Bose is open-sourcing its old smart speakers instead of bricking them

Stevie Bonifield is a news writer covering all things consumer tech. Stevie started out at Laptop Mag writing news and reviews on hardware, gaming, and AI.In a surprisingly user-friendly move, Bose has announced it will be open-sourcing the API documentation for its SoundTouch smart speakers, which were slated to lose official support on February 18th, as reported by Ars Technica. Bose has also moved that date back to May 6th, 2026.When cloud support ends, an update to the SoundTouch app will add local controls to retain as much functionality as possible without cloud services. Users will still be able to stream music to SoundTouch speakers with Bluetooth, AirPlay, and Spotify Connect (plus physical AUX connections). Remote control features and grouping speakers will also continue to work, and users will still be able to set up and configure their SoundTouch speakers.Now that the smart speakers’ API is being open-sourced, users can also create their own compatible SoundTouch tools to help fill in any gaps left by the lack of cloud services. While it’s still disappointing that the speakers are losing official support, Bose’s approach at least lets people continue using their speakers, rather than bricking otherwise functional devices.This move from Bose is particularly surprising because of how rare it is. Usually when products lose support for cloud services, they end up bricked, and occasionally users step in themselves to fix things. For instance, when Pebble originally shut down in 2016, users kept their watches functional by creating the Rebble Alliance, a community-run replacement for the watches’ cloud services, firmware, and app store.Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Stevie Bonifield