I am not very happy with this news either. As an owner of 7 SoundTouch devices that just recently started functioning almost as expected, I was starting to look into purchasing a couple more. That is not the case anymore and I will not be moving forward with this new line either.
Cross support just seems to make sense. Functionality sounds to be close to the same. Why would I go out and buy a single new Home Speaker and not be able to join it to my other 7?
dblj, I agree re cross support. In reality, they should just have one app so if the Bose Music app is the future app, why is it not replacing SoundTouch app too and making a better experience for all.
Can you imagine, someone buys a SoundTouch 10, loves it, then goes out and buys a Soundbar 500 or 700 and finds they can't even work in the same app? On the contary, someone can have a Play:1 or the newer Play One and it still works with the Sonos Beam.
I assume they did this for technical reasons, they maybe had another team seperatly work on the Smart Home line and the two use completly different technology. If that happens to be true then that is a poor business decision, the app ecosystem team should be one and they should ensure all products work from the same app. I don't mind if certain features are specific to one product, like Alexa, etc... Sonos is the same, AirPlay only supported on Play One and Play:5... but guess what - they all use the same app and all work together perfectly fine.
A more concerning reason for this whole issue, could be the hardware in the SoundTouch line isn't powerful enough for some of the new features or planned music services, causing them to have to create a new app and new product line. If that is indeed the case then ouch. I heard the issue with integrating Google Play Music and Apple Music was due to low memory availability on the current and older ST devices. To be fair though, Sonos managed it with the older Play:1 so I don't know for sure.
In any case, all we can do is share our constructive critisim and hope Bose will do the right thing for it's customers going forward,.
David Moore: “Co-existance between the new Soundbars and existing Soundtouch sytems in the same network is expected, I may test this is the new app is available.” Do you mean you expect the new soundbars and your existing ST systems to work together, as in be part of the same speaker groups, etc? Bose has already said that they won’t.
“I expect a software update (plus Soundtouch and Bose Music to merge) to address this” I mean, yeah, that would be great. I am under the impression that this will not be happening though. Perhaps can provide some clarification on this?
Hello Jereld,
There are no plans to merge Bose Music Smart Home products with the SoundTouch ecosystem. They are both connected products, yes but are two completely different platforms.
Regards,
Joel
I will not touch the smart speakers when Bose can't even fix the ST speakers with the play all feature. Sorry to say that i have now totally lost confidence. You can't even fix the mic issues on your noise cancellation headphones. You can't even fix the current ST issues. Just focusing on new range of speakers without any compatiability to ST. How much good reviews you had was all made up. Good luck, I will not even dare to touch this smart home range. I can't even imagine the future firmware issues you will have. Good luck!