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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

#351

Post by giantrobot »

chmod775 wrote: post #263
ChrisLomont wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where does this crazy idea come from that you have to glue shut a device to make it waterproof? Glue helps with heat dissipation, physical shocks, vibration knocking plugs loose, provides electrical insulation, chemical resistance, and makes the components less able to vibrate over time and knock things loose, makes sensor positioning more stable, and even makes things easier to assemble since less individual faste…

Your response doesn't actually address the point you quoted. But yeah. You can either do thoughtful engineering and careful assembly... or you can achieve close to the same thing with glue.

The demand for smartphones is hundreds of millions per year. Manufacturing a hundred million of a complex thing is orders of magnitude more difficult than manufacturing ones of millions of a complex thing. A small complex thing with tight tolerances is harder yet.

Setting a part in a jig, brushing a dab of glue, and setting a second part on top is much faster than the same process but fastening a couple screws to the appropriate tightness. It's also less error prone and creates a better bond between the parts.

Apple and Samsung pump out tens of millions of phones a quarter. The more effort required for each stage of assembly ends up the difference of millions of phones manufactured in the same period of time.

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

#352

Post by swiley »

duped wrote: post #219
AdrianB1 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was born all electric and electronic appliances came with a complete diagram in the box. I don't understand how disclosing the schematic has any negative impact of any sort. Also the vendor contracts in these cases are based on volume discounts which are not affected by non-restricted sale to other parties.

Well two points on that: - Repair schematics and diagrams are not necessarily complete schematics and may be abridged or missing some details - Modern electronics are significantly more complex than when you were a child, unless you were born yesterday. Schematics for designs are barely useful for assembly today, let alone repair. They are primarily design documentation.

I've seen the macbook air schematic/vector art for the board (I had to replace that BGA backlight driver on my sister's laptop.) It's certainly big but at the end of the day it's networks of chips and L/R/C like any other circuit, you just walk through it like any other maze/graph and get to where you need to be.

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

#353

Post by operator-name »

Retric wrote: post #192
usaphp wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Speakers and computer components are great examples of where companies provide less tangible benifits in quality control and customer support.

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

#354

Post by swiley »

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.

I wouldn't call an exclusivity agreement reasonable.

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

#355

Post by kbenson »

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?

Any right to repair law that doesn't also include provisions to ensure you can run your own code on the device is hobbled. How "repairable" is a device that is cloud based but they disabled the cloud service?

I don't care that manufacturers support the software beyond what they've contractually signed up for, but I do care that I'm not left holding a brick afterwards by design. As long as the capability exists to put other firmware that exists on the device, or write my own, I'm protected from that, at least in the general case. If nobody has provided that firmware and I can't do it myself, that's still a situation I think it many times better than the alternative.

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

#356

Post by hellbannedguy »

35fbe7d3d5b9 wrote: post #203
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…

> We should demand that any device and any component in any device be second source-able Devices aren't built around discrete components anymore. That ship has sailed, we waved goodbye, partied on the dock, and took an Uber home. Now we're nursing the hangover. But hey, our phones are now marginally thinner than last year's phones, so that might be worth something. I don't see how we get back, considering the market…

"Devices aren't built around discrete components anymore."

Your right about most electrical products. That is not the point though. (I know you were just commenting on this article, but I feel strongly over right to repair laws.)

I just want access to parts if they are available. I want access to repair information. I don't care how complicated a devise is--I want to see the factory repair diagrams. There is someone out there who can fab together a computer board if there's a demand for it.

If the company doesn't want to sell parts to consumers so be it, but release the information. Yes--trade secrets make it more difficult, but not impossible.

I would be content (now) with a huge sticker on every product that didn't want to give out information, or sell parts.

Something like, "If you buy this product, the minute the warrany ends, you are on your own. We don't provide any repair information (because you're too stupid to repair, or we are greedy), and never supply parts to anyone. We will never release repair information. So the minute the warranty ends, you will 99.99% of the time gave to buy a New product from us!".

I have a feeling after a few years, companies might put screws back in, and use a bit less epoxy? And poof--repair parts will be shipped overnight, and free?

O.K. right to repair movement is covering more than just electronics.

Like your watch you have on your wrist?

Rolex, and The Swatch Company (own mist watch brands)have pulled all third party parts accounts. Watch companies realized they could use Vertical integration, and "Quality assurance" to bring that watches back to the factory for repair, at factory prices.

I don't want to be in a perpetual lease when I buy a product.

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

#357

Post by kbenson »

rozab wrote: post #51
fouric wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the reason it was posted was more to point out that the BBC was running this article on the homepage, rather than the content itself.

I agree, the increasing awareness of this topic is itself interesting and worth note.

Additionally, the fact that this submission has 350+ comments at the time I write this is all the evidence I need that this was worthy of submission. Many times, the comments, even if it's a tangential discussion, are much more interesting than the article submitted.

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

#358

Post by simion314 »

devoutsalsa wrote: post #284
nousermane wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can choose to forgo owning stuff personally, sure. But that is not everybody's preference. And please don't pretend that "devices aren't built around discrete components anymore". There are plenty of discrete components in a modern phone/laptop/roomba/whatever, that could be replaceable/upgradable by advanced user or entry-level technician, but are not: - battery - screen - storage - RAM - list goes on and on...

A big reason that stuff isn't replaceable anymore is because consumers wants some of the benefits that come w/ non-replaceable parts. For example, it's nice that I can drop my iPhone in water w/o worrying (too much) about destroying it. I spent ~$1500 on an iPhone 12 Pro in November & dropped it in a lake in December. Part of the reason it's (more) waterproof if because it's not covered w/ ports/hatches/openings that…

If Apple would publish schematic, diagnostic software and allow refurbishing and selling of parts to third party - it will keep your iPhone water proof still.

The reality is this, when your device gets old or your screen cracks , Apple will offer to fix it for 70% of a new device price, so you are pushed to buy a new device. I hope this is not controversial and has nothing to do with the water proof preference you have.

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

#359

Post by operator-name »

GordonS wrote: post #248
34679 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5 year old laptops are repairable, but fewer and fewer new ones are not. I've been in the market recently and it's extremely frustrating trying to find a laptop that doesn't have the RAM soldered in place. Sure, it can technically be desoldered, but that's not how it used to be.

I'm hunting for a new laptop just now, and just about everything has at least one DIMM soldered, with many having both soldered. Driving me nuts! Is there a convincing technical reason why everybody is doing this nowadays?

Apart from costs and size there's could be good reasons to do this - power, inteferance, placement and cooling.

Hardware specialisation (doesn't always but) can reduce energy by allowing for more efficient designs. Just think of the power circuitry required to support all the SODIMM variants.

Since soldered ram is smaller it allows greater flexibility in board design - they can be placed to avoid inteferance or to benifit thermals.

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

#360

Post by passivate »

giantrobot wrote: post #351
chmod775 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your response doesn't actually address the point you quoted. But yeah. You can either do thoughtful engineering and careful assembly... or you can achieve close to the same thing with glue.

The demand for smartphones is hundreds of millions per year. Manufacturing a hundred million of a complex thing is orders of magnitude more difficult than manufacturing ones of millions of a complex thing. A small complex thing with tight tolerances is harder yet. Setting a part in a jig, brushing a dab of glue, and setting a second part on top is much faster than the same process but fastening a couple screws to the…

Assuming you've already researched the time and material costs - Why does it matter if more effort is required?

We should put the environment and our own interests as a society ahead of the profits of these already obscenely profitable companies.

We don't allow industries to pollute the planet, we require expensive filters and waste-treatment for chemical plant effluents and catalytic converters for cars, and what not.

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