No More Building Bricks for Your Old Sonos Devices
Sonos is finally ending its controversial “Recycle Mode” policy, which forced users to manually lock their old devices in order to receive a 30 percent discount on their next Sonos purchase through the company’s Trade-Up program.
The move was quietly announced last week and is likely in response to criticism over the company’s sustainability agenda and practices , The Verge notes . The Trade-Up program was launched to supposedly help users properly dispose and recycle their e-waste, and Recycle Mode was used to keep user information safe by erasing all data stored on Sonos smart speakers and other products, but it also displayed they were completely unusable for use after 21 days.
The Sonos Trade-Up program is now still around and you still get the 30 percent discount, but you no longer have to turn your old devices into paperweights to get it. You can even continue to use your old Sonos products – or “legacy devices” as the company calls them – as long as you keep them, although they won’t receive any software patches or new features after May. 2020 and may not be compatible with current Sonos devices. You won’t be able to magically undo previously “recycled” devices, but it’s nice to know that you no longer have to give up perfectly usable products.
Users looking to take advantage of the Trade-Up discount will find new steps to recycle their devices outlined on the Sonos website , this time without a recycling mode. These steps will help you properly dispose of the speakers at your nearest e-bike business, or help you package and ship the devices back to Sonos. Instead of a reuse mode, Sonos is asking users to simply reset their devices to factory defaults before disposing of them in order to erase any stored data – which it probably should have been from the start, but at least the company finally got the message. …