Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret • Hacker News Board

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#61

Post by pessimizer » Sun, Aug 07, 2022, 2:16 AM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #31

clumsysmurf wrote: post #4

I have been a long time enthusiast of high power flashlights. We typically use 18350, 18650, 21700, or 26650. But I have been in dismay as even in this community, companies are starting to move away from these standards and provide proprietary batteries (Olight) or sealed (some newer Fenix models). It would be good if * We could safely obtain reputable Li-ion batteries from reputable sources. I trust a handful of com…

> I have been a long time enthusiast of high power flashlights. We typically use 18350, 18650, 21700, or 26650. But I have been in dismay as even in this community, companies are starting to move away from these standards and provide proprietary batteries (Olight) or sealed (some newer Fenix models). We went through this exact cycle with laptops and cellular phones. The hardcore internet users were furious when compa…

> But the market reacted positively.

What does this mean? That people didn't swear off using smartphones entirely after every manufacturer decided that sealed-in batteries would sell more phones?

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#62

Post by noSyncCloud » Sun, Aug 07, 2022, 2:17 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #35

fzzt wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many LED lightbulbs make claims about their expected lifetime. Except these numbers are often a fantasy. The LED itself may last almost forever, but the capacitors commonly go bad in a year or so. I suspect that would be the reality with a lot of the proposed mandatory labeling for electronics, too.

They also severely overdrive the LEDs to get more brightness, at the cost of both reduced efficiency and lifetime. At least the Phoebus Cartel had an ostensible explanation (efficiency) for what they did. Doing the same with LED lighting is pure corporate greed. Some of the indicator LEDs on some of my electronics are many decades old, yet they are still functioning like when they were new. Clearly LEDs can last a lo…

Extremely relevant article from Hackaday - https://hackaday.com/2021/01/17/leds-from-dubai-the-royal-li...

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#63

Post by eru » Sun, Aug 07, 2022, 2:17 AM UTC

coryrc wrote: post #29

thaumasiotes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> instead of emphasising the wattage of a bulb, if you showed the lumens/$, more efficient bulbs would naturally win out. Instead, LED bulbs have fake wattage numbers to show the equivalent wattage incandescent lighting that would be needed to match the LED. I don't understand what the problem is supposed to be. The system we currently have is that all bulbs are labeled with their brightness ("equivalent wattage"), w…

I think GP meant per $ of running cost. I have seen LEDs that are only 2/3 as efficient: "60W equivalent" using 11W at a reduced lumen level, instead of 8W at, iirc, 800 lumen.

But the packaging gives you both the brightness in the slightly weird unit of 'equivalent wattage' and the actual wattage. So you can make those choices.

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#64

Post by BurritoAlPastor » Sun, Aug 07, 2022, 2:18 AM UTC

eru wrote: post #48

pixl97 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cellphones are devices that cost hundreds of dollars and gave a store on every other streetcorner that can repair them. Doing this to flashlights is just creating e-waste. Your average company knows the average buyer is an idiot and will gladly burn the earth selling them junk. We had to heavily regulate the food industry to prevent bad actors from causing negative effects, looks like the same needs to happen with e-…

> We had to heavily regulate the food industry to prevent bad actors from causing negative effects, [...] Sounds like 'post hoc ergo propter hoc' to me.

Are you suggesting that it might be just coincidental that companies stopped putting chalk dust in milk at about the same time that doing so became illegal?

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#65

Post by kibibyte » Sun, Aug 07, 2022, 2:18 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #46

Sadly, I found many other devices are also designed to become trash. The battery in my Philips Sonicare toothbrush not only can’t be replaced — it’s fixed so firmly inside that the manual says you have to take a hammer to it just to throw it away (because batteries can cause trash fires). “The battery is firmly placed, in a water-resistant handle, to ensure safety, durability, longevity and robust performance,” says…

It's bizarre to me that P&G (Oral-B) seemed to have figured this out where Philips couldn't. Granted the batteries still aren't user-replaceable, but their manual at least doesn't tell you that you have to be a "qualified professional" to safely dispose of a toothbrush, and battery removal is a lot more straightforward than requiring a hammer.

If you have to be a qualified professional to ensure that a brush is disposed of the right way, well, that's a good way to ensure that they won't be disposed of the right way.

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#66

Post by pessimizer » Sun, Aug 07, 2022, 2:19 AM UTC

eru wrote: post #54

MereInterest wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The market will avoid the proprietary solutions if that's really what the market feels I don't really buy into (no pun intended) any argument that relies on the efficient market hypothesis. As this article pointed out, there's a vast asymmetry of information, which prevents an efficient market, even in theory. > but I suspect these companies actually have a good idea about what their customers are looking for. I su…

> As this article pointed out, there's a vast asymmetry of information, which prevents an efficient market, even in theory. What kind of theory are you using here? There might be some theoretical reasons to expect that symmetric information (and a few other conditions) will lead to an efficient market. But that doesn't mean that a pre-existing information symmetry is necessary for an efficient market. The classic exa…

> the business solution to this problem is fairly straightforward and profitable: reputation.

"Reputation" is yet more information that is both well known to and distorted by businesses. It's no kind of counterbalance to information asymmetry, it's just another example of it.

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#67

Post by eru » Sun, Aug 07, 2022, 2:20 AM UTC

detaro wrote: post #59

eru wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doing the same with LED lighting is pure corporate greed. How does it help the corporation make more money?

by forcing customers to buy new ones more often?

That only works if there's something like brand loyalty or similar mechanism to make customers come back to the same manufacturer.

If my gadget just failed long before I was promised, I am quite likely to shop around.

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#68

Post by dang » Sun, Aug 07, 2022, 2:21 AM UTC

Url changed from https://web.archive.org/web/20220803004243/https://www.washi..., which points to this.

Please post the original URL. You can add a link to an archiving site in the comments if you feel that would be helpful.

From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Please submit the original source."

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#69

Post by tomn » Sun, Aug 07, 2022, 2:28 AM UTC

brudgers wrote: post #22

So a couple of months ago I bought a Yamaha Rex 50 digital effects unit from the 1980’s. I opened it up for cleaning, to check the electrolytic capacitors (some need replacement) and to swap out lithium coin cell battery that backs up the user’s saved settings. Since the battery was working, I assumed it had been replaced. Nope, the working lithium coin battery has a date of November 1987 which is very early so far a…

It's not the batteries that have changed, it's the circuitry. In older devices, batteries were required to power SRAM, which uses very little power (just leakage currents).

This has largely been replaced by flash memory, so if you see a battery in a modern device there's a good chance it's powering a real-time clock, which use a fair bit more power in comparison.

I'm sure there's a big difference between different implementations of this -- low power design is an art that's quite easy to get wrong.

Re: Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret

#70

Post by detaro » Sun, Aug 07, 2022, 2:31 AM UTC

eru wrote: post #67

detaro wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

by forcing customers to buy new ones more often?

That only works if there's something like brand loyalty or similar mechanism to make customers come back to the same manufacturer. If my gadget just failed long before I was promised, I am quite likely to shop around.

No, it also works when non-optimal designs are very common in the market. (Not helped with the fact that especially in electronics many brands have decreased in (perceived) quality, so even if something performed well people don't necessarily trust that newer versions are too, which makes actually good brands also less sticky)