"Right to repair" always seems a weak formulation. It's great to have
"rights" but people don't always care to exercise them, and can be
dissuaded from exercising them.
Right To Repair sounds nice. It alliterates. But of course we have a
right to repair our stuff. That goes without saying.
What's really at issue is a duty upon manufacturer's not to obstruct
the four R's, to;
- refuse
- reuse
- repair
- recycle
Let's get specific, instead of a wishy "rights" formulation.
No technology must ever by soft-mandated or made a dependency so as to
preclude an ethical, environmental or economic choice to not partake
in its use, or to substitute other choices.
No technology should be encumbered with locks, licenses or mechanisms
that affect the post-sale rights of its owner to repurpose or modify
as they see fit (all other safety and contention (RF) issues can be
dealt with at a another layer of legislation and enforcement.)
No impediment shall be made to the access, manufacture and distribution
of spare parts or consumables, software updates, power supplies,
connectors etc
Designs should not, by the use of adhesives, welding, non-standard
fixings, unnecessary integration, traps, and fuses, prevent the easy
disassembly and reuse of modular components.
“Right to repair” is a succinct label / rallying cry for what you have outlined. All of the discussion i have seen seems to settle more or less around what you’ve outlined.
I would hope that the text of the law would codify those requirements and ensure the longevity of our devices.
Perhaps you can expand your comment a bit , into a blog post and send it to policy makers ?
I think we all know the main issues here on HN. And what a complex
tangle of interests and compromises it really is.
Yes codification is a nightmare. I'm no lawyer, but it's clearly
a challenge that a lot of good minds need to sit down and think through.
At the end of the day, we can't keep trashing the planet for a little
bit of extra corporate profit and consumer vanity. Making durable,
repairable and reusable technology isn't rocket science. We managed it
for centuries before the insanity of late capitalism took centre stage
in the past 30 years or so.
FWIW, I did an interview with Gerry McGovern on World Wide Waste where
we talked at length about some of the issues [1]. Hopefully these
small efforts eventally get traction and visibility by those who make
decisions.
> all other safety and contention (RF) issues can be dealt with at a another layer of legislation and enforcement.
Make sure you write your congressmen about this. That manufactures feel like they are liable if someone modifies their control software is one of the reasons they oppose right to repair. The EPA is really pushing hard to make it impossible to modify engine ECUs - no diesel as manufactured in the past 15 years has been even capable of "rolling coal", and for around 15 years before then it was difficult to make that happen. However there are still a lot of modified trucks out there spewing visible particulates, all because someone decided to modify the programming.
> Designs should not, by the use of adhesives, welding, non-standard fixings, unnecessary integration, traps, and fuses, prevent the easy disassembly and reuse of modular components.
Define a module in a rigorous way that I can apply. Seriously, parts have been welded together for ages, which turns two pieces of steel into one, were the two separate pieces a module before or not? With the right tools I can pull an IC apart and repair it - the labor is more than just making a new IC (assuming the original drawings still exist), but it is possible. Does that mean an IC is not a module? What about an IC soldered to a board that is then coated in a waterproof coating, screwed into a case - where is the module. This definition of module is critical to any debates on this, and I have no idea how you can objectively create a good definition that covers all cases.
My dad has a Chevy Silverado 3500, and he hates it for this reason.
Every time the machine has a minor breakdown (which happens once in a while) and the ECU detects that it isn't quite as efficient as it should be, it will immediately and completely mercilessly lock your vehicle to 35 miles per hour. Doesn't matter if you drove from Minnesota to California to pick up a heavy delivery in person - you are coming home at 35 MPH, the entire way, unless you stop at a shop on the way for potentially days to get it fixed.
And as for what could trigger that, it could be anything. Once a sensor went bad on the emissions filter. It was just one sensor of many - not the actual emissions system. It tripped the 35 MPH lock, and the only way to fix it was to replace the sensor, which required taking the entire freaking back axle off. It was almost an entire day's job for the diesel mechanic.
Imagine if you were a small business owner, multiple states away from home, when this happened. That is crushing and instills complete and utter contempt for emissions standards and those who make them very, very quickly. And then we wonder why some people hate EVs, love "rolling coal", and dispute climate change. If that happened to you, I could see very quickly why you'd join the haters club.
I'd argue that additional incentives (or punishments, if the carrot doesn't work) for manufacturers to use common parts would be welcome.
I have a Samsung fridge/freezer with a broken shelf because the parts of the shelf were held together with an insufficiently strong plastic clip. Imagine my surprise when upon research I discovered the fridge was discontinued and the shelf was unique to the fridge.
No other model had that shelf, it was like Samsung specifically used that particular plastic mold for this model purely to drive new appliance sales when it inevitably breaks.
Sounds like a business opportunity. If a third party hasn't made any yet they likely will soon. One problem with encouraging common parts is that it may limit innovation, and it may also incentivize a manufacturer to keep a flawed design. It's just as likely that samsung realized the shelves in that model sucked and made a new one.
I think it would be better to mandate manufacturers keep stock of replacement parts for X amount of years, and/or they must release design documentation for third parties to make parts.
The other one to call out is 'no impediment shall be made to preclude the use of third-party after-market components except where doing so could cause a serious risk of harm'
And, as the peer comment says, precluding re-sale.
The issue I see is that sometimes certain fabrication methods are neccessarry. Phones are glued shut, making disassembly difficult, but that glue also has a point, screws take up a lot of space and glue allows a water tight bond between components.
Same with non user replacable batteries.
It can be very difficult to distinguish between effective design decision and mallicious manufacturing.
Though I agree with the general argument, I disagree with the necessity of glued components. When protective phone cases are ubiquitous (80-90% of all phones from a quick search), it shows that the trend for thinner and thinner phones isn't being driven by a desire for thinner phones. Yet so many of the trade-offs in phone design, increasing fragility and decreasing repairability, are being imposed by the relentless pursuit of a thinner phone.
Just as it is difficult to distinguish between effective design decisions and malicious manufacturing, I'd say that it is also difficult to distinguish between effective design goals and malicious smokescreens that hide malicious manufacturing.
Gluing a phone shut doesn't have to be detrimental to repairability as long as the glue is heat-softening.
So far I've opened all my smartphones just by heating them first. However, when they start using thermoset (rather than thermoplastic) glues I'll flip.
I don’t think that distinction necessarily needs to be made if the third-party repair industry is allowed to thrive. If getting your phone repaired and given new life was a common thing everyone did, Pennie’s that couldn’t be repaired or were expensive to repair might not sell as well.
As it stands glueing the phone shut isn’t an issue for most consumers because they expect to throw away and buy a new phone every year or two.
Most phones are not glued shut, including iPhones starting all the way back to 4/5. iPhone batteries are also not glued in. Source: We run independent repair shops.
The issue comes in, when you lose all warranty on parts if someone opens up the phone. Which is unreasonable.... Imagine if your car warranty was contingent on you only using approved mugs inside the vehicle.
There are videos of new iPhones treating a replacement screen as not a genuine part... even though it was take off another iPhone right next to it.
This is the problem I have with "right to repair" legislation. It turns into "right for bureaucrats to tell engineers how to do their jobs".
My phone uses LOCA glue to secure the glass to the display. Does this violate "right to repair"?
My phone is held together, not with screws, but adhesives. How about this?
Or, GOOD GRIEF! The story in this thread about the ECU in a truck that cripples it for environmental reasons, and requires expensive repairs. Is that covered by "right to repair"? Or does that not apply here?
Is that what the legislation says? Or are you just guessing that the legislation will be poorly written?
I don't see the consensus by activists in this field as people that are saying "don't use adhesives," "all hardware must be modular," or "compromise design for repairability."
I see right to repair activists asking for things like:
- Making spare parts available to purchase
- Making internal service manuals available with reasonable terms
- Forbidding certain types of digital protection on spare parts and firmware that are in place to enforce a market power imbalance (e.g., to force you to buy OEM spare parts without a defensible safety or security reason)
- Forbidding anti-competitive parts inventory practices that disadvantage independent third party repair providers (e.g., Apple, who makes third-party repair shops wait until a customer brings in a phone before they can order a common part like a screen...imagine if your car mechanic had to wait until you brought your car in before they could buy brakes, you'd always take the car to the official dealer to get it done faster.)
Experienced and even amateur repair technicians have no problems with things like adhesives. Instead, they have problems with companies actively fighting against self-repair.
> Designs should not, by the use of adhesives, welding, non-standard fixings, unnecessary integration, traps, and fuses, prevent the easy disassembly and reuse of modular components
This would forbid production of security tokens (like Yubikey) which are designed to be hard to disassemble and peek inside.
Non-standard whatever is how innovation happens. Non-standard fasteners, etc are fine as long as tools to work with them are available (not patented and kept from circulation).
The welding and adhesives clause is also problematic. Is a welded car body unnecessarily welded, preventing reuse of its individual metal parts? If so, how are glued-together components of a phone not the same deal? A part of the car body likely costs more than an electronic part of a phone.
"Right" is a rhetorical device. It doesn't usually mean something specific and clearly defined a priori. In context though, they do often gain specific and clearly defensible definitions.
Take, "Free Speech." It's a right. It has history, and has accumulated specific meanings, precedents and such over the years. It's true that The Right itself doesn't tell us what to do about modern medium monopolies and social media platforms... but it does give us a starting point. We agree that the right exists, just not what it is. That's not nothing.
Every possible approach has margins, edge cases, implementation difficulties, exceptions and mess. That's true for rights, duties and even minor legal codes, charters and ordinances. Even your examples...
"Designs should not, by the use of adhesives, welding, non-standard fixings, unnecessary ..."
Try turning that into an actively litigated something and you will find all the same problems. What about imports and trade agreement compatibility? What about competing standards. What about the ambiguity of "non-standard," "necessary" or "easy?" What counts and an impediment and how do these duties travel up the value chain?
I'm not saying it's all hopeless, just that nothing is clean. Rights, as opposed to duties, are a core part of our political basis (liberalism). They have a better track record of (a) sticking around and (b) maintaining a moral basis. Duties (eg reporting duty) don't tend to work as well. They're more prone to becoming bureaucratic rulesets than an abstract basis for laws and/or regulation.
Actually, this is an issue in the Right-to-Repair movement, is that how R2R is defined actually depends on who you ask.
For example, Louis Rossmann would not define R2R as containing "Designs should not, by the use of adhesives, welding, non-standard fixings, unnecessary integration, traps, and fuses, prevent the easy disassembly and reuse of modular components." Also this definition is not legally possible anyway, as CPUs contain embedded fuses to contain unique security keys, serial number information, anti-rollback protections, prevent changing IMEI numbers (which would be fantastic for thieves), contain fixed radio calibration data, and so forth.
For him, R2R is the ability to buy parts and use them - but it does not implement design obligations. iFixit wants design obligations in their version of R2R - but this broadens the scope and reduces the likelihood of passage in my view (as does the broadening of the scope of any movement or law).
Meanwhile, you actually deal with another problem. The R2R movement loves to completely ignore the (very real) anti-theft and anti-counterfeiting benefits of part serialization. We are talking about a device with more counterfeit parts, more thefts, and more personal information at risk, than any other device ever created, which I think should count for something [1]. Also, while YouTube channels like Louis Rossmann gain my sympathy, they often completely ignore the widespread corruption within mobile phone repair stores, as has been documented elsewhere, somewhat misleading the audience into believing every store is as upright and honest as them when they broadly are not. As long as they keep ignoring that and pretending it is all about repair, instead of coming up with a compromise that promotes anti-theft and repairability, bills are going to be hamstrung.
[1] This is also why I think comparing smartphone repair versus, say, dishwasher repair is a little disingenuous on the R2R side. "Why can't I swap parts on my phone, like I can on an appliance?" Well... which one is stolen more, which one has more counterfeit parts available, which one has information that could destroy your life if compromised, particularly if you are a journalist or just take certain photos of yourself? Pick three. Should repairability, necessarily, be treated the same then? I think that's an open debate that's not so easily won as the R2R dishwasher strawman. I don't want my Face ID sensor swapped out by a hostile government with a fake sensor so they can unlock my phone at will, for example.
That's a valid objection. The question is whether preventing theft is a) a higher priority than let's say reducing prices and preventing electronic waste and b) whether prominance of smartphone theft hinges on the repairability of the devices. Or rather has just only professionalized the crime scene like with car theft. So while I think it's an intersting objection, I think it might miss the point.
Not when you constantly struggle to fix crappy tech products designed with planned obsolecense in mind. You're lucky to not have dealt with that, I suppose.
>No technology must ever by soft-mandated or made a dependency so as to preclude an ethical, environmental or economic choice to not partake in its use, or to substitute other choices.
This bill will be immediately killed by Microsoft's lobbyists. That's half their business strategy.
> The bill has not been sent to the governor for her signature or veto... there has been opposition to this first in the nation bill becoming law making it a “David versus Goliath battle.”
Opposition from unnamed companies to legislation that has already passed? How often do bills end up in limbo like this?
> Today, the New York State legislature passed an electronics Right to Repair bill: As of mid 2023, manufacturers who sell “digital electronic products” in New York will have to make parts, tools, information, and software available to consumers and independent repair shops. We still await a final signing by the governor, but advocates don’t expect a challenge.
We need an anti-tethering law. After purchase of the device, there should be no tethering by the manufacturer. Otherwise you bought a service and not a product.
Any service you decide to run on the device, should be possible (without explicit approval of the manufacturer) to be provided by any company. The current situation is like you bought a TV and you can only watch the TV-network of the manufacturer.
Needless to say, within this law it should be allowed for any company to perform repairs too, or provide hardware extensions, etc.
I don't understand these kinds proposals because it won't actually do anything, every manufacturer will just switch their marketing copy to phone as a service or tv as a service and the world continues on no better than before.
And the other parts you're describing are true right now, you can run any software on any device you own, and anyone is allowed to do repairs, the oem is just allowed to make it hard and not help you.
I don't the law as you've proposed would ever pass because we really don't like laws that make companies take positive actions. I think "right to flash" where the oem has to leave open the ability to replace the software on the device might get somewhere especially as an environmental play with 3rd parties adopting old hardware.
> I don't understand these kinds proposals because it won't actually do anything, every manufacturer will just switch their marketing copy to phone as a service or tv as a service and the world continues on no better than before.
I'm not so sure. People like to own the stuff they paid for.
> the oem is just allowed to make it hard
This is exactly the point which the suggested law addresses.
When you buy a product and the vendor disappears from the face of the Earth (whether after 10 years or 10 days), you should still be able to use the product as advertised.
> we really don't like laws that make companies take positive actions.
The article brings up how the auto industry has the right to repair. the auto industry has become increasingly hostile towards self repair.
Encrypting a Wireless tire pressure monitor gauge that locks out your security system if not detected forcing you to bring it to a shop for repair so they can electronically code the 20$ part is outright hostile maintenance practice to the consumer. Tesla is one of the worst cars for hobbyist with how the owner is practically locked out of repairing anything. I think there is alot to be learned from Tesla And John Deere hobbyists in what lessons they learned and tools they actually needes that can be applied to repairing electronic devices.
Worse are the prices if the tools are available. Usually there is no options for home usage (only independant operators) or it is prohibitively expensive due to the "tools" required. In my example the electronic license for an hour (which is extremely short) is 60$ but ok I can see why you'd want to charge something not nil. The main problem is the official tools needed cost 1-3k depending on how grey you like your market.
A OBDeleven, which allows a great deal of access to Volkswagen, Audi, and some other European brands is $100 for the device and a one year subscription. It's then $50 per year.
This let's you peform maintenance, code modules, read codes including manufacturer codes, etc
They even allow unlocking module protection and work with vw
Depends on the details. If this is just about access to tools and parts, good. If it instead dictates that electronics makers are restricted in their choice of technical solutions, bad. Right to Repair applied broadly is dictatorship of minority. As such, care is needed to get the details right. I think it's also important to distinguish between the Right To Repair and Obligation To Make Everything Easily Repairable. Doubt that there is a valid argument agains the first part. Second is a bit more tricky, especially in the consumer electronics industry where ease of repair can be at odds with performance, efficiency and reliability.
P.S. It upsets me how the industry has succeeded in redirecting the Right to Repair activism from domains where it is actually bitterly needed (like specialised equipment, agricultural machinery and home appliances) to consumer electronics.
Considering the trend is to think about reversing a disposable, planned obsolescence mentality for profit and going toward sustainability, I’m okay with limiting some choices. We already do with asbestos in construction.
Some technical solutions, in your terminology, might be seen by others as a “lazy short cut for profit” and we can have that debate if you like. With our regulatory bodies, and rules, unfettered freedom in electronics is stupid for consumers and you know it. I think more effort isn’t a bad thing in the long run.
Also, it’s natural for it to cascade down. Just like car tech. Just like how that’s how companies start - get away with it where you can. It went from consumers UP to John Deere, not the other way around.
> restricted in their choice of technical solutions, bad
not bad, for the same reason we prevent car manufacturers from manufacturing and selling rolling coal 120dB cars. There are things you shouldnt be able to sell because they harm society.
> Depends on the details. If this is just about access to tools and parts, good. If it instead dictates that electronics makers are restricted in their choice of technical solutions, bad.
This sounds like you want to create an exemption just for Apple products, so that they don't have to ship standard connectors :-/
In any case, if you put this exemption in then any other "right" is moot: All the manufacturer has to do is make non-standard parts that can't be worked on by anyone else because the chosen technical solution has "trade secrets" in proprietary software that can't be disclosed.
> P.S. It upsets me how the industry has succeeded in redirecting the Right to Repair activism from domains where it is actually bitterly needed (like specialised equipment, agricultural machinery and home appliances) to consumer electronics.
Why? If the right to repair applies (and has any teeth in law), the specialised equipment, agricultural machinery and home appliances don't get exemptions from it.
I agree the ability to easily repair is often at odds with certain features customers want. However in other cases it's not at all.
If I as a consumer at least could easily tell while I'm shopping, then I could make an informed choice. In aggregate that might apply some market pressure.
For example, I have a subwoofer from Samsung, part of a soundbar package. It died a couple of years back. I'm 99% confident it's the power supply which is integrated. As far as I can see there's no way to non-destructively disassemble the unit to replace the power supply.
Had the power supply been external, then it would be an easy swap. Had it been easy to disassemble the case, it would probably be an easy swap. But thanks to the integral power supply, and no service manual available showing how to disassemble it and no clear way how, it's effectively junk.
"Innovation" is not the end all be all. Yes, right to repair might marginally slow down certain innovations. In exchange, we get a livable planet where whose resources aren't exhausted. I think it's a fair trade.
> domains where it is actually bitterly needed (like specialised equipment, agricultural machinery and home appliances)
Why are the needs of commerce so much greater than then needs of people who use consumer electronics? If we're trying to reduce ewaste caused by planned obsolescence, isn't the vast majority of it consumer electronics?
I doubt that right to repair will reduce e-waste. Most people won’t bother with repairs anyway and let’s not discount the possibility that producing parts and making them modular can actually increase waste, at least in some applications (for example, I’m quite certain that RAM sticks produce more e-waste that soldered-on RAM overall).
To clarify, I think that there are different classes of devices with different kinds of technical requirements. There is no good reason why a dishwasher pump or a washing machine/food processor motor are not easily replaceable: after all they are housed in large, bulky mechanical machines that could function for decades with proper maintenance. But a smartphone or a laptop are extremely complicated devices that rely on minituarization and tight integration to provide features like energy efficiency, weather protection, data security etc. You can’t treat a smartphone the same way as a dishwasher. It’s a very different device.
That’s not what I mean. What a I mean that the majority of users don’t care about repairs. Personally, I think it’s good if manufacturers are made more accountable and parts are available for the few users who want to tinker, but shouldn’t happen at the expense of overall product quality or convenience. For example, a law might mandate that all basic computer components are modular and user-replaceable. This will essentially outlaw technical solutions like high-bandwidth or low-power laptop memory since it is not feasible to make it modular. Or another example, requiring that all smartphones have easily replaceable battery will interfere with waterproofing.
But I think we can at least agree that customers should have same access to parts and tools as dedicated service centers. But I would like that manufacturers retain the right to choose technical solutions that might sacrifice repairability unless it can be reasonably shown that the only reason for that feature is planned obsolescence.
If you put it like that, the other side will then disingenuously argue that this is "tyranny of the majority" and "democracy is designed to protect the minorities". This law just seeks to correct the imbalance of power between 2 groups - the consumers and the corporates - that has developed in modern society. That's the whole point of democracy - the continued negotiation of power between the groups that make up the society. Consumer rights is not a radical new concept in any democracy. Right to Repair is just a necessary extension of consumer rights, and will evolve depending on how the political leadership successfully negotiates between the affected parties.
I think he emphasized his leaving for other reasons (eg: NYC being not "small business friendly" or becoming). Why else had he travelled up and down the eastern sea board in his quest to bringing awareness of his own R2R ethos?
I hope this becomes true and sets a trend. This is not just an economic advantage but also an environmental advantage as well too as we have too many devices being thrown away into landfills.
I hope this trend continues with software, if a manufacturer decides to no longer support a version of software that was released, the consumers have the right to repair it as well. I know some believe Software Freedom and Open Source are supposed to solve this but that's not always a viable option.
How do you maintain waterproofness without glue? Not just water resistance - I mean actually having the device survive having it in pocket and swimming with it.
Readit News
Right To Repair sounds nice. It alliterates. But of course we have a right to repair our stuff. That goes without saying.
What's really at issue is a duty upon manufacturer's not to obstruct the four R's, to;
- refuse
- reuse
- repair
- recycle
Let's get specific, instead of a wishy "rights" formulation.
No technology must ever by soft-mandated or made a dependency so as to preclude an ethical, environmental or economic choice to not partake in its use, or to substitute other choices.
No technology should be encumbered with locks, licenses or mechanisms that affect the post-sale rights of its owner to repurpose or modify as they see fit (all other safety and contention (RF) issues can be dealt with at a another layer of legislation and enforcement.)
No impediment shall be made to the access, manufacture and distribution of spare parts or consumables, software updates, power supplies, connectors etc
Designs should not, by the use of adhesives, welding, non-standard fixings, unnecessary integration, traps, and fuses, prevent the easy disassembly and reuse of modular components.
I would hope that the text of the law would codify those requirements and ensure the longevity of our devices.
Perhaps you can expand your comment a bit , into a blog post and send it to policy makers ?
Yes codification is a nightmare. I'm no lawyer, but it's clearly a challenge that a lot of good minds need to sit down and think through.
At the end of the day, we can't keep trashing the planet for a little bit of extra corporate profit and consumer vanity. Making durable, repairable and reusable technology isn't rocket science. We managed it for centuries before the insanity of late capitalism took centre stage in the past 30 years or so.
FWIW, I did an interview with Gerry McGovern on World Wide Waste where we talked at length about some of the issues [1]. Hopefully these small efforts eventally get traction and visibility by those who make decisions.
[1] https://podcasts.apple.com/mu/podcast/andy-farnell-perils-of...
Make sure you write your congressmen about this. That manufactures feel like they are liable if someone modifies their control software is one of the reasons they oppose right to repair. The EPA is really pushing hard to make it impossible to modify engine ECUs - no diesel as manufactured in the past 15 years has been even capable of "rolling coal", and for around 15 years before then it was difficult to make that happen. However there are still a lot of modified trucks out there spewing visible particulates, all because someone decided to modify the programming.
> Designs should not, by the use of adhesives, welding, non-standard fixings, unnecessary integration, traps, and fuses, prevent the easy disassembly and reuse of modular components.
Define a module in a rigorous way that I can apply. Seriously, parts have been welded together for ages, which turns two pieces of steel into one, were the two separate pieces a module before or not? With the right tools I can pull an IC apart and repair it - the labor is more than just making a new IC (assuming the original drawings still exist), but it is possible. Does that mean an IC is not a module? What about an IC soldered to a board that is then coated in a waterproof coating, screwed into a case - where is the module. This definition of module is critical to any debates on this, and I have no idea how you can objectively create a good definition that covers all cases.
Every time the machine has a minor breakdown (which happens once in a while) and the ECU detects that it isn't quite as efficient as it should be, it will immediately and completely mercilessly lock your vehicle to 35 miles per hour. Doesn't matter if you drove from Minnesota to California to pick up a heavy delivery in person - you are coming home at 35 MPH, the entire way, unless you stop at a shop on the way for potentially days to get it fixed.
And as for what could trigger that, it could be anything. Once a sensor went bad on the emissions filter. It was just one sensor of many - not the actual emissions system. It tripped the 35 MPH lock, and the only way to fix it was to replace the sensor, which required taking the entire freaking back axle off. It was almost an entire day's job for the diesel mechanic.
Imagine if you were a small business owner, multiple states away from home, when this happened. That is crushing and instills complete and utter contempt for emissions standards and those who make them very, very quickly. And then we wonder why some people hate EVs, love "rolling coal", and dispute climate change. If that happened to you, I could see very quickly why you'd join the haters club.
That’s what they say is the reason. But I don’t believe that for a second.
I have a Samsung fridge/freezer with a broken shelf because the parts of the shelf were held together with an insufficiently strong plastic clip. Imagine my surprise when upon research I discovered the fridge was discontinued and the shelf was unique to the fridge.
No other model had that shelf, it was like Samsung specifically used that particular plastic mold for this model purely to drive new appliance sales when it inevitably breaks.
I think it would be better to mandate manufacturers keep stock of replacement parts for X amount of years, and/or they must release design documentation for third parties to make parts.
And, as the peer comment says, precluding re-sale.
It can be very difficult to distinguish between effective design decision and mallicious manufacturing.
Just as it is difficult to distinguish between effective design decisions and malicious manufacturing, I'd say that it is also difficult to distinguish between effective design goals and malicious smokescreens that hide malicious manufacturing.
So far I've opened all my smartphones just by heating them first. However, when they start using thermoset (rather than thermoplastic) glues I'll flip.
As it stands glueing the phone shut isn’t an issue for most consumers because they expect to throw away and buy a new phone every year or two.
The issue comes in, when you lose all warranty on parts if someone opens up the phone. Which is unreasonable.... Imagine if your car warranty was contingent on you only using approved mugs inside the vehicle.
There are videos of new iPhones treating a replacement screen as not a genuine part... even though it was take off another iPhone right next to it.
This is the problem I have with "right to repair" legislation. It turns into "right for bureaucrats to tell engineers how to do their jobs".
My phone uses LOCA glue to secure the glass to the display. Does this violate "right to repair"?
My phone is held together, not with screws, but adhesives. How about this?
Or, GOOD GRIEF! The story in this thread about the ECU in a truck that cripples it for environmental reasons, and requires expensive repairs. Is that covered by "right to repair"? Or does that not apply here?
I don't see the consensus by activists in this field as people that are saying "don't use adhesives," "all hardware must be modular," or "compromise design for repairability."
I see right to repair activists asking for things like:
- Making spare parts available to purchase
- Making internal service manuals available with reasonable terms
- Forbidding certain types of digital protection on spare parts and firmware that are in place to enforce a market power imbalance (e.g., to force you to buy OEM spare parts without a defensible safety or security reason)
- Forbidding anti-competitive parts inventory practices that disadvantage independent third party repair providers (e.g., Apple, who makes third-party repair shops wait until a customer brings in a phone before they can order a common part like a screen...imagine if your car mechanic had to wait until you brought your car in before they could buy brakes, you'd always take the car to the official dealer to get it done faster.)
Experienced and even amateur repair technicians have no problems with things like adhesives. Instead, they have problems with companies actively fighting against self-repair.
This would forbid production of security tokens (like Yubikey) which are designed to be hard to disassemble and peek inside.
Non-standard whatever is how innovation happens. Non-standard fasteners, etc are fine as long as tools to work with them are available (not patented and kept from circulation).
The welding and adhesives clause is also problematic. Is a welded car body unnecessarily welded, preventing reuse of its individual metal parts? If so, how are glued-together components of a phone not the same deal? A part of the car body likely costs more than an electronic part of a phone.
Otherwise, I'm with you.
Take, "Free Speech." It's a right. It has history, and has accumulated specific meanings, precedents and such over the years. It's true that The Right itself doesn't tell us what to do about modern medium monopolies and social media platforms... but it does give us a starting point. We agree that the right exists, just not what it is. That's not nothing.
Every possible approach has margins, edge cases, implementation difficulties, exceptions and mess. That's true for rights, duties and even minor legal codes, charters and ordinances. Even your examples...
"Designs should not, by the use of adhesives, welding, non-standard fixings, unnecessary ..."
Try turning that into an actively litigated something and you will find all the same problems. What about imports and trade agreement compatibility? What about competing standards. What about the ambiguity of "non-standard," "necessary" or "easy?" What counts and an impediment and how do these duties travel up the value chain?
I'm not saying it's all hopeless, just that nothing is clean. Rights, as opposed to duties, are a core part of our political basis (liberalism). They have a better track record of (a) sticking around and (b) maintaining a moral basis. Duties (eg reporting duty) don't tend to work as well. They're more prone to becoming bureaucratic rulesets than an abstract basis for laws and/or regulation.
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For example, Louis Rossmann would not define R2R as containing "Designs should not, by the use of adhesives, welding, non-standard fixings, unnecessary integration, traps, and fuses, prevent the easy disassembly and reuse of modular components." Also this definition is not legally possible anyway, as CPUs contain embedded fuses to contain unique security keys, serial number information, anti-rollback protections, prevent changing IMEI numbers (which would be fantastic for thieves), contain fixed radio calibration data, and so forth.
For him, R2R is the ability to buy parts and use them - but it does not implement design obligations. iFixit wants design obligations in their version of R2R - but this broadens the scope and reduces the likelihood of passage in my view (as does the broadening of the scope of any movement or law).
Meanwhile, you actually deal with another problem. The R2R movement loves to completely ignore the (very real) anti-theft and anti-counterfeiting benefits of part serialization. We are talking about a device with more counterfeit parts, more thefts, and more personal information at risk, than any other device ever created, which I think should count for something [1]. Also, while YouTube channels like Louis Rossmann gain my sympathy, they often completely ignore the widespread corruption within mobile phone repair stores, as has been documented elsewhere, somewhat misleading the audience into believing every store is as upright and honest as them when they broadly are not. As long as they keep ignoring that and pretending it is all about repair, instead of coming up with a compromise that promotes anti-theft and repairability, bills are going to be hamstrung.
[1] This is also why I think comparing smartphone repair versus, say, dishwasher repair is a little disingenuous on the R2R side. "Why can't I swap parts on my phone, like I can on an appliance?" Well... which one is stolen more, which one has more counterfeit parts available, which one has information that could destroy your life if compromised, particularly if you are a journalist or just take certain photos of yourself? Pick three. Should repairability, necessarily, be treated the same then? I think that's an open debate that's not so easily won as the R2R dishwasher strawman. I don't want my Face ID sensor swapped out by a hostile government with a fake sensor so they can unlock my phone at will, for example.
This bill will be immediately killed by Microsoft's lobbyists. That's half their business strategy.
Opposition from unnamed companies to legislation that has already passed? How often do bills end up in limbo like this?
2017, "Apple Spends Big to Thwart Right to Repair in New York", https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/05/apple-spends-big-thw...
June 2021, NY Senate bill passed (200 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27472083
June 2022, NY Assembly bill passed, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31614055
> Today, the New York State legislature passed an electronics Right to Repair bill: As of mid 2023, manufacturers who sell “digital electronic products” in New York will have to make parts, tools, information, and software available to consumers and independent repair shops. We still await a final signing by the governor, but advocates don’t expect a challenge.
Full text of legislation: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2021/S4104
Any service you decide to run on the device, should be possible (without explicit approval of the manufacturer) to be provided by any company. The current situation is like you bought a TV and you can only watch the TV-network of the manufacturer.
Needless to say, within this law it should be allowed for any company to perform repairs too, or provide hardware extensions, etc.
Or a service provider like a mobile carrier or cable company.
And the other parts you're describing are true right now, you can run any software on any device you own, and anyone is allowed to do repairs, the oem is just allowed to make it hard and not help you.
I don't the law as you've proposed would ever pass because we really don't like laws that make companies take positive actions. I think "right to flash" where the oem has to leave open the ability to replace the software on the device might get somewhere especially as an environmental play with 3rd parties adopting old hardware.
I'm not so sure. People like to own the stuff they paid for.
> the oem is just allowed to make it hard
This is exactly the point which the suggested law addresses.
When you buy a product and the vendor disappears from the face of the Earth (whether after 10 years or 10 days), you should still be able to use the product as advertised.
> we really don't like laws that make companies take positive actions.
What do you mean by positive actions?
Encrypting a Wireless tire pressure monitor gauge that locks out your security system if not detected forcing you to bring it to a shop for repair so they can electronically code the 20$ part is outright hostile maintenance practice to the consumer. Tesla is one of the worst cars for hobbyist with how the owner is practically locked out of repairing anything. I think there is alot to be learned from Tesla And John Deere hobbyists in what lessons they learned and tools they actually needes that can be applied to repairing electronic devices.
This let's you peform maintenance, code modules, read codes including manufacturer codes, etc
They even allow unlocking module protection and work with vw
P.S. It upsets me how the industry has succeeded in redirecting the Right to Repair activism from domains where it is actually bitterly needed (like specialised equipment, agricultural machinery and home appliances) to consumer electronics.
Some technical solutions, in your terminology, might be seen by others as a “lazy short cut for profit” and we can have that debate if you like. With our regulatory bodies, and rules, unfettered freedom in electronics is stupid for consumers and you know it. I think more effort isn’t a bad thing in the long run.
Also, it’s natural for it to cascade down. Just like car tech. Just like how that’s how companies start - get away with it where you can. It went from consumers UP to John Deere, not the other way around.
not bad, for the same reason we prevent car manufacturers from manufacturing and selling rolling coal 120dB cars. There are things you shouldnt be able to sell because they harm society.
This sounds like you want to create an exemption just for Apple products, so that they don't have to ship standard connectors :-/
In any case, if you put this exemption in then any other "right" is moot: All the manufacturer has to do is make non-standard parts that can't be worked on by anyone else because the chosen technical solution has "trade secrets" in proprietary software that can't be disclosed.
> P.S. It upsets me how the industry has succeeded in redirecting the Right to Repair activism from domains where it is actually bitterly needed (like specialised equipment, agricultural machinery and home appliances) to consumer electronics.
Why? If the right to repair applies (and has any teeth in law), the specialised equipment, agricultural machinery and home appliances don't get exemptions from it.
If I as a consumer at least could easily tell while I'm shopping, then I could make an informed choice. In aggregate that might apply some market pressure.
For example, I have a subwoofer from Samsung, part of a soundbar package. It died a couple of years back. I'm 99% confident it's the power supply which is integrated. As far as I can see there's no way to non-destructively disassemble the unit to replace the power supply.
Had the power supply been external, then it would be an easy swap. Had it been easy to disassemble the case, it would probably be an easy swap. But thanks to the integral power supply, and no service manual available showing how to disassemble it and no clear way how, it's effectively junk.
Why are the needs of commerce so much greater than then needs of people who use consumer electronics? If we're trying to reduce ewaste caused by planned obsolescence, isn't the vast majority of it consumer electronics?
To clarify, I think that there are different classes of devices with different kinds of technical requirements. There is no good reason why a dishwasher pump or a washing machine/food processor motor are not easily replaceable: after all they are housed in large, bulky mechanical machines that could function for decades with proper maintenance. But a smartphone or a laptop are extremely complicated devices that rely on minituarization and tight integration to provide features like energy efficiency, weather protection, data security etc. You can’t treat a smartphone the same way as a dishwasher. It’s a very different device.
Feel more like a democratic decision made by the majority, after all, the users are the majority and the makers are the minority.
But I think we can at least agree that customers should have same access to parts and tools as dedicated service centers. But I would like that manufacturers retain the right to choose technical solutions that might sacrifice repairability unless it can be reasonably shown that the only reason for that feature is planned obsolescence.
There are over 17 lawsuits filed by R2R advocates against John Deere around the country.
This is not just a fight for consumer electronics.
1 - https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb22-1031
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I hope this trend continues with software, if a manufacturer decides to no longer support a version of software that was released, the consumers have the right to repair it as well. I know some believe Software Freedom and Open Source are supposed to solve this but that's not always a viable option.
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While not Lego-easy, there’s nothing complex or particularly difficult about it.
The glue must be there for other reasons and probably you should not swim with your phone.
I don't see why there can't just be a separate market segment for people who are willing to sacrifice some ease of repair for ruggedness.
https://patents.google.com/?q=G04B39%2f02