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

de.ifixit.com

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

#31

Post by fsflover »

yangminded wrote: post #27
fsflover wrote: post #4

I hope it will finally force Apple to become more climate-friendly. Their scores in phone repairability are disappointigly low: https://www.ifixit.com/smartphone-repairability .

I don't think you understand how much easier it is to repair an iPhone compared to any other phone on the market (apart of niche products like the Fairphone which does a great job!). If you open an iPhone, you will see a very well ordered and packaged arrangement of components. Most Android phones are a hot mess compared with it. If you need a component for an iPhone, you can get it easily. What I'm saying is not tha…

> BTW: iPhones regularly get software updates for around 5 years. How's that for extending the lifetime of devices? Android phones are lucky to get significant software updates for more than one year.

After Android devices stop getting updates, you can continue with alternative OS or you can use F-Droid basically forever. All your apps will have updates.

When Apple devices stop being supported, they turn into bricks.

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

#32

Post by mywacaday »

yangminded wrote: post #27
fsflover wrote: post #4

I hope it will finally force Apple to become more climate-friendly. Their scores in phone repairability are disappointigly low: https://www.ifixit.com/smartphone-repairability .

I don't think you understand how much easier it is to repair an iPhone compared to any other phone on the market (apart of niche products like the Fairphone which does a great job!). If you open an iPhone, you will see a very well ordered and packaged arrangement of components. Most Android phones are a hot mess compared with it. If you need a component for an iPhone, you can get it easily. What I'm saying is not tha…

You might be able to get apple to repair it at an exorbitant cost relative to the price of the part. Apple dies not provide spare parts to third party repair shops. If you can't repair an item for a reasonable cost regardless of how easy it is it's still not repairable.

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

#33

Post by ThePhysicist »

_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…

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 will only become worse as they switch to their own CPUs in the near future. I expect that Macs will become more like iPhones in that Apple will restrict more and more which software you can easily run on them and how you can extend the devices.

Other manufacturers like Dell or Lenovo do a much better job in terms of repairability IMHO: They build their machines with mostly standard components that can be easily replaced and make them easy to open and service. Compare that to recent Apple devices: If you want more RAM or storage in your device they charge you 5-10 times the market price. They also make sure you will never be able to upgrade those things yourself by soldering them to the mainboard.

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

#35

Post by rowanG077 »

moksly wrote: post #26
Vinnl wrote: post #14

I have a Fairphone [1], for which repairability was a major focus (the latest two models are the first smartphones to get a perfect 10 from iFixit, IIRC). At some point, it started having some issues. Likewise, a friend of mine who had one wanted a new phone as well. By combining parts from mine and his phone, I now have a properly working phone again with very little effort. This is so important. (That said, the rea…

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.

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

#36

Post by raverbashing »

switch007 wrote: post #15
apexalpha wrote: post #10

Let's hope this catches on just like the energy labels did. After the EU forced manufacturers to improve energy use in their devices it soon improved situations for everyone on this planet. Many other countries follow EU regulations directly or indirectly so let's hope for some easily repairable products in the future!

> 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…

What about the 90C?

Is there a regulation that forbids it or it is merely an energy efficiency thing?

(Btw don't do it unless, I don't know, you're washing something heavy and very dirty https://www.cda.eu/laundry/washing-machine-temperature-guide... )

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

#37

Post by StavrosK »

_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…

> 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 component visually (it'll usually be black), desolder it and solder a new one. It's just that they're so small that it's really hard.

Many manufacturers (looking at you, Apple) are designing things so they're hard to repair, but it won't be easy to repair electronics, no matter how much you plan for it. The best compromise is to design them so the user has to replace small modules rather than the entire thing.

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

#38

Post by fluffything »

moksly wrote: post #26
Vinnl wrote: post #14

I have a Fairphone [1], for which repairability was a major focus (the latest two models are the first smartphones to get a perfect 10 from iFixit, IIRC). At some point, it started having some issues. Likewise, a friend of mine who had one wanted a new phone as well. By combining parts from mine and his phone, I now have a properly working phone again with very little effort. This is so important. (That said, the rea…

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?

I'm still using my iPhone SE (2016). I've changed the battery once, and the screen twice (I should probably stop dropping it).

Changing the screen takes ~20 minutes, and a new screen costs ~16$.

I will probably upgrade to the iPhone SE2 at some point, but given that my phone works perfectly for what I use it for, paying 550$ for an upgrade just does not make sense.

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

#39

Post by tuukkah »

mahesh_rm wrote: post #28

This looks clearly like a laudable effort and positive trend, but I can't avoid to foresee paradoxical scenarios along the lines of "I needed to replace my 3 years old perfectly functional fridge with repairability class F with a new one with repairability class D++"

What is the paradox here? The standard won't force replacements.

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

#40

Post by open-source-ux »

switch007 wrote: post #15
apexalpha wrote: post #10

Let's hope this catches on just like the energy labels did. After the EU forced manufacturers to improve energy use in their devices it soon improved situations for everyone on this planet. Many other countries follow EU regulations directly or indirectly so let's hope for some easily repairable products in the future!

> 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"

Modern front-loading washing machines still heat to 90°C. What's changed is that modern washing machines use less water than older models.

This is one of those dilemmas with older appliances: the older appliance is in perfect working condition, but uses much more water per wash (or more electricity). Do you keep the older appliance? Or buy a modern model that will save you water (or electricity)?

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