Unfortunately, no. If you, like me, have devices that have been placed in the ‘recycle’ mode, I.e. no longer functional, the only option is to actually recycle them with a local electronics recycling location. Sonos is unable to re-activate them.

Its crap isn't it

There were enough warnings during the procedure to make sure that the consequences were plain. It’s unfortunate, but I’d be reticent to frame it the way you did.

Yes but the issue is they have back tracked. Anyone now with an older device gets the trade discount but retains a fully working unit to either use or sell on. Those of us who were first and believed that this was how it would be have lost out. That's what makes the whole thing a mess

They were clear when you went through the process that the product would be bricked. 

Yes, later they back tracked on that policy, but at no point did they not give you the facts. If you chose to do it during that period, your product would be unrecoverable. Later, they changed that policy, but not for those, like me, who had already chosen the fact that the device would be bricked to get the discount.

It is much the same as buying a gallon of milk at the store. Today, it cost X$. Tomorrow it goes on sale for Y$. I made the choice that I needed milk today. Should I be angry that the store has put it on sale today? Probably not. But if you feel differently, that’s fine. I don’t expect everyone to think the same way. 

Its not a choice of simple price like the example you gave.

Its more like you buy milk for $x but had to give them the cow you have as part of the deal.  Then after so much backlash they say we don't need your cow anymore. But sorry to those who brought in their cow before as its now dead.

As you said everyone feels different. But if we are being told sonos have the power to resurrect your cow, why won't they do that and let everyone be same?? 

I assume that the engineers were told to make it completely impossible to undo the bricking operation, in case some smart third party developer figured out how to do it. The engineers did what they were told, so that no-one, not even them, could undo the disable operation.

Does somebody know HOW they make the items unrecoverable ? I mean, how technically ?

In Switzerland, such proceeding seems to be illegal (I got explanations from a lawyer): has anyone more info about this ? 

Thanks.

It’s an interesting subject, but I doubt you’ll get an answer here. The code that runs on Sonos devices is completely proprietary to Sonos, so the only way to know would either be to get “insider info” from Sonos (which IMO is not going to happen) or someone would have to “reverse engineer” their code to work out what it does. That’s a difficult, skilled task, and I suspect that there is too little to be gained (less than 100USD per device?) for anyone to want to try.

As has already been pointed out, everyone who has chosen to have their device “bricked” will have previously signed to say that they agree with the terms of the program, so trying to then make a case that the terms they signed were (under Swiss law, possibly) illegal is probably going to be an uphill struggle.

Not only did you agree with the terms of the program and had a couple of warnings, you had something in return for the bricking of your device too: 30% off on the price of anew device. I have no knowledge of Swiss law, but I find it hard that this kind of trade off could be illegal.

It does a factory reset, changes the name to “Unnamed Room” and sets a flag to prevent any playback. The rest of the functionality is still there, its live on the network, you can queue items etc. It probably also blocks further firmware updates but I have no way of testing that.