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There is now a European standard for measuring how easy it is to repair stuff

de.ifixit.com

101–110 of 201 posts

Re: There is now a European standard for measuring how easy it is to repair stuff

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After the EU forced manufacturers to improve energy use in their devices it soon improved situations for everyone on this planet. I don't know (talking as fairly pro-EU kind of person). I kind liked washing machines that properly heated to 90C and vacuum cleaners that actually picked up dirt. But the EU are only partly to blame. Companies are relentless in their pursuit of cutting production costs. Going "green" ju…

> I kind liked washing machines that properly heated to 90C and vacuum cleaners that actually picked up dirt. This is a problem if you have one rule for different countries, although the EU should be praised that it made an effort at least. In my region drinking water is no problem. On the contrary, due to washing machines and appliances using less water, waterworks needs to pump water through the pipes regularly to…

> In my region drinking water is no problem. On the contrary, due to washing machines and appliances using less water, waterworks needs to pump water through the pipes regularly to keep them clean. It is also advisable to do that in your home from time to time.

As far as I know, that's mostly because most customers use too much laundry detergent and flush stuff down toilets they're not supposed to. The washing machines are not at fault, the problem was just hidden better before.

Re: There is now a European standard for measuring how easy it is to repair stuff

#102
post #72
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it will get especially worse with the switch to their own silicon. It is not as if you could exchange the CPU in your current Mac either, with the possible exception of the Mac Pro. Same with the software. The pure fact that they demonstrated a Linux VM in the keynote shows, that they understand at least the requirements of the Mac users.

I'm really not bothered by this. While I appreciate the right to repair, I don't think a lot of stuff is repairable with any reasonably easy to obtain equipment these days. It's limiting all repairs to FRU replacement. I can rework everything down to 0402's and MSOP packages but BGAs and things like that, forget it. We really should be fighting for better consumer rights legislation in our respective countries where…

The right to repair should at least cover trivial things like replacing the battery, keyboard, ssd, fans. Things which are going to wear down and can be cheaply replaced, if they can be replaced at all. But charging $600 for a keyboard exchange and even more for a new LCD (which is worth $100-200), that is entirely wrong.

Re: There is now a European standard for measuring how easy it is to repair stuff

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After the EU forced manufacturers to improve energy use in their devices it soon improved situations for everyone on this planet. I don't know (talking as fairly pro-EU kind of person). I kind liked washing machines that properly heated to 90C and vacuum cleaners that actually picked up dirt. But the EU are only partly to blame. Companies are relentless in their pursuit of cutting production costs. Going "green" ju…

> I kind liked washing machines that properly heated to 90C Your washing machine is likely defective. Nothing about the rules makes this particularly difficult and modern machines with good energy ratings can do it (though, mind you, you'll notice if you read the small print that the energy rating is pretty much just for the mode they expect people to use; the 90 degree mode will use quite a lot of power). > vacuum c…

What was ignored that having a 1600w vs 1000w means you can run the 1600w at a lower load for the same suckage which extends the product life.

Re: There is now a European standard for measuring how easy it is to repair stuff

#104
post #76
post #24

Whenever repairability of modern electronic devices is discussed, I have to look at my mechanical wristwatch. Yes, there is an enormeous amount of technology integrated into a smartphone or compact laptop, but my wristwatch contains over 100 moving parts in a tiny volume. And still, every trained watchmaker can open and service it. It requires specialized tools, but those have been avialable to watchmakers for hundre…

> A time traveller [sic] could buy a current Rolex [...] Well, no. A wealthy time traveler could buy a current Rolex. Rolex is a terrible example. I'd love to learn about high quality, affordable brands. Also, only being able to know the time is very little information nowadays; smartwatches can do so much more (I have a Fossil Hybrid HR).

A non-gold Rolex can be bought for less than a top of the line Macbook Pro :p. I just wanted to give the example of a very fancy and expensive brand, which doesn't have to hide behind glueing their product together. The same applies to any quality brand mechanical wristwatch, be it Seiko, Tissot, Omega, IWC just to name some.

Re: There is now a European standard for measuring how easy it is to repair stuff

#105
post #24

Whenever repairability of modern electronic devices is discussed, I have to look at my mechanical wristwatch. Yes, there is an enormeous amount of technology integrated into a smartphone or compact laptop, but my wristwatch contains over 100 moving parts in a tiny volume. And still, every trained watchmaker can open and service it. It requires specialized tools, but those have been avialable to watchmakers for hundre…

I think it is a specific branding strategy. And I don't mean that in the direct sense, like planned obsolescence (it's NOT just about lost revenue due to repaired products staying longer in circulaton).

The Apple product brand image is that these are sleek smart unified objects. All from hardware to software should be looked at as a singular entity, a well designed black box for my satisfaction as the customer.

Opening it up, gutting it out and seeing wires and mechanical parts destroys the illusion. Just as it's not fitting/elegant to think of a celebrity diva or queen farting on the toilet or examining their smelly tooth cavities or whatever, it's not fitting to lay an Apple product barren with all the broken parts sticking out.

Because then it looks like just any other contraption, not this futuristic sleek intelligent product.

I claim that tinkering (and even just imagining the possibility of someone else tinkering) is in direct opposition to Apple branding strategy. It should just work. If it doesn't work, it should be disposed of, replaced, forgotten.

Re: There is now a European standard for measuring how easy it is to repair stuff

#106
post #24

Whenever repairability of modern electronic devices is discussed, I have to look at my mechanical wristwatch. Yes, there is an enormeous amount of technology integrated into a smartphone or compact laptop, but my wristwatch contains over 100 moving parts in a tiny volume. And still, every trained watchmaker can open and service it. It requires specialized tools, but those have been avialable to watchmakers for hundre…

I think it is a specific branding strategy. And I don't mean that in the direct sense, like planned obsolescence (it's NOT just about lost revenue due to repaired products staying longer in circulaton). The Apple product brand image is that these are sleek smart unified objects. All from hardware to software should be looked at as a singular entity, a well designed black box for my satisfaction as the customer. Openi…

Replacing a worn-out component doesn't really qualify as "tinkering". And throwing away products, that could be trivially repaired/refurbished should be banned for environmental reasons. At minimum, a company that prevents the repair of their products should be called out for their environmental unfriendliness

Re: There is now a European standard for measuring how easy it is to repair stuff

#107
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is anecdotal, but everyone in my circle of friends who bought a fairphone2 (2015) has replaced it. Meanwhile my mom is still using my old iPhone 5s (2013). And my wife uses her iPhone SE(2016). Hell the fact that they have released one in 2013, 2015 and 2019, kind of goes against their message doesn’t it?

That doesn't surprise me. The crowd of people who are aware of the fairphone are most likely techies. And I would wager techies are much more likely to replace a Phone then the Generic Apple user.

No one I’d call a techie bought it, it was the artsy environmental types. The reasons for replacing it ranges from the OS not being updated to run modern Apps to the phone breaking.

We’re pretty digitised in Denmark, so if you can’t download apps from the iOS or play stores you’ll have a harder time transferring payments to friends, using public transportation, ordering food online, interacting with the public sector, accessing your citizen mail box and stuff like that, and Android isn’t very good at longevity.

Re: There is now a European standard for measuring how easy it is to repair stuff

#108
post #24

Whenever repairability of modern electronic devices is discussed, I have to look at my mechanical wristwatch. Yes, there is an enormeous amount of technology integrated into a smartphone or compact laptop, but my wristwatch contains over 100 moving parts in a tiny volume. And still, every trained watchmaker can open and service it. It requires specialized tools, but those have been avialable to watchmakers for hundre…

> Yes, there is an enormeous amount of technology integrated into a smartphone or compact laptop, but my wristwatch contains over 100 moving parts in a tiny volume I'm not sure what the point here is, a CPU contains 50 billion parts in a tiny volume, it's impossible to fix things this small if they break. If a capacitor or resistor burns, you can probably open up your PC, look at the motherboard, find the faulty comp…

Watchmakers don't repair broken cogs either, they replace them with spare parts.

Re: There is now a European standard for measuring how easy it is to repair stuff

#109
post #60
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still miss my old 90's era dishwasher. I ran the numbers that thing was more effeceint end to end than modern ones. Because you didn't need to prerinse dishes. Prerinsing with warm water completely wipes out the modern ones energy and water savings. As for machines with plastic parts, there should be a standard that machines need to last ten years. And if one shows up at the dump before then the manufacturer has to…

Modern dishwashers don't need prerinsing and aren't tested with prerinsing, you're just using it wrong.

"You're just holding it wrong"

It's (potentially mandated) poor design if it's so easy to misuse.

Re: There is now a European standard for measuring how easy it is to repair stuff

#110
post #24

Whenever repairability of modern electronic devices is discussed, I have to look at my mechanical wristwatch. Yes, there is an enormeous amount of technology integrated into a smartphone or compact laptop, but my wristwatch contains over 100 moving parts in a tiny volume. And still, every trained watchmaker can open and service it. It requires specialized tools, but those have been avialable to watchmakers for hundre…

For consumer notebook repairability the golden standard should be something similar to HP Elitebook 2560p from 2012.

No screwdriver required!(with option to have a security screw)

While removing battery you can press a latch to remove the back cover.

Then you have easy access to everything that a consumer could possible want replacing(HDD/SDD,DVD->HDD, RAM, WIFI).

I recently upgraded a cousins 2560p to 16GB and SSD and it was a breeze, took a few minutes at most.

Sadly HP stopped offering this kind of notebook case around Haswell in 2014.

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