“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”
We need a law that companies provide device owners root access for every end of life device.
Yes! Exactly. I buy, I own. That’s what it SHOULD be.
Phones are the worst example. Pay 1500 moneyz and still it’s not yours. You may only use it in the way they want you to. Ugh.
GrapheneOS is your savior. I should donate, their work is only getting harder.
I use it. But it’s only half of the solution. There’s still the phone itself and it’s from the worst of the worst 😑
They’re working on that, too.
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 kinda sucks, especially since even the older ones work with Home Assistant etc directly now
Not without internet access and Sonos cloud servers, it doesn’t…
I think that the cloud system might be needed to initially pair the speaker to a network+account, but apart from that no. The speakers in my media network are not allowed Internet access.
I was on iobroker at that time and HA still wore diapers 😁 So today it Wouldn’t be as bad, but at that time they were just effectively rendered dumb cubes to us.
PDF reference of the API here: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025.12.18-SoundTouch-Web-API.pdf
Is there any quality, real open-source speakers? Or it’s way better not bother with it and get dumb speakers and an SBC?
I don’t use OpenHAB or Home Assistant, but I’d be extremely surprised if they don’t have existing functionality for connecting microphones, speakers, and LLMs to set up voice-controlled stuff.
searches
Willow Is a Practical, Open Source, Privacy-focused Platform for Voice Assistants and Other Applications
Willow is an ESP IDF based project primarily targeting the ESP32-S3-BOX hardware family from Espressif. Our goal is to provide Amazon Echo/Google Home competitive performance, accuracy, cost and functionality with Home Assistant, openHAB and other platforms.
100% open source and completely self-hosted by the user with “ready for the kitchen counter” low cost commercially available hardware.
https://rhasspy.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
Rhasspy (ɹˈæspi) is an open source, fully offline set of voice assistant services for many human languages that works well with:
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
That’s fantastic. Can Apple Pay attention to this?
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
