From smart to dumb: Bose no longer supports the SoundTouch product family

Audio device manufacturer Bose has decided that is causing annoyance among many customers: from 18 February 2026, the company will discontinue cloud support for its popular SoundTouch wireless streaming speakers and soundbars. As a result, important cloud-based features and the central app for the systems used in small home cinemas, for example, will no longer work.

The measure now announced by the US company affects a product range that Bose has been launching on the market since 2013 and later expanded to include other speakers, soundbars, and home cinema systems in the USD 200 to USD 1500 price segment. Many customers, some of whom have invested large sums of money in the wireless multi-room audio system, are now seeing important core functions of their devices disappear.

According to a Bose FAQ, the associated SoundTouch app will no longer work from 18 February 2026. This means the devices will lose their "smart" capabilities. The app was essential for the integration of music services such as Spotify and TuneIn as well as multi-room playback, i.e., simultaneous sound in several rooms. The application can currently also be used to save and change presets.

Bose justifies the move by stating that the technology has been extensively developed since the introduction of the SoundTouch systems. The company can no longer maintain the development and support of the cloud infrastructure that powers this older generation of products.

Frustration among long-term customers

SoundTouch devices will not be completely useless after the shutdown; they can still play audio from a connected device via AUX or HDMI cable. Wireless playback of content via Bluetooth will remain functional. Bose will also no longer provide security updates for SoundTouch devices. To compensate affected customers, the company is offering a trade-in option with a voucher worth up to 200 US dollars.

Bose's decision is causing frustration among customers. One Reddit user, who claims to have spent over 1500 US dollars on SoundTouch products less than a decade ago, even expressed his "disgust". He announced that he would never buy a Bose product again.

Some users suggest that Bose should make the software development kit for SoundTouch speakers available as open source. The community could then continue to support this collection of programming tools and libraries themselves. The company has not yet commented on this.

No integration into newer apps

According to Ars Technica, the manufacturer has also confirmed that SoundTouch devices will not be compatible with the newer "Bose App". This application has been available since 2018 to support newer products such as the Home Speaker 500 and more recent soundbars. It was launched three years after the last major expansion of the SoundTouch range.

Bose's competitor Sonos experienced similar complications last year: the introduction of a new app that only supported older products with errors caused the company a massive loss of image. Maintaining old systems generally requires considerable investment in the redesign of apps, cloud infrastructure, and internal systems, which is clearly no longer economically viable for device manufacturers with an aging product line.

The announcement is a classic example of the growing problem of "smart" devices that are degraded to simple, "dumb" devices by switching off the associated cloud infrastructure. After all, SoundTouch owners have been given more lead time than owners of some other smart home devices, such as Logitech, whose support ended from one day to the next.

(nie)