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How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court

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Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court

#251

Post by fkyoureadthedoc »

beezlebroxxxxxx wrote: post #236
jvm___ wrote: post #217

I bought a cool wifi, internet connected picture frame from a thrift store. It had someone else's pictures on it, so I went into the menu and selected "Factory Reset" After that it never booted past the setup pages with a "unable to get token" message. I messaged the company who was very responsive but the end result was that they said it was unfixable and to return it to the store. It was only $8, but I was looking…

At a certain point we have to stop describing these situations as you "owning" something which broke, and instead describe it as you leasing the picture frame from that company for $0 (with an initial upfront cost) and the company failing to holdup on it's side of the deal.

In this case I'd be more inclined to call it planned obsolescence

Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court

#252

Post by vel0city »

zeristor wrote: post #80
Redneck-Tech wrote: post #73

Absolutely blows my mind how many people have fallen into the trap that is "SMART" devices and "POWER EFFICIENT" appliances. Only to find out just after the warranty runs out that they ultimately invested in a hawt piece of trash. There is no pride in manufactured goods anymore, imho there's not much pride in anything nowadays. Not surprising when a burger engineer at McDonald's makes more money than even an entry le…

Oral B sell a variety of Electric toothbrushes, dependent on the built in Li ion battery. Some of them hook up to a mobile phone by bluetooth to track how you brush. The thing is once the battery dies the £150 toothbrush is useless, it's' sealed so replacing the battery isn't trivial. I think in the battery may last a fair bit longer now. Electric tooth brushes are quite an improvement over a normal tooth brush.

I recently had to replace the handle of my Oral B electric toothbrush with a built-in sealed battery. The battery got to the point where it couldn't hold a charge for at least two brushings without it noticeably having its power output diminished.

I bought that brush handle in 2009. 15 years of life, and if I didn't mind about the second brush charge I probably could have squeezed another year or two out of it.

Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court

#253

Post by dghlsakjg »

pjc50 wrote: post #87
promiseofbeans wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not as good for the environment, though. Some companies like Apple try to make up for this by replacing broken devices, then refurbishing and reselling the formerly broken device.

Hand-repair of mass-manufactured objects is really expensive , unfortunately. Especially in the West, where you require a bunch of scarce resources like "city land" and "human time".

Not if the manufacturer plans for it. The first macbook I had, you could replace the battery in less than 10 seconds. You could replace a defective ram stick in 5 minutes if you were going slow. The price of service was cheap enough that the guy who sold me the RAM let me watch over his shoulder as he did it for free.

Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court

#254

Post by marcosdumay »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #108
bell-cot wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

15 years seems darn short for an oven. The (electric) one I have now is from the late 1960's, and perfectly functional. At church, our (gas) kitchen oven is about a century old - and the last service man we had said that it should be good for another century, if we're careful not to let it rust out.

When I lived in Hongkong, my oven failed after less than 10 years. When my landlord came to replace it, he told me that it was common due to the extreme humidity that eventually ruins the circuit boards. I'm still a bit skeptical of that explanation -- but he has probably replaced more "white goods" (refrig, oven, etc.) that I will in a lifetime. Weirdly, my washing machine by Bosch was tough as nails and never had a…

Proximity to the sea does shorten the lifetime of electronics. Salt deposition is a way worst problem than humidity.

There are ways to protect against that. And actively cooled equipment (like computers) get way worse problems than stuff with no air circulation.

Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court

#255

Post by seventyone »

stronglikedan wrote: post #221
r4indeer wrote: post #21

> Now an old fashioned light bulb shouldn't be expected to last a decade, but an oven? Funnily enough, there actually was the Phoebus cartel [1] which sought to reduce the lifespan of incandescent light bulbs to around 1,000 hours and raise prices. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel

I'm convinced this happened recently with LED bulbs as well, even though I've found no definitive proof. The LEDs I installed in my house 10-12 years ago are still going strong, but every newer one I've purchased gives up the ghost within a couple of years. And I only purchase brands with a good reputation, like Feit and the like.

There is definitive proof. They over-drive the LEDs which is why they die so quickly. If they were under-driven they last much much longer. It's the heat that kills them IIRC.

Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court

#256

Post by gosub100 »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #7

I predict that this is going to get more and more common: Companies enshittify their service, hiding behind impenetrable walls of AI chatbots and useless outsourced template-reply service centers, customers respond by taking one attempt to resolve it with the company and then straight to court. If you have a working small claims court system, I can recommend giving it a try. It can be way less frustrating than trying…

They're rolling out the arbitration clauses like mad recently though. There was an HN post a few years ago about going to arbitration and winning, so it's not a complete lost cause but I guess the damages would be less.

Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court

#257

Post by fkyoureadthedoc »

Onavo wrote: post #157
afiori wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Planned obsolescence is very real, but the reality of incandescent light bulbs means that lifespan, efficiency, and luminosity are not independent. The 1000 hours limit is in practice a lower bound to a combination of luminosity and efficiency

LED diodes can theoretically last decades given the correct drivers (current and heat needs to be significantly limited), unfortunately they are the very definition of planned obsolescence. https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-l-e-d-quanda... A stable DC current and temperature limited LED can easily last decades.

I remember seeing a relevant video about Dubai and some bulb company working together to create a longer life led bulb.

Ok here it is --

The lamps you're not allowed to have. Exploring the Dubai lamps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klaJqofCsu4

> These fascinating lamps are a result of a collaboration between Philips Lighting and Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum - the ruler of Dubai. They are designed to be the most efficient available, matching high lumen output with very long life. Once you see the construction and circuitry you'll realise this isn't just marketing spin.

Now I want to actually look into and see if they're available elsewhere, because my LED bulbs really do seem to fail pretty frequently...

Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court

#258

Post by tpmoney »

jimmydorry wrote: post #123
Youden wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't as simple as them wanting to make more money: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb7Bs98KmnY Key points from an AI summary: - Incandescent bulbs had to balance factors like light output, efficiency, and lifespan - hotter filaments produced brighter, whiter light but reduced bulb lifespan. - Longer-lasting bulbs were less efficient and produced dimmer, yellower light, so they were not simply "better" products b…

You're missing the fact that the Phoebus cartel fined members that sold lightbulbs lasting longer than 1,000 hours. Aftr reaching a stable equilibrium, it's not surprising that 1,000 hours remained the industry standard. It drove sales! [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-05-04/cheeri...

If I remember right from the last time I looked into this, they also fined members for making bulbs that lasted shorter than 1000 hours. The goal was a standardized product, largely to protect regional sales agreements rather than any specific concerns about long bulb life vs sales.

Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court

#259

Post by kube-system »

seventyone wrote: post #255
stronglikedan wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm convinced this happened recently with LED bulbs as well, even though I've found no definitive proof. The LEDs I installed in my house 10-12 years ago are still going strong, but every newer one I've purchased gives up the ghost within a couple of years. And I only purchase brands with a good reputation, like Feit and the like.

There is definitive proof. They over-drive the LEDs which is why they die so quickly. If they were under-driven they last much much longer. It's the heat that kills them IIRC.

That design doesn't prove anything about any malicious intent to decrease the lifespan of the bulb, any more than it proves that they're optimizing lumens/dollar for the customers who want it.

Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court

#260

Post by Frenchgeek »

TonyTrapp wrote: post #226
stronglikedan wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm convinced this happened recently with LED bulbs as well, even though I've found no definitive proof. The LEDs I installed in my house 10-12 years ago are still going strong, but every newer one I've purchased gives up the ghost within a couple of years. And I only purchase brands with a good reputation, like Feit and the like.

There's a variety of reasons: - Lower-quality components (especially capacitors) being used to meet the lower price point. This is by far the most common failure mode I have experienced, it's never the LEDs dying but the power supply. - Higher-quality LED light is usually result of driving the LEDs harder, causing them to fail earlier. - Probably some other reasons too.

The design may also be completely ignoring heat dissipation, and cook its components.
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