Slashdot: Sonos Gives a Lame Reason For Bricking Older Devices in 'Recycle Mode'

Sonos Gives a Lame Reason For Bricking Older Devices in 'Recycle Mode'
Published on January 01, 2020
Sonos has a good reputation for building quality speakers, but its latest move has disappointed some buyers, reports Engadget. From a report: Recently, the company offered a trade-up program, giving legacy customers 30 percent off the latest One, Beam or Port. In exchange, buyers just had to "recycle" their existing products. However, what Sonos meant by "recycle" was to activate a feature called "Recycle Mode" that permanently bricks the speaker. It then becomes impossible for recycling firms to resell it or do anything else but strip it for parts. Sonos suggests that after bricking the device in Recycle Mode, users drop it off at a recycling facility or give it to Sonos to do the same. However, those facilities are unable to resell the products, which could bring around $200 to $250 in good condition. The problem was brought home by Twitter user @atomicthumbs, who works at an e-recycling facility. "This is the most environmentally unfriendly abuse and waste of perfectly good hardware I've seen in five years working at a recycler," he said in a series of tweets. "We could have sold these and ensured they were reused, as we do with all the working electronics we're able. Now we have to scrap them."

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