Daddy’s Got No Squeezebox
Last week, the last of my original Squeezebox Classic units finally died, quietly in its sleep.
I had two of the Classic units bought seven years ago, although when I bought them, they weren’t called Classic, they were still just “Squeezeboxes.”
The first one died early last year, and after some initial poking around on Logitech’s Squeezebox support site I regretfully consigned it to the recycle bin.
With the demise of the second unit I wasn’t surprised. These days, seven years is a long life for a small piece of electronics.
I also wasn’t surprised when some Googling brought up industry blog posts from last year that mentioned Logitech’s decision to discontinue the Squeezebox product line.
It’s somewhat embarrassing that I somehow missed that news last year, but to be fair the stream of news I receive from the CE, ProAV and other channels is like drinking from the firehouse: I can’t really stay on top of everything.
Even before both devices croaked, they’d kind of become irrelevant.
They were both integrated into my home system before my wife and I got iPhones and later, iPads. The lion’s share of our music listening in the home these days comes from those devices, often connected via Bluetooth to amplifier/speaker combinations in various rooms, or over headphones.
In the media room, an AppleTV unit replaced the deceased Squeezebox unit that used to connect to my big AV system, with its big speakers and subwoofer.
The last remaining Squeezebox in the house is a Squeezebox Radio unit in the kitchen, used mostly for streaming radio stations. That unit’s only four years old, so I suppose that by the time it kicks the bucket something else will have replaced it in the meantime.