Bose disabled my preset buttons. So I built a Homey app.

As someone working in cybersecurity, I spend a lot of time helping companies identify risks, dependencies, and single points of failure.

I talk about vendor risk. I talk about business continuity. I talk about hidden dependencies.

I just never expected one of the best examples to come from a speaker sitting on my desk.

A few years ago, I bought several Bose SoundTouch devices. Some at home, some at the office. Expensive devices, but they worked well and became part of daily life.

Or so I thought.

Recently, Bose officially shut down the SoundTouch cloud services. Suddenly, many of these devices lost core functionality.

Not because the hardware failed. Not because the network changed. Not because the speakers were too old.

Just because a remote cloud service disappeared.

Bose's own support page puts the impact plainly:

"What no longer works: Presets (preset buttons on the product and in the app)"

The same Bose list also calls out music-service browsing or playback from inside the SoundTouch app, SoundTouch 10 stereo pairing, and Alexa commands.

The part that surprised me most

These speakers have physical preset buttons. It was even one of the main reasons why I preferred the Bose SoundTouch compared to other devices.

Just being able to use the device itself to control what you are listening to, instead of always using an app.

You press a button. It starts your favourite radio station or playlist.

Simple, right?

Apparently not.

I always assumed those buttons stored or triggered something locally on the device itself. Maybe a stream URL, preset identifier, or local configuration.

Instead, those buttons depended on Bose cloud infrastructure. Once the cloud disappeared, the preset functionality disappeared with it.

That honestly shocked me.

We are not talking about advanced AI features. We are not talking about streaming recommendations. We are talking about a speaker starting an internet radio stream.

Today, many SoundTouch devices are effectively reduced to:

• Bluetooth speakers
• AirPlay endpoints
• AUX speakers

Hardware that still works perfectly suddenly became significantly less useful overnight.

The internet being the internet

I quickly discovered I was not alone.

Forums, Reddit, and community sites quickly filled up with frustrated users looking for alternatives.

People started building workarounds, reverse engineering APIs, and creating replacement solutions.

Some are clever, but most come with trade-offs:

• Keeping an iPhone app permanently active
• Maintaining a Docker container somewhere on your network
• Running custom infrastructure
• Replacing the speakers entirely

I wanted something simpler.

My setup already had the missing piece

At the office, I already run Homey.

At home too.

And then it clicked.

Why not let Homey become the bridge?

Homey is the smart home hub I already use to connect devices and trigger automations through Flows.

Homey is already:

• Always online
• Present on my local network
• Automation-friendly
• Easy to manage
• Designed for triggers and flows

Finally, a good use case to build our first Homey app.

So instead of adding another server or keeping an app alive somewhere, I built a Homey app.

Introducing SoundTouch Bridge

The idea is simple.

The app communicates directly with Bose SoundTouch speakers over the local network and restores practical functionality without requiring Bose cloud services.

On the good side, Bose did publish SoundTouch Web API documentation. That made it possible to analyse what still works locally.

The speakers can still expose and store preset information. The hard part is that playing a stream normally went through Bose cloud services, so a saved preset alone is not enough anymore.

There is still a way in. SoundTouch speakers can start streams through UPnP AVTransport, as long as the stream URL is plain HTTP rather than HTTPS. HTTPS streams fail on the tested playback path, so SoundTouch Bridge blocks them upfront instead of letting users configure something that will not play. Hmm.

They also expose WebSocket events over the local network. SoundTouch Bridge keeps a WebSocket connection open to each paired speaker and listens for preset-button events.

SoundTouch Bridge links those pieces together: Homey discovers the speakers, keeps listening for local preset-button events, and when a configured preset button is pressed, starts the matching stream through UPnP AVTransport.

The preset mappings are configured in the Homey app. SoundTouch Bridge also syncs the configured preset labels back to the native SoundTouch preset slots, so the speaker display stays aligned while Homey remains responsible for reliable playback.

No Docker maintenance. No always-running iPhone. No external infrastructure.

Just local communication again.

Current features include:

• Automatic discovery of SoundTouch devices
• Configurable preset mappings
• Starting streams through UPnP AVTransport
• WebSocket support for preset-button events
• Native SoundTouch preset label sync
• Automation support
• Homey Flow integration
• Local communication with the speaker

Exactly the kind of functionality the speakers should probably have kept from day one.

You can find the app here:

• SoundTouch Bridge on the Homey App Store
• More information about SoundTouch Bridge

And yes, it is completely free.

Unexpected bonus feature

Ironically, this whole situation unlocked something Bose never offered in the first place.

As part of the Homey integration, the physical preset buttons on both the speaker and the remote can now trigger Homey Flows.

So those old preset buttons suddenly became programmable smart home buttons.

Want to shut all blinds? Press preset 1.

Want to turn on the office lights? Press preset 2.

Start music and dim the lights at the same time? Done.

Trigger a complete closing-the-office automation from a Bose remote? Absolutely.

In a slightly absurd way, these SoundTouch devices became more powerful after Bose shut the platform down.

Thanks, Bose?

The bigger issue

Honestly, this story is bigger than Bose.

I do not mind vendors ending support. Maintaining software forever simply is not realistic.

What I do mind is when functionality that appears local turns out to depend on a cloud service without users fully realising it.

This is about ownership.

More and more devices look local, but secretly depend on remote services for surprisingly basic functionality. When those services disappear, perfectly working hardware becomes partially useless.

From a cybersecurity and operational perspective, this is fascinating:

• Undocumented dependencies
• Vendor lock-in
• Lifecycle risks
• Hidden operational assumptions
• Loss of functionality outside customer control

It is a reminder that cloud-connected and cloud-required are two very different things.

Anyway

My SoundTouch speakers survived.

My preset buttons work again.

And somehow my Bose remote can now close the blinds in my office.

I definitely did not expect that when Bose announced the end of SoundTouch.

But I will take it.