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

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

#121

Post by lamontcg »

throwaway98797 wrote: post #98
lamontcg wrote: post #97

How about we mandate user replaceable batteries (with some kind of wording to make it easy enough for normal humans with no glue and connectors that don't snap easily). Once upon a time I had an HTC Evo 4G that I could do this with. Mandating that they admit the death date seems to be baking in some level of stockholm syndrome.

id prefer they didn’t for now society has voted with their dollars to support my preferences

we haven't 'voted' we aren't given any options and companies have figured out that not enough of us will rebel that they can maximize their profits by planned obsolescence and externalizing the problem of their electronic waste.

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

#122

Post by copperx »

caconym_ wrote: post #118
fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recent Macs have cords that come in three parts: brick-to-plug, brick, brick-to-laptop. It’s one of my favorite changes in the newer MacBook models.

High power (~100W) charging with USB-C has been a game changer for me. I barely even remember the days when every electronic device came with its own grotty little power brick I had to keep track of and carry around with the device. I guess time will tell how reliable USB-C connectors are, but my naive impression is that the female connectors (device side) are very simple with no springs or other moving parts. I imag…

Extra credit for being able to charge your laptop easily in the car. Before this, you needed either a power inverter or a special DC connector.

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

#123

Post by gwbas1c »

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…

Regarding sealed: Does the light really outlast the battery? I have some LED lights that have lasted "forever," but my aquarium lights don't seem as durable and I think only will last 5-7 years. (Fluorescent bulbs only lasted a year, and each bulb cost almost as much as an LED version.)

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

#124

Post by lostmsu »

Eleison23 wrote: post #55

A slightly tangential question for those in the know: how do consumers destroy their data? If I've got a busted HDD or a dead tablet — anything which is holding data that I can't electronically destroy — who do I give it to? The office supply shops have paper shredding. The municipal recycling centers will take stuff, and so will the electronics stores, but they all carry disclaimers about data privacy. I've consider…

You can always save this kind of stuff until the next time you go visit an active volcano.

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

#125

Post by samatman »

rowanG077 wrote: post #25
samatman wrote: post #9

I've made AirPods last longer than any other pair of earbuds I've ever had. It's the cord. For me, a max of six months of fiddling with the damn thing and it breaks. I've had real headphones last quite a bit longer— but I buy the ones with replaceable cords. The pair I still have is on its fourth cord and second pair of muffs. I don't view it as any sort of economic, human, or environmental catastrophe, that they sto…

That's a pretty funny statement considering detachable cords exist. A cord is basically some copper and plastic sheet. Easily recyclable.

Gosh if I'd have known such a thing I surely would have mentioned buying four of them in the original post. Thanks for the tip Rowan.

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

#126

Post by greenyoda »

MerelyMortal wrote: post #19
_adamb wrote: post #11

Pretty much anything engineered (buildings, bridges, electronics, houses, ...) have a death date. Any civil engineering projects I've been a part of have always had a quantified project lifetime. We _could_ build things that lasted hundreds of years, but the cost would be astronomically high and demand would change in that timeline. Opinion: People seem outraged at this with electronics but not the other products. Th…

I've always wondered about skyscrapers; How long will they last, and what will happen with them?

Informative video - "How To Dispose of a Skyscraper":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-H7E-KQgHQ (6.5 min.)

According to the video, they're built to last for 50 - 100 years.

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

#127

Post by jewel »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #120
caconym_ wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High power (~100W) charging with USB-C has been a game changer for me. I barely even remember the days when every electronic device came with its own grotty little power brick I had to keep track of and carry around with the device. I guess time will tell how reliable USB-C connectors are, but my naive impression is that the female connectors (device side) are very simple with no springs or other moving parts. I imag…

I’ve personally found usb-c ports aren’t great longevity wise. They have a similar issue as I had with micro-USB: they stop clamping onto the plug and then you don’t get a reliable connection. I’ve found Lightning ports more reliable (with periodic lint cleaning) but it’s a shame that it’s a proprietary standard.

I've been using this magnetic USB-C adapter on my laptop to reduce the wear and tear on the port: https://a.co/d/4JCadfi.

I've been using it since March with no complaints. It'd be great if manufacturers could standardize on something like this so that the port could be flush.

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

#128

Post by yborg »

deltasevennine wrote: post #108

Planned obsolescence for electronics is a recent development in terms of human history. My parents remember times where hardware was incredibly reliable and could've bought electronics and products that lasted for decades. Nowadays there are deliberate design decisions in every product that cause these things to break down before their time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel

There has been planned obsolescence in human economic activity whenever it could be made advantageous to do so.

You also discount the increasing capability of electronics, which in many cases involve including more or more complex circuitry, which reduces the lifespan. You can certainly design for reliability, but this generally increases the cost, and consumers almost always opt for the cheaper product.

The places to look for deliberate design for failure to drive profits are markets in which there is an effective monopoly or cartel and the manufacturers no longer have competition (like the Phoebus cartel).

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

#129

Post by JohnBooty »

fragmede wrote: post #91
deathanatos wrote: post #87

It's not even just batteries. Every laptop I've ever owned comes with a AC to DC converter. Every laptop I've ever owned has outlived that AC-to-DC converter. Every converter that has failed has failed in exactly the same way: the plug/cord connection at the laptop end becomes unreliable. And every single one of them, across a range of manufacturers, has had the cord not be detachable from the brick. So what could ha…

Thankfully USB-C charging on my laptops has made that less of an issue. Of course the good chargers are like $80 instead but still.

$80USD?

GaN 90/100W chargers from manufacturers like Anker and Monoprice can regularly be had for half of that. Right now there are a lot of 90W ones from unknown-to-me manufacturers for ~$32 on Amazon.

I'm not trying to correct you here; I'm just wondering if there's something I'm missing.

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

#130

Post by ksec »

deathanatos wrote: post #87

It's not even just batteries. Every laptop I've ever owned comes with a AC to DC converter. Every laptop I've ever owned has outlived that AC-to-DC converter. Every converter that has failed has failed in exactly the same way: the plug/cord connection at the laptop end becomes unreliable. And every single one of them, across a range of manufacturers, has had the cord not be detachable from the brick. So what could ha…

Some years ago I had a "debate" about this on HN. And if you know anything about BOM cost and hardware margins, the cost saving of crappy PSU and decent PSU is quite attractive. To the point manufacturer knew the probability of the PSU failing within certain time frame, now more commonly known as planned obsolescence.

While I am not exactly an USB-C supporter. One of the side benefits is that they are much better quality and fixes this PSU issues.

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