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UK 'Right to repair' law to come in this summer

bbc.co.uk

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Re: UK 'Right to repair' law to come in this summer

#91

Post by MayeulC »

jhrozek wrote: post #39
MayeulC wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Highly skilled? I don't think so. You just have to be very careful, and pay attention to the right things (ESD, cut the power, short circuits, etc). Secondly, the diagnostic needs to be correct. Multiple faillures is unlikely if there is no external cause (surge, flooding...) or cascading failures. Both of the above points can be solved with good documentation. I've seen very good servicing manuals, this is part of t…

I think your reply shows that you are already very skilled. Other comments mentioned replacing a diode -- I know what a diode is conceptually, but I have no idea how does it look in the appliance, where would I buy a new one or how to replace it. Being as clueless as I am, my only option is to call a proffessional. Sometimes it is worth it -- I had a fan on my MacBook replaced for ~700 SEK which is a fraction of the…

Hmm, I am just confident in my ability to follow instructions. I am certainly highly skilled in electronics, but repairing stuff isn't necessarily limited to that.

With good instructions, I can set out to repair mechanical parts as well (replace parts of an engine for instance), high-voltage devices, masonry, or other stuff I have never done before.

A good manual can make the whole difference between a successful repair, dealing a finishing blow to a product, or endangering yourself/others.

Making repairs easier probably makes them cheaper as well (less skilled employees can attempt them, it takes less time and is much more enjoyable). I know I would charge less.

Of course, the product has to be designed to make repairs possible, otherwise it requires a whole other level of skill (unglue parts, precisely cut where you need to).

And lastly, you can only go as far as your equipment will allow you. Sometimes all you need is a (included) screwdriver, but not everyone has a milling machine handy (though that would be an interesting use-case for fablabs).

Re: UK 'Right to repair' law to come in this summer

#92

Post by kmeisthax »

draklor40 wrote: post #61
hnhg wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any citations for your claim about EU innovation being bogged down by regulatory capture? In general, I've found that it's more like risk aversion in VC and other local cultural aspects before anything at an EU level comes into play.

Used to work for a small Ad-Tech firm in Germany. GDPR massively dented the business WITH NO BENEFITS to privacy. Advertisers still collect shit tons of data, your website performance is still crappy and the end result was that EU users now have to navigate MBs of Javascript popups, that try to trick me into selling data using dark patterns (blue highlight on accept all instead of Reject all). All it succeeded was in…

So, I'm going to argue that GDPR didn't go far enough, since the intended (or at least, implied) goal was to put Ad-Tech firms out of business. If your business cannot operate without spying on people, it shouldn't operate.

Being able to confuse people into "consenting" was an unintended consequence, but hopefully the European court system can put a stop to this dark pattern nonsense.

Re: UK 'Right to repair' law to come in this summer

#93

Post by kmeisthax »

retSava wrote: post #2

Hopefully such things bring forced availability of rare spare parts. If cookie cutter capacitors break, that's nothing really since you can just order them on Mouser et al. But if a more special part breaks, say a custom voltage regulator to a game console (just since I saw a video on that fail yesterday), I would like for a repair center to be able to buy one such for a reasonable price and have the 500$ console rep…

We also need specific exceptions to DMCA 1201-style laws (most countries copypasted the 1201 language) to allow circumvention for repair purposes, and specifically allow distribution of circumvention tools in cases where first-party repair is no longer available. If you don't service console disc drives anymore, I should legally be able to tell everyone how to unlock their disc drives so they can be swapped with spares.

(For the record: Most 1201 exceptions do NOT cover tools, under the idea that lawful circumvention will be carried out by entities that can do their own RE work.)

Re: UK 'Right to repair' law to come in this summer

#95

Post by glitchc »

aboringusername wrote: post #13

I think any right to repair needs to solve 2 problems: 1: Fixing bad hardware (schematics and such) 2: Fixing old/buggy/broken software that renders said hardware useless. Without open kernels, drivers, frameworks your "right to repair" is meaningless. When you install a new camera to iPhone and it complains it's not genuine because the software says so, the right to repair becomes less useful as now Apple holds all…

Maybe a fridge doesn't need software? I don't hear consumers clamouring for it.

Re: UK 'Right to repair' law to come in this summer

#96

Post by draklor40 »

CivBase wrote: post #81
draklor40 wrote: post #7

Only a matter of time before they modify the Law to introduce a catch that makes it practically worthless. A - A classification system that makes defines how "easy" it is to repair something, but necessarily doesn't mean that you or I can repair it at home.It will be "easy" IF you have the right 50,000 GBP tool. B - Modify right to repair as good for the environment rule. There will be an escape clause that says that…

> A - A classification system that makes defines how "easy" it is to repair something, but necessarily doesn't mean that you or I can repair it at home.It will be "easy" IF you have the right 50,000 GBP tool. Louis Rossmann did a video tearing apart France's recent implementation of this from the perspective of an Apple repair technician. Despite serialized parts, soldered/glued components, and no available schematic…

> Despite serialized parts, soldered/glued components, and no available schematics, the MacBook Pro got a pretty good repair-ability score (7/10) because it was easy to open the chassis. Meanwhile, Apple certified repair partners (repair professionals, in theory) are so handicapped by the company that they can basically only replace screens and batteries.

This is precisely my point. It has a 7/10 rating yet, serialized parts (probably locked down firmware as well) no availability of parts GLUE.

How dafuq is this exactly repairable, by you or I ?

Re: UK 'Right to repair' law to come in this summer

#98

Post by TomJansen »

glitchc wrote: post #95
aboringusername wrote: post #13

I think any right to repair needs to solve 2 problems: 1: Fixing bad hardware (schematics and such) 2: Fixing old/buggy/broken software that renders said hardware useless. Without open kernels, drivers, frameworks your "right to repair" is meaningless. When you install a new camera to iPhone and it complains it's not genuine because the software says so, the right to repair becomes less useful as now Apple holds all…

Maybe a fridge doesn't need software? I don't hear consumers clamouring for it.

Fridges need software because only then the manufacturer can drop the support after 5 to 8 years and you need to buy a new one.

Re: UK 'Right to repair' law to come in this summer

#99

Post by peterlk »

CivBase wrote: post #81
draklor40 wrote: post #7

Only a matter of time before they modify the Law to introduce a catch that makes it practically worthless. A - A classification system that makes defines how "easy" it is to repair something, but necessarily doesn't mean that you or I can repair it at home.It will be "easy" IF you have the right 50,000 GBP tool. B - Modify right to repair as good for the environment rule. There will be an escape clause that says that…

> A - A classification system that makes defines how "easy" it is to repair something, but necessarily doesn't mean that you or I can repair it at home.It will be "easy" IF you have the right 50,000 GBP tool. Louis Rossmann did a video tearing apart France's recent implementation of this from the perspective of an Apple repair technician. Despite serialized parts, soldered/glued components, and no available schematic…

I think this pretty well sums up the loophole. You have the right to repair... what? If I buy a macbook, do I get to replace the case? keyboard? These seem pretty reasonable. But what about the right to replace/repair the L1 cache? This is obviously a different story - it would be nice, but the part probably isn't manufactured by Apple (maybe it is on the new Silicon?). My point is that at some point, things start to get blurry, and it is in the manufacturers best interest to continue blurring these lines. I don't think we can reasonably expect the government to do a deep dive into every product category to work all of this out - what would this look like for cars, where safety is a concern?

I think having the law on the books is a move in the right direction, but I don't expect it to have teeth until te can figure out how to actually measure repairability. Maybe the EU could experiment with a supply chain approach like VAT, but for a repairability score? This also sounds fraught...

Re: UK 'Right to repair' law to come in this summer

#100

Post by bluGill »

detritus wrote: post #67
bluGill wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of that cost is molded plastic is cheap only while you have the molds. Once the fridge goes out of production they make a few for spares and then recycle the molds. The solution to this is to address how spare parts must be handled. This is not easy, either you figure expected lifetime of the shelves vs rest of the fridge, and then order enough - but if you get it wrong you are still out. Or you keep the molds,…

I appreciate some of the rationale for the cost, however the fridge itself is less than five years old. The solution here would be standardised fridge door shelf types, or better yet - sturdier designs that don't gradually crack when the door is shut 'a little jovially', billiarding glass jars around... .

Standardization is nice in theory, but I'm not sure if it is practical - designers like to make silly little changes for branding reasons all the time. Which is why your 5 year old shelf is probably out of production anyway.

As for sturdier designs: that is a design feature you need to be willing to pay for. Make sure you check on that in the next fridge and tell others. (Price is not a guide to quality - often but not always cheaper fridges are bought by those who buy enough to care about value and quality is a part of value, while the more expensive ones are targeted at people who buy fancy features and don't know to think about quality - but this is a maybe not a guide)

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