Hidden gotchas with Square Readers
Community service announcement – do not go 2 years between connecting to your Square Readers. They will never connect again, and the only solution is to send them to the landfill and to pay Square for new ones.
My situation – I bought 2 Square Readers in April 2024, on behalf of my community garden for use at their annual plant sale. They connected and worked without issue – we were very pleased.
Unfortunately, last year's plant sale was cancelled. We pulled them out of the box this week in preparation for this year's sale, and recharged them without issue, but they refused to connect... Spent 4 hours troubleshooting – deleting Bluetooth caches, reinstalling apps, factory resetting, trying with another account and with 3 other phones, but they flat out refused to connect. Bought a new one to test, and it connected instantly. So totally a reader issue.
They were used once; for us, that was their lifespan. Of course, they're out of warranty. Spoke to a couple support agents, and was told that Square Readers have a limited lifespan, and that "they can stop working due to lack of use"(!) And that "they can last indefinitely with proper use", but that "not using the reader for a long time can affect the life for the reader". Apparently, that includes a maximum period between connections. How long? Who knows, it's not documented anywhere. But obviously 2 years is too long.
I could understand if one reader failed for some random reason, but two out of two isn't a coincidence. Be warned.