Basically just announced a new speaker and a couple of SoundBars - they all have built in Alexa support and seem very SoundTouch-esque but are not compatible with SoundTouch, have their own app, and apparently is what Bose is devoting its resources to given the lack of anything happening with SoundTouch.
So only the new speakers are getting Airplay 2 Support in 2019. See ya Bose, I am done with your lies and B.S.
Hello All,
We plan to both continue supporting the SoundTouch application and compatible products in the future, and delivering AirPlay 2 to current SoundTouch models sometime in 2019
Once we have more information, we will let the community know.
Warm Regards,
Joel - Community Support
The shame of it is that this completely dissuades me from buying more Bose products. The SoundTouch software is abysmal but at least if I had bought more SoundTouch speakers, they would have worked with the SoundTouch speakers I'd already invested in. I would have loved to augment my existing system with something like Home Speaker 500. Now the SoundTouch line seems on the way out, doesn't seem worth investing in further, and as an owner of existing SoundTouch speakers, buying the latest and greatest from Bose as of now really is no better than buying from another brand - incompatible either way. And the description of what music services are compatible with this new Home Speaker system sounds exactly like what SoundTouch is compatible with today - which really makes it sound like buying in to this new system will just be years and years of frustration with terrible software, new features and a new music services added at a snails pace, customer comments forwarded to the software development team in perpetuity never to be acted upon, and dealing with a company that is more interested in keeping secrets than keeping its customers happy.
I can't help but wonder too if this new system being incompatible with SoundTouch is due to some technical limitation / technical improvements that are simply not compatible, or just Bose trying to 'force' people to spend money refreshing their hardware.
@David Moore:
From the Home Speaker 500 FAQ:
> Is the Bose Home Speaker 500 compatible with Bose SoundTouch speakers?
No. The Bose Home Speaker 500 uses the new Bose Music app for setup, control, and music browsing, while Bose SoundTouch products use the SoundTouch app. The Bose Home Speaker 500 works in synchronized multi-room groups with any combination of additional Bose Home Speaker 500 units, the Bose Soundbar 500, or the Bose Soundbar 700, but it does not work together in multi-room groups with SoundTouch products.
No mention of future plans to do this. I'd not hold my breath.
Can you tell us how Home Speaker sounds in relation to the existing SoundTouch products i.e. is it the same as a 10, a 20, a 30, or somewhere in between?
Also, besides Alexa and the nice color display, can you tell us any reason(s) why SoundTouch owners should migrate from SoundTouch to the new product line? Have improvements been made in terms of speaker detection, multiroom playback being more reliable, new music services, addressing basic things that SoundTouch lacks (6 preset limitation, no sleep timer/alarm clock, cannot seek a track, etc.)? Or any other reasons?
- I don't think its a matter of people expecting to be "future proofed" when they buy a product - though let's face it, we live in a day and age where companies often release half-baked products with both the company and its customers having reasonable expectations that over time things will be improved with software/firmware upgrades. But yeah, if, say, 5 years after I buy something, if the hardware it originally came with can't be made to do the latest gee whiz feature, I'm prepared to live with that.
At the same time, people do have a reasonable expectation of being "present proofed", which is to say that at some point the product should be able to do things (and do them well, and do them reliably) that people who purchased it reasonably expected it to be able to do when they bought it. I don't think SoundTouch has ever come to that point and I won't speak for anyone else but for me at least, that is the source of my frustration here. There's very *basic* stuff missing from the SoundTouch system that should have been reasonablly expected by anyone even when they were first released in the 2012/2013 time frame IIRC.
And yes, usually new product development and product support are separate things. Its not so much that the new product guys have been developing this new system as opposed to more products compatible with SoundTouch, though that would have been nice. It is that the seemingly scarce product support resources are now going to be divided further to support this new product line, which is not a good sign when its never seemed like up to now there's ever been much in the way of product support resources devoted to addressing the existing issues with SoundTouch. Its never seemed like Bose had any sense of urgency whatsoever in addressing the product's issues - changes that have been made have been made very slowly.
That's a reasonable explanation for why the hardware is different - I can certainly understand needing more processing power to deliver the Alexa functionality - but it doesn't really explain why the new system isn't compatible with the existing SoundTouch system at least when it comes to broadcasting audio between the speakers. Surely support for doing this however SoundTouch currently does it could also be done on this new, more powerful hardware?
Most who agree with me are not on this thread. Why would they be? I just try to answer an occassional question, but like to express my opinion when others bash Bose for their business decisions.
I agree Marty. If these new products were compatible with the ST ecosystem then that would make much more sense, as long-time Bose customers would be able to start the slow upgrade to the newer system, while still being able to use their existing speakers. Instead we are asked to upgrade to the newest product, effectively leaving the thousands of dollars worth of SoundTouch gear in the dust? Considering the track record of lack of transparency, slow adoption of feature requests, and slow adoption of new tech and integrations, thats a REALLY tough ask of your customers.
Well billion is bigger than million, so I guess you win. Everyone on this thread seems to very much agree with you.
As a retired business decision maker with a multi-billion dollar consumer products company, I disgree.
Actually, I am not in the minority. The majority are happy with their Bose products and don't post here.
I don't see that the development and introduction of new products has anything to do with the support of existing products. In most corporations, product development and product support are two different groups of people. One has nothing to do with the other.
My Bose Soundtouch 300 with subwoofer and rear surround speakers works perfectly with my LG 65OLED C7 and has since the day I bought it almost a year ago. I doubt that I would consider upgrading to the Bose 700 system, especially since it is not an ATMOS system. However, the fact that it is being introduced does not detract from my Bose 300 system except perhaps resale value.
People should stop expecting that the purchase of a sound system should somehow "future proof" them.
There are a lot of business experts here who seem to know better than Bose how Bose should run their business. If that's true, why are you hanging out on this forum instead of running a corporation somewhere? Just saying... As customers, all we really know is what we have and what we "think" we want as an individual. Bose seems to be doing a good job at figuring out what consumers, as a whole, want and coming up with a high quality product to meet that demand.
jimgfitz, It is irrellevent - we buy these products to enjoy and as a Bose customer for over 15 years I am just sharing my opinion. It may not be one that everyone will agree on, but I think it's obvious to the vast majority of customers considering Bose as a multi-room system that seperating the two product lines is not exactly an ideal thing. Not all of Bose's customer's will be aware of the product differences or even want to take the time to compare. In all honesty I couldn't expect everyone within our family to be able to understand why the SoundTouch doesn't interoperate with Smart Home systems. I suspect many would expect Bose products to work together in the same way as other brands products in the multi-room space do. I am not saying I know business better than anyone else, but if you look at it this way - they have sidelined a very popular product in favour of a new app ecosystem and product-line, meanwhile customers on this forum are frustrated at the lack of certain music services and features (track scrubbing is one of them). I am willing to bet the new Bose Music app has track scrubbing. How does it make sense if a company expects you to buy a whole new product when they still have work to do on the previous product? I mean, I for one was surprised track scrubbing doesn't exist, it's such a fundamental feature of any music focused app. On the other hand, it prevents me from being a serial track skipper so maybe it's a good thing.
I would counter the argument that Bose are meeting customer needs, many of it's competitors are eating away market share. If you're a Android user and you've signed up for Google Play Music/YouTube Music - a service which Bose doesn''t currently support... as a customer which product would you pick if you were looking for a multi-room system? The one that supports the service you currently use, or the one that requires you ro jump ship to Spotify, say. The same is true if you've got Apple Music. Sure most people have Spotify, but Apple Music is strongly in second place.
I don't want to write this as if I am being horrible towards Bose. I think the SoundTouch line is absolutly a strong product, but it's upsetting to me that it could be so much more and a new non-compatible product line doesn't give me or anyone else 100% confidence that Bose will invest in SoundTouch going forward.
I hang around on the forum because I use the product and wanted to share my thoughts and for reference I am I business owner with over 30 years experience in business.
As a business decision maker with a multi million dollar budget and an owner of 7 Soundtouch devices, I think long term this will backfire for Bose. It's called switching costs, and I'd visit friends and be jealous of the Sonos app but happy with the Soundtouch sound quality. No compatibility between the lines plus the god awful soundtouch app means my next "upgrade" is in the Sonos product family. $3k on Soundtouch with hopes they were fixing the app just to be deprecated...
Do I really need to say my title, as if that makes a difference? You made a snarky comment about there being a lot of experts in here. I just happen to be an expert, so I called you on it. Your happy, good for you. Others here are not. Let it go.
Well since you asked, yes, I am a business expert, and I have helped build some great brands, and while I don't know the inner-workings of all of the Bose business units, I can confidently advise them on how to run their business. I can't speak for the others. But all of that said, many of us are puzzled and disappointed by this decision, and we are here - in the community - voicing our concern as appropriate. I am glad you are happy with your ST 300...as I mentioned before, I am happy that you are happy. That said, I also mentioned that you are in the minority, as is clear. So let us complain...it might just attract some attention at Bose, allowing us to save a product and company that many of us are passionate about.
Rubbish, Bose will never continue investing in a product they are no longer making money from. What happens when new music services come out, us SoundTouch users will be left in the dark as Bose will want to encourage users to buy the new ones.
massive f*ck up on Bose’s part here, I always preferred Bose over sonos, but at least they keep their customers loyal by supporting older products. They haven’t just ditched they old software. What’s to say Bose won’t do the same thing in 5 years and dump all the users of the new system?
I will move on from Bose. Too much issues with firmwares. Now with 2 eco systems that do not work with each other its the worst thing a company and do to a customer.