---
title: "Welcome to AfterTouch: Your SoundTouch Speakers, Still Alive"
date: 2026-05-24
description: "Bose shut down SoundTouch cloud services in May 2026. AfterTouch replaces everything your speakers relied on — migration, radio, Spotify, presets, and more."
tags:
  - migration
  - web
  - spotify
  - cli
sidebar:
  exclude: true
---

On May 6, 2026, Bose shut down the SoundTouch cloud services that millions of speakers
depended on for account sync, presets, internet radio, and streaming. Speakers kept
working locally, but remote features stopped and first-time setup became impossible.

AfterTouch was built to change that. It is a self-hosted replacement for the Bose
cloud infrastructure — a drop-in local service that your speakers talk to instead of
`streaming.bose.com`. This post covers what works today and how to get started.

## What works right now

### Migration and first-time setup

If your speaker was registered with Bose before the shutdown, AfterTouch can **migrate
your existing account and presets** in a single step — no reconfiguration on the
speaker side. If you are setting up a factory-reset or brand-new speaker, AfterTouch
handles that path too, guiding you through Wi-Fi pairing and account creation locally.
See the [Migration Guide](../docs/guides/MIGRATION-GUIDE.md) for step-by-step instructions.

### Internet radio — TuneIn and RadioBrowser

Both **TuneIn** and **RadioBrowser** are fully supported for browsing and playback.
Navigate categories and search for stations exactly as you did with the original Bose
app. TuneIn delivers the same station catalogue; RadioBrowser provides an open,
community-maintained alternative.

### Spotify

**Spotify** works via both OAuth (account linking) and Spotify Connect (the ZeroConf
"connect to device" flow from the Spotify app). Once linked, playback and device
selection behave the same as before.

### Presets

Your six preset buttons work. AfterTouch stores preset bindings locally and serves them
back to the speaker on request. You can also **save new presets** — via the API,
via `soundtouch-cli`, or through the soundtouch-player UI.

### ST-10 stereo pairing

**SoundTouch 10 stereo pairs** (and other ST pairing configurations) are supported
end-to-end: creation, management, and playback routing all go through AfterTouch.

### soundtouch-player — browser UI

**soundtouch-player** is an early-stage but functional browser UI bundled with AfterTouch.
It gives you:

- TuneIn and RadioBrowser browsing and playback
- Speaker management and device discovery
- Recent tracks panel
- Multi-room zone management

It runs as part of the AfterTouch service — no separate install needed.

![soundtouch-player UI showing Spotify playback, presets, sources, and zone management](/images/blog/soundtouch-player-ui.png)

### Automation with soundtouch-cli

The **`soundtouch-cli`** command-line tool covers every speaker control: play, pause,
volume, source selection, preset recall, group management, migration, and more.
It is well-suited for home-automation scripts, cron jobs, and shell one-liners.

## Three ways to install

AfterTouch runs on any machine your speakers can reach:

1. **On the speaker itself** — install directly on supported SoundTouch hardware via
   the on-device installer. The speaker hosts its own replacement cloud, with no
   additional hardware required.

2. **On a local network host** — run AfterTouch on any machine on your LAN. A
   **Raspberry Pi Zero 2W** handles the load without breaking a sweat, making this
   path remarkably low-cost and low-power.

3. **On a cloud or VPS host** — deploy to a remote server for access outside your
   home network. AfterTouch handles TLS certificate generation and DNS configuration
   for this scenario.

All three paths are documented in the [Deployment Overview](../docs/guides/DEPLOYMENT-OVERVIEW.md).

## Current release

**v0.93.1** — released May 24, 2026

## Community

AfterTouch would not be where it is without the people who opened issues, tested
pre-release builds, reported edge cases, and contributed code. A significant share of
the fixes and features shipped in the lead-up to the cloud shutdown were driven by
real-world feedback from the community — from migration quirks to stereo-pair
specifics to Spotify Connect timing issues. Thank you to everyone who helped.

If you run into something or have an idea, the
[GitHub issue tracker](https://github.com/gesellix/Bose-SoundTouch/issues) and
[Discussions](https://github.com/gesellix/Bose-SoundTouch/discussions) are the
right places to start.

## What's next

The soundtouch-player UI will gain richer preset management — browsing, editing, and
reordering presets directly from the browser. Longer term, merging
`soundtouch-service` and `soundtouch-player` into a single binary is on the table,
which would simplify deployment to a single process with no extra flags.

This blog will be updated monthly — or whenever something significant ships.
Subscribe to the [GitHub releases](https://github.com/gesellix/Bose-SoundTouch/releases)
for individual version notes.
