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

bbc.com

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

#71

Post by ploxiln »

bogwog wrote: post #35
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…

If a phone's hardware lasts 10 years, it's going to need 10 years of updates. This shouldn't be a big deal since Android is open source and Google is the one investing in development; hobbyists regularly port modern Android versions to ancient hardware in their spare time, so even a small team of full-time developers at a manufacturer should have no problems doing the same for a company's devices. I wonder if the rea…

It's basically because of drivers for the SoC (system-on-chip, the integrated chip from e.g. Qualcomm that has cpus, graphics, sound, camera, power management, etc). They're too messy/hacky/low-quality to be "upstreamed", it is mostly impossible for anyone but the SoC vendor to port to newer versions (closed-source binary blobs), and the SoC vendor is really not motivated to do so.

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

#72

Post by riskable »

balozi wrote: post #26

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?

It's simple, really: Newer devices are faster and have nicer features (e.g. better camera) and it's not really that inconvenient to pay an extra $20-30/month to get a new phone every two years.

You can pay $150 to get a new battery put into your old phone but that doesn't seem worth it when you can get an entirely new phone that's "better" than your old one for $500.

If it were cheaper and easier to replace old batteries I'm guessing that people would keep their old phones much longer. That's my #1 reason for buying new phones: The battery in the old one just doesn't last as long as it used to and replacement batteries can be hard to come by and/or they're a serious pain to install (high risk too!).

Within the next two to three years though (assuming the global chip shortage lets up) we should start seeing phones with carbon cathode technology. Then again, car manufacturers might hog all the dual carbon and carbon cathode batteries so it might take a bit longer.

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

#73

Post by fsflover »

ncallaway wrote: post #55
antattack wrote: post #50

Given opposition to 'right to repair' from corporations, some of it on valid grounds IMO, I would be fine with the following compromise: If company does not want to provide resources needed for consumer to repair a device- it ought to provide extended warranty to the consumer for free or a small fee.

> If company does not want to allow consumer to repair a device- it ought to provide extended warranty to the consumer for a small fee. I would modify that: If a company restricts a consumer from repairing a device (either explicitly in warranty policies, or implicitly by producing devices that are hard to repair, restricting part availability, or not having manuals available), then the company must (not should) prov…

> hen the company must (not should) provide an extended warranty for all damage scenarios at cost.

So would you agree on $1 million fee per customer? (which is what companies would probably ask if you made such law)

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

#74

Post by tjoff »

Guest42 wrote: post #57
corty wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general aim of "right to repair" is to extend lifetime of devices. All the things the author mentioned are means to achieve this, and all are necessary: Schematics, repair manuals, deliverable parts for a sufficiently long period and software support ("repair" also includes software defects of course). Sometimes also software extensibility and replaceability, i.e. no signature lockdowns and other DRM measures. Th…

Regarding software, I think that pushing updates that essentially kill devices should fall under right to repair. I generally delay my ios updates out of concern whether space and ram will get eaten up. There probably won’t be an os update that enables a new app or feature I’m looking for. I’m not one to run unknown software and with the walled garden can’t really download any executables anyways. Also had win 10 upd…

Win10 was released 2015-07.

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

#75

Post by fsflover »

TideAd wrote: post #47
scrose wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I suspect that a minority of people would choose to repair their old phones even if they were more repairable. When your phone dies, it's a good opportunity to buy something new and more fun. I don't know for sure but I don't think this would stop that much consumption.

> When your phone dies, it's a good opportunity to buy something new

If you have infinite money, yes. Most people in the world do not have it. (And if you do not care about the environment, too.)

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

#76

Post by colejohnson66 »

fsflover wrote: post #58
zepto wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that planned obsolescence is not in fact everyone’s business model. Apple’s penetration into the US market is not because the iPhone matches Android in terms of sales, it’s because iPhones last longer and get handed down or resold. Apple literally continues to sell years old devices. That isn’t planned obsolescence. A really simple step in the right direction would be mandated labeling showing how many…

> That isn’t planned obsolescence. Yes, it is. Even though Apple devices last longer, after the support is ended, I cannot do anything with them. I cannot update, install anything. They effectively become bricks. If this is not planned obsolescence, then what is?

Except they don’t become bricks. They still work just fine. In fact, on some more recent unsupported devices, you can still redownload apps (but only up to the latest version supporting your device). Did the Apple II become a brick when Apple stopped supporting them? The IBM PC? Why is an older iDevice a “brick”, but not BlackBerrys or Nokias?

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

#77

Post by fsflover »

ska wrote: post #67
fsflover wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That isn’t planned obsolescence. Yes, it is. Even though Apple devices last longer, after the support is ended, I cannot do anything with them. I cannot update, install anything. They effectively become bricks. If this is not planned obsolescence, then what is?

It's only planned obsolescence if the lifetime of a product is artificially shortened by design choices. It's not clear this applies here.

I would say it is artificially shortened by design choices. It is a perfectly capable device, the harware is still fast and secure. However, I am just not allowed to fix the software, even if I have enough resources for that. This is exactly why we need free software.

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

#78

Post by Koshkin »

ncallaway wrote: post #55
antattack wrote: post #50

Given opposition to 'right to repair' from corporations, some of it on valid grounds IMO, I would be fine with the following compromise: If company does not want to provide resources needed for consumer to repair a device- it ought to provide extended warranty to the consumer for free or a small fee.

> If company does not want to allow consumer to repair a device- it ought to provide extended warranty to the consumer for a small fee. I would modify that: If a company restricts a consumer from repairing a device (either explicitly in warranty policies, or implicitly by producing devices that are hard to repair, restricting part availability, or not having manuals available), then the company must (not should) prov…

> devices that are hard to repair

Define easy? (Modern electronics, for instance, is highly integrated, full of miniature surface-mounted components etc., and so the "repair process" might as well be simply selling you a replacement for the whole thing.)

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

#79

Post by fsflover »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #76
fsflover wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That isn’t planned obsolescence. Yes, it is. Even though Apple devices last longer, after the support is ended, I cannot do anything with them. I cannot update, install anything. They effectively become bricks. If this is not planned obsolescence, then what is?

Except they don’t become bricks. They still work just fine. In fact, on some more recent unsupported devices, you can still redownload apps (but only up to the latest version supporting your device). Did the Apple II become a brick when Apple stopped supporting them? The IBM PC? Why is an older iDevice a “brick”, but not BlackBerrys or Nokias?

Security issues are found in browsers every day. You get no updates anymore and you are not allowed to update yourself. If you care about (not) leaking any of your data, this is effectively a brick.

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

#80

Post by dnh44 »

ryandrake wrote: post #24
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.

To be fair that first gen iPad is too slow to browse the web at all unless it's a really lean site like HN.
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