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The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

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Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#121

Post by amazingamazing »

walterbell wrote: post #3

https://www.ifixit.com/News/110039/double-trouble-for-repair... Come January 1, 2026, manufacturers must also stop using parts pairing to block repairs for these devices. That means no more pop-ups that say “unknown part” when you swap in a working screen. No more downgrading your camera or fingerprint sensor just because you repaired your own phone. SB 5680 goes even further for wheelchair users. It covers power whe…

> That means no more pop-ups that say “unknown part” when you swap in a working screen. No more downgrading your camera or fingerprint sensor just because you repaired your own phone.

I'm curious if that means that it's now illegal for the company to tell you if you have a device with fake parts.

I also don't quite understand the security implications. If you need some attested part, like a TPM, and this and some other thing like a fingerprint sensor fail and you replace them both, you cannot disable the fingerprint sensor since now technically it cannot attest itself?

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#122

Post by bityard »

FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #62
CrimsonCape wrote: post #16

It appears that the Washington bill excluded power tools whereas the Texas bill did not, which means that in Texas I should be able to swap dead lithium cells out of my expensive power tool batteries.

We've been using these at work and they are great! https://ceenr.com/

Very interesting. Maybe I can afford Milwaukee tools now! Their tools are good, and sold bare, for semi-reasonable prices but their batteries are eye-wateringly expensive.

(I should probably pick one of these up before Torque Test Channel does a video on them and they end up getting sold out for a year.)

Edit: I'm referring to the PDNation universal battery + brand-specific adapter in particular.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#123

Post by bityard »

CrimsonCape wrote: post #16

It appears that the Washington bill excluded power tools whereas the Texas bill did not, which means that in Texas I should be able to swap dead lithium cells out of my expensive power tool batteries.

I fully support right-to-repair but do you need a law to repair batteries?

You can buy a battery build kit for M18 tools (for example) on AliExpress that comes with everything but the cells.

I'm a bit of a tool nerd and I'm not aware of any power tools that are doing DRM in their tools to prevent usage of third-party batteries but I don't mind being wrong so I know which brands to avoid.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#124

Post by MichaelZuo »

dcow wrote: post #120
MichaelZuo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manufacturers can already legitimately say the additional price for 1 spare part for a $5 part is actually $250,000 dollars because the last mould has worn out…? Typically nobody would actually go through with placing any orders beyond that point, unless they’re the pentagon.

Tough luck then. The point of the law is to make it easier for people to repair the things they rightfully own. Not kill business by requiring all companies to indefinitely manufacture parts for anything they’ve ever sold.

So then what does it change?

Businesses previously and will continue to negate it in practice, sometimes for legitimate reasons and sometimes not. And most of the time nobody outside of a small group will know for sure.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#125

Post by charcircuit »

const_cast wrote: post #110
charcircuit wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible consumers prefer the vertically integrated model of repair. Increasing competition doesn't necessarily make things better for consumers.

1. Consumers have no choice, so they better prefer it. 2. These anti-repair practices are anti-consumer, because they're specifically designed to make the process more difficult and expensive for consumers. 3. This is sort of along the lines of planned obsolescence. The reality is that making your product shittier on purpose is actually a viable business strategy when you have decent market share. It shouldn't be.

1. They do have a choice. No one is forcing them to buy a specific product.

2. A product who is more complicated and expensive to repair is not necessarily a worse product. This could be a trade off in favor of something consumers value more.

3. It's normal to target a lifespan for a product. For mature products ignoring it is a sign of amateurs. This is not the same thing as making a product bad on purpose.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#126

Post by onli »

dmonitor wrote: post #72
walterbell wrote: post #3

https://www.ifixit.com/News/110039/double-trouble-for-repair... Come January 1, 2026, manufacturers must also stop using parts pairing to block repairs for these devices. That means no more pop-ups that say “unknown part” when you swap in a working screen. No more downgrading your camera or fingerprint sensor just because you repaired your own phone. SB 5680 goes even further for wheelchair users. It covers power whe…

Hopefully this doesn't mean the system can't report a non-OEM part being installed at all. Buying a used product that's been hacked apart would be frustrating.

There is no such restriction in the law. The relevant section reads like this, section 3:

> an original manufacturer may not use parts pairing to: ... Cause a digital electronic product to display misleading alerts or warnings about unidentified parts, which the owner cannot immediately dismiss.

So of course there can still be a notice, it just has to be dismissable. But Apple (the main company using part pairing against customers right now) has to stop making their products unusable when non-OEM parts are used for a repair.

Side note: Be aware that baseless concerns like this echo propaganda against Right to Repair. You might have been infected by some Apple follower talking points there.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#127

Post by Zak »

charcircuit wrote: post #125
const_cast wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Consumers have no choice, so they better prefer it. 2. These anti-repair practices are anti-consumer, because they're specifically designed to make the process more difficult and expensive for consumers. 3. This is sort of along the lines of planned obsolescence. The reality is that making your product shittier on purpose is actually a viable business strategy when you have decent market share. It shouldn't be.

1. They do have a choice. No one is forcing them to buy a specific product. 2. A product who is more complicated and expensive to repair is not necessarily a worse product. This could be a trade off in favor of something consumers value more. 3. It's normal to target a lifespan for a product. For mature products ignoring it is a sign of amateurs. This is not the same thing as making a product bad on purpose.

There's some significant information asymmetry involved such that it's a lot of effort to know how repairable a new product is. The consumer may not even be the one to perform the repair; there are a lot of independent repair shops replacing things like smartphone displays. It would be a nasty surprise for someone who got their screen replaced for $80 on their last phone to learn it's first-party-only and $300 on their new one a couple years into ownership.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#128

Post by trailbits »

dgb23 wrote: post #54
_kidlike wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

easiest example: most components of a macbook laptop have their serial number baked in the OS (or some hardware controller, idr). So even if you can find a legit macbook part from another laptop, and you can even replace it yourself (which is also impossible but that's another story), the laptop won't boot. In order for it to boot, you need a special device which "official apple repair" people have, which can bake-in…

What's the purpose of that other than making it harder to repair? Is there any good faith argument to made made here?

It does remove any incentive for a thief to steal a Macbook. They can't strip it for parts and sell those parts if they won't work.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#129

Post by Loughla »

onli wrote: post #126
dmonitor wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully this doesn't mean the system can't report a non-OEM part being installed at all. Buying a used product that's been hacked apart would be frustrating.

There is no such restriction in the law. The relevant section reads like this, section 3: > an original manufacturer may not use parts pairing to: ... Cause a digital electronic product to display misleading alerts or warnings about unidentified parts, which the owner cannot immediately dismiss. So of course there can still be a notice, it just has to be dismissable. But Apple (the main company using part pairing aga…

So there's nothing stopping them from having that pop up every single time you turn your phone screen on?

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#130

Post by tbrownaw »

onli wrote: post #126
dmonitor wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully this doesn't mean the system can't report a non-OEM part being installed at all. Buying a used product that's been hacked apart would be frustrating.

There is no such restriction in the law. The relevant section reads like this, section 3: > an original manufacturer may not use parts pairing to: ... Cause a digital electronic product to display misleading alerts or warnings about unidentified parts, which the owner cannot immediately dismiss. So of course there can still be a notice, it just has to be dismissable. But Apple (the main company using part pairing aga…

> Side note: Be aware that baseless concerns like this echo propaganda against Right to Repair. You might have been infected by some Apple follower talking points there.

"How dare you be anything less than blindly enthusiastic about this obviously good thing, you've clearly been tricked by someone evil."

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