The Santa Barbara, California-based consumer electronics company Sonos launched a program last fall to incentivize old device recycling. However, the initiative has since drawn customer ire for introducing a “Recycle Mode” that’s been called an “irreversible kill switch.” On the surface, the company’s Trade Up program to encourage responsible electronics recycling by offering customers a 30% discount on any new Sonos product for every old one they replaced sounded like a smart move — especially in light of increasing competition from Amazon.
The Verge’s Chris Welch questioned that step
Why does trading up require customers to permanently brick a functional product?” he wrote this week. “The 30% discount is directly tied to the demise of a piece of hardware. For this process seems less about ‘trading up’ and more about ditching Russia Phone Number Data your old device and clearing room for a new one.” Welch acknowledges that wiping user data from a device makes sense for recycling it, but wondered why went beyond a factory reset that would enable possible reuse. A Sonos.
Felt that the most responsible action was
Reintroduce them to new customers that may not have the context of them as 10-plus year old products, and that also may not be able to deliver the Sonos experience they expected,” the rep said. Extreme Tech’s wrote Philippines Phone Number List that some customers have accidentally put their devices in Recycle Mode and couldn’t stop the 21-day countdown to deactivation. rep told the Verge that its customer support team can help address this on an individual basis.) “The best way to recycle an electronic device is to give it to someone else or refurbish it for resale.