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New York Senate passes Right to Repair bill

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Re: New York Senate passes Right to Repair bill

#61

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

reflectiv wrote: post #33
Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amend the bill to include all consumer electronics manufacturers must provide replacement parts for all their new products for twenty years. The churn of slightly different pieces in next years models should fall off a cliff when warehouses need to get built to hold everything. Or something

20 years is a bit much IMO...5-10 tho, that sounds at least reasonable.

I’m open to considering the nuance here.

For a washing machine or refrigerator, I’d say twenty years is the minimum. For a phone or computer? I’d say at the very least five, but preferably ten years from the last sale of a new, used, or refurbished device sold by them or their authorized resellers. Require security updates for at least twice as long, or when the manufacturer can prove all devices are out of use.

Re: New York Senate passes Right to Repair bill

#62

Post by Daishiman »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #53

Did you know that if you buy a 2021 BMW M5 and paid $120k for it in cash (no financing), then let the warranty expire (or hypothetically signed an opt-in waiver forgoing your powertrain warranty), you still can't flash your own calibration map to increase power into the engine control units? I'm sure there's a ton of good reasons why liability wise. Just seems crazy to me. I guess it's the same when you buy a $1k iPh…

That sounds... totally reasonable?

A badly flashed ECU can trivially wreck your engine. It can make it wear out faster. It can increase emissions.

I have no objection with voiding warranty repairs if you reflash an ECU. The important thing is that you should still be able to do it, and still be able to fix the car yourself and get replacement parts.

Re: New York Senate passes Right to Repair bill

#63

Post by kwiens »

myfavoritedog wrote: post #52

4. Excludes motor vehicle manufacturers, manufacturer of motor vehicle equipment, or motor vehicle dealers and medical devices or a digital electronic product or embedded software found in medical settings. For all the bravado about standing up to powerful interests, this shows you who the most powerful interests are in that space.

We excluded autos because the Massachusetts auto right to repair bill (most recently updated in November) covers this, and there's a nationwide MOU. Tesla is the only manufacturer that has not signed this MOU.

There is a lawsuit around that ballot initiative, and iFixit and EFF just filed an Amicus on Monday supporting the law. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/06/eff-files-amicus-brief...

Sometimes it's better to fight the giants one arena at a time.

Re: New York Senate passes Right to Repair bill

#64

Post by teh_klev »

mikepurvis wrote: post #54
teh_klev wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, five to ten years is far too short. I have a couple of audio devices that are ~14 years old and working perfectly fine. If either of them broke then I'd want to repair them (unless of course the fault was fabulously catastrophic). Once upon a time even affordably priced equipment lasted way more than 5-10 years. Maybe it's a generational thing, due to my being on the wrong side of 50 :), but stuff used to…

I think past a certain point it's reasonable to expect that your repair operation may also involve some scrounging for the parts— for example, the classic frankenstein procedure where a laptop with a dead motherboard is married to another of the same model where the screen is cracked. I think for most electronics, past 5-10 years is pretty reasonable for this kind of thing. I mean, the GameCube came out in 2001-2002,…

> the real trick with this of course is forbidding the serial number based lockouts.

Yeah, that is just downright spiteful scumbaggery.

Re: New York Senate passes Right to Repair bill

#65

Post by TruthSHIFT »

myfavoritedog wrote: post #52

4. Excludes motor vehicle manufacturers, manufacturer of motor vehicle equipment, or motor vehicle dealers and medical devices or a digital electronic product or embedded software found in medical settings. For all the bravado about standing up to powerful interests, this shows you who the most powerful interests are in that space.

So, what is actually included? Isn’t everything electronic now?

Re: New York Senate passes Right to Repair bill

#66

Post by [deleted] »

fitchjo wrote: post #59
myfavoritedog wrote: post #52

4. Excludes motor vehicle manufacturers, manufacturer of motor vehicle equipment, or motor vehicle dealers and medical devices or a digital electronic product or embedded software found in medical settings. For all the bravado about standing up to powerful interests, this shows you who the most powerful interests are in that space.

Am I being a bit naive to think that this has more to do with public safety? In theory, there is some increased level of regulation/review of the car and medical device manufacturers that limits the risk these repairs aren’t done to an appropriate standard? You can make a trade-off between standard of repair and price for your iPhone that only impacts the device, but cars and medical devices not properly repaired cou…

[deleted]

Re: New York Senate passes Right to Repair bill

#67

Post by andrei_says_ »

rib3ye wrote: post #40
nrp wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is largely Apple-specific, as most other OEMs use off the shelf chips. Even in that case though, the distribution doesn’t exist for many components to be available to individuals or repair shops, since the component makers only want to deal with their couple dozen big customers directly.

On that note, Rossmann is a curious character. He openly and variously despises Apple’s hardware choices and policies, yet to my memory, that’s his shop works on. Are the economics of repairing Apple products that strong or is the man is a true masochist?

Watch some of his videos. He has a lot of insight about the subpar quality of Apple devices, about the outrageous lies of Apple Genius Bar quoting people thousands of dollars for repairs that take him 5-10 minutes, for apple’s efforts to make the devices non serviceable, withholding schematics, controlling access to replacement parts etc.

Here’s a televised CBS report.

https://youtu.be/o2_SZ4tfLns

He is extremely good at repair while despising the company’s despicable practices - and warns people about them.

Re: New York Senate passes Right to Repair bill

#68

Post by hughrr »

teh_klev wrote: post #49
reflectiv wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20 years is a bit much IMO...5-10 tho, that sounds at least reasonable.

I disagree, five to ten years is far too short. I have a couple of audio devices that are ~14 years old and working perfectly fine. If either of them broke then I'd want to repair them (unless of course the fault was fabulously catastrophic). Once upon a time even affordably priced equipment lasted way more than 5-10 years. Maybe it's a generational thing, due to my being on the wrong side of 50 :), but stuff used to…

I worked in the defence industry for a few years where they did this. I also have equipment that is nearly 50 years old in service now (electronic test gear).

BUT the cost was astronomical as were the storage requirements for parts and the cost of the replacement parts. The oscilloscope I have (tek 7904) was released in 1972 and would cost about $100k now with the plugins I have in it. And that's because it was designed for repair. Versus a modern unit which costs around $5k, lasts 5 years and is disposable. Yeah that's not gonna wash. Also it actually requires some quite extreme skills looking after 40+ year old kit.

What you end up with is a $7000 iPhone and a repair industry where min charge is $500 for some obscure part because the universe has moved on.

Recycling and reuse is better and that's where we're heading. Even cars are going in that direction.

Re: New York Senate passes Right to Repair bill

#69

Post by andrei_says_ »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #36
only_as_i_fall wrote: post #4

If NY really wants to cut e-waste they should require removable batteries in cellphones and laptops. The move to non-removable batteries always seemed like a thinly veild money grab to me.

Non-removable batteries are annoying, but they allow you to make devices which are much more compact, or which have a larger battery at the same size. The battery in e.g. an iPhone 6S takes some work to replace, but it's still quite easy for a repair shop to do, so that seems like a very reasonable trade-off to me.

What about non-removable batteries that are also glued in? With a excessive amount of glue?

Making them doubly non-removable?

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