This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
"Open source" really isn't the right term here, if they're just releasing API specifications. "Open sourcing" the speakers would be releasing the source code to the software that runs on the speakers.
Like, all of Microsoft's libraries on Windows have a publicly-documented interface. That hardly makes them open source. Just means that people can write software that make use of them.
Yes, the correct term for this would be “open api”
"documented api", nothing open about it
Idk, it probably has an open backdoor somewhere
There is a Soundtouch extension to Music Assistant, which which is part of Home Assistant. Last I checked the developer is unsure how functional the wireless speakers will be after the app shutdown.
Basic documentation does not equal open source.
Toaster ovens from 40 years ago did better. They came with a technical diagram.
We need to start demanding technical diagrams again. I've fixed up antiques where the schematics were printed on the inside, even for a simple flashlight.
But that means you'll repair it rather than just buying another. We can't have that! Think of the GDP!
We need a law that companies provide device owners root access for every end of life device.
That's something the EU would do, but never America.
How about a free gun at the end of life of any device?
NOW we're talking!
Knowing America, it'd probably be a free round (gun not included) and you're required to end the life of your device with it.
INB4 companies start making proprietary ammo that only works with their special gun and now they can gouge your money on the tail end of product life.
I think medical device manufacturers should have to support their products for some definite length of time—maybe 10 years?—or not be allowed to make devices at all
This type of laws already exist in some cases, but realistically no one knows that the company won't just go bankrupt in 5 years. Open sourcing things is a "reasonable" last resort option, or rather, the only viable one
I would love to see that codified: you go bankrupt, you go open source!
I’m not holding my breath though. They usually get bought and sold and scrapped for parts along the way
For software too, if a company has sold software and then goes out of business, it should have to give all licensed users permanent access to use it. Preferably also the source code. (Ideally we'd have open source options for everything but that's not always practical or possible right now.)
It would be one thing for a corporation to misuse the term open source as they've been doing lately. It's pretty bad for one of the biggest and oldest tech news sites to be doing it.
More like ArseTechnica, eh?
No thanks. I had like 20 sonos speaker, and then, one day, sonos decided to fuck the app up, making it impossible to use my library anymore. This was the day I sold them all, ranted like a pissed off babuskha and never thought of buying similar products ever but make my own.
Real open source or go fork yourself in the eye. I'm so done with this corpo-crapshit
You sound like an extremist brother. If they lie and dont do it (seems like they already have made it open-source) then get mad. But it sounds like you are upset because you got screwed by Sonos and Bose actually are attempting to do the right thing for their customers.
Thing is they didn't actually open-source it, as stated in other comments. They just released the api documentation. While, yes, it is a step in the correct direction, it is definitely not open-source. Open source would be releasing the source code for all the software involved, which they haven't done.
I wasn’t affected by the Sonos App fiasco because I don’t use it. I mostly use the speakers through Spotify, and occasionally through Home Assistant. I only need the app to set my wake schedule but once it was done, I didn’t need to go back.
Won’t this allow the same? With the API, you should be able to continue using your speakers with local automation, assuming someone wants to implement that.
Extremist? Nah, I'm just old enough to have been fooled and fucked way too often by the enshittification, so that I have serious trust issues with corpo promises now.
I try to stay away from big tech crap as far as I can. If there's no open source alternative, I make my own (if complexity allows) or just don't use it at all.
And I'm not upset at Bose. Great if they really deliver. I just doubt they will. And if they do, it would be the one shiny example that stands out. But it would make Bose a bit more attractive to me then. At least the older ones.
Besides, other comments say they just release the API, not made it real open source. Dunno what is true and also don't care. Yet it would be a substantial difference.
That's a pretty cool thing to do
They didn't open source anything.
Yes, but at least documenting the API and saying “have at it” is better than dropping it
The headline is still misleading.
And they didn't do it. The headline is misleading.
That’s fantastic. Can Apple Pay attention to this?
PDF reference of the API here: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025.12.18-SoundTouch-Web-API.pdf
Chad Bose.
They're never getting those integrations back though, e.g. Spotify. Those are usually implemented in each company's servers rather than something that can be brokered locally through an API. That needs to change
