New EU-wide product repair rules come into force
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Re: New EU-wide product repair rules come into force
#2> including a repair obligation for manufacturers of certain products
Unfortunately regulations often don't go far enough.
I have a ~10 year old iPad Pro in perfect working condition. I can basically do nothing with it, and increasingly it can no longer even browse the internet because Safari is so outdated on it.
So it will be waste.
See similar story about Amazon bricking old Kindles: https://www.techradar.com/tablets/ereaders/amazon-bricking-c...
But, this regulation is still a tiny step in the right direction.
Re: New EU-wide product repair rules come into force
#3> According to the European Commission, the new rules are expected to bring €4.8 billion in growth and investment within the EU.
The source of this number seems to come from here, on page 73:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...
Interestingly, the number is over a span of 15 years, and is only the calculated "Growth and investment".
Other numbers are "Savings in production costs" at €15.6 billion, and "Consumer savings" at 25€ per consumer per year for an impressive total of €176.5 billion.
It also lists "Business adjustment costs" at €8.1 billion, "Business administrative costs" at just €69.8 million and "Implementation and enforcement" at €105.5 million.
I wonder why "Growth and investment" was chosed as the number to use. Maybe to keep emphasising their gist of "the EU is the future for sustainable growth"?
Also, here are the announcements by the Commission:
https://commission.europa.eu/news-and-media/news/right-repai...
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/right-to-repair-...
Re: New EU-wide product repair rules come into force
#4> including a repair obligation for manufacturers of certain products Unfortunately regulations often don't go far enough. I have a ~10 year old iPad Pro in perfect working condition. I can basically do nothing with it, and increasingly it can no longer even browse the internet because Safari is so outdated on it. So it will be waste. See similar story about Amazon bricking old Kindles: https://www.techradar.com/tabl…
Updating old products is expensive, especially as their hardware falls further behind. Unless manufacturers adopt some kind of subscription model to justify the cost of continued updates, which would likely be very unpopular, I don’t see how they can realistically keep older devices supported indefinitely.
Re: New EU-wide product repair rules come into force
#5> including a repair obligation for manufacturers of certain products Unfortunately regulations often don't go far enough. I have a ~10 year old iPad Pro in perfect working condition. I can basically do nothing with it, and increasingly it can no longer even browse the internet because Safari is so outdated on it. So it will be waste. See similar story about Amazon bricking old Kindles: https://www.techradar.com/tabl…
Updating old products is expensive, especially as their hardware falls further behind. Unless manufacturers adopt some kind of subscription model to justify the cost of continued updates, which would likely be very unpopular, I don’t see how they can realistically keep older devices supported indefinitely.
unlock old hardware and let the community support
Re: New EU-wide product repair rules come into force
#6> including a repair obligation for manufacturers of certain products Unfortunately regulations often don't go far enough. I have a ~10 year old iPad Pro in perfect working condition. I can basically do nothing with it, and increasingly it can no longer even browse the internet because Safari is so outdated on it. So it will be waste. See similar story about Amazon bricking old Kindles: https://www.techradar.com/tabl…
Updating old products is expensive, especially as their hardware falls further behind. Unless manufacturers adopt some kind of subscription model to justify the cost of continued updates, which would likely be very unpopular, I don’t see how they can realistically keep older devices supported indefinitely.
They don't have to support it indefinitely.
Allowing users install what they want on it would be the best case scenario.
Instead we have bullshit like "your TV is three years old? No updates for you": https://developer.samsung.com/smarttv/develop/specifications...
Re: New EU-wide product repair rules come into force
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
Updating old products is expensive, especially as their hardware falls further behind. Unless manufacturers adopt some kind of subscription model to justify the cost of continued updates, which would likely be very unpopular, I don’t see how they can realistically keep older devices supported indefinitely.
unlock old hardware and let the community support
Government could hold the keys. Sufficient weird behavior should also trigger release.
Re: New EU-wide product repair rules come into force
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Updating old products is expensive, especially as their hardware falls further behind. Unless manufacturers adopt some kind of subscription model to justify the cost of continued updates, which would likely be very unpopular, I don’t see how they can realistically keep older devices supported indefinitely.
unlock old hardware and let the community support
It is not always possible to provide the required support. First, it is expensive, as someone needs to prepare all the materials and resources the community would need to continue supporting the product after official support ends. Second, there are legal restrictions, for example, you may not be allowed to provide access to the radio firmware. Finally, most companies simply do not want to make their intellectual property publicly available.
You could make the argument that manufacturers only need to provide the means for the community to support the device, rather than extensive documentation. However, these communities are often so small that this would never be a priority for most companies. Combined with the IP-related issues, I don't think this is really feasible.
Re: New EU-wide product repair rules come into force
#9> including a repair obligation for manufacturers of certain products Unfortunately regulations often don't go far enough. I have a ~10 year old iPad Pro in perfect working condition. I can basically do nothing with it, and increasingly it can no longer even browse the internet because Safari is so outdated on it. So it will be waste. See similar story about Amazon bricking old Kindles: https://www.techradar.com/tabl…
Updating old products is expensive, especially as their hardware falls further behind. Unless manufacturers adopt some kind of subscription model to justify the cost of continued updates, which would likely be very unpopular, I don’t see how they can realistically keep older devices supported indefinitely.
Well I'm quite sure the advances in LLMs abilities are going to be quite a nice change in this regard. If vendors would be required to release all firmware source code or at least full specs after devices drop out of support, it would be fairly simple and cheap now to port drivers to new kernel release or different OSs.
Re: New EU-wide product repair rules come into force
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
unlock old hardware and let the community support
It is not always possible to provide the required support. First, it is expensive, as someone needs to prepare all the materials and resources the community would need to continue supporting the product after official support ends. Second, there are legal restrictions, for example, you may not be allowed to provide access to the radio firmware. Finally, most companies simply do not want to make their intellectual pro…
> Finally, most companies simply do not want to make their intellectual property publicly available.
You can just stop to the last reason, they don't want to give up ownership back to you.
They would prefer you to throw the device in the bin and buy a new one, preferably from them again.