the TV can't reach Panasonics server, it assumes there is no Internet, despite the "Internet" being fine for every other device in the house.

I just looked at buying a Bluetooth enabled padlock for convenience purposes. All was going well with the purchase until amazon lost it in their warehouse. In the interim I decided to check out more of it's functionality and discovered that if the associated app can't connect to the servers, the padlock will not unlock. It's Bluetooth, why does it need to connect to the server to verify the owner of the device?

I cancelled the order immediately. The padlock would have prevented vehicles from leaving the driveway, which is not acceptable. Had to settle for the reliable old key method.

BTW, the padlock maker does not disclose the server requirement anywhere I found. It was a report on a forum that was in a disused lavatory somewhere from an owner reporting their experience of an Internet failure.

This Internet of things turns out to be an Internet of other people's things which work according to their whim.

[ComicalEngineer]

Real HiFi

'm still using a Quad 66 CD / Preamp / FM tuner and a 306 power amp which are now over 35 years old. Admittedly they were refurbished by Quad about 10 years ago when I actually took them to the factory in Huntingdon UK personally. Thus various aged components (mostly capacitors) replaced. Connected to a now 25+ year old set of Epos speakers the setup still sounds superb. I have a DAB+ radio connected to one AUX input and my PC to the other. My PC has around 350 CDs worth of music on it. The music is backed up and the PC is replaceable. I can also stream Spotify via my PC should I be so inclined.

Sometimes, for old times sake I turn my AR EB101 turntable on and listen to some of my old vinyl collection.

I suspect that the Quad stuff will outlive me.

In contrast my bleeding edge technolgy friend spaffed about £3,500 on a multi-room Sonos streaming system controlled from an app that now doesn't work, or at least doesn't work properly.

[nijam]

It's so predictable, why do people fall for this nonsense?

[Myles Tagoyet]

end of an era?

I have been purchasing Bose products for over 30 years, and found them by and large to be pretty good (appreciating opinions differ) from noise cancelling headphones, standalone blue tooth speakers, An old Wave bedside clock radio/cd

As such I have 8 SoundTouch across the 10, 20 and 30 models at home, and several more I purchased for my children who enjoy them in their homes.

Purchased because of the streaming ability Spotify, AppleMusic, TuneIn etc... as well as having them all in sync, so that I can pass from room to room and have them playing in sync and perfect harmony - the loss of this facility will render them undesirable to have anymore, as they no longer deliver the service they were sold for, or the intended use.

As for the Bose offer contained in their rather snide email - I'd rather 5hit in my hand and clap, than purchase another Bose product...