More companies should follow this approach - especially as right-to-repair becomes a bigger issue.
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.... https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/10/bose-soundtouch-home...
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.
Sadly those tend to be niche companies already focused on power users, but any other firms should be considered guilty until proven innocent of enshittification (forced bricking, closed source, subscription creep, privacy violations and data brokering).
It's not a security problem, since they don't support it anylonger anyways!
They could even make it so, that iOS itself refuses to boot if the device is unlocked. That way you can't accidentally have an iOS running that's compromised in some way.
But you can still boot Linux or Android or whatever you want to do to it.
Access to new features is not available, and app developers may no longer support updates to their applications.
But AFAIK, Apple apps (maps, music, phone, iMessage etc) on iPhones no longer receiving iOS updates continue to work.
You won't get updates to the trusted root CAs, which means you won't be able to visit sites with certificates signed by CAs created or renewed after support is dropped. And your browser will continue trusting CAs that have had their trust revoked.
And as web standards evolve there will be websites that use features and APIs that your browser doesn't support and may break in subtle, or not so subtle ways. And there is no way for you to install a more up to date browser.
And then of course, you won't fixes for any new security vulnerabilities that are found.
So yeah, it's not as bad as getting bricked, but it as also worse than continuing to work as it always has, but with no new features.
Saying "could stop working" and "won't get updates to the trusted root CAs" is all future issues.
How long should Apple be required to provide updates, both security/vulnerability and future API support?
Currently, iPhone 6S, released in 2014, can run iOS 15, which received its latest update in 2025. The iOS 15 apps work with Apple's services, some with reduced functionality because it was never in iOS 15.
So that's a 10 year old phone.
If they want to drop support for still functional hardware, they should make it possible to install your own software on it.
So, at best the device can just be used with the latest version of the software Apple allows until it's a security nightmare and better off no longer used.
Instead, if Apple gave people the ability to load something (prob a Linux) onto those old devices, then those old devices could be used usefully for quite a few more years.
Did they gave instructions on how to unblock bootloaders. released the source code and drivers under an open source license?
Which does make Boses move even more impressive when you think about how it wouldn’t have affected their business to do nothing.
However, I wouldn't expect anything from Sonos at this point in time.
Sonos did revert that decision after mounting public pressure too. However they keep pull these kinds of stunts and then later apologising for it.
My point is: are you actually changing if you keep making the same mistakes and then only saying “sorry” after you get caught?
If Bose shows the same pattern of behaviour the I’d lump them into the same category as Sonos. But thus far they do seem slightly more ethical.
Personally though, I think the whole “smart speaker” industry is crooked. But some are definitely more crooked than others.
Every company that makes smart speakers is crooked? Or, the making and selling of smart speakers is inherently unethical?
Sometimes making a decent product is part of making money, but that's never a motivation in itself. We have enough examples showing that if it makes more money to enshittify (and usually it does), then they will gladly enshittify.
I wouldn't say it's just the smart speaker industry.
speakers used to be something that would last a lifetime. I still have the same active monitors that I bought quarter of a century ago when I was producing techno. And I still used those speakers daily for listening to the radio. I used them for a NYE house party. They’re used often and still perform as well today as they do when they were new.
smart speakers is just a way of introducing forced obsolescence into the market.
So these EOL guarantees are nice, but EOL for speaker used to mean 50+ years later or when someone idiot inflicted physical damage onto the hardware. And even then, it was often still repairable.
Not every company deserves this charity, but the social media default nowadays is to deny that charity to everyone, and to go scorched-earth.
The medium amount of good publicity on the course correction good decision is an incentive to make good decisions in the future, both initial good decisions and course correction good decisions.
Those 2 sentences don't really align well. Should they be motivated by the tenfold praise? Or should they be motivated by doing the decent thing? If they should be motivated by doing the decent thing, why mention tenfold praise?
>Rewarding them for "reluctantly" improving won't change their bad behavior.
I don't see why not. They see that good behavior gives a better outcome. They'll do good behavior in the future.
Not that most corporations care, being trashed for decisions that hurt their consumers is run of the mill these days. Companies that get praise from their customers tend to stay in business and sell lots of product.
<I don't see why not. They see that good behavior gives a better outcome. They'll do good behavior in the future.>
Reluctantly improving means they were either going to or already screwed their customers. Companies that admit mistakes are praised. To think that a company who is called out will in the future continue to do good for consumer decisions is a little naive.
Suppose Anon says, "I'm going to rob a bank next Monday."
Police respond, "We will be ready there next Monday, and you will be arrested."
Anon replies, "Ah, I see! Never mind, then."
We can certainly say it's good that Anon changed their mind after being met with promises of consequences. But, in my opinion, saying something like "Anon is a fine, upstanding citizen, worthy of praise, unlike those other criminals that actually went through with it! Now that Anon understands it's bad, they'll surely never think to plan something so dastardly in the future!" is leaving reality behind. Anon has done the bare minimum, and likewise deserves the bare minimum of praise. In terms of incentive, I think such a response would only teach Anon to be sneakier, now that they've earned some trust.
Similarly, we wouldn't say that Anon is overall upstanding, just that the decision to not rob that bank was good.
My point is that we should treat the company better if it backtracks. And similarly we should treat Anon better if he doesn't rob the bank. It doesn't make sense to give Anon the exact same punishment whether he robs the bank or not. If we do that, he has no incentive not to rob the bank. "If I'm going to jail either way, I might as well actually rob the bank."
Please explain.
When presented with information that you're acting in bad faith, if you choose to change: that is praiseworthy.
It's very brave to take that in, and not worry about "brand damage" or "appearing weak". It's brave to even challenge yourself when someone tells you you're wrong. It's entirely admirable.
It's the default human behaviour to double-down.
Isn't that still gonna happen now?
From [1]:
What will no longer work:
• Presets (preset buttons on the product and in the app)
Of course Bluetooth and AirPlay continues to work, but isn't that what a "dumb speaker" is?
No, if you read farther down the announcement, they also say this:
> Open-source options for the community
> We’re making our technical specifications available so that independent developers can create their own SoundTouch-compatible tools and features. The documentation is available here: https://assets.bosecreative.com/m/496577402d128874/original/...
So, they're going to strip the "smart" functionality from the app that Bose provides, but they're letting people continue to use it if they want to.
Remind me of any other vendor in recent history that end of lifed a hardware product and then open sourced it whether they got backlash or not. Because I can’t think of a single one.
So yes, Bose absolutely deserves praise.
It was a real shitty move.
https://www.theverge.com/2012/6/5/3062611/palm-webos-hp-insi...
https://www.philmckinney.com/i-convinced-hps-board-to-buy-pa...
My impression just from that training is that WebOs was extremely mismanaged. The training was billed as a "how to write apps for WebOs" and it instead was an hour long meander by the Palm employee about how different the company culture is and how hard it became to do anything.
I had the distinct impression they didn't even know that the training was supposed to be before being assigned to do it.
I think that's indicative of everything. HP had this product that they were trying to shoehorn into the most bizarre places. At it's core it was a mobile Linux os which used html/css/JavaScript as the main user experience engine. And HP was trying to put that on printers and rack mount displays. The one place they didn't seem to care putting it was the mobile devices it was designed to target. They simply half assed the launch of a product.
Maybe?
People stuck with Bose bricks might show a preference for non-Bose replacements.
People who thought Bose speakers would stay useful longer might prefer Bose, or be willing to pay for a more expensive Bose speaker model.
(Yes, I agree that some PHB's at Bose were almost certainly imagining that their customers would be forced to re-purchase Bose speakers. I'm questioning the validity of their initial assumptions.)
Could easily be net positive.
Certainly goodwill is harder to quantify.
If your belief is that some other tactic works, then I can see why you'd do that. For my part, carrot + stick has always worked better than stick + more stick.
Also remember that there is no believer like a convert. A community helping guide a company towards open source culture could make for a very strong ally.
Then again I know nothing about Bose’s open source culture so take it with a grain of salt.
I'm not sure I get the logic here.
Slowly but steadily I'm comprehending why companies are getting tired of some people. No matter what companies do, people will always complain. Don't get me wrong, there's always room for more improvement, but a slight complement for their slight improvement won't hurt anyone + a change in tone from complaining to suggesting improvements would be a nice bonus.
That's a good outcome for the community, and refusing to "praise" Bose's actions just because they didn't originally do what you wanted is petty and churlish.
- mechanical CAD, schematic and PCB files: https://docs.teufel.de/download/MYND/Open_Source_Hardware_Fi...
- firmware: https://github.com/teufelaudio/mynd-firmware
- Bluetooth API documentation: https://cdn.teufelaudio.com/image/upload/v1748589486/product...
- battery repair/replacement guide: https://cdn.teufelaudio.com/products/MYND/pdf/Teufel_MYND_RM...
I believe that they designed the mechanical parts to be 3D-printable as well.
I'd avoid, even if they happened to do this.
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.
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.
We also like the Bose soundbar as it has a mode that makes dialogue more intelligible on our TV.
Now if I could change the firmware to turn NC off, that would be something entirely different...
This may be subjective. Bose might sound good to some people's ears and less good to other people's ears.
There's an argument for both, but frankly, if studio monitor setups don't sound "as good" why bother?
Sound quality is not the same as music quality.
To be more specific, Sound Reproduction Fidelity is not the same as Pleasant Music
To be even more specific, Signal Reproduction is not the same as "Pleasant Sounds*
The goal of music is not always high fidelity of reproduction; if it were, over-driven valve amps would never have been a thing.
The only thing objective in this context is signal reproduction, which is not the highest concern for music production.
Hi-fi speakers, tube amps, and other accessories generally "degrade" the sound with added harmonics and natural smile EQs. That's what makes them sound more pleasing.
(I'm not disagreeing with you, just adding more color.)
If a speaker reproduces some music with 100% accuracy and the result is unpleasant, doesn’t that just mean the original music—as created by the artist—is unpleasant?
Where possible, I’d prefer a speaker that respects the artist’s decisions instead of inserting itself into the creative process.
IMHO, people place too much importance on "accuracy". While accuracy might be objectively measured, it means nothing when it comes to individual taste.
A good example of this is a target curve, often used in room calibration. Dirac has a good explanation: https://www.dirac.com/resources/target-curve
(highly recommend Dirac room correction, by the way)
A $40 Bluetooth box from any big name brand is better than the speakers in a smart TV.
I personally prefer corded headphones and mains powered speakers, but if I were to buy a small wireless speaker I would buy a cheaper brand and ideally second hand, because this category of devices are basically consumables.
They are such a standard response that presumably a real audiophile will come along to point out that their favorite model is much better, than a particular well known Sennheiser model, but as far as one can say in brand terms they are solid.
All the Chinese-made Sennheiser stuff has awful QA.
Their build quality is exceptional, and they're built like tanks. The only problem, imo, is the Beyer house sound is very shouty and fatiguing, especially with the "990" versions of the product line over the years.
Disclaimer: I owned a Beyer DT880/600ohm (the neutral one of the 770/880/990 siblings), paired with an amp that could properly handle it. Its one of the few headphones I sold and did not retain in my collection, it deserved someone that could love it. The new Tesla-based drivers are better (such as that 1990), but still retain that Beyer sound.
Where'd you see they're exiting pro/flagship tier stuff? Everything I can find says they're continuing to hand-make their higher-end stuff in Germany. One such source: https://www.whathifi.com/headphones/100-year-old-headphone-b...
I recommend HiFiMan Sundara/Ananda if they fit your head and there aren't any CPU fans in your room.
Hifiman QA is exceptionally bad, and they tend to not stand by their warranty, and their US repair facility is just some dude's house.
The threads on /r/headphones over Hifiman shafting them are numerous.
Disclaimer: I too had a Hifiman pair, they sounded great, but their physical design just didn't hold up to daily use, no matter how much I babied them.
My best sounding headphones are a pair of old Stax with the worst construction I've ever seen on anything, so I mostly keep them locked up assuming they'll break if I breathe in them.
I may just end up replacing them with something from ZMF.
Also, there are multiple forums and subreddits you can ask this question on. You will get more answers than you would from me and the rest of HN.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
If you want really good stereo or 5.1 sound there is no substitute for big speakers that can move a lot of air.
[1] maybe it is that gene polymorphism that makes my ears overflow with wax and has my doctor warning they will plug up one of these days
I love the new airpods pro for my daily commute (subway, not a car; just clarifying before I get hammered down in replies for driving and using airpods at the same time), doubly so given their compactness+heavily improved ANC.
For home, I love my open-back Beyerdynamic DT1990Pro pair, due to the audio profile + insanely good physical comfort when worn for prolonged periods of time.
For gatherings with friends for when I need a somewhat-portable bluetooth speaker (that also happen to look good when sitting on a bookshelf outside of active use), I have a TE-OB4.
If I had a larger living space, I would consider getting a pair of high-quality speakers again too.
But there is not a single "this is it" piece of audio equipment that would just replace everything, so you gotta pick and choose your poison.
On the newest ones, the tips have a foam core inside them.
They don't fall out often and when they do I'm not worried about losing them.
Out in public is different. (1) It's a pet peeve of mine that people are wearing them and oblivious to warnings about environmental threats or sitting in a machine at the gym for 20 minutes doing nothing looking at their phone and hard to get in contact with. (2) I am doing a practice that increases sensory awareness when I "go out" and listening to music with noise canceling isn't compatible with that.
But for awhile Bose's headphones had the best noise cancelling out there.
Their old ads were super irritating though, and many people (such as you and me!) are still irritated about them decades later.
A minor nitpick: while Apple entering the ANC arena certainly set fire under the existing mainstream brands to improve their ANC headphones, imo Bose started facing serious competition on that front even before Apple moved in.
I remember Sony releasing their MDR-1000X par being the first crack in the wall. I specifically remember this, because I picked up those headphones in favor of Bose options at the time.
P.S. Yes, the naming scheme on Sony's side is atrocious, because MDR-1000X is the first gen of their very popular WH-1000XM line of ANC headphones that people treat as a flagship ANC headphone pair (with the most recent one being WH-1000XM6).
I actually had a pair of Sennheiser noise cancelling headphones and they had a really good BT implementation, super low latency and the ANC was really good. Sadly they developed a persistent hiss in one earpiece.
If we gave tax breaks for open sourcing EOL products, we'd see a lot more of it. Code escrow companies might not like it, though.
My personal experience of Bose PA and HiFi equipment is that is belongs in the trash.
I have a 15 years old Bose system. Is it audio-transparent ? Absolutely not, its frequency response is well documented. But the sound is very pleasing, it's reliable and nearly invisble in my living room.
I'm not an audiophile though, just a music lover.
And I'm couching this all in very neutral terms, not because I have an axe to grind with them, but because I don't want to get into a flame war with the kind of audiophiles who hate Bose.
FWIW the Bose products I've heard and used all sounded pretty good. At the end of the day they're designed for people to enjoy music within a particular target context, not necessarily to be the most accurate at reproducing the recording exactly.
(I'll say this as well: reproducing the recording exactly isn't necessarily what you want to get something to sound good. A lot of albums from the loudness war era benefit significantly from rolling off some of the higher frequencies, where clipping occurs, for example. So I have one amplifier that includes - gasp, shock, horror - tone controls that I sometimes use and, on another system where the amp doesn't have tone controls, I've hooked up a [true] stereo graphic equalizer. You also have to take the listening environment into account and when you do that some element of processing the sound before it comes out of the speakers can also prove to be beneficial. Anyway, I shall now go and brace myself for some righteous abuse from the purists.)
Glad to see them setting a great example here instead of letting these speakers become expensive paperweights.
That said their implementation of noise-cancelling headphones/earbuds was a legit game-changer. And good on them for open-sourcing these speakers!
Bose used to advertise that they were the best sounding speaker out there, while also running advertisements that made claims which violated the laws of physics.
For the same price as a Bose system you could get something much higher quality. Bose was selling at luxury prices w/o luxury quality. They got away with it because compared to the cheap garbage most people listened to, Bose's stuff was nicer. Their quality was mid to upper mid tier, and the build quality was generally good.
But people got irritated by a decade ads saying a tiny speaker is more powerful than a proper speaker setup.
Now days Bose makes good quality noise cancelling headphones (and I suspect they made more revenue selling NC headphones during the open office and then COVID era than they ever did selling speakers in the 90s!) and they brand car stereo systems.
Their noise cancelling headphones are good, even if the ear pads wear our way too fast.
Pretty much no one has a home hi-fi setup anymore, everyone just has a sound bar. I do have a hi-fi music setup, people are rather shocked when they come over that I even bothered. I got it for $2k on Craigslist years ago, the setup cost someone a small fortune when they were brand new. IMHO buying new hi-fi gear is pointless, Speakers made in 2005 sound just as good as speakers made in 2025, the laws of physics haven't changed any!
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.
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...
The most amusing anti-example of this was the Switch generation: $60 for a cartridge, or $60 for a digital license. Guess which is actually more valuable? Guess which you were more likely to find discounted, even if only by a marginal amount, by some store desperate to move stock out of the way?
By contrast, I'm not worried about the fact I can't resell my copy of Game X I got on Steam when I only paid $5 for it in the first place.
> 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.
When a businesses chooses to drop support for a product entirely (hardware or spares no longer produced, and software no longer updated), they've presumably already made the business decision to drop the product for sale. If the product were still in demand and the existing devices still function, dropping product support could effectively render the devices useless or destined for landfill.
This often happens when: online services are dropped, devices cannot be repaired, or worse, software cannot be simply updated for security and compatibility reasons etc.
If manufacturers want existing users with working technology to upgrade, they should design compelling improved products, not force a load of e-waste and bricked devices. There's little reason for a manufacturer to quickly drop support without following this model of open sourcing, unless they know they are forcing existing customers to an unnecessary upgrade.
Manufacturers should support their products, innovate, or let them go over time. The "market" (consumer choice) should dictate when a product is obsolete. We own our products and should have the rights to maintain them. They should be paying us and taxed for damaging the environment for dropping support early and/or without open-sourcing.
Most newer technology hasn't seemed better in a while. It's almost impossible to find a phone with a removable battery, or one that's easily fixable, and has a headphone jack. My galaxy S3 was all of those things. USB3 is good though.
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.
...
Planet is burning and the zillionaires have enough zillions already so I vouch for the Mando too.
At least people can create their own implementation of the API tho.
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.
The open source community will happily reverse-engineer the protocol and clean-room develop their own server code.
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.
Bose's brand is built on audio quality. There is close to little negative impact open sourcing the API (server) in this case will bring to their brand.
For a game, open sourcing the server generally means anyone can basically mess it up and with the internet make it available to everyone to see. Then the responsibility is on the developer to protect their "brand".
The plethora of WoW private servers is not a good example. These are from individuals, or groups of people who willfully reverse engineered it on their own. This is different from a company expressly permissing and implicitly giving a grant on allowing a similar product to exist - the difference is that one gives credibility, which the other does not.
[0] discussed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45813343
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/bose-open-sources-it...
Or across the board, since they are absurdly powerful right now. Nintendo could not legally keep you from hacking a console before the DMCA.
Once single EU / US legislation introduced that force manufacturers into opening end-of-life products all IP right owners will either immediately make it possible or go out of business.
Since everyone will be forced to do the same no one will gain any advantages.
Also it's not like every single bit of firmware / software must be open sourced - it's could very much be trade off where devices just need to be unlocked for modification and documentation made available.
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.
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.
I loved their camera tracking and picture frame along with their speaker quality.
I am no fan of Bose for a lot of reasons, but this is seriously standup behavior for sure.
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.