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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

#161

Post by onli »

rconti wrote: post #138
onli wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sorry, I can't parse the multiple negatives of "hopefully this doesn't mean they can't.." followed by "there's no such restriction". I legitimately share the parent's concern. In a related matter, insurance companies are allowed to force me to accept non-OEM parts when my car is repaired. It sucks that someone can crash into me, and force me into taking sub-standard parts.

Hm. There is no restriction in the law about showing the OEM status of parts in general was how I wanted my sentence to be understood. A permanent notice and limiting functionality is explicitly forbidden, but it follows that a dismissable notice (or something like a popup notice triggered in a settings menu) is allowed.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#162

Post by miki123211 »

amazingamazing wrote: post #121
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 oth…

Presumably, you can have the TPM tie fingerprint data to the sensor.

If you replace the sensor with a "fake" one, old fingerprint data becomes invalid. This would be good enough for users, as adding their fingerprints back would take them minutes at most, while providing no value for attackers.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#163

Post by miki123211 »

tialaramex wrote: post #132
onli wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Yup. When somebody insists you need "genuine OEM parts" insist in response that they specify what exactly it is you're getting. Most often "genuine" means the Chinese factory put these in a box that the OEM sold to you for $40 whereas the "not genuine" ones were from the same factory but they were $20, that's just worse val…

The problem with non-genuine parts is that you don't know what they are.

Maybe it's literally the same cable from the same factory, but without the logo. Maybe it's the same cable from the same factory, but the Chinese company decided to skimp on materials and quality control on the off-brand ones, and it's going to burn your house down after a year. Maybe it's a competing factory trying to reverse-engineer the design, who figured out how to "optimize" it by removing an "unnecessary" part, which was actually engineered in as a crucial safety precaution. You never know.

You may even buy the same non-genuine part you've been buying for years, from the same seller, and suddenly go from an exact copy to the "competing factory" case.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#164

Post by miki123211 »

guywithahat wrote: post #117
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…

The phone part sounds great, the wheel chair portion sounds like it will just make wheel chairs more expensive. Wheelchairs are generally already highly repairable, and this will just reduce the options to consumers

It'll just make many good wheelchairs unavailable in WA, forcing consumers to buy out of state, import from a foreign company that doesn't care about state laws, or go with a worse product.

Since these are presumably financed by the government, the first two options may not even be available to most.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#165

Post by [deleted] »

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/

[deleted]

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#166

Post by zaphar »

aaron_m04 wrote: post #153
zaphar wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also be aware that the in the case of a TPM and fingerprint sensor there are some very important security guarantees that a part must make in order to preserve the security of the system. So it is not in fact scare mongering to try to get this right in the law and commenting about the difficulty of getting this right is not being infected by Apple follower talking points.

Ok, how would you ensure this is right in the law without creating a loophole?

It should be allowed for a system to warn about using a part that has not been certified to work in this type of situation. There is a middle ground where third party parts are allowed but they have to demonstrate that they meet a certain level of safety to not have a warning pop up.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#167

Post by lenerdenator »

alnwlsn wrote: post #95
FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conformal coating? That used to be the norm way back in the day for all kinds of electronics. Kind of a dick move, now, unless there is an environmental reason.

Normal on anything that has to work outside. Also, hardly an impediment to repair. I've done it myself on a car ECU: open case, scrape off conformal coating, desolder blown IGBT, replace with IGBT salvaged from junkyard unit, spray on new conformal coating, done - been working like that now for 5 years. Parts pairing is also a/the reason you can't just swap in the junkyard unit even though it came from a car with the…

I'm going to guess that it's actually potted in epoxy, not just a conformal coating.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#168

Post by tialaramex »

miki123211 wrote: post #163
tialaramex wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Side note: Be aware that baseless concerns like this echo propaganda against Right to Repair Yup. When somebody insists you need "genuine OEM parts" insist in response that they specify what exactly it is you're getting. Most often "genuine" means the Chinese factory put these in a box that the OEM sold to you for $40 whereas the "not genuine" ones were from the same factory but they were $20, that's just worse val…

The problem with non-genuine parts is that you don't know what they are. Maybe it's literally the same cable from the same factory, but without the logo. Maybe it's the same cable from the same factory, but the Chinese company decided to skimp on materials and quality control on the off-brand ones, and it's going to burn your house down after a year. Maybe it's a competing factory trying to reverse-engineer the desig…

If what you're buying is specified you get significantly improved visibility on the concerns you described. When it's not specified you're in the same place as before - the factory making them for the Genuine OEM is also trying to shrink the BOM by removing unnecessary parts.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#169

Post by colejohnson66 »

Spivak wrote: post #149
rconti wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I can't parse the multiple negatives of "hopefully this doesn't mean they can't.." followed by "there's no such restriction". I legitimately share the parent's concern. In a related matter, insurance companies are allowed to force me to accept non-OEM parts when my car is repaired. It sucks that someone can crash into me, and force me into taking sub-standard parts.

Do you feel the same way about generic drugs being substandard?

Yes. Insurance companies being able to force you to take a generic when you and your doctor know you need the name brand is frustrating. If you change insurance, you and your doctor must go toe-to-toe with the insurance to prove you need the name brand. And then you're forced to "trial" the generic again. Yes, there are legitimate cases of generics not working right for the person.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#170

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]
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