The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State • Hacker News Board

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#61

Post by tadfisher » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 5:20 PM UTC

ZeWaka wrote: post #49

jasonthorsness wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is the bill for consumer electronics: https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary/?BillNumber=1483&Year=202... Text as passed (for pasting into LLM :)): https://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2025-26/Pdf/Bills/Ho... I wondered what it would mean for small manufacturers and they are not exempt however o3 believes "in practice, your duty is limited to providing whatever service manuals, firmware-pairing utilities, and spa…

Very interesting, there's a carveout for video game consoles: > Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to require any original manufacturer or authorized repair provider to make available any parts, tools, or documentation required for the diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of a video game console and its components and peripherals. Wonder if Valve/Xbox/Nintendo asked for that, this being Washington State.

Valve already provides parts and documentation for the Steam Deck through a partnership with iFixit.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#62

Post by FuriouslyAdrift » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 5:20 PM UTC

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/

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#63

Post by ender341341 » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 5:21 PM UTC

ZeWaka wrote: post #49

jasonthorsness wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is the bill for consumer electronics: https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary/?BillNumber=1483&Year=202... Text as passed (for pasting into LLM :)): https://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2025-26/Pdf/Bills/Ho... I wondered what it would mean for small manufacturers and they are not exempt however o3 believes "in practice, your duty is limited to providing whatever service manuals, firmware-pairing utilities, and spa…

Very interesting, there's a carveout for video game consoles: > Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to require any original manufacturer or authorized repair provider to make available any parts, tools, or documentation required for the diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of a video game console and its components and peripherals. Wonder if Valve/Xbox/Nintendo asked for that, this being Washington State.

Given the support valve provides for the steam deck I'd be surprised if it was them. They seem much more interested in having a viable alternative to keep Microsoft from walling windows in such a way to kill steam than caring that they make the actual devices.

I would 100% percent expect both Microsoft & Nintendo to have had a hand in that though.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#64

Post by usui » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 5:22 PM UTC

sleepybrett wrote: post #4

froggertoaster wrote: post #2

Companies like John Deere have way overplayed their hand, and I'm glad to see the regulatory winds are changing.

This law does not apply to tractors or game consoles. It's neutered as all fuck. From the article: Of course, these wins come with carve-outs. HB 1483 exempts: Video game consoles Medical devices Motor vehicles Agricultural and construction equipment Security systems and alarm equipment Internet and TV equipment from ISPs Off-road recreational vehicles Large-scale energy storage and solar gear Low earth orbit broadba…

Why do right-to-repair bills always have these kinds of exclusions? These are pretty important categories.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#65

Post by skeaker » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 5:23 PM UTC

dgb23 wrote: post #54

_kidlike wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

easiest example: most components of a macbook laptop have their serial number baked in the OS (or some hardware controller, idr). So even if you can find a legit macbook part from another laptop, and you can even replace it yourself (which is also impossible but that's another story), the laptop won't boot. In order for it to boot, you need a special device which "official apple repair" people have, which can bake-in…

What's the purpose of that other than making it harder to repair? Is there any good faith argument to made made here?

In theory people will steal Apple devices, then when they learn that digital locks make them impossible to use they will gut them for parts and sell those. Serial locking would defeat that. In practice, yes, it pretty much just exists to make them millions off of forced overpriced in-house repairs.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#66

Post by tadfisher » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 5:23 PM UTC

FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #60

lenerdenator wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk about the commercial units, but my portable inverter generator has a bunch of schmoo (highly technical industry term) that covers the entire electronics board. If a component on that board fried, I'm not able to repair it without replacing the whole board. The rest is fairly simple ICE like you say.

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.

Typically a generator is used outdoors, so it makes sense to protect the PCB and other electronics from conditions experienced there. I wouldn't know what those conditions are, being on Hacker News and all.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#67

Post by alpb » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 5:26 PM UTC

connicpu wrote: post #26

sleepybrett wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This law does not apply to tractors or game consoles. It's neutered as all fuck. From the article: Of course, these wins come with carve-outs. HB 1483 exempts: Video game consoles Medical devices Motor vehicles Agricultural and construction equipment Security systems and alarm equipment Internet and TV equipment from ISPs Off-road recreational vehicles Large-scale energy storage and solar gear Low earth orbit broadba…

"Low earth orbit broadband gear" is incredibly specific lol, I believe there's exactly 2 companies with large offices in Washington that would apply to.

Doesn't that include all home Starlink devices?

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#68

Post by vel0city » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 5:27 PM UTC

abeppu wrote: post #29

sokoloff wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would anyone believe that spare parts would need to be provided at cost? I’m a proponent of right to repair, but that would be an absurd over-step (and be a strong force to ensure that no spare parts are available to anyone).

IDK about "at cost" but shouldn't _some_ price regulation of spare parts be included? With no limits, any manufacturer might say "The price for any spare part is the cost of the original item + a significant additional fee, because our process will be to pull a complete new unit from the warehouse, and have someone disassemble it and send you the one part."

I remember looking at prices for OEM parts for my motorcycle and marveling at how I could effectively build my own, but parts alone before shipping would cost me like $80k for a bike that was The cost for the part at the factory for 1,000+ units is radically different than the part for your one off garage build.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#69

Post by Nextgrid » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 5:35 PM UTC

dgb23 wrote: post #54

_kidlike wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

easiest example: most components of a macbook laptop have their serial number baked in the OS (or some hardware controller, idr). So even if you can find a legit macbook part from another laptop, and you can even replace it yourself (which is also impossible but that's another story), the laptop won't boot. In order for it to boot, you need a special device which "official apple repair" people have, which can bake-in…

What's the purpose of that other than making it harder to repair? Is there any good faith argument to made made here?

They will say "security", and unfortunately half of HN will gobble it up no-questions-asked.

The security argument can be achieved just as well by giving the user the master key (on a Yubikey-style HSM if needed) to unlock the protection.

The fact it's not done that way clearly shows the primary security they care about is that of Apple's bank account.

Re: The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

#70

Post by josephcsible » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 5:38 PM UTC

onesociety2022 wrote: post #59

dgb23 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the purpose of that other than making it harder to repair? Is there any good faith argument to made made here?

Security measure - otherwise someone can intercept your MacBook during delivery, replace the original component with a fake one that has a backdoor and ship it to you and you start using it completely oblivious to the fact it has been hacked.

That might be an argument to reject non-genuine components, but it's not an argument to reject genuine components just because they've previously been installed in a different device. (And even if it's possible to modify a genuine component to add backdoors, this still doesn't help, since they could just modify the one that came out of your MacBook too.)