Where are the best places to sell your used smart home devices?

On our most recent IoT Podcast, Derrick called in with a question about retiring smart home devices. He’s wondering how we dispose of ours since we do go through more connected products than most people. Derrick wants to replace his current Ring devices with Nest products since he uses Google Home as his smart home system. And this is a great question because it is wasteful to just toss those electronic devices in the trash.

Before we get to our answers, it’s worth reminding people: Make sure you fully factory reset your used devices and remove all traces of your personal data and accounts before you dispose of them.

When Stacey isn’t donating gently used smart home devices to our listeners through the monthly IoT Podcast hotline giveaway, she uses eBay. That’s a tried and true solution since eBay has been around for a long time. The sales fees can be a bit more as compared to other online sales portals but again, it’s a solid platform to sell your old gear.

I first ask my friends, family, and neighbors if they’re interested in a device once I’ve decided to excise it from my smart home. In that case, I simply donate the item, after that important factory reset, of course.

However, there’s another online sales platform I’ve used in the past for many used computing purchases such as phones and tablets. It’s called Swappa and it now supports smart home device sales.

I’ve had nothing but positive experiences with Swappa, likely because actual people verify and approve sales listings.

Additionally, those people have helped me in the past with a scam sale: The buyer used someone else’s account to pay me and after I shipped the purchased item, the payment was reversed. I reached out to Swappa and promptly received the full payment that was agreed upon in my listing.

To hear Derrick’s question in full, as well as our discussion on the topic, tune in to the IoT Podcast below: