Sonos Speaker Recycling Program Draws Customer Ire

(Image Credit: @sonos on Twitter)

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. But the program requires that customers put their old devices in Recycle Mode, which Sonos said “permanently deactivates your device and erases all personal data for your security.”

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 Sonos, this process seems less about ‘trading up’ and more about ditching 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 Sonos went beyond a factory reset that would enable possible reuse. A Sonos representative told him that the company is concerned about unsupported devices going back into circulation.

“For those that choose to trade up to new products, we felt that the most responsible action was not to 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.

ExtremeTech’s Ryan Whitwam wrote that some customers have accidentally put their devices in Recycle Mode and couldn’t stop the 21-day countdown to deactivation. (The Sonos 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,” Whitwam argued. “With Sonos speakers, the company’s policy means most of the materials like plastic will end up in a landfill.”