ISSUE387|COMPUTER SHOPPER|MAY
SOSONOSISBRICKINGITS
OWNSPEAKERS?
In anutshell, yes. But Sonos doesn’t
call it that, rather the smart speaker
maker calls it ‘Recycle Mode’.
The whole thing works when a
Sonos customer decides it’s time
to discard one of their smart
speakers. Rather than drop the
speaker intoabin or bung it into
an attic to collect dust, the speaker
can be traded in formoney off a
shiny new Sonos speaker.
I’MLISTENING...
Of course you are,because who
wouldn’t want to get some money
or credit forsomething theydon’t
want anymore? But before a
Sonos speaker can be traded in,
Sonos requires that it’s put into
its Recycle Mode.
To do that, users need to log
intotheir Sonos accounts online,
then opt to participateinthe
‘Trade Up Program’, choose the
product theywant to trade in and
select ‘Recycle Selected Devices’.
Once that’s done,theythen need
to use the Sonos app on their linked smartphone to confirm their
selection. Then, the countdown to the recycling mode is activated,
and in 21 days the device will effectively be deactivated. That means
purging all user data from the smart speaker and effectively
bricking it, abit like avery severe factory reset, only with no reboot
at the end.
The speaker can then be delivered to Sonos or taken to alocal
recycling point, and the person can get up to 30% off the price of a
new Sonos product.
SOSONOSISREALLYECO-CONSCIOUS?
It certainly seems that way. Sonosspouted its
recycling motivations thus: “As part of offering
agreat incentive forlong-timeloyal customers,
we also want to encourage responsible disposal
of older devices.
“The best waytodothat is recycling locally,
which is much more environmentally friendly
than packing up and shipping heavy devices
back to Sonos. That said, our goal is to keep
old players out of the landfill, so if local
recycling isn’t an option, customers are welcome to ship it back to
Sonos at our expense with prepaid labels.”
However,there’s also asecond motivation. Older Sonos products,
according to the company,don’t have theonboard processing power
to handle the firm’s latest smart speaker services and features.
So the idea of the Trade Up Program is to effectively get people
with older Sonos speakers on to the latest speakers and audio
systems, while ensuring the older devices don’t end up in the hands
of folks who might expect them to have more capabilities than the
hardware can support.
SOUNDSSENSIBLE
Yes, but here’s the rub: the whole process means end-of-lifingwhat are
effectively perfectly good speakers.
When in Recycle Mode,the Sonos speakers can’t be used at all,
meaning theycan’t be passed on to someone who might just want a
basic speaker without Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant support.
Taking this approach has seen abit of abacklash against Sonos,
as breaking down old devices to recycle parts is better than throwing
them intolandfill, but reusing the device first is the more
environmentally friendly approach as nothing is really wasted.
This was highlighted by oneTwitter user going by thename of
‘atomicthumbs’,who noted that someone
recycled five ‘good condition’Sonos Play:
speakers that ‘could easily be reused’ but were
rendered useless by therecycling mode.
“Anyone even remotely familiar with
recycling can tell you the mantra, ‘reduce,reuse,
recycle’. Recycling takes energy and, while it
saves materials, reuse is always better,”
atomicthumbs pointed out.
“Sonos is throwing any claimed
environmental friendliness in the trash in order to sell more speakers.
This is the most environmentally unfriendly abuse and wasteof
[perfectly good] hardware I’ve seen in five years working at arecycler.”
One could argue there’s adegree of scepticism in saying that
Sonos’s approach to recycling is just amovetosell more speakers.
But it’s hard to challenge that there are more environmentally friendly
ways to handle the recycling of oldspeakers.
Sonos might need to go back to the drawing board when it comes
to how it approaches recycling and admit that bricking functioning
smart speakers might not be the best waytotackle it.Sonos recycling modeWhyisthecompanykilling offitsownsmartspeakers?“Recycling locally is muchmoreenvironmentally friendlythan packing up and shippingheavy devices back to Sonos”