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British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

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Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#161

Post by cesarb »

midasuni wrote: post #140
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

How do you define TV There’s the LCD screen A driver to convert an input (hdmi, vga, ntsc, DVB/ATSC, MPEG, HLS) A speaker (or more), with input (from driver or not) A control plane of some sort to control the other bits (brightness, gamma, input, volume) It seems that people who want dumb TVs want most of that, including different inputs, but just a specific driver and/or control plane A computer monitor will do most…

> How do you define TV

By the presence of a built-in TV receiver (DVB, ISDB, etc). If it doesn't have such a built-in receiver, it's a monitor.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#162

Post by Silhouette »

alias_neo wrote: post #86
Silhouette wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're in the UK and an expensive phone really did break just from falling 4 inches after one week, I'd be tempted to try returning it to the seller. There must be a credible argument that it's unfit for purpose if it can be broken that easily due to a design flaw. It's not as if you carelessly dropped it from a pocket at waist height onto a concrete floor or something.

I tried, it was from Amazon and neither they nor Oneplus cared how or why it happened, I tried arguing that it was ridiculous that it happened but again, deaf ears, so I just let it be.

For that kind of money, you might want to get a bit of advice on the right words to use before giving up. The thing about "Your statutory rights are not affected" is that your statutory rights are not affected, whether they care or not.

Even if you decide not to fight this one, please consider informing one of the major consumer rights organisations so if there is a design flaw and others are experiencing the same problem the manufacturer can't bury their head in the sand and try to avoid responsibility. Other big tech firms have allegedly done this in the past and bad publicity is often what brings them round in the end.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#163

Post by yarcob »

It's a pity that this law has apparently been so watered down, and basically just cements the status quo. Spares for dishwashers and washing machines are already available, and 10 years doesn't really sound that long for big appliances.

I don't see whether the law addresses the problem of overpriced spares. For example, I don't see why an original Miele heating element for a washing machine costs 100€, while an unbranded compatible part costs less than 20€.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#164

Post by thebean11 »

mmis1000 wrote: post #94
bluGill wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't do that because someone (probably not you) will then unlock the phone and [insert something evil here - perhaps involving the radio]

Android phones triggers wipe on unlock. So use unlock bootloader to stole data simply don't work. Besides that, some phone will add a unremovble giant red exclamation mark on boot screen to notate the phone being unlocked to warn you `the phone is already unlocked, don't trust it unless it is done by you.`

Don't all modern phones encrypt user data on disk anyway?

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#165

Post by squeaky-clean »

nerdawson wrote: post #47
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

TV manufacturers are responding, often clumsily and based on their self-interest (data collection), to what consumers want. Trying to find a dumb TV is like trying to find a car without a built in radio. You're welcome to leave it switched off. Smart TVs are dumb if they aren't connected to the internet. Some may be slow. Some may have a poor interface. I'd worry about solving for that rather than expecting manufactu…

Smart TVs are dumber than a dumb-TV if they aren't connected to the internet. My Samsung TV stays disconnected from the internet, but to change the input between devices I have to scroll past ads that were preloaded onto it in 2018. If I accidentally press the channel up/down buttons on the remote it switches inputs, takes 10 seconds to realize it isn't online, and then tells me "Samsung TV Plus is not available".

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#166

Post by celestialcheese »

cunidev wrote: post #40

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 acknowledg…

In the US, at least, unlocking devices is legal as of 2015(?) through DMCA exemptions, which has been huge for recyclers and refurbishers.

Still couldn't get game console unlocking through, but at least phones / tablets / other devices that are locked can be unlocked and resold.

https://resource-recycling.com/e-scrap/2018/11/01/digital-de...

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#167

Post by ajkdhcb2 »

crazygringo wrote: post #152
ajkdhcb2 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that it is a purely propaganda that these things are mutually exclusive. Like how all smartphone manufacturers had phones that were fine with removable batteries, but then suddenly that was gone from literally every brand in the world because it is so powerful for planned obsolescence

People want thin phones. A non-removable battery allows for thinness you simply cannot get otherwise. And while you can argue about whether thin laptops are necessary, for people who carry their phones in their pants pockets, an extra couple millimeters gone is genuinely a meaningful difference. There's no propaganda there.

>A non-removable battery allows for thinness you simply cannot get otherwise.

I doubted this so I looked up dimensions. Samsung Galaxy S6 from 2015 is 6.8mm thick, with removable battery. S10 from 2019 is 7.8mm thick. So your theory doesn't seem to match reality.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#168

Post by alias_neo »

tremon wrote: post #126
alias_neo wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a London new-build flat. Mine and several of my neighbours washing machines gave out at the same time, all in the same month, all roughly 3 years in. These came with the flats of course. I would repair it, but having watched a YouTube video on how it's done, the cost in tools, parts and effort (it's a full disassembly) to make the relatively simple repair I cannot justify over buying a better model of my ch…

Right-to-repair laws aren't about you personally repairing every item you need. It means you have the freedom to buy the support and maintenance you need from the entire market, rather than being beholden to expensive options "blessed" by the original manufacturer.

I know what it means. I'm an engineer though and a practical person so I -will- choose to repair something myself where practical, that wasn't the point I was trying to make.

Unfortunately, although the parts to repair the washing machine are inexpensive, the design means a sizeable labor effort (and thus cost) to get at the problem part, so repairing it isn't practical, even for a repair shop, because it's hours of work.

The fact that several of my neighbors had the same machine fail at the same time suggest it's designed to fail early.

Between that and being designed to make a simple bearing change several hours of work, is was designed to be thrown away, not repaired, by anyone.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#169

Post by driverdan »

axelthegerman wrote: post #33
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 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

I have Sony and Samsung "smart" TVs that aren't connected to the internet. Both turn on almost instantly.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#170

Post by asdff »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #147
asdff wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not just Roku. Every single TV sold is like this from every single manufacturer. They are all slower and shittier at being a TV screen than my 720p screen from like 2005. What's with that? It's like a giant cabal of an entire industry deciding that their customers aren't worth the hardware, no matter of its some Walmart only entry level TV or the top of the line thousands of dollars screen from a major brand. The…

I am sure there are plenty of qualified people doing the necessary due diligence to figure out which features, or perception of features, customers are willing to pay for. I doubt the executives at Sony, Samsung, LG, Vizio, Hisense, etc are sitting there and consciously choosing to keep people away from fast, dumb TVs for the hell of it. It is a cutthroat business with razor thin margins, no one is obviously making m…

You would think that somewhere in the market there is a price point that means you get more powerful hardware in the TV. It really seems like the TVs at the entry level have the exact same hardware as TVs that cost 5 times as much or more. Surely that markup should afford hardware that is slightly faster and still produce a profit margin. If people are willing to pay 5x more for a panel their eyes can barely percieve the differences in, surely they'd be happier with a smoother UX experience compared to a competitors offering.
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