It's your device, you should be able to repair it • Hacker News Board

Re: It's your device, you should be able to repair it

#21

Post by viktorcode » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

tims33 wrote: post #3

Repairability seems like a good goal for sustainability. The challenge on electronics is determining what is a reasonable and useful life for a product. Should an iPhone SE or a knockoff Android last and be repairable for a decade? My worry is the regulation will get this wrong. Moderate rules are probably the best way to start.

I don't think that repairability is better for sustainability in general, if we are speaking about electronics. Making an electronic device more repairable would make it more complex (again, not in every case, but in general). Where before a manufacturer could just solder numerous components to a single board, now will be arrays of sockets each of which is a new point of possible failure. Glue will be replaced by magnets, clips, etc. which is great for repair, but again, makes device more complex. And still most people will get rid of them after a few years of use. Consumerism is the top enemy of sustainability.

Right to repair is a complex endeavour. There will be no simple solutions.

Re: It's your device, you should be able to repair it

#22

Post by pmoriarty » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #5

A bit of a tangent, but I'm really surprised one of the android vendors hasn't focused on the niche of easy to repair phones. Maybe even making them four or five times the thickness of the latest i-sung devices. extra hot swappable batteries and the like. I know the ostensible reasons waterproofing, planned obsolescence, looking cool, and being light weight. Though I suspect the real reason is they're just chasing th…

"I'm really surprised one of the android vendors hasn't focused on the niche of easy to repair phones."

With the right marketing, this could be very successful.

"A repairable phone built to last," or some other creative slogan and marketing campaign centered around how wasteful and expensive other phones built around planned obsolescence are.

Caring about the ecosystem, recycling, and reuse is mainstream now (witness the BBC right-to-repair article itself, published on a mainstream news platform), so a company showing that it's sensitive to these concerns should do well.

Re: It's your device, you should be able to repair it

#23

Post by scrose » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

tims33 wrote: post #3

Repairability seems like a good goal for sustainability. The challenge on electronics is determining what is a reasonable and useful life for a product. Should an iPhone SE or a knockoff Android last and be repairable for a decade? My worry is the regulation will get this wrong. Moderate rules are probably the best way to start.

We used to have this right, but it feels like somewhere between 2010-2015, companies realized they could make more money by disallowing simple replacements.

I used to make some money as a kid by buying batches of broken Iphone 3G/3GS's on ebay, replacing parts on them, and then re-selling them myself. Practically any part of that device could be replaced in less than 30 minutes with $15 worth of tools.

I have a 2012MBP and a 2014MBP that I gave to my family that are still serving their purposes after a few quick(and cheap) battery, RAM and HDD replacements over the years.

I don't expect my 2019 MBP to last more than 5 years without costing me at least several hundred dollars more when I inevitably have to bring it to the Apple store for them to fix something that very much used to be user-fixable in a matter of minutes.

Re: It's your device, you should be able to repair it

#24

Post by ryandrake » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 3:39 PM UTC

css wrote: post #2

This article moves the goalposts on what "right to repair" is several times. It generally means that manufacturers should not hide schematics from device users or disallow third party manufacturing of first party parts. However, the author states: > The law doesn't yet cover smartphones and tablets that she says are getting harder to fix. One problem is keeping older devices updated with new software. Now "right to r…

I'd argue that when a security vulnerability is made public, patching the operating system with an update is a form of repair. The device is as broken as my Gen-1 iPad that can no longer browse the web safely. If the manufacturer stops releasing such updates, AND actively prevents the user from developing and applying their own updates, then they are preventing repair.

Re: It's your device, you should be able to repair it

#25

Post by varispeed » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 3:40 PM UTC

I fear this is going to turn into some ambiguous law that only big companies will be able to navigate through and you and me still won't be able to repair anything, because it will be deemed "unsafe". There also has to be many years of commissions, banquets, meetings, dinners, bonuses before all civil servants feasting on tax payer money will come up with something.

Re: It's your device, you should be able to repair it

#26

Post by balozi » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 3:43 PM UTC

A persistent question in my mind is why do customers buy unrepairable products, from smart phones and high-tech tractors. Why is the market failing? Or is it working perfectly?

Re: It's your device, you should be able to repair it

#27

Post by scrose » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 3:43 PM UTC

viktorcode wrote: post #21

tims33 wrote: post #3

Repairability seems like a good goal for sustainability. The challenge on electronics is determining what is a reasonable and useful life for a product. Should an iPhone SE or a knockoff Android last and be repairable for a decade? My worry is the regulation will get this wrong. Moderate rules are probably the best way to start.

I don't think that repairability is better for sustainability in general, if we are speaking about electronics. Making an electronic device more repairable would make it more complex (again, not in every case, but in general). Where before a manufacturer could just solder numerous components to a single board, now will be arrays of sockets each of which is a new point of possible failure. Glue will be replaced by mag…

> I don't think that repairability is better for sustainability in general

Sorry, but what? Being able to repair a device means that you can (and usually will) be able to prevent demand spiking for a brand new device that uses as many or more materials than the last.

For starters, imagine a world where vehicles were not repairable. I'd argue that any mass-produced thing benefits from repairability.

Re: It's your device, you should be able to repair it

#28

Post by lsllc » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 3:43 PM UTC

fouric wrote: post #7

css wrote: post #2

This article moves the goalposts on what "right to repair" is several times. It generally means that manufacturers should not hide schematics from device users or disallow third party manufacturing of first party parts. However, the author states: > The law doesn't yet cover smartphones and tablets that she says are getting harder to fix. One problem is keeping older devices updated with new software. Now "right to r…

I'm not very happy with the quality of the article, overall. It seems useful for a consumer, but obvious, and old-hat, to HN denizens. HN submissions are supposed to be "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity", but we've seen dozens of right-to-repair articles by now, and this doesn't bring anything substantially new to the table (unlike the top previous submissions https://hn.algolia.com/?q=right+to+re…

I think anything publicizing "right to repair" in mainstream media is a good thing. Agreed that for HN denizens, it's nothing new, but most people are just unaware of this topic.

Glad to see the BBC running this.

Re: It's your device, you should be able to repair it

#29

Post by spamizbad » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 3:44 PM UTC

css wrote: post #14

spamizbad wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are conflating Right to Repair efforts in Europe with those in the US. Naturally, the US laws are more deferential to capital interests and is less consumer-friendly, and simply ask that companies don't ban the sale of components to independent repair shops, firmware lockouts of replacement parts that only the manufacturer can provide, etc.

What does the European definition of "right to repair" entail, then?

The article gives some examples, but I think more broadly the European Right to Repair efforts seem to align the repairability of consumer electronics with what we've come to expect from automobiles.

Re: It's your device, you should be able to repair it

#30

Post by david_allison » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 3:44 PM UTC

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #5

A bit of a tangent, but I'm really surprised one of the android vendors hasn't focused on the niche of easy to repair phones. Maybe even making them four or five times the thickness of the latest i-sung devices. extra hot swappable batteries and the like. I know the ostensible reasons waterproofing, planned obsolescence, looking cool, and being light weight. Though I suspect the real reason is they're just chasing th…

Fairphone[0] is a European manufacturer which does this (modular replaceable components, 10/10 on iFixit and usable by non-techies).

In my experience it's the annual release cycle of Android coupled with the lack of OS updates by manufacturers which contributes to e-waste, closely followed by the lack of battery replaceability. My first smartphone (OnePlus One - 2014) still has the specs to be a perfectly usable phone, at least until 5G is widespread and 4G networks are decommissioned.

[0] https://www.fairphone.com/en/