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

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

#151

Post by _ph_ »

Shivetya wrote: post #121
ThePhysicist wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple seems to be one of the worst offenders in terms of repairability of their devices. You can watch e.g. Louis Rossmann's videos on Youtube, he goes into great detail on how Apple tries to make it impossible for anyone except themselves to service their laptops, even going as far as to restrict market suppliers from selling specific microchips (that were not invented by Apple) to anyone but Apple. I imagine this w…

Right to repair never covered upgrading an item. We cannot upgrade memory or storage in many devices so limiting the rule to say "this item type must allow for use upgrading" limits the flexibility of the seller. If you don't like their limits then buy the other brand. One could make a good argument that circuit board repair is outside the realm of right to repair as in many applications you simply buy a new module o…

The ability to upgrade would be a bonus and usually comes automatically, if you have the ability to repair a device. OWC is well-known for offerings of upgrades for Apple computers, which were not officially upgradeable, as well as of course, repair kits, like for the battery in some models.

A right to repair should be one of the fundamental customer rights. In this case, not only protecting the customer, but also the environment. Customer rights exists for multiple reasons. First of all, to protect against undue forcing of customers into something. Even if a company doesn't have a monopoly in the strict sense, they might try to force you into situations, where you cannot just choose a different brand. Especially if all brands go on a similar course.

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

#152

Post by _ph_ »

ginko wrote: post #134
_ph_ wrote: 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 could buy a current Rolex and have it serviced in 1950, possibly even in 1850. That's because mechanical watches are an outdated design. Good luck to them trying to service a quartz watch.

And even with a quartz watch a watchmaker can do a lot of things. If you provide the battery, they can exchange it, they can even service the dial and hands. Of course, servicing the quartz movement itself is not possible, but the point I tried to make was, that at least important components should be exchangeable on their own, like for example the battery in a laptop.

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

#153

Post by _ph_ »

xxs wrote: post #132
_ph_ wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comparison misses the point. A modern smartphone or laptop consists of dozens of parts. Of course, no one can fix an error on a CPU. I don't even ask to fix proplems on a PCB. But a laptop should not consist of a single PCB, but be split into CPU/GPU, memory, storage, battery. At least these components should be replaceable for a skilled worker, especially those which age with time, as the battery and ssd-storag…

many (incl. myself) people have no issues with the pcb and soldering on them, provided the entire thing is not potted in epoxy. Soldering SSD and RAM is another issue, which makes standard components useless (mostly on purpose)

And at least with SSD there is the risk of the drive wearing out. One should not have to throw away the CPU and GPU just to fix a broken drive.

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

#154

Post by _ph_ »

cheesecracker wrote: post #115
_ph_ wrote: 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…

Sorry, but isn't a wristwatch like a bazillionth of complexity of a modern smartphone? How many transistors do you need for a wristwatch? The whole idea of servicing modern electronics is romantic nonsense. The hourly rate of an expert will make it too expensive quickly, because industrialized mass production is too effective. (Edit: according to this link on Quora, several billion transistors are not unrealistic in…

When I was talking about servicing a laptop, I was thinking about the usualy components, like battery, keyboard, SSD, fans. Things which can break or are going to wear out over time. By that count, a laptop has perhaps 10-20 "parts". Compare that to the complexity of a mechanical watch.

I don't know the going rate for a watch maker, it is probably not cheap. But I know what I paid for servicing my watches before and a multiple of that for having my dealer upgrade the disk in my iMac. Which still has an internal SATA port, but unfortunately is glued together. This is something which should cost less than a watch service, even at the same rate.

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

#155

Post by wizzwizz4 »

Avamander wrote: post #109
lozenge wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower, House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.

– Charles Babbage

How can a dishwasher possibly be designed to discourage people from doing things to the dishes before they put them into the dishwasher?

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

#156

Post by C1sc0cat »

rsynnott wrote: post #143
C1sc0cat wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not sure that that's true in a vacuum, and in any case most of the super-high-wattage vacuum cleaners didn't have controls for that (maybe very high-end ones did?) EDIT: Just noticed the accidental pun; by true in a vacuum I mean true without extra information, not true in a vacuum cleaner :)

I think many have controls and you could always set it to 80%.

This is a bit like having better VRM's and cooling improves the life of CPU's.

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

#157

Post by mrtksn »

rasz wrote: post #135
mrtksn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is surprisingly repearable and is a major factor driving device prices in the poorer countries. There are shops everywhere that would fix your iPhone at very reasonable prices. People expect to use the device for 3-5 five years since they pay multiple salaries to buy it in first place and pay it through the years. If that’s not environmentally friendly, I don’t know what it is.

Its te other way around. Apple products have the most third party repair support directly because they are so expensive. It makes more sense to repair $600 phone than $150 one.

It also makes sense to use 600$ device that continues to get support for 5 years. Therefore , less waste overall. Cheap phones don’t produce less waste.

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

#158

Post by wizzwizz4 »

snops wrote: post #8

If anyone wishes to read it or similar European standards, each nation is required to sell it at a price proportional to the average wage, and hence the Estonian standards body is selling it[1] for €14, instead of the £204 the British standards institute wants. [1] https://www.evs.ee/en/evs-en-45554-2020

Alternatively, you could look at the version on the EU website. This article[1] links to the standard[2].

[1]: https://www.cencenelec.eu/news/articles/Pages/AR-2020-008.as...

[2]: https://www.cenelec.eu/dyn/www/f?p=104:110:877190265864601::...

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

#159

Post by m0xte »

_ph_ wrote: post #102
m0xte wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes I agree.

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

#160

Post by shuntress »

sireat wrote: post #110
_ph_ wrote: 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 a…

I think there are definitely some reasonable limits manufacturers shouldn't be expected to reach in terms of easy, intuitive, tool-less end-user serviceability.

For example, I think it is unreasonable to expect that a smartphone's battery be replaceable with 0 tools and 0 consumables (gaskets, glues, etc).

However, those tools and consumables _should_ be expected to to be reasonably standard and reasonably available.

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