Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

de.ifixit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 201 posts

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

#51

Post by _ph_ »

StavrosK wrote: post #37
_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 comp…

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-storage. And of course any fan built into the device, as the clog and wear out.

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

#52

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#53

Post by _ph_ »

StavrosK wrote: post #45
rini17 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the watch analogy isn't the best one. But you are probably aware that the display, battery and storage break down more often than CPU? And that noone is proposing to replace individual bad transistors or pixels, but these parts which are manufactured separately and don't have to be glued together.

I was arguing specifically that comparing tech products to mechanical wristwatches is a bit ridiculous. Obviously tech products could be much more repairable than they are.

I hope the clarification I posted shows in what sense it clearly is not ridiculous. Of course you would need spare parts, but the access to be able to exchange parts in the first place ist the essential part.

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

#54

Post by _ph_ »

bzzzt wrote: post #47
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…

About the soldering part: memory prices don't plummet as hard as in 2005 anymore, so when you need more RAM, just buy it. By soldering it you also make it more robust. Most DIMM troubleshooting begins with 'reseat the modules'. And users won't place cheap modules which will cause issues and give your products a bad name.

Yes and no. I am all for buying the maximum memory you can order for a laptop, but Apple makes this an issue by asking a huge premium for upgrades. And of course, with ssd-storage, there is the question of wear, eventually you would have might have to replace it.

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

#55

Post by mahesh_rm »

tuukkah wrote: post #39
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.

The paradox is "A standard aimed at preventing replacement will be used to catalyze replacements". Standards never enforce replacements. Regulations and Fashions enforce replacements on the basis of standards.

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

#56

Post by tuukkah »

mahesh_rm wrote: post #55
tuukkah wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The paradox is "A standard aimed at preventing replacement will be used to catalyze replacements". Standards never enforce replacements. Regulations and Fashions enforce replacements on the basis of standards.

Can you give an example of what such a regulation could look like and of standards as a significant driver of fashion?

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

#57

Post by Gibbon1 »

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 still miss my old 90's era dishwasher. I ran the numbers that thing was more effeceint end to end than modern ones. Because you didn't need to prerinse dishes. Prerinsing with warm water completely wipes out the modern ones energy and water savings.

As for machines with plastic parts, there should be a standard that machines need to last ten years. And if one shows up at the dump before then the manufacturer has to buy it back from dump for the prorated list price.

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

#58

Post by ThePhysicist »

bzzzt wrote: post #47
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…

About the soldering part: memory prices don't plummet as hard as in 2005 anymore, so when you need more RAM, just buy it. By soldering it you also make it more robust. Most DIMM troubleshooting begins with 'reseat the modules'. And users won't place cheap modules which will cause issues and give your products a bad name.

Of course, you can select a 16 GB memory upgrade from Apple for 400 $ when you buy your laptop. On the other hand, a user-serviceable laptop would just enable you to buy that RAM yourself for around 100 $ and put it in the laptop. Also, you could do that after you buy the laptop, as sometimes people just realize they need more RAM or storage after using a laptop for several years. With an Apple laptop you're just out of luck in those cases, the only thing you can do is sell it and buy a new one. Same story with the hard drives or almost any other component. I don't think that the reason they do this is to make the laptops 1-2 mm thinner, I think it's just economically way more interesting to be in a position where your company controls the entire value chain from software to hardware. That's where Apple is headed and it's great for them as a company, for end users it's not so great though. I would really like if the EU restricts this kind of behavior as I think it would be good for Apple users as well.

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

#59

Post by squarefoot »

Speaking of phones, they often are purposely rendered obsolete by preventing them to install OS upgrades or migrating them to other more open OSes long before they break for other reasons. While this is a laudable initiative, sadly it won't be much effective against phones planned obsolescence. Opening hardware specs would be a true giant step against this. Not holding my breath though.

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

#60

Post by lozenge »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #57
switch007 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 still miss my old 90's era dishwasher. I ran the numbers that thing was more effeceint end to end than modern ones. Because you didn't need to prerinse dishes. Prerinsing with warm water completely wipes out the modern ones energy and water savings. As for machines with plastic parts, there should be a standard that machines need to last ten years. And if one shows up at the dump before then the manufacturer has to…

Modern dishwashers don't need prerinsing and aren't tested with prerinsing, you're just using it wrong.
Post reply on HN