Responsible designers do not brick devices unnecessarily, even when they no longer want to support them.
Back in 2020, we reported on Sonos’ despicable end-of-life strategy for its products – an irreversible “recycle mode” that they encourage customers to use. Unfortunately, this “recycle” mode actually bricks devices and renders them unusable, guaranteeing that owners and e-waste recyclers are forced to landfill them instead of reselling or reusing the products.
In December 2019, an employee of an e-waste recycler pointed out how the “Recycle Mode” was in violation of their claimed focus on “Sustainability”.
This is the most environmentally unfriendly abuse and waste of perfectly good hardware I’ve seen in five years working at a recycler.
We could have sold these, and ensured they were reused, as we do with all the working electronics we’re able. Now we have to scrap them.
Prior to the public backlash in 2020, Sonos previously stated that “Sustainability is non-negotiable” and a core value of the company. They also advertised their “Recycling Mode” as a sustainability practice. This is not sustainable: they’re essentially just making trash out of a perfectly working system.
Graceful degradation is certainly possible. Devices do not need to stop functioning completely simply because we are using older hardware or slower network connections. Perhaps you limit the capabilities to match what the hardware supports. Perhaps customers cannot take advantage of the latest and greatest features. But that is no excuse for completely breaking a product. What if some enterprising person has a use for the device that you haven’t thought of? What if people who don’t have access to the latest and greatest technology would still be blown away by the device’s capabilities?
Responsible designers have a long-term support plan for their products. And, more importantly, you need to communicate the plan to your customers.
References
- This concept was derived from our article Bricked for Want of Support
- Case Study: Sonos’s End-of-Life Strategy
- Responsible designers have an indefinite support plan
- George Dinwiddie on Twitter
How often do you get a new phone or computer because your old one is too slow for current software or not supported by new operating systems?
This cycle of obsolescence drives a huge amount of electric trash in our landfills, but also locks a lot of poor people out of the technology that so much modern life requires. What if you couldn’t afford that constant upgrade cycle?
As technologists, I think we have a responsibility to make things degrade gracefully on older hardware and slower network connections. At the very least, we shouldn’t take away capabilities that existed when that hardware was new. - Plan for death at the start of building your connected device – Stacey on IoT | Internet of Things news and analysis
It starts with the design. When designing the physical product, designers need to think about graceful degradation. Put physical buttons on the device. Make sure the product functions as a bike, a juicer, an oven, or whatever else even if the additional software-based or connected features fail. When it comes to making decisions about the chips and services used in the hardware, consider ongoing maintenance costs and how long that hardware will get necessary security updates.