Hi @JeffL.

Welcome to the Sonos community and thanks for reaching out to us. I’d be more than happy to help you out with your inquiry.

Refurbished products are Certified refurbished Sonos devices that have internal components replaced with genuine Sonos parts and then go through all the same testing as our new products, so they function and look like a new Sonos product. They also come with a full warranty that applies to your region/location. 

I hope this helps.

Please let us know if you still have further questions or concerns. We are always here to help.

Thanks,

Yes I understand that, but where do the products come from? Why do they need refurbishing in the first place? 

Hi @JeffL.

Thanks for the immediate response.

These products came from product returns due to hardware failures, customer returns, or faulty. They were refurbished to replace the faulty piece of the internal hardware or cosmetic damage.

I hope this answers your question. 

Please let us know if you still have further questions or concerns. We are always here to help.

Thanks,

I can’t speak for any specific unit, but units can be returned for various reasons, some as silly as “significant other wants another color”. And, there can be some operational misunderstandings and frustrations. Yes, it is possible that a few wildly intermittent units will slip through the cracks and behave well while being tested at the refurbish center, but later fail again in the field. There are also returns to a retail store. I don’t trust these retail returns as much because the retail store is not equipped to fully test the units. Typically, someone in the store, who is vaguely familiar with the product, will kick the tires. (likely, thousands of products are piped through the store) These units may be missing some accessories. Factory refurbished units should be thrown on to an automated test facility and run for a few days. I don’t know specifically how SONOS processes its refurbished units.

Slightly unrelated, but I know of a computer manufacturer who rents large computer products. These are serviced by factory field engineers. When a board fails it is immediately replaced with another board and the failed board is sent to a refurbish center. Later, if this same board fails at a different location, it is sent to the crusher.

Interesting viewpoint. I tend to trust them more due to the individual testing they need to go through to pass QA before being sent back out.   But I wouldn’t worry about either new or refurbished Sonos product.