23 ms·

The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

704 points by sinak 10y ago

Aelinsaar 10y ago
A lot of issues surrounding the move to make anything and everything a "Service" are starting to become very clear. The issues with IoT devices being bricked, Tesla 'ownership', and so on really do need scrutiny from a functional body with a hint of the public's interest at heart.
- waterphone 10y ago
  Those are all definite issues, but even in the case of simple computer hardware there's a problem when the manufacturer tries to lock the owners out of repairing with special screws, glue, etc., so that they can make money off the repairs themselves. New MacBook Pros have their batteries glued in and they can't really be replaced without replacing the entire top case they're glued to at the same time. They claim this is necessary for the thinness they want, but the MacBook Air is thinner and doesn't have a glued battery. My older MacBook Pro has a screwed in battery which uses tri-wing screws to keep people from replacing it themselves, but a $5 tool online can let you replace it anyway, and it takes literally just a couple minutes.
  - wil421 10y ago
    MacBooks and MBPs are becoming throw away devices after 3 or 4 years. In 2013 I upgraded my 2011 MBP to have more RAM and a larger SSD. The new ones have the RAM soddared on so I guess I'll need to max it out when I buy and forfeit the possibility of a future upgrade. The custom SSD is expensive and only one maker seems to have decent quality ones.[1] I know laptops aren't increasing in power/abilities like they used to be. It's still nice to be able to add more to an old laptop and get a couple more years. [1]https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/macbook-pro-retina-display/2013-2014-2015 https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/macbook-pro-retina-d...
    - waterphone 10y ago
      I still have a 2011 as well, and have no intention of upgrading beyond it for the foreseeable future. It still works great, I've maxed out the RAM and added a 750 GB SSD, it does everything I need to do with the performance I need, and I'm happy. I've replaced the keyboard myself, and replaced the battery as well with an aftermarket replacement. I don't need anything newer, and I like being able to repair it myself for minimal cost.
    - Nullabillity 10y ago
      Or you could buy another brand of laptop instead, next time...?
      - wil421 10y ago
        Which other laptops support macOS? I have a company Dell that's horrible. Had many Vaios in the past that were great but the new ones aren't that great. Don't want a tablet or a touch screen as my main device or an Internet only device (chrome book).
        Nullabillity 10y ago
        Personally I've mostly been using ASUSes lately, which IMO offer decent value and have generally been very easy to upgrade. > I have a company Dell that's horrible. Aren't company computers pretty generally crap? I'm not sure that's a fair comparison to draw...
        wil421 10y ago
        There are companies that allow you to choose a Mac or PC (or they just use Macs only). Where I work they are piloting a Mac option.
    - jolux 10y ago
      Except the custom SSD is unbelievably fast and soldered RAM inarguably takes up less space than RAM chips...
  - Aelinsaar 10y ago
    They're doing it physically, or they're doing it legally, but through one avenue or another they're all starting to do it. 'Surface as a Service', all of what you said about Macs and their batteries, and so on.
- twblalock 10y ago
  > The issues with IoT devices being bricked, Tesla 'ownership', and so on really do need scrutiny from a functional body with a hint of the public's interest at heart. Oh great, another bureaucracy. Why should manufacturers be forced to make their products repairable by users? Why don't they have the right to make a non-repairable product, and let the market decide whether or not it succeeds? If people really want repairable products, some company will be able to make money by selling them. The market is an excellent way to track consumer preferences -- far better than a bureaucracy telling companies how to make their products.
  - mindslight 10y ago
    Okay, but to be consistent you have to argue for getting rid of copyrights and patents as well. It makes no sense to regard these devices as "creative works", yet then deny that the end user has been sold an instance of this abstract structure.
    - twblalock 10y ago
      How exactly did you derive this from my argument? I see no logical connection.
      - zerohp 10y ago
        Patent and copyright are an external force created by a bureaucracy that prevents a free market for these products.
        twblalock 10y ago
        It is certainly not a logical conclusion of my argument that all bureaucracies that interfere with the market ought to be abolished, or that the market should be free in all cases. My point was that in this particular case, the market would be a better way to solve the problem than a bureaucracy. Therefore, advocating the existence of some bureaucracies and not others does not contradict my argument, nor is it inconsistent with my argument.
geggam 10y ago
.... "but its for our safety"
RcouF1uZ4gsC 10y ago
I think this whole open source and right to repair/modify will be very interesting with self-driving cars, because of their interaction with the commons. Here are some issues. There have been some discussions about the ethics of self-driving cars if it should sacrifice the lives of the people in the cars to save more lives. In a right to repair/modify wouldn't a lot of people pay to have the algorithm changed for their car to always favor the people in the car no matter what? If the self-driving software is completely open source, you can exploit the collision avoidance algorithms to favor aggressive driving with your car. For example if the software tries to keep a 15 foot buffer between cars, you can"tune" your software to use a shorter buffer and cut in front of traffic more easily. Law enforcement will campaign for a remote "pull over" command to prevent people from fleeing police. The answers to these types of questions will be very important for open source going forward.
- slavik81 10y ago
  Those issues also exist with human driven cars. Every driver today already controls how their car is driven. Many of them do not maintain a safe following distance and some refuse to pull over upon police request. We have systems to deal with bad drivers. A police remote engine kill switch doesn't even require a self-driving car. Limiting engine power upon receipt of a radio signal has been technologically possible for decades.
- chinhodado 10y ago
  I think it should be expected that once the software/firmware of a self-driving car has been modified by someone not authorized by the car maker, it should be expected that the car maker is not responsible for that car any more. Of course it brings up the problem of whether it is possible to detect such a modification.
  - nathan_long 10y ago
    And also whether the modification is relevant the the problem. I can imagine court cases where the driver argues that the change they made was irrelevant to the accident that occurred.
jswny 10y ago
I think that measures like planned obsolescence and preventing consumers from repairing the devices that they own should not be legal. They should be treated similarly to anti-competitive practices.
- Silhouette 10y ago
  I'm wary of making things illegal, but I do think requiring full disclosure is in order so buyers can make up their own mind and suppliers willing to offer more reliable/repairable products can use it as a competitive advantage.
SilasX 10y ago
Right to repair = ban on any waiver of repair rights in any commercial relationship.
- 5ilv3r 10y ago
  That's fine, and not in conflict. Repair information just needs to be available to prevent them from continuing to be in power over your devices at their end of your business relationship. How hard did we have to fight for unlocking 2 year old phones? That was just them trying to be in power, not protect revenue or IP.
The_Hoff 10y ago
For me, Apple devices are always what come to mind when thinking about ability to repair and modify. I used to not mind when I couldn't open my iPod Classic to replace the battery, because failures like this rarely occurred and when they did Apple repaired them easily. Today however, when something as trivial as a computer memory upgrade is restricted, and the Genius Bar is overloaded with iPhone screen repairs, I find myself wanting some sort of standards with regards to repair rights.
- seangrogg 10y ago
  I've never gone to the genius bar to get stuff done because of this. There is always an enterprising college student (often ex-Apple) willing to get just about anything done on the cheap, on my time.
- epistasis 10y ago
  There are tons of third party repair shops for iPhone. It's also easy to do at home, I replaced my battery not too long ago. Apple definitely has that reputation, but I don't think its deserved in my experience. They user manuals for machines with replaceable parts often describe exactly how to do it. For other things that require a tiny bit of skill or where an unskilled person could easily mess things up, they put up a minor barrier like a different screw head, the tool for which will often ship with replacement parts.
  - waterphone 10y ago
    It's absolutely deserved. The things that are officially user serviceable now are very minimal, and the tamper-resistant screws and glues used aren't to protect devices from their users (which would also be a bad idea), they're to prevent people from taking advantage of a cheaper alternative to paying Apple for out of warranty repair service. You cannot buy things like batteries from Apple, and Apple will not provide you with tools to bypass their tamper-resistance efforts. Only third party sources will do that.
- mikeash 10y ago
  You can replace your battery, it just takes a bit of time and effort. Ditto the screen. RAM is tough because it's soldered in, but at least they have a good excuse for making the batteries and RAM that way: they want to make their stuff smaller. Right to Repair did show up pretty loudly with Apple devices when the Error 53 controversy happened, where people's phones would refuse to boot after having the home button replaced. Thankfully, it appears this was an honest mistake and it has been fixed. It does show how losing the Right to Repair would actually look, though: not just stuff that's hard to replace because of design constraints, but devices which arbitrarily refuse to accept unauthorized replacement parts.
mmanfrin 10y ago
John Deere is attempting to make sales of their tractors 'leases' to enforce their ban on self repair: http://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/ http://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/
- joncp 10y ago
  That article doesn't mention leasing, but that seems like a reasonable compromise. If you, as a manufacturer, are hell-bent on locking down your firmware and parts supply, then you have to stop pretending that you're selling anything. Only providing leasing is a way to be honest with customers about your intent.
- keeganjw 10y ago
  This kind of repair sabotaging is absolutely nuts. Takes things to a whole new level.
- TaylorAlexander 10y ago
  I am super hardcore stallman-esque pro openness, but I also have somewhat libertarian views on how people should be allowed to operate. My thinking is: let them lock them down and after a few years, someone who genuinely values openness will come in as a competitor. If you pass a law requiring some kind of openness, companies against openness will just hang out at the edge of what is legally permissible. I am curious what the HN crowd thinks of this, if a legislative solution could be desirable, and why.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    I think it is tricky. One outcome would be, like you said, a competitor showing up, offering more open goods. Another is no competitor showing up at all. People won't suddenly stop buying tractors or phones just because they're in fact being leased. They'll adapt, and in few years people will honestly say there's no demand on the market for owning products. People choose only from what's available.
  - randomdata 10y ago
    > let them lock them down and after a few years, someone who genuinely values openness will come in as a competitor. I once read somewhere that it takes 13 years to bring a new combine to market, which I can believe. They are complex machines that can only be tested in real world conditions during the relatively short window of harvest. So, in reality, it might be more than a few years before a competitor can arise (assuming none of the existing players are willing to be that competitor) even with sufficient investment.
acd 10y ago
I think electronics should be designed for repair and easy recycling as a main design goal. For example a cell phone, you could build it with an aluminum back with small phillips screws instead of glued back. Open the phone up with a standard screw driver and you will be able to replace the battery, main board and screen yourself. What kind of environment do you want to leave for future generations. A big pile of electronic garbage or a world as clean as it could be? What about the carbon foot print of upgrade phones every two years? If we can reuse electronics components the garbage foot print should be smaller. Why do we have to throw a working screen and battery in a cell phone if you just want to upgrade the cpu speed or camera of your phone? How about laws that require that consumers should be able to repair their things, average life time. Good projects on the right path so far Google has Project Ara Fairphone2
- extrapickles 10y ago
  I don't mind them gluing things like the battery in since it make for a more rigid phone provided they use a glue that a moderate amount of heat can greatly weaken. The problem with upgrading parts of something like a phone is that the components interfaces change frequently. Even desktop cpu/memory sockets change every few years. Compact form factors are worse as you dont have room for the connector, and for the larger components they are like the engine in a F1 car, a important structural piece. I do like the concept of Ara, but I don't think it will be practical anytime soon.
  - Nullabillity 10y ago
    > Even desktop cpu/memory sockets change every few years. Amusingly, AMD seems to manage fine without nearly as many socket changes as Intel...
    - jdboyd 10y ago
      It may be stretching things to say that AMD is managing fine.
      - 10y ago
paulsutter 10y ago
This is carburetor nostalgia, from a time when everything was human scale and adjustable. Look at how chips are stacked and interconnected within packages in modern design[1], that trend will only intensify. Software is also getting more complex, with deep learning the system develops its own if/thens. [1] http://img.koreatimes.co.kr/upload/news/070905_p10_hynix.jpg http://img.koreatimes.co.kr/upload/news/070905_p10_hynix.jpg
- sevenless 10y ago
  How do they make that?! Don't the interconnects short?
  - paulsutter 10y ago
    Using a modern wire bonding machine
- waterphone 10y ago
  Wrong, this is not trying to mandate that simpler designs be used to make things easier to repair, but that companies stop trying to lock people out with tamper-resistant screws and glue; and that they stop cracking down on "unauthorized" repair shops, etc.
- mmagin 10y ago
  AFAIK, this sort of stacked die thing has barely started to reach actual commercial products. It's been an idea for a long time, but quite hard to get right. Anyway, it's no different than another IC of considerable complexity -- obviously there's no ability for an end user to repair what's inside it.
- brokenmachine 10y ago
  Even such fancy chips still require some kind of power, and I'd rather that battery (which is a consumable) would be accessible and replaceable. I don't need to repair individual transistors on the silicon, it would just be nice to be able to replace the battery or screen if I need to.
robert1976 10y ago
If substantial numbers of consumers are demanding fixable/open electronics, a manufacturer could comply and fill a great need! My guess is that market is v small. Regulation is unneccessary here.
- wfo 10y ago
  If the market has failed to protect a right that is important, that's exactly when regulation is necessary. Handling the constant failures and disasters created by the market to the detriment of the populace is the purpose of regulations and the entire justification of the mixed economy model every modern society operates under.
  - twblalock 10y ago
    What right has not been protected? You do not have a right to require manufacturers to create repairable items. If you think such a right exists, prove it. That's what this "right" to repair really is -- it is forcing manufacturers to make things that they don't currently make, and that most people don't want to buy. (If people wanted to buy them, someone would already be selling them and making money on that segment of the market.) In effect, this would be the government taking action to promote the personal preferences of a small number of consumers. (If the number of consumers who wanted repairable products was not small, manufacturers would already be making such products by choice, and government action would not be necessary.) When the government starts forcing manufacturers to make things that people don't want to buy, something has gone pretty wrong.
    - ekimekim 10y ago
      I don't mind manufacturers making design decisions that, as a side effect, impact repairability (phones with removable batteries being the main example here). But it's another thing altogether to add tamper indicators, DRM, etc for the express purpose of preventing people from doing things with items they own.
      - 10y ago
lifeisstillgood 10y ago
we shall, as a society, realise that software is some cross between literacy and legislation and that the right to read (and write back) software that affects us is fundamental to the good operation of society, and we will advance together. Or we won't and we will end up like North Korea, pretending reality is somewhere it's not. Nature is not going to care if we don't board the clue train.
partycoder 10y ago
Well, this is common sense. Remember the "Ecce homo" painting? there are some things that will likely go wrong if you do them by yourself. Sometimes with consequences that are not desirable for "the common good". This includes repairing devices that are required to be reliable for public safety.
azraomega 10y ago
While I hate companies suing people for repairing their own properties, "right" has been overused so many places. What a sensational word! I have the "right" to not being sued! What? I would advocate companies certify other entities as repairing authorities or just do a good job themselves; providing the support. Of course it will reduce their product sale and that would be a huge deal to us consumers as well because we want them to do well and providing better product next round. However, it is dangerous that we use sale as THE primary measure. I believe companies should take pride in the quality of their products and services. They should inspire customer loyalty, not unethical growth to please Wall Street.
- jlg23 10y ago
  > While I hate companies suing people for repairing their own properties, "right" has been overused so many places. I don't think it is outrageous to claim ownership to something that I bought. If a company does not want me to repair my own property, put a big "not for sale, only for lease" label on the package.
  - azraomega 10y ago
    How's it resemble "for lease"? They didn't sue people for repairing, they sued for illegally obtaining their internal documentation. We are talking about our "right" to force other to do something rather than protecting ourselves from being forced. It should be business issue, not an actual human right issue.
    - pessimizer 10y ago
      All business issues are issues of property and contract rights.
CaptSpify 10y ago
I used to do after-market repair medical equipment (MRI's, CT's, X-Ray, etc). One of the biggest frustrations was: $manufacturer wants $5000 to repair a CT. We'd charge $1000. We'd repair the CT, and it would pass all the built-in diagnostic tests. But then when the customer went to make a scan, a pop-up would appear saying "Unauthorized Repair! Call $manufacturer to fix!". $manufacturer repair tech would come in, plug in a usb-key, type a code, and charge $1000. They didn't run any of the diagnostics, and were basically paid to keep the usb-key available. I believe in the right to repair, because preventing it just causes artificial monopolies and price-gouging. (note: I don't remember actual prices. Numbers were just made up)
- themartorana 10y ago
  Pretty scary that they don't run a diagnostic pass - I wonder, if the repair was bad and caused human injury/death, who would be liable? Company X did the repair, but $manufacturer basically certified it.
  - tzs 10y ago
    It could be that the unit keeps track of when diagnostics were performed and the results, and the "Unauthorized repaid, call manufacturer to fix" only happens on units that already had diagnostics performed after the repair and passed.
- marcoperaza 10y ago
  >$manufacturer repair tech would come in, plug in a usb-key, type a code, and charge $1000. They didn't run any of the diagnostics, and were basically paid to keep the usb-key available. How is that legal? I sincerely hope that would not survive a civil suit. Though it could be that hospitals are weary of suing their suppliers for various reasons.
  - pessimizer 10y ago
    Under what law would it be illegal? It's not just medical equipment - it's tractors and iPhones, too.
davidf18 10y ago
iFixit (https://www.ifixit.com https://www.ifixit.com) is pretty great for Mac products.
- rasz_pl 10y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup is better
mdip 10y ago
This was a hugely frustrating thing for me recently. I picked up a used Pioneer AVR on eBay a few years ago and had no issues with it until I decided to plug my wife's older plasma television in because my main TV decided to take up an unusual smoking habit. It refused to connect to the new TV, indicating an HDCP error, despite working when plugged directly in to any of the attached devices. A quick google search yielded the likely culprit: my firmware was out of date. This model was one version behind but, unfortunately, was one model-year behind the ones that allowed for online updates. So I called Pioneer and was told they do not provide firmware updates directly to consumers and I could only get a firmware update from an authorized repair center. Besides the added frustration of having to disconnect the 30 or so cables, cart this thing across town, then come back at a later date to pick it up and plug it all back in, the fee was going to be half of what I had paid for the thing in the first place. So DRM caused a product I'm using legally to fail and the simple software fix was not allowed to be applied by me. After following several dead links, I managed to find a forum where someone posted a Dropbox link to the firmware, making me a firmware pirate (aaarr!). This incredibly technical process that can only be performed at an authorized service center? Extract a file to a USB key, insert said key, turn on device while holding down two buttons and wait until the screen says it's done. Pioneer's approach here succeeded in making me a "former customer" at some point in the future since the firmware update fixed my problem.
- ivanca 10y ago
  Capitalism is the art of getting as much money out of you as possible without getting a class action lawsuit. We hope most Pioneers customers do the same as you but I bet they don't, they think a year is enough value for the product. Pioneers work is to further reduce the time their products are expected to function.
  - mdip 10y ago
    Nearly sent milk out my nose with your quote, though it got me thinking. Planned obsolescence, as highlighted by the article, is certainly nothing new but it seems to be an ever growing trend in parts of the CE space that once valued reliability. As customers have become more used to replacing expensive gadgets (smartphones/PCs come to mind) every few years because the new ones are faster and more capable, they've begun to value reliability less. The problem is that there are large and growing segments in the space that don't warrant replacement so frequently. My AVR is seven years old, does 9.1 audio, decodes every major format[0] and supports all of the HDMI features of the television I have plugged in to it. My 1080p plasma television is among the final generation, doesn't suffer from screen burn despite being used 90% of the time for gaming, produces a better picture (color and screen consistency) than the LCD it replaced and is nearly impossible to find a "new" replacement for. It was also among the least expensive 1080p televisions available at the time it was purchased since plasma was on its way out. Arguments that "these things are much more complex to repair these days" are no longer true with the hundreds of YouTube videos, web sites and forums dedicated to repairing products so it really does appear to be manufacturers imposing artificial constraints on product lifetime in order to encourage high repair fees or premature replacement with newer models in categories of products that don't have a natural replacement cycle beyond the failure cycle. The ability to repair a device and its reliability is quickly becoming a required feature in this home. Assuming it's a product I won't replace until it fails, this experience has caused me to research products over a certain price more thoroughly to identify those with a large community behind them, a long warranty, and a flexible repair policy. [0] Nearly every new device I plug in causes the receiver to jump to PCM mode because the decoders are being built in to the devices. Considering the ability to decode every common audio format was a major feature I purchased it for, and a feature that would cause me to replace it, it's going to remain in my living room even longer if it doesn't fail. Unless I replace the television with something that requires an HDMI spec beyond what the device can handle (and I don't see getting a 4K TV for that room, so that's safe), grow ears that can discern a tenth channel (or the room changes in some unexpected way allowing a tenth or eleventh speaker to fit somewhere), or end up buying four more devices to plug in to it, it will be replaced only when it fails.
em3rgent0rdr 10y ago
No need for a "Right" to repair. What is needed is abolishment of intellectual property laws which allow companies to claim what you think is your legitimately purchased property. The core problem with intellectual property is that it trumps physical property. Companies shouldn't be forced by government to make repairable devices. A better way would be some sort of "Repair Coalition" of consumers and companies which agree to boycott unrepairable products and respectively produce repairable products with instructions.
- lerpa 10y ago
  > it trumps physical property That's the point of invented rights in a nutshell, to weaken the real actual rights, while bribing people into the illusion that they are better off that way.
avindroth 10y ago
I once had to fix a fairly complex piece of electronics and when I asked the company for a repair, they told me the directions over the phone. Unscrew this, take that out, check this, boom. I was more than impressed by their confidence in their hardware.
- rahimnathwani 10y ago
  Please tell us the name of the company, so that we can give them our business if we need the type of products they sell.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    I second this request. I think it's important to reward companies doing things good, not just punishing companies doing things bad.
  - avindroth 10y ago
    This was with Amway's eSpring water purifier. The fix was very DIY over the phone.
nichochar 10y ago
If you can't open it, you don't own it.
jwatte 10y ago
Honestly, most products are becoming so integrated, and so delicate, that "repair" means "replace the one expensive bit." Couple that with every lighter, ever thinner, ever flimsier, glue based laminated construction, needed to hit market size and weight requirements, and you get absolutely no economic sense in designing for, or supporting, repair. In a sense, it's our growing skill at mass fabrication, and the growing cost of skilled human knowledge workers, that is driving this "not economically repairable" phenomenon. Do we really want heavier, clunkier, more expensive things, that can be repaired? The planet may approve, but the Wall Mart shopper sure doesn't!
- XorNot 10y ago
  I'll settle for a user replaceable battery.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Wall Mart shoppers are reactive, they buy what they're told to buy. The funny thing about mass fabrication is, that it can make pretty much anything equally well. It's disconnected from the actual "meaning" of the product being manufactured. So if someone were to design a phone that's fully user-serviceable, with all components replaceable and swappable for third-party products, Chinese factories would not care. They'd make it just as easily as they make iPhones now. I'm pretty sure people would buy such a phone if a big enough company decided to do that and put their marketing department to work. General population buys what it is told to buy.
  - kilotaras 10y ago
    https://atap.google.com/ara/ https://atap.google.com/ara/
intrasight 10y ago
As someone who came of tinkering age in the early 70s and spend lots of time taking apart and repairing old machines, I wish to express another concern. How do we expect to hook the next generation of engineers if there is no opportunity to tinker as a child? For me that spark (excuse the pun) definitely came from those early "break it/fix it" sessions. Is tinkering going to be relegated to playing with the public APIs of our devices? I assume that most devices don't have public APIs - you need to get a dev license and sign an NDA. What ten year old is going to do that? Will only the children of engineers at major tech companies be able to tinker? I see bad unintended long term consequences for our society.
- javajosh 10y ago
  This is a very important point. Children can't learn from magical slabs that can't be opened. That said, my personal view is that you should never buy toys. You should build them. There are two important reasons for this: first, as you say kids need to learn how to disassemble and reassemble things. Home-made toys are going to fit that bill nicely. Second, kids need to not learn consumerist habits at a young age. Toys are easy (and fun) to make at home, and, like food, much better (and better for you). As for computers, I'm not excited about my kids even seeing a screen, which obviates the problem of disassembling a magical, sealed slab in the first place. When they are old enough (10+) perhaps I'll let them play with discrete electronics on a breadboard. :)
  - intrasight 10y ago
    Yes to building and breadboarding. At least discrete components will never have proprietary APIs ;)
- datenwolf 10y ago
  It's not just tinkerers who suffer. At our university research group we're doing ultra high speed OCT imaging research. Without going into full details, let it just sink in that were're fully saturating two PCI-E x8 Gen3 toward GPU cards in a continuous stream. Since CUDA-5 there's an API that allows direct DMA between the GPU and whatever device you can write drivers for. This opens an interesting opportunity: Put the ADC and the GPU into an external PCI-E enclosure with a PCI-E crossbar switch (PLX/Avago makes those). Unfortunately there are no existing enclosures that support the number of slots and the PCI-E generation required for that. But what the heck, we've got all the tools here required to design, and more importantly troubleshoot such a design. I've got a 4ch 35GHz bandwidth Oscilloscope at my disposal here and there's be a >60GHz one at the lab soon, too. Also all the kinds of probes required. And being a radio amateur with interest in microwave operation there's also the technical background. A quick search at Mouser and Digikey reveals, that they even have all the right ICs in stock. So all I need is electrical specifications for what to keep in mind, pin outs, and some programming manuals for the controller. Now there are two options to go about this: Using External-PCI-E connection (adapters for which for some reason have become hard to come in the past 2 years) or Thunderbolt. So I thought, hmm, it's worth a try getting in touch with them (heck, some guy at HN actually suggestest I should get in touch with the Thunderbolt groups). Here's the reply in verbatim: > Dear Wolfgang, > > Thank you for your interest in Thunderbolt™ technology. Due to resource > constraints we are not able to approve Individuals or institutions to sign > the Thunderbolt Technology License that is required for access to Thunderbolt > Confidential documentation. As our resources improve we hope to be able to > allow individuals or educational access. > > You may find the attached Intel Developer Forum presentation from August 2015 helpful. > > If there is a specific Thunderbolt product you are trying to bring to market please let us know. > > Thank you and best regards, > Thunderbolt Admin Yeah, thank you very much. It always puzzles me why hardware companies, who want to _sell_ their stuff or proliferate their newest kind of technology makes it so awfully hard for independent developers, engineers, researchers and tinkerers to actually make use of it in their products. As far as I can tell there's not really much on the Thunderbolt market available right now. A few storage enclosures, NICs, single slot PCI-E enclosures and the occassional novelty audio interface. You can, in fact, enumerate all existing products that use Thunderbolt technology on the Thunderbolt website itself. In a broader sense the same problems also hold for PCI-E and PCI (fortunately the specifications for those float around the web, you can find them if you want to) and "standard" links like DisplayPort and HDMI. And apart from the whole hardware building aspect, there's also the software aspect. Hey you various printer and scanner manufactureres out there (I'm looking at you EPSON, Canon, Samsung, Brother, Kyocera, etc.) you want me to buy your stuff. So how about you also tell me how to talk to it, once I've bought it. You know, drivers are not really terribly complicated things. Yes I understand you may have some secrets in your drivers. I don't want to get the sources to _your_ drivers, I want to write my own. Oh I could damage my hardware you say? What problem is that for you, you should be happy, I might buy another pice from you. I think it has to do with the fact, that you're selling the very same piece of hardware in different feature editions for different prices and you don't want to tell people that plainly. /rant
ernestbro 10y ago
The French have an approach to this problem as well "forcing manufacturers to tell consumers how long their appliances will last. French companies will also have to inform consumers how long spare parts for the product will be available"[1]. IMHO, because it would only apply to French manufacturers, it will drive any manufacturing outside of France. Similar to the 35 hour work week: interesting principle, bad outcome. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2015/mar/03/has-planned-obsolesence-had-its-day-design https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2015/mar/03...
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  This is a great place for EU to shine. You can move your manufacturing out of an European country, but you can't really ignore whole EU as a market. It's probably why we're successfully "getting away" with things like mandatory 2-year guarantees and ability to return faulty products bought remotely (on-line, phone, door-to-door, etc.) for 14 days, no questions asked. http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guarantees-returns/faq/index_en.htm http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guar...
teekert 10y ago
I don't really understand this fight. Why not let the market sort it out? I for one stopped buying Macbooks as soon as they were being glued shut. My 2011 MBP can be opened, I put 16 GB of RAM in there and a TB SSD. I know Apple thinks it is ridiculous [0] to use a 5 yr old PC but the thing is blazing fast. I'll never buy a laptop that is unusable in 5 years time when there are also models with up to 3 m.2 slots available at only a slightly increased size. Vote with your wallets people, that is the only way to do fair fighting in this case! [0] http://thenextweb.com/opinion/2016/03/21/apple-hypocritical-insensitive-pc-users-old-pc/#gref http://thenextweb.com/opinion/2016/03/21/apple-hypocritical-...
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Because market cares about majority, and majority makes their choice as a combination of what seems more cost-effective right frikkin' now and what the combined marketing of companies tell people to buy. Things like whether this purchase will turn out to be more expensive over the next year, or whether this purchase is a step in a wrong direction for future of technology, are things that are distant considerations, if they're considered at all. I think people underestimate the power with which the market steers itself, as opposed to listening to consumers. Ford's (mis)quote about faster horses comes to mind...
- lerpa 10y ago
  I agree whole heatedly. But let's not be naive, the fight happens because the some people want the government to step it and make some of those things illegal. Be it to turn illegal to modify the car you own, or illegal to not allow to modify your electronics. People don't just have views on that, they want to force their views on others.
- coldpie 10y ago
  Because not everyone is perfectly informed about the consequences of their purchase at the time they make the purchase. I'm glad you do your research, but with this kind of law, you wouldn't need to do that research and could instead spend your time doing something you enjoy. Similarly, you don't need to research your grocery store's meat selling policies to ensure you're not getting rotten meat.
__b__ 10y ago
Imagine if when you opened your Mac ][ it disabled itself from booting again. As a "protective measure".
ashitlerferad 10y ago
Can I have the right to repair iOS?
Friedduck 10y ago
I can't believe we're having this discussion over 40 years after the passage of Magnuson-Moss, which covered similar ground. (Okay maybe a stretch, but thematically similar.) If we go down this road, you'll be at the behest of all manufacturers. It's injurious to the consumer and environment alike, assuming more people will simply dispose of items rather than repairing them. Of course it could give rise to disrupters who don't use these practices and win market share over the entrenched interests. To me the key thing is this: if we lose the right to repair virtually all manufacturers will include some IP that precludes independent repair. The first battleground would be auto makers. Prepare to pay a lot more.
brokenmachine 10y ago
The real problem is that to the average consumer, an electronic device is nothing more than a black box. There is zero chance of them ever being able to repair it, so they have no interest in whether or not it is repairable... Until the battery fails just after the warranty period is up. I wish people would vote with their feet, but maybe there needs to be some kind of regulation since companies can't be trusted to play nice.
mrmondo 10y ago
Did you know that in Victoria, Australia it's illegal for you to change your own light bulbs unless you're a registered electrician? Not kidding. When I moved there I went to the local supermarket and then electronics shop to buy a replacement phone wall jack and they looked at me funny and both asked 'you're not going to install that yourself are you?'. It's insane! I can remember my mum changing bloody power outlets in our house in New Zealand when I was young, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to turn off the breaker for that circuit then screw three cables into an outlet faceplate. Only thing some people don't know is that it's a good idea to make the earth wire a little longer if it's not already so it's the last to disengage if ripped out / whatever.
- kimburgess 10y ago
  Another Victorian here. The light bulb thing isn't actually true. The legislation and exceptions are a little more convoluted than other states, but you're ok to swap out your own bulbs. http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/27947 http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/27947
HappyFunGuy 10y ago
It would be nice to even actually own some of what you're repairing. Can you resell your itunes purchases? I guess that battle is assumed lost, so we can beg for the right to repair that which we use to consume what media we do not own and can't resell.

704 points by sinak 10y ago

A lot of issues surrounding the move to make anything and everything a "Service" are starting to become very clear. The issues with IoT devices being bricked, Tesla 'ownership', and so on really do need scrutiny from a functional body with a hint of the public's interest at heart.

waterphone 10y ago
Those are all definite issues, but even in the case of simple computer hardware there's a problem when the manufacturer tries to lock the owners out of repairing with special screws, glue, etc., so that they can make money off the repairs themselves. New MacBook Pros have their batteries glued in and they can't really be replaced without replacing the entire top case they're glued to at the same time. They claim this is necessary for the thinness they want, but the MacBook Air is thinner and doesn't have a glued battery. My older MacBook Pro has a screwed in battery which uses tri-wing screws to keep people from replacing it themselves, but a $5 tool online can let you replace it anyway, and it takes literally just a couple minutes.
- wil421 10y ago
  MacBooks and MBPs are becoming throw away devices after 3 or 4 years. In 2013 I upgraded my 2011 MBP to have more RAM and a larger SSD. The new ones have the RAM soddared on so I guess I'll need to max it out when I buy and forfeit the possibility of a future upgrade. The custom SSD is expensive and only one maker seems to have decent quality ones.[1] I know laptops aren't increasing in power/abilities like they used to be. It's still nice to be able to add more to an old laptop and get a couple more years. [1]https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/macbook-pro-retina-display/2013-2014-2015 https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/macbook-pro-retina-d...
  - waterphone 10y ago
    I still have a 2011 as well, and have no intention of upgrading beyond it for the foreseeable future. It still works great, I've maxed out the RAM and added a 750 GB SSD, it does everything I need to do with the performance I need, and I'm happy. I've replaced the keyboard myself, and replaced the battery as well with an aftermarket replacement. I don't need anything newer, and I like being able to repair it myself for minimal cost.
  - Nullabillity 10y ago
    Or you could buy another brand of laptop instead, next time...?
    - wil421 10y ago
      Which other laptops support macOS? I have a company Dell that's horrible. Had many Vaios in the past that were great but the new ones aren't that great. Don't want a tablet or a touch screen as my main device or an Internet only device (chrome book).
      - Nullabillity 10y ago
        Personally I've mostly been using ASUSes lately, which IMO offer decent value and have generally been very easy to upgrade. > I have a company Dell that's horrible. Aren't company computers pretty generally crap? I'm not sure that's a fair comparison to draw...
        wil421 10y ago
        There are companies that allow you to choose a Mac or PC (or they just use Macs only). Where I work they are piloting a Mac option.
  - jolux 10y ago
    Except the custom SSD is unbelievably fast and soldered RAM inarguably takes up less space than RAM chips...
- Aelinsaar 10y ago
  They're doing it physically, or they're doing it legally, but through one avenue or another they're all starting to do it. 'Surface as a Service', all of what you said about Macs and their batteries, and so on.
twblalock 10y ago
> The issues with IoT devices being bricked, Tesla 'ownership', and so on really do need scrutiny from a functional body with a hint of the public's interest at heart. Oh great, another bureaucracy. Why should manufacturers be forced to make their products repairable by users? Why don't they have the right to make a non-repairable product, and let the market decide whether or not it succeeds? If people really want repairable products, some company will be able to make money by selling them. The market is an excellent way to track consumer preferences -- far better than a bureaucracy telling companies how to make their products.
- mindslight 10y ago
  Okay, but to be consistent you have to argue for getting rid of copyrights and patents as well. It makes no sense to regard these devices as "creative works", yet then deny that the end user has been sold an instance of this abstract structure.
  - twblalock 10y ago
    How exactly did you derive this from my argument? I see no logical connection.
    - zerohp 10y ago
      Patent and copyright are an external force created by a bureaucracy that prevents a free market for these products.
      - twblalock 10y ago
        It is certainly not a logical conclusion of my argument that all bureaucracies that interfere with the market ought to be abolished, or that the market should be free in all cases. My point was that in this particular case, the market would be a better way to solve the problem than a bureaucracy. Therefore, advocating the existence of some bureaucracies and not others does not contradict my argument, nor is it inconsistent with my argument.

geggam 10y ago

.... "but its for our safety"

RcouF1uZ4gsC 10y ago

I think this whole open source and right to repair/modify will be very interesting with self-driving cars, because of their interaction with the commons. Here are some issues. There have been some discussions about the ethics of self-driving cars if it should sacrifice the lives of the people in the cars to save more lives. In a right to repair/modify wouldn't a lot of people pay to have the algorithm changed for their car to always favor the people in the car no matter what? If the self-driving software is completely open source, you can exploit the collision avoidance algorithms to favor aggressive driving with your car. For example if the software tries to keep a 15 foot buffer between cars, you can"tune" your software to use a shorter buffer and cut in front of traffic more easily. Law enforcement will campaign for a remote "pull over" command to prevent people from fleeing police. The answers to these types of questions will be very important for open source going forward.

slavik81 10y ago
Those issues also exist with human driven cars. Every driver today already controls how their car is driven. Many of them do not maintain a safe following distance and some refuse to pull over upon police request. We have systems to deal with bad drivers. A police remote engine kill switch doesn't even require a self-driving car. Limiting engine power upon receipt of a radio signal has been technologically possible for decades.
chinhodado 10y ago
I think it should be expected that once the software/firmware of a self-driving car has been modified by someone not authorized by the car maker, it should be expected that the car maker is not responsible for that car any more. Of course it brings up the problem of whether it is possible to detect such a modification.
- nathan_long 10y ago
  And also whether the modification is relevant the the problem. I can imagine court cases where the driver argues that the change they made was irrelevant to the accident that occurred.

jswny 10y ago

I think that measures like planned obsolescence and preventing consumers from repairing the devices that they own should not be legal. They should be treated similarly to anti-competitive practices.

Silhouette 10y ago
I'm wary of making things illegal, but I do think requiring full disclosure is in order so buyers can make up their own mind and suppliers willing to offer more reliable/repairable products can use it as a competitive advantage.

SilasX 10y ago

Right to repair = ban on any waiver of repair rights in any commercial relationship.

5ilv3r 10y ago
That's fine, and not in conflict. Repair information just needs to be available to prevent them from continuing to be in power over your devices at their end of your business relationship. How hard did we have to fight for unlocking 2 year old phones? That was just them trying to be in power, not protect revenue or IP.

The_Hoff 10y ago

For me, Apple devices are always what come to mind when thinking about ability to repair and modify. I used to not mind when I couldn't open my iPod Classic to replace the battery, because failures like this rarely occurred and when they did Apple repaired them easily. Today however, when something as trivial as a computer memory upgrade is restricted, and the Genius Bar is overloaded with iPhone screen repairs, I find myself wanting some sort of standards with regards to repair rights.

seangrogg 10y ago
I've never gone to the genius bar to get stuff done because of this. There is always an enterprising college student (often ex-Apple) willing to get just about anything done on the cheap, on my time.
epistasis 10y ago
There are tons of third party repair shops for iPhone. It's also easy to do at home, I replaced my battery not too long ago. Apple definitely has that reputation, but I don't think its deserved in my experience. They user manuals for machines with replaceable parts often describe exactly how to do it. For other things that require a tiny bit of skill or where an unskilled person could easily mess things up, they put up a minor barrier like a different screw head, the tool for which will often ship with replacement parts.
- waterphone 10y ago
  It's absolutely deserved. The things that are officially user serviceable now are very minimal, and the tamper-resistant screws and glues used aren't to protect devices from their users (which would also be a bad idea), they're to prevent people from taking advantage of a cheaper alternative to paying Apple for out of warranty repair service. You cannot buy things like batteries from Apple, and Apple will not provide you with tools to bypass their tamper-resistance efforts. Only third party sources will do that.
mikeash 10y ago
You can replace your battery, it just takes a bit of time and effort. Ditto the screen. RAM is tough because it's soldered in, but at least they have a good excuse for making the batteries and RAM that way: they want to make their stuff smaller. Right to Repair did show up pretty loudly with Apple devices when the Error 53 controversy happened, where people's phones would refuse to boot after having the home button replaced. Thankfully, it appears this was an honest mistake and it has been fixed. It does show how losing the Right to Repair would actually look, though: not just stuff that's hard to replace because of design constraints, but devices which arbitrarily refuse to accept unauthorized replacement parts.

mmanfrin 10y ago

John Deere is attempting to make sales of their tractors 'leases' to enforce their ban on self repair: http://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/ http://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/

joncp 10y ago
That article doesn't mention leasing, but that seems like a reasonable compromise. If you, as a manufacturer, are hell-bent on locking down your firmware and parts supply, then you have to stop pretending that you're selling anything. Only providing leasing is a way to be honest with customers about your intent.
keeganjw 10y ago
This kind of repair sabotaging is absolutely nuts. Takes things to a whole new level.
TaylorAlexander 10y ago
I am super hardcore stallman-esque pro openness, but I also have somewhat libertarian views on how people should be allowed to operate. My thinking is: let them lock them down and after a few years, someone who genuinely values openness will come in as a competitor. If you pass a law requiring some kind of openness, companies against openness will just hang out at the edge of what is legally permissible. I am curious what the HN crowd thinks of this, if a legislative solution could be desirable, and why.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  I think it is tricky. One outcome would be, like you said, a competitor showing up, offering more open goods. Another is no competitor showing up at all. People won't suddenly stop buying tractors or phones just because they're in fact being leased. They'll adapt, and in few years people will honestly say there's no demand on the market for owning products. People choose only from what's available.
- randomdata 10y ago
  > let them lock them down and after a few years, someone who genuinely values openness will come in as a competitor. I once read somewhere that it takes 13 years to bring a new combine to market, which I can believe. They are complex machines that can only be tested in real world conditions during the relatively short window of harvest. So, in reality, it might be more than a few years before a competitor can arise (assuming none of the existing players are willing to be that competitor) even with sufficient investment.

acd 10y ago

I think electronics should be designed for repair and easy recycling as a main design goal. For example a cell phone, you could build it with an aluminum back with small phillips screws instead of glued back. Open the phone up with a standard screw driver and you will be able to replace the battery, main board and screen yourself. What kind of environment do you want to leave for future generations. A big pile of electronic garbage or a world as clean as it could be? What about the carbon foot print of upgrade phones every two years? If we can reuse electronics components the garbage foot print should be smaller. Why do we have to throw a working screen and battery in a cell phone if you just want to upgrade the cpu speed or camera of your phone? How about laws that require that consumers should be able to repair their things, average life time. Good projects on the right path so far Google has Project Ara Fairphone2

extrapickles 10y ago
I don't mind them gluing things like the battery in since it make for a more rigid phone provided they use a glue that a moderate amount of heat can greatly weaken. The problem with upgrading parts of something like a phone is that the components interfaces change frequently. Even desktop cpu/memory sockets change every few years. Compact form factors are worse as you dont have room for the connector, and for the larger components they are like the engine in a F1 car, a important structural piece. I do like the concept of Ara, but I don't think it will be practical anytime soon.
- Nullabillity 10y ago
  > Even desktop cpu/memory sockets change every few years. Amusingly, AMD seems to manage fine without nearly as many socket changes as Intel...
  - jdboyd 10y ago
    It may be stretching things to say that AMD is managing fine.
    - 10y ago

paulsutter 10y ago

This is carburetor nostalgia, from a time when everything was human scale and adjustable. Look at how chips are stacked and interconnected within packages in modern design[1], that trend will only intensify. Software is also getting more complex, with deep learning the system develops its own if/thens. [1] http://img.koreatimes.co.kr/upload/news/070905_p10_hynix.jpg http://img.koreatimes.co.kr/upload/news/070905_p10_hynix.jpg

sevenless 10y ago
How do they make that?! Don't the interconnects short?
- paulsutter 10y ago
  Using a modern wire bonding machine
waterphone 10y ago
Wrong, this is not trying to mandate that simpler designs be used to make things easier to repair, but that companies stop trying to lock people out with tamper-resistant screws and glue; and that they stop cracking down on "unauthorized" repair shops, etc.
mmagin 10y ago
AFAIK, this sort of stacked die thing has barely started to reach actual commercial products. It's been an idea for a long time, but quite hard to get right. Anyway, it's no different than another IC of considerable complexity -- obviously there's no ability for an end user to repair what's inside it.
brokenmachine 10y ago
Even such fancy chips still require some kind of power, and I'd rather that battery (which is a consumable) would be accessible and replaceable. I don't need to repair individual transistors on the silicon, it would just be nice to be able to replace the battery or screen if I need to.

robert1976 10y ago

If substantial numbers of consumers are demanding fixable/open electronics, a manufacturer could comply and fill a great need! My guess is that market is v small. Regulation is unneccessary here.

wfo 10y ago
If the market has failed to protect a right that is important, that's exactly when regulation is necessary. Handling the constant failures and disasters created by the market to the detriment of the populace is the purpose of regulations and the entire justification of the mixed economy model every modern society operates under.
- twblalock 10y ago
  What right has not been protected? You do not have a right to require manufacturers to create repairable items. If you think such a right exists, prove it. That's what this "right" to repair really is -- it is forcing manufacturers to make things that they don't currently make, and that most people don't want to buy. (If people wanted to buy them, someone would already be selling them and making money on that segment of the market.) In effect, this would be the government taking action to promote the personal preferences of a small number of consumers. (If the number of consumers who wanted repairable products was not small, manufacturers would already be making such products by choice, and government action would not be necessary.) When the government starts forcing manufacturers to make things that people don't want to buy, something has gone pretty wrong.
  - ekimekim 10y ago
    I don't mind manufacturers making design decisions that, as a side effect, impact repairability (phones with removable batteries being the main example here). But it's another thing altogether to add tamper indicators, DRM, etc for the express purpose of preventing people from doing things with items they own.
    - 10y ago

lifeisstillgood 10y ago

we shall, as a society, realise that software is some cross between literacy and legislation and that the right to read (and write back) software that affects us is fundamental to the good operation of society, and we will advance together. Or we won't and we will end up like North Korea, pretending reality is somewhere it's not. Nature is not going to care if we don't board the clue train.

partycoder 10y ago

Well, this is common sense. Remember the "Ecce homo" painting? there are some things that will likely go wrong if you do them by yourself. Sometimes with consequences that are not desirable for "the common good". This includes repairing devices that are required to be reliable for public safety.

azraomega 10y ago

While I hate companies suing people for repairing their own properties, "right" has been overused so many places. What a sensational word! I have the "right" to not being sued! What? I would advocate companies certify other entities as repairing authorities or just do a good job themselves; providing the support. Of course it will reduce their product sale and that would be a huge deal to us consumers as well because we want them to do well and providing better product next round. However, it is dangerous that we use sale as THE primary measure. I believe companies should take pride in the quality of their products and services. They should inspire customer loyalty, not unethical growth to please Wall Street.

jlg23 10y ago
> While I hate companies suing people for repairing their own properties, "right" has been overused so many places. I don't think it is outrageous to claim ownership to something that I bought. If a company does not want me to repair my own property, put a big "not for sale, only for lease" label on the package.
- azraomega 10y ago
  How's it resemble "for lease"? They didn't sue people for repairing, they sued for illegally obtaining their internal documentation. We are talking about our "right" to force other to do something rather than protecting ourselves from being forced. It should be business issue, not an actual human right issue.
  - pessimizer 10y ago
    All business issues are issues of property and contract rights.

CaptSpify 10y ago

I used to do after-market repair medical equipment (MRI's, CT's, X-Ray, etc). One of the biggest frustrations was: $manufacturer wants $5000 to repair a CT. We'd charge $1000. We'd repair the CT, and it would pass all the built-in diagnostic tests. But then when the customer went to make a scan, a pop-up would appear saying "Unauthorized Repair! Call $manufacturer to fix!". $manufacturer repair tech would come in, plug in a usb-key, type a code, and charge $1000. They didn't run any of the diagnostics, and were basically paid to keep the usb-key available. I believe in the right to repair, because preventing it just causes artificial monopolies and price-gouging. (note: I don't remember actual prices. Numbers were just made up)

themartorana 10y ago
Pretty scary that they don't run a diagnostic pass - I wonder, if the repair was bad and caused human injury/death, who would be liable? Company X did the repair, but $manufacturer basically certified it.
- tzs 10y ago
  It could be that the unit keeps track of when diagnostics were performed and the results, and the "Unauthorized repaid, call manufacturer to fix" only happens on units that already had diagnostics performed after the repair and passed.
marcoperaza 10y ago
>$manufacturer repair tech would come in, plug in a usb-key, type a code, and charge $1000. They didn't run any of the diagnostics, and were basically paid to keep the usb-key available. How is that legal? I sincerely hope that would not survive a civil suit. Though it could be that hospitals are weary of suing their suppliers for various reasons.
- pessimizer 10y ago
  Under what law would it be illegal? It's not just medical equipment - it's tractors and iPhones, too.

davidf18 10y ago

iFixit (https://www.ifixit.com https://www.ifixit.com) is pretty great for Mac products.

rasz_pl 10y ago
https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup is better

mdip 10y ago

This was a hugely frustrating thing for me recently. I picked up a used Pioneer AVR on eBay a few years ago and had no issues with it until I decided to plug my wife's older plasma television in because my main TV decided to take up an unusual smoking habit. It refused to connect to the new TV, indicating an HDCP error, despite working when plugged directly in to any of the attached devices. A quick google search yielded the likely culprit: my firmware was out of date. This model was one version behind but, unfortunately, was one model-year behind the ones that allowed for online updates. So I called Pioneer and was told they do not provide firmware updates directly to consumers and I could only get a firmware update from an authorized repair center. Besides the added frustration of having to disconnect the 30 or so cables, cart this thing across town, then come back at a later date to pick it up and plug it all back in, the fee was going to be half of what I had paid for the thing in the first place. So DRM caused a product I'm using legally to fail and the simple software fix was not allowed to be applied by me. After following several dead links, I managed to find a forum where someone posted a Dropbox link to the firmware, making me a firmware pirate (aaarr!). This incredibly technical process that can only be performed at an authorized service center? Extract a file to a USB key, insert said key, turn on device while holding down two buttons and wait until the screen says it's done. Pioneer's approach here succeeded in making me a "former customer" at some point in the future since the firmware update fixed my problem.

ivanca 10y ago
Capitalism is the art of getting as much money out of you as possible without getting a class action lawsuit. We hope most Pioneers customers do the same as you but I bet they don't, they think a year is enough value for the product. Pioneers work is to further reduce the time their products are expected to function.
- mdip 10y ago
  Nearly sent milk out my nose with your quote, though it got me thinking. Planned obsolescence, as highlighted by the article, is certainly nothing new but it seems to be an ever growing trend in parts of the CE space that once valued reliability. As customers have become more used to replacing expensive gadgets (smartphones/PCs come to mind) every few years because the new ones are faster and more capable, they've begun to value reliability less. The problem is that there are large and growing segments in the space that don't warrant replacement so frequently. My AVR is seven years old, does 9.1 audio, decodes every major format[0] and supports all of the HDMI features of the television I have plugged in to it. My 1080p plasma television is among the final generation, doesn't suffer from screen burn despite being used 90% of the time for gaming, produces a better picture (color and screen consistency) than the LCD it replaced and is nearly impossible to find a "new" replacement for. It was also among the least expensive 1080p televisions available at the time it was purchased since plasma was on its way out. Arguments that "these things are much more complex to repair these days" are no longer true with the hundreds of YouTube videos, web sites and forums dedicated to repairing products so it really does appear to be manufacturers imposing artificial constraints on product lifetime in order to encourage high repair fees or premature replacement with newer models in categories of products that don't have a natural replacement cycle beyond the failure cycle. The ability to repair a device and its reliability is quickly becoming a required feature in this home. Assuming it's a product I won't replace until it fails, this experience has caused me to research products over a certain price more thoroughly to identify those with a large community behind them, a long warranty, and a flexible repair policy. [0] Nearly every new device I plug in causes the receiver to jump to PCM mode because the decoders are being built in to the devices. Considering the ability to decode every common audio format was a major feature I purchased it for, and a feature that would cause me to replace it, it's going to remain in my living room even longer if it doesn't fail. Unless I replace the television with something that requires an HDMI spec beyond what the device can handle (and I don't see getting a 4K TV for that room, so that's safe), grow ears that can discern a tenth channel (or the room changes in some unexpected way allowing a tenth or eleventh speaker to fit somewhere), or end up buying four more devices to plug in to it, it will be replaced only when it fails.

em3rgent0rdr 10y ago

No need for a "Right" to repair. What is needed is abolishment of intellectual property laws which allow companies to claim what you think is your legitimately purchased property. The core problem with intellectual property is that it trumps physical property. Companies shouldn't be forced by government to make repairable devices. A better way would be some sort of "Repair Coalition" of consumers and companies which agree to boycott unrepairable products and respectively produce repairable products with instructions.

lerpa 10y ago
> it trumps physical property That's the point of invented rights in a nutshell, to weaken the real actual rights, while bribing people into the illusion that they are better off that way.

avindroth 10y ago

I once had to fix a fairly complex piece of electronics and when I asked the company for a repair, they told me the directions over the phone. Unscrew this, take that out, check this, boom. I was more than impressed by their confidence in their hardware.

rahimnathwani 10y ago
Please tell us the name of the company, so that we can give them our business if we need the type of products they sell.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  I second this request. I think it's important to reward companies doing things good, not just punishing companies doing things bad.
- avindroth 10y ago
  This was with Amway's eSpring water purifier. The fix was very DIY over the phone.

nichochar 10y ago

If you can't open it, you don't own it.

jwatte 10y ago

Honestly, most products are becoming so integrated, and so delicate, that "repair" means "replace the one expensive bit." Couple that with every lighter, ever thinner, ever flimsier, glue based laminated construction, needed to hit market size and weight requirements, and you get absolutely no economic sense in designing for, or supporting, repair. In a sense, it's our growing skill at mass fabrication, and the growing cost of skilled human knowledge workers, that is driving this "not economically repairable" phenomenon. Do we really want heavier, clunkier, more expensive things, that can be repaired? The planet may approve, but the Wall Mart shopper sure doesn't!

XorNot 10y ago
I'll settle for a user replaceable battery.
TeMPOraL 10y ago
Wall Mart shoppers are reactive, they buy what they're told to buy. The funny thing about mass fabrication is, that it can make pretty much anything equally well. It's disconnected from the actual "meaning" of the product being manufactured. So if someone were to design a phone that's fully user-serviceable, with all components replaceable and swappable for third-party products, Chinese factories would not care. They'd make it just as easily as they make iPhones now. I'm pretty sure people would buy such a phone if a big enough company decided to do that and put their marketing department to work. General population buys what it is told to buy.
- kilotaras 10y ago
  https://atap.google.com/ara/ https://atap.google.com/ara/

intrasight 10y ago

As someone who came of tinkering age in the early 70s and spend lots of time taking apart and repairing old machines, I wish to express another concern. How do we expect to hook the next generation of engineers if there is no opportunity to tinker as a child? For me that spark (excuse the pun) definitely came from those early "break it/fix it" sessions. Is tinkering going to be relegated to playing with the public APIs of our devices? I assume that most devices don't have public APIs - you need to get a dev license and sign an NDA. What ten year old is going to do that? Will only the children of engineers at major tech companies be able to tinker? I see bad unintended long term consequences for our society.

javajosh 10y ago
This is a very important point. Children can't learn from magical slabs that can't be opened. That said, my personal view is that you should never buy toys. You should build them. There are two important reasons for this: first, as you say kids need to learn how to disassemble and reassemble things. Home-made toys are going to fit that bill nicely. Second, kids need to not learn consumerist habits at a young age. Toys are easy (and fun) to make at home, and, like food, much better (and better for you). As for computers, I'm not excited about my kids even seeing a screen, which obviates the problem of disassembling a magical, sealed slab in the first place. When they are old enough (10+) perhaps I'll let them play with discrete electronics on a breadboard. :)
- intrasight 10y ago
  Yes to building and breadboarding. At least discrete components will never have proprietary APIs ;)
datenwolf 10y ago
It's not just tinkerers who suffer. At our university research group we're doing ultra high speed OCT imaging research. Without going into full details, let it just sink in that were're fully saturating two PCI-E x8 Gen3 toward GPU cards in a continuous stream. Since CUDA-5 there's an API that allows direct DMA between the GPU and whatever device you can write drivers for. This opens an interesting opportunity: Put the ADC and the GPU into an external PCI-E enclosure with a PCI-E crossbar switch (PLX/Avago makes those). Unfortunately there are no existing enclosures that support the number of slots and the PCI-E generation required for that. But what the heck, we've got all the tools here required to design, and more importantly troubleshoot such a design. I've got a 4ch 35GHz bandwidth Oscilloscope at my disposal here and there's be a >60GHz one at the lab soon, too. Also all the kinds of probes required. And being a radio amateur with interest in microwave operation there's also the technical background. A quick search at Mouser and Digikey reveals, that they even have all the right ICs in stock. So all I need is electrical specifications for what to keep in mind, pin outs, and some programming manuals for the controller. Now there are two options to go about this: Using External-PCI-E connection (adapters for which for some reason have become hard to come in the past 2 years) or Thunderbolt. So I thought, hmm, it's worth a try getting in touch with them (heck, some guy at HN actually suggestest I should get in touch with the Thunderbolt groups). Here's the reply in verbatim: > Dear Wolfgang, > > Thank you for your interest in Thunderbolt™ technology. Due to resource > constraints we are not able to approve Individuals or institutions to sign > the Thunderbolt Technology License that is required for access to Thunderbolt > Confidential documentation. As our resources improve we hope to be able to > allow individuals or educational access. > > You may find the attached Intel Developer Forum presentation from August 2015 helpful. > > If there is a specific Thunderbolt product you are trying to bring to market please let us know. > > Thank you and best regards, > Thunderbolt Admin Yeah, thank you very much. It always puzzles me why hardware companies, who want to _sell_ their stuff or proliferate their newest kind of technology makes it so awfully hard for independent developers, engineers, researchers and tinkerers to actually make use of it in their products. As far as I can tell there's not really much on the Thunderbolt market available right now. A few storage enclosures, NICs, single slot PCI-E enclosures and the occassional novelty audio interface. You can, in fact, enumerate all existing products that use Thunderbolt technology on the Thunderbolt website itself. In a broader sense the same problems also hold for PCI-E and PCI (fortunately the specifications for those float around the web, you can find them if you want to) and "standard" links like DisplayPort and HDMI. And apart from the whole hardware building aspect, there's also the software aspect. Hey you various printer and scanner manufactureres out there (I'm looking at you EPSON, Canon, Samsung, Brother, Kyocera, etc.) you want me to buy your stuff. So how about you also tell me how to talk to it, once I've bought it. You know, drivers are not really terribly complicated things. Yes I understand you may have some secrets in your drivers. I don't want to get the sources to _your_ drivers, I want to write my own. Oh I could damage my hardware you say? What problem is that for you, you should be happy, I might buy another pice from you. I think it has to do with the fact, that you're selling the very same piece of hardware in different feature editions for different prices and you don't want to tell people that plainly. /rant

ernestbro 10y ago

The French have an approach to this problem as well "forcing manufacturers to tell consumers how long their appliances will last. French companies will also have to inform consumers how long spare parts for the product will be available"[1]. IMHO, because it would only apply to French manufacturers, it will drive any manufacturing outside of France. Similar to the 35 hour work week: interesting principle, bad outcome. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2015/mar/03/has-planned-obsolesence-had-its-day-design https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2015/mar/03...

TeMPOraL 10y ago
This is a great place for EU to shine. You can move your manufacturing out of an European country, but you can't really ignore whole EU as a market. It's probably why we're successfully "getting away" with things like mandatory 2-year guarantees and ability to return faulty products bought remotely (on-line, phone, door-to-door, etc.) for 14 days, no questions asked. http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guarantees-returns/faq/index_en.htm http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guar...

teekert 10y ago

I don't really understand this fight. Why not let the market sort it out? I for one stopped buying Macbooks as soon as they were being glued shut. My 2011 MBP can be opened, I put 16 GB of RAM in there and a TB SSD. I know Apple thinks it is ridiculous [0] to use a 5 yr old PC but the thing is blazing fast. I'll never buy a laptop that is unusable in 5 years time when there are also models with up to 3 m.2 slots available at only a slightly increased size. Vote with your wallets people, that is the only way to do fair fighting in this case! [0] http://thenextweb.com/opinion/2016/03/21/apple-hypocritical-insensitive-pc-users-old-pc/#gref http://thenextweb.com/opinion/2016/03/21/apple-hypocritical-...

TeMPOraL 10y ago
Because market cares about majority, and majority makes their choice as a combination of what seems more cost-effective right frikkin' now and what the combined marketing of companies tell people to buy. Things like whether this purchase will turn out to be more expensive over the next year, or whether this purchase is a step in a wrong direction for future of technology, are things that are distant considerations, if they're considered at all. I think people underestimate the power with which the market steers itself, as opposed to listening to consumers. Ford's (mis)quote about faster horses comes to mind...
lerpa 10y ago
I agree whole heatedly. But let's not be naive, the fight happens because the some people want the government to step it and make some of those things illegal. Be it to turn illegal to modify the car you own, or illegal to not allow to modify your electronics. People don't just have views on that, they want to force their views on others.
coldpie 10y ago
Because not everyone is perfectly informed about the consequences of their purchase at the time they make the purchase. I'm glad you do your research, but with this kind of law, you wouldn't need to do that research and could instead spend your time doing something you enjoy. Similarly, you don't need to research your grocery store's meat selling policies to ensure you're not getting rotten meat.

__b__ 10y ago

Imagine if when you opened your Mac ][ it disabled itself from booting again. As a "protective measure".

ashitlerferad 10y ago

Can I have the right to repair iOS?

Friedduck 10y ago

I can't believe we're having this discussion over 40 years after the passage of Magnuson-Moss, which covered similar ground. (Okay maybe a stretch, but thematically similar.) If we go down this road, you'll be at the behest of all manufacturers. It's injurious to the consumer and environment alike, assuming more people will simply dispose of items rather than repairing them. Of course it could give rise to disrupters who don't use these practices and win market share over the entrenched interests. To me the key thing is this: if we lose the right to repair virtually all manufacturers will include some IP that precludes independent repair. The first battleground would be auto makers. Prepare to pay a lot more.

brokenmachine 10y ago

The real problem is that to the average consumer, an electronic device is nothing more than a black box. There is zero chance of them ever being able to repair it, so they have no interest in whether or not it is repairable... Until the battery fails just after the warranty period is up. I wish people would vote with their feet, but maybe there needs to be some kind of regulation since companies can't be trusted to play nice.

mrmondo 10y ago

Did you know that in Victoria, Australia it's illegal for you to change your own light bulbs unless you're a registered electrician? Not kidding. When I moved there I went to the local supermarket and then electronics shop to buy a replacement phone wall jack and they looked at me funny and both asked 'you're not going to install that yourself are you?'. It's insane! I can remember my mum changing bloody power outlets in our house in New Zealand when I was young, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to turn off the breaker for that circuit then screw three cables into an outlet faceplate. Only thing some people don't know is that it's a good idea to make the earth wire a little longer if it's not already so it's the last to disengage if ripped out / whatever.

kimburgess 10y ago
Another Victorian here. The light bulb thing isn't actually true. The legislation and exceptions are a little more convoluted than other states, but you're ok to swap out your own bulbs. http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/27947 http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/27947

HappyFunGuy 10y ago

It would be nice to even actually own some of what you're repairing. Can you resell your itunes purchases? I guess that battle is assumed lost, so we can beg for the right to repair that which we use to consume what media we do not own and can't resell.