You Can Now Trade In Your Apple Watch, But You Won’t Be Paid Anything

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Apple updated its website yesterday allowing customers to send in their old Apple Watch for recycling as well. This means that now Apple will be responsible for recycling the watch under its Renew program free of charge. However, it won’t pay you anything.

Photo by fancycrave1 (Pixabay)

No value in a used Apple Watch

Apple offers a gift card or credit in exchange for used iPhones, iPads and Macs, but it won’t do the same with the watch. Rather, it will recycle the device for free like it does with the iPods.

The potential resale value and upgradability in the future were being talked about a lot when the company first released the watch. It became an important question whether the gold version (priced over $10,000) is worth the cost if buyers won’t get a price higher than the cost of the gold when they sell it in the future, notes 9to5 Mac. The company, however, discontinued its fancy and expensive gold watch and has replaced it with a sub-$1,500 Ceramic model.

Apple introduced a new second-generation of the watch as well, indicating that there are significant discounts on first-gen devices.

Placing more value on iPhones

Apple is placing a higher value on old iPhones as compared to the Apple Watch. It is not only strange, but depressing as well for early adopters who jumped at Apple’s vision of wearable computing.

Apple launched the watch with a premium design and a matching price tag, with a sort of promise: buy this, and it won’t be like an iPhone, as you won’t need to upgrade your watch every year; it’s an accessory that’s going to stick around. For this reason, according to BGR, it seems like a weird move, since the company is now implying that the watch has basically no value as a used item.

Apple’s recycling website links to third-party partners that recycle the devices and handle gift card credits wherever applicable. Brightstar does recycling for iPads and iPhones and sends out the gift cards for them. PowerOn does the same for Macs, notes 9to5 Mac.

Apple has a separate partner, Sims Recycling Solutions, for recycling devices that it doesn’t offer trade-in credits for, including iPods and now the Apple Watch as well. Interested customers can access these programs at the retail stores and online as well.

On Wednesday, Apple shares closed down 0.77% at $110.60.

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