Sonos lets users disable speakers for a discount because they are old

Sonos believes that speakers that are more than ten years old are too old and that owners should therefore not resell them. The company says this in response to a fuss about its discount for users who deliberately disable old speakers to prevent resale.

These are speakers that came on the market more than ten years ago, Sonos claims to The Verge. Sonos created the ‘Recycle Mode’, where customers get a discount on new Sonos products when they put speakers in that mode. That mode disables speakers and after that it is not possible to get the speakers working again.

Sonos argues that the speakers are so old that they won’t support all Sonos features in the future. “The reality is that these speakers don’t have the processing power and memory to support modern Sonos experiences. We felt it was the most responsible choice not to resell these old speakers to people who may not know it anymore. than ten-year-old products, and as a result may not be able to deliver the Sonos experience that is expected.”

The company has been criticized in recent days because of the discount for users who put old speakers in ‘Recycle Mode’. Stores that take the speakers cannot resell them, even though there are no hardware defects.