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British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

9to5mac.com

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Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#31

Post by dodobirdlord »

kleiba wrote: post #30
ShaneMcGowan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to find a good non smart tv is impossible now, I want dumb tv and dumb fridge

I don't own a smart TV, so this question is probably a bit naive - but what happens if you don't connect your smart TV to the internet?

Sometimes they will seek out nearby open WiFi networks to join. There’s concern that in coming years with the spread of 5G availability that smart TVs may start packaging a 5G modem and connecting to cell networks, bypassing the need to be connected to a WiFi network.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#32

Post by bombcar »

kleiba wrote: post #30
ShaneMcGowan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to find a good non smart tv is impossible now, I want dumb tv and dumb fridge

I don't own a smart TV, so this question is probably a bit naive - but what happens if you don't connect your smart TV to the internet?

It will work but it will have junk it really doesn't need complaining now and then, and be generally slow.

Your best bet for a "non smart TV" is either a commercial/industrial one, or just use a monitor instead.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#33

Post by axelthegerman »

kleiba wrote: post #30
ShaneMcGowan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to find a good non smart tv is impossible now, I want dumb tv and dumb fridge

I don't own a smart TV, so this question is probably a bit naive - but what happens if you don't connect your smart TV to the internet?

It still takes forever to turn on, has a bunch of menus nobody needs and probably keeps bugging you to connect it to the Internet :(

Takes me a minute to turn on my stupid smart TV and switch it to HDMI in

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#34

Post by milesvp »

black_puppydog wrote: post #9
shadilay wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a price even if ridiculous allows researches to write papers like "What brand has the most affordable repairs".

Dear god that's a stretch of the word "researcher" if ever I've seen one. Yes, that article would take some "research" (as in, finding stuff) but nope, the person writing it wouldn't be a "researcher" for it. They'd be a journalist. At 9to5 or such probably.

I’m not sure it is. What verb does someone do when they collect and collate data about products at consumer reports, tom’s hardware, or even the low bar of linus tech tips?

I’d say while the primary role may be journalist at most of these types of orgs, there is definitely a role for people who focus on the research side of things, and if you’re actively running experiments and benchmarks, you are definitely moving out of the realm of simple observation. I certainly would like to benefit from the data of which phone is cheapest to repair. iFixit already does the research to grade repairability of devices.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#35

Post by axelthegerman »

bombcar wrote: post #32
kleiba wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't own a smart TV, so this question is probably a bit naive - but what happens if you don't connect your smart TV to the internet?

It will work but it will have junk it really doesn't need complaining now and then, and be generally slow. Your best bet for a "non smart TV" is either a commercial/industrial one, or just use a monitor instead.

Yea a monitor is not a bad idea but they don't come in very large sizes or are way overpriced. Also if you'd want a decent speaker build in, monitors are not always the best

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#36

Post by smnrchrds »

xroche wrote: post #7
hunta2097 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple solve this by making spares super expensive and only available from partners. The legislation needs to stipulate what a "component" or "part" is, i.e. not the entire motherboard.

> Apple solve this by making spares super expensive and only available from partners. This is even more hilarious: they sell you a "spare part" which is the logic board, for nearly the price of the laptop. But they (1) do provide spare parts and (2) sell them at a ""reasonable price""

In my province, landlords cannot terminate a periodic tenancy except for a small number of causes, but they are free to change the rent price to whatever they want once a year. Result: if the landlord wants you gone, they just tell you your 2k per month rent is increasing to 20k per month and voilà, gone!

No user protection is effective unless it comes with some sort of price cap. This is why GPL requires the source code to be made available "for a price no more than your reasonable cost of physically performing this conveying of source". Otherwise, a company could use GPL'd code in their product and say they are more than happy to give you a copy of the source code for 100 billion dollars.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#37

Post by adflux »

ShaneMcGowan wrote: post #26
ivoras wrote: post #21

It's all fun and games until your fridge gets reclasiffied as a computer.

Trying to find a good non smart tv is impossible now, I want dumb tv and dumb fridge

Plenty of dumb projectors on the market, ofcourse not suitable for many rooms, but maybe worth considering

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#38

Post by Someone1234 »

emouryto wrote: post #16

Well, smartphones must be updated to include better spyware. And newer computers are also better locked down to allow better surveillance. So, the older ones can't break down fast enough! You don't want a repairable computer so creeps install, like, a Linux distro. You want disposable TPM machines with Windows 11 Home Edition and unstoppable "telemetry".

I feel like there's a large subset of people who don't understand what TPM does, so just assume the worst and hand wave about how it [somehow] causes [random bad thing].

In this case I guess TPM causes telemetry?

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#39

Post by gorjusborg »

kleiba wrote: post #30
ShaneMcGowan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to find a good non smart tv is impossible now, I want dumb tv and dumb fridge

I don't own a smart TV, so this question is probably a bit naive - but what happens if you don't connect your smart TV to the internet?

If the incentives stay strong enough, they'll likely just build in 'free' mobile data to bypass your network.

Faraday cage or soldering iron, anyone?

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#40

Post by cunidev »

Not even mentioning the hardware bits, I have been collaborating with postmarketOS for a while now, and believe that the main thing we need to make those devices longer-lasting would be an unlockable bootloader by law.

This sounds so logical (why cannot I run, by voiding the warranty, any code I want on my machine, whatever it is?), yet apparently so hard to make openly illegal, since the problem is barely acknowledged in general.

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