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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

#191

Post by reaperducer »

alexvoda wrote: post #165
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…

Electronics used to come with full schematics as part of the documentation. As an example, this (1) is how the manual looks for a ~1970-1974 stereo record player I have. You have diagrams of the boards and lists of parts as in individual caps, etc. We should strive to move in that direction, not away from it. Permanently locked bootloaders, DRM for componets, etc. are a move in the oposite direction. To move the over…

Electronics used to come with full schematics as part of the documentation

For a short time in college I worked fixing stereos at a big-name electronics company's east coast repair facility. You could always tell the gear that people had tried to fix themselves before sending it back to us as a last resort. We didn't begrudge them trying on their own. In fact, it was encouraged because home repairs kept the cost of maintaining the repair facility down.

These days, since everything gets chucked in the garbage when it breaks, I guess that logic doesn't work anymore.

As an aside, the Commodore 64 didn't come with the schematics, but they were part of the Programmer's Reference Guide, which many people had, and could be bought in most bookstores.

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

#192

Post by Retric »

usaphp wrote: post #186
alexvoda wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electronics used to come with full schematics as part of the documentation. As an example, this (1) is how the manual looks for a ~1970-1974 stereo record player I have. You have diagrams of the boards and lists of parts as in individual caps, etc. We should strive to move in that direction, not away from it. Permanently locked bootloaders, DRM for componets, etc. are a move in the oposite direction. To move the over…

I see a good intention behind it, but it only works only if only honest people and companies exist. It’s not the case in real world. What would prevent a competitor simply copying the whole product and offering a cheaper price because they didn’t have to invest in R&D, and those engineers who spent many years working on a finished schematics will be out of job because the company won’t be able to make a living sellin…

Patents and reputation aka trade marks. Speakers for example are extremely well understood technology yet premium speakers are still a thing.

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

#193

Post by reaperducer »

usaphp wrote: post #186
alexvoda wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electronics used to come with full schematics as part of the documentation. As an example, this (1) is how the manual looks for a ~1970-1974 stereo record player I have. You have diagrams of the boards and lists of parts as in individual caps, etc. We should strive to move in that direction, not away from it. Permanently locked bootloaders, DRM for componets, etc. are a move in the oposite direction. To move the over…

I see a good intention behind it, but it only works only if only honest people and companies exist. It’s not the case in real world. What would prevent a competitor simply copying the whole product and offering a cheaper price because they didn’t have to invest in R&D, and those engineers who spent many years working on a finished schematics will be out of job because the company won’t be able to make a living sellin…

What would prevent a competitor simply copying the whole product and offering a cheaper price

Whatever it was that kept this from happening from the advent of electronics up to the invention of the smartphone.

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

#194

Post by spinningslate »

marcosdumay wrote: post #166
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…

> Now "right to repair" includes not only designing devices to be easier to repair but also includes legacy software support? Well, I would say it includes publishing the software interface of your hardware, and not making it impossible to replace the software. Those are the main roadblock on updating old tablets and phones. I do really read those lines as fighting closed boot loaders, DRM on real goods, dependencies…

>Well, I would say it includes publishing the software interface of your hardware, and not making it impossible to replace the software.

100% this. Case in point: I have two 'old' apple devices: a 2009 mac mini and an ipad c.2011. Apple doesn't provide updates for either any more. For the mini, that's not a problem: it's running Debian just fine, and kept up to date.

The ipad is a different story. Physically it's still in perfectly good nick: it's a well-built device. Software, though, is a different matter. Progressively fewer websites render properly with the outdated version of safari; the number of installable apps is down to a faint trickle. It's broken. Doesn't matter that it's broken because the software is outdated rather than a hardware component has given up. It doesn't do what it was intended for, and there's no way to repair it.

I've no issue with apple - or any other manufacturer - deciding there's a lifetime beyond which they're not willing to support the device. But they shouldn't be allowed to brick it. At the point it goes out of manufacturer support, there should be the option to 'unlock' and install 3rd party software.

Of course it'll impact Apple's revenues. At least to some extent; plenty people will still want "shiny new". And it'll need 3rd party software to be available. But that's a whole new market opportunity.

More fundamentally, it's simply unconscionable to consign devices to the scrap heap because the manufacturer built a time bomb into the software.

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

#195

Post by CountSessine »

alexvoda wrote: post #165
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…

Electronics used to come with full schematics as part of the documentation. As an example, this (1) is how the manual looks for a ~1970-1974 stereo record player I have. You have diagrams of the boards and lists of parts as in individual caps, etc. We should strive to move in that direction, not away from it. Permanently locked bootloaders, DRM for componets, etc. are a move in the oposite direction. To move the over…

This was in a very different era, when manufacturing was difficult and expensive. Having the schematic didn't necessarily get you anywhere. That's no longer the case - now the design is expensive but the manufacturing is cheap.

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

#196

Post by GuB-42 »

rasz wrote: post #154
GuB-42 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly the answer to your question but France recently adopted a repairability score that has to be shown, just like the energy efficency class or nutrition labels. The criteria are: 1- Documentation 2- Ease of disassembly, with a subsection on the necessary tools and a focus on the parts that are most likely to be serviced (for smartphones: battery, screen, ...) 3- Availability of spare parts 4- Price of spare…

and Apple devices score 7 out of 10 and up. Its all self assessment. This law is a farce.

iPhones are surprisingly repairable. But yes, some scores are... unexpected.

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

#197

Post by hilbert42 »

duped wrote: post #56
swiley wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my interpretation is that there should be no artificial barriers. Don't hide schematics, don't lock bootloaders, don't use NDAs to prevent sharing driver code, don't prevent component manufacturers from selling to third parties.

I think requiring schematic disclosure and non exclusivity for venders of custom parts is entirely unreasonable with catastrophic first and second order effects. Particularly the latter. We want more contract manufacturing, not less of it. If you take away the ability of companies to negotiate reasonable deals with their venders, they'll just buy them out and vertically integrate.

"If you take away the ability of companies to negotiate reasonable deals with their venders, they'll just buy them out and vertically integrate."

Why was that argument irrelevant in the past when the 'right to repair' was was accepted as completely normal† and manufacturers actually encourage it? (See my point to that effect above.)

† That is, to the extent that back then no one would have understood what the phrase meant. Had you mentioned it, it would have been considered either an oxymoron or a non sequitur and you would have received a blank and perplexing stare.

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

#198

Post by fsh »

JoshTko wrote: post #122
leoedin wrote: post #53

PCs and even most laptops have been very repairable for decades. You can still run Windows or Linux on a 10+ (20+?) year old laptop without an issue. The idea that a 5 year old laptop would be unusable or not get the latest version of Windows is unacceptable. Yet phones cost similar amounts and have nowhere near the repairability. A decade ago you could argue that it wasn't that important - specs were changing so qui…

The trend for lack of reparability in smartphones is because of consumer preferences. Consumers are consistently choosing devices that are smaller, lighter, higher durability, waterproof, cheaper etc. vs. devices that are more repairable that do not have those features.

Where does this crazy idea come from that you have to glue shut a device to make it waterproof? A rubber gasket and a few screws work just as well without compromising repairability. Wristwatches have been constructed like this for centuries, while being a lot smaller and lighter than any smartphone. Maybe it would slightly increase the BOM and assembly cost, but considering that it fits in the budget of a 30€ Casio, probably not by much. I guess the real problem is that manufacturers really don't want you to repair your phones and customer's don't care enough for it to make a difference in the market.

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

#199

Post by faeriechangling »

whereis wrote: post #132

Counterpoint: We're all safer by using devices that can't be repaired/tampered with by end users.

Safer? I could cause a safety issue attempting my own car or bicycle repairs and both of those things are much more repairable than a modern smartphone.

You know what's bad for human "safety"? Gratuitously burning through resources and causing pollution by making phones out of all sorts of rare materials and hucking them out.

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

#200

Post by m4rtink »

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…

Asking the manufacturers to not pull dirty tricks with the bootloader (AKA Tivoization) does not sound to me like asking much of them and could cut quite a bit of ewaste as old devices are reused with new software.

Of course many would try to block that as it cuts into their planned obsolescence roadmaps...

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