Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Sonos decides to trash its controversial Recycle Mode

After repeated backlash, Sonos is tossing Recycle Mode in the trash.

Recommended Videos

As first reported by The Verge, Sonos is eliminating the controversial part of its trade-up program, known as Recycle Mode, which made older devices unusable in exchange for a 30-percent discount on a new Sonos speaker or device.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

To be clear, the trade-up program and the discount still exist, and customers who have legacy products can still use the program. The difference is it’s no longer a requirement to “brick” devices that would otherwise still work. Instead, customers will be able to choose what happens to their older gadgets should they decide to “trade up.” That includes keeping it, giving it to someone, recycling it at a local e-waste facility, or sending it to Sonos to allow the company to recycle it themselves.

Under the original Recycle Mode, when customers chose to participate in the 30-percent deal, their older speakers and devices would start an irreversible 21-day cycle, with the speaker losing all functionality at the end of the cycle. Despite Sonos saying this process was to ensure that customer data was being erased on these recycled products, the company faced heavy criticism over the policy.

These legacy Sonos products — which include the original Sonos Play 5, Zone Players, and Connect/Connect: Amp devices made between 2011 and 2015 — still will not get any new features. That policy has not changed, meaning that Sonos will move forward with its plan to stop releasing new software updates for the devices in May.

In January, Sonos CEO Patrick Spence apologized to Sonos customers who were frustrated at the announcement that their speakers would stop getting updates, and assured listeners that every Sonos product would still work past May.

According to The Verge, a Sonos spokesperson confirmed that the plan to split customers’ Sonos system into a group of legacy products and a group of modern devices, in order to maintain functionality for each device in a household, is still in place. The split would allow modern devices to continue to be updated, and allow older legacy devices to continue to work while staying in their current state.

Recycle Mode has been removed from Sonos’ mobile app, and is expected to leave the website in the coming weeks. The company is expected to provide more details in the next few weeks about how legacy and modern products will be able to work under the same roof.

Nick Woodard
Former Digital Trends Contributor
  As an A/V Staff Writer at Digital Trends, Nick Woodard covers topics that include 4K HDR TVs, headphones…
The Sonos Era 100 Pro is the company’s first ‘wired’ speaker
Sonos Era 100 Pro with Surface Mount.

In 2025, Sonos will release the Era 100 Pro, a version of its Era 100 that’s aimed at the professional installer market. It’s almost identical to the current Era 100, with one big difference: the Pro has a built-in Power over Ethernet (PoE) port that is used to power the Era 100 Pro, making it the first non-portable Sonos speaker that doesn't need a power outlet.

Technically, the Era 100 Pro is still a wireless speaker with onboard Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. But with the ability to control the speaker, send it audio, and provide it with power -- all via Ethernet -- installers can think of it as a wired speaker.

Read more
Sonos’ public Trello board doesn’t delight
The Sonos app on an iPhone next to a crossword puzzle on an iPad.

At risk of bouncing the rubble even further, we need to talk about where things stand going into September in regards to the state of Sonos. 

For a brief bit of context, Sonos in May updated its app and the underlying system software that controls its family of wireless speakers in preparation for the next generation of products — including the Sonos Ace headphones that arrived just weeks later. That update went poorly, and otherwise working (and not-inexpensive) Sonos systems were left in various stages of disarray. 

Read more
Sonos CEO ‘faces the music’ in Reddit Q&A
The Sonos Ace headphones, Arc Soundbar, and Move speaker.

There are all sorts of things you can fault Sonos for its Summer Software Meltdown. That it happened at all in the first place. That it was slow to publicly acknowledge the major issues plaguing customers after a May update went awry. But give CEO Patrick Spence a little credit for appearing in a Reddit Q&A on August 20, in the August Office Hours thread hosted by Sonos Community Manager (and aptly handled) KeithFromSonos. "You've been asking, I've been asking, and he's been asking," KeithFromSonos wrote. "Time to face the music."

"I should have been here sooner," Spence said in response to a chippy post early in the thread, and before the Q&A part went live. "I'm here now and you can expect to see me around here again."

Read more