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

91–100 of 201 posts

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

#91

Post by ascorbic »

Fnoord wrote: post #76
_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…

> A time traveller [sic] could buy a current Rolex [...] Well, no. A wealthy time traveler could buy a current Rolex. Rolex is a terrible example. I'd love to learn about high quality, affordable brands. Also, only being able to know the time is very little information nowadays; smartwatches can do so much more (I have a Fossil Hybrid HR).

"traveller" is a valid spelling. No need for the passive-aggressive sic

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

#92

Post by rsynnott »

Mirioron wrote: post #89
rsynnott wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I kind liked washing machines that properly heated to 90C Your washing machine is likely defective. Nothing about the rules makes this particularly difficult and modern machines with good energy ratings can do it (though, mind you, you'll notice if you read the small print that the energy rating is pretty much just for the mode they expect people to use; the 90 degree mode will use quite a lot of power). > vacuum c…

The cheap machines before might've been less efficient, but they generally at least did the job adequately. That's not always the case when the power rating is limited. Consider that these rules apply to countries with very different economies. People in Bulgaria have an average income of $9,000 a year compared to $54,000 in Germany. They have access to the same vacuum cleaners and washing machines, but they can't af…

> but they generally at least did the job adequately

Did they, tho? That's not my memory of cheap 90s/noughties era washing machines, at all. If you go back much further than that, cheap machines didn't exist; adjust the price of a basic 80s washing machine for inflation and you're looking at something that's more than most people would pay for a washing machine today.

EDIT: One thing that the 90s cheap machines were better on was noise, though. It's not that the modern ones are _louder_; I think they're actually lower decibels. But the motors, especially the pump motors, in the newer ones make a much more _annoying_ noise.

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

#93

Post by rsynnott »

silvestrov wrote: post #73
rsynnott wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I kind liked washing machines that properly heated to 90C Your washing machine is likely defective. Nothing about the rules makes this particularly difficult and modern machines with good energy ratings can do it (though, mind you, you'll notice if you read the small print that the energy rating is pretty much just for the mode they expect people to use; the 90 degree mode will use quite a lot of power). > vacuum c…

I think it would better if the EU had required listing the "sucking power" of vacuum cleaner in addition to the power usage, and require this number to be in bigger font size than power usage. And require "suckage per watt" also. People went by power usage because that was the only measure they got.

There's no metric for that that's well understood by the public, though. People have been trained that more watts == more better over the last century by lightbulbs and things (and more dubiously by hifi makers; they tend to use very dubious marketing watts). Air watts (ie power of air movement) might have been a good compromise; most super-high wattage machines don't have substantially better air watts metrics. It still isn't that helpful to the consumer, though; a poorly designed machine may have high air watts but limited suction.

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

#94

Post by smichel17 »

rini17 wrote: post #67
StavrosK wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Actually, comparing exchangeable mechanical gears to a transistors on silicon die or pixels is a bit ridiculous.

I'd look at the comparison more like: a gear is a component (eg, cpu). If it breaks, it breaks and is not expected to be repairable, but that component should be replaceable; you shouldn't have to throw away the whole watch just because one gear broke.

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

#95

Post by stinos »

nolok wrote: post #82
stinos wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, if you buy a Dyson that follows EU norms it still works great. Bit off topic perhaps, but in my experience: Dyson does not necesarily work great nor handles well nor does last particularly long. Ok this is only anecdotal from my experience and 2 friends (Animal pro models or similar) but still.. Main complaint: it's overengineered/designed to the point it degrades usability. The handle is about twice the weigh…

I'll be entirely honest with you I used that name because it's the only one I know of a main brand worldwide. I myself use a French brand. Maybe my exemple wasn't very good, sorry for that.

No problem: as far as making your point the example was good enough. It's just that - as you may have noticed - I'm not exactly a fan of Dyson and wanted to explain HN why :)

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

#96

Post by klohto »

tpmx wrote: post #17
klohto wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t. This is not an European body, but a derived standard for Estonia. EU version at https://www.cenelec.eu/dyn/www/f?p=104:22:1562386624244501::... .

That shows an empty table.

Weird behavior on that URL. But search for ‘EN 45554:2020’ and you should find it :)

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

#97

Post by nolok »

michaelt wrote: post #63
nolok wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I kind liked washing machines that properly heated to 90C I will be honest with you this one I just don't understand. My washing machine is A+ in EU norms and it heats properly. Maybe you bought a not so good model ? If anything those norms should be re-evaluated with new tougher levels now, you have to go out of your way to buy something that's not at least A (which is good and it means it worked, but also that it…

> Maybe you bought a not so good model? Rinse quality is lower in modern washing machines in order to meet water economy standards - even if you buy an £800 Miele and turn on all the 'extra rinse' options. I know this because I have a relative with sensitive skin, who resorts to rinsing things by hand after taking them out of the washing machine - and doing such a rinse visibly dirties the water. Feel free to test th…

Ah you might be right but I think they're allowed to have it not just do it in the normal program.

Both my (single washer / drier /and my parents (two separate machines) have an extra button that add a "second extra rinse 5 minutes after the normal one" thatwwe always use by default because the normal rinse is indeed not good enough.

Now I'm wondering if it's not possible to have a proper rinse within the norms of if having found that workaround stopped them on fixing the issue.

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

#98

Post by dx034 »

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…

But pretty much all smartphone manufacturers glue parts together. Watchmakers show that it is possible to use screws even with tiny cases that must be waterproof. I believe Apple would be able to create an iPhone with identical specs with no glue used. But it's likely much more expensive to manufacture.

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

#99

Post by C1sc0cat »

_ph_ wrote: post #65
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…

I don't think it will get especially worse with the switch to their own silicon. It is not as if you could exchange the CPU in your current Mac either, with the possible exception of the Mac Pro. Same with the software. The pure fact that they demonstrated a Linux VM in the keynote shows, that they understand at least the requirements of the Mac users.

I think its an attempt to keep developers who want to develop directly on their laptop.

Personally I am not taken with the idea of running a vm on a different hardware arm to the to the one I will deploy in production.

I much prefer developing and testing on identical hardware

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

#100

Post by dx034 »

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…

> vacuum cleaners that actually picked up dirt

I read that manufacturers were actually happy about the new regulation. Before, customers only looked at W for performance which made any innovation useless. With the new rules, manufacturers that are able to provide the same suction at a fraction of the power are actually at an advantage.

Similar with fridges, new rules put manufacturers with heavy R&D at an advantage.

Post reply on HN