BOSE SA-4 (SoundTouch Wireless Adapter) support?

[TomS1985]

What would you like to discuss?

Hi,
is there any support for the Bose SA-4 system (amplifier with SoundTouch wireless adapter)? The adapter has a micro-USB and USB-A port but there is no reaction if I connect the USB-stick to the wireless-adapter. The opencloudtouch installation assistant still shows that SSH is not reachable. Has anyone tried this yet?

Thanks and best regards,
Tom

[TomS1985]

Ich habe hier etwas gefunden, wie man offenbar über ein "TAP-Kabel" auf den Adapter kommt - könnte das evtl. helfen, SSH für den wireless Adapter zu aktivieren?
https://electro404.rssing.com/chan-13553321/article1906.html

[scheilch]

Hi Tom,

the SA-4 (SoundTouch Wireless Adapter) is in the same boat as the Wireless Link Adapter — USB provisioning doesn't seem to work on these devices because the USB port doesn't trigger the
emote_services detection.

Current status

• The SA-4 / Wireless Adapter models are not yet fully supported by the OCT setup wizard
• The TAP cable approach mentioned in the comment is interesting research — it might provide a serial console, which could help

What's coming

We're actively working on telnet-based provisioning (USB-less setup). Many SoundTouch devices expose a telnet CLI on port 17000 that can be used to modify the config directly. Community members are already testing this in #67.

Could you check if your SA-4 responds to telnet?

telnet <speaker-ip> 17000

If it connects, type help to see available commands. That would tell us whether telnet provisioning could work for the SA-4.

Also worth trying

Check if SSH is accessible on port 22 — some firmware versions have it enabled by default even without the USB stick:

ssh root@<speaker-ip>

Let us know what you find. Feature requests for specific device support are always welcome via Feature Request.

[TomS1985]

I've tried to connect via SSH @ port 22 => connection refused
I've also tried to connect via telnet @ port 17000 => There is a connection established but it tells me "Command not found" if I typed in "help"

Edit: tested some other commands from here ( https://www.reddit.com/r/bose/comments/1o5zkym/soundtouch_telnet_probing/ ) via telnet. This is working fine. So there is a telnet connection active:

[scheilch]

We've created a tracked feature request for this: #205

USB-less provisioning (via telnet) is on our roadmap. If you can test whether your SA-4 responds to telnet <speaker-ip> 17000, that would help us a lot in planning support for this device.

[TomS1985]

I now have successfully enables SSH access to my SoundTouch Wireless Adapter of my SA-4 system via ETAP cable.
You can see a manual how to enable it here:
deborahgu/soundcork#309 (comment)

I logged in via serial ETAP cable and then interrupted the system bootup to send the commands shown in the github post above. It worked fine.

Now OCT found my SA4 system and I could set it up normally. Presets are playing fine.

[scheilch]

That's fantastic -- congrats on getting the SA-4 working with OCT!

This is great news for everyone with a SoundTouch Wireless Adapter. The ETAP cable approach is a clever workaround for devices that don't have a standard USB port for provisioning.

Thanks for sharing the link to the detailed instructions -- that will help other SA-4 owners who want to set up their systems.

We'll add the SA-4 / SoundTouch Wireless Adapter to our list of confirmed working devices. If you notice anything specific to the SA-4 that behaves differently from the regular SoundTouch speakers, please let us know.

[scheilch]

Great to see the SA-4 working with OCT! Could you mark the answer that helped you most? That makes it much easier for other Wireless Adapter owners to find the solution. If anything else comes up, we're here.