6 ms·

I honestly don't understand this argument. I mean for a laptop or something upgradable, sure. But realistically speaking, how soon will you need to replace any

by Yabood 9y ago

I honestly don't understand this argument. I mean for a laptop or something upgradable, sure. But realistically speaking, how soon will you need to replace any of the drivers, and by the time you need to replace them, is it really worth it to replace them? I think somethings are just not worth repairing, and the HomePod is a perfect example.

grogenaut 9y ago
To some of us, popping 2 screws and replacing a speaker with one off of amazon or ebay is just what we do after breakfast on a weekend. There's no reason major parts of this $300+ device can't be repaired except that apple prefers you buy a new one. Same as with the batteries in the phones. It's a complete waste of their customer's money (and thus time), as well as terrible for the environment. Heck there are several little connectors in there that could come loose, you can't get at those either. I can replace the screen on my e-ink kindle for $25, instead of $100 for a new one. Have done this about 8 times (lots of kindles lots of backpacking). There's literally no reason that you can't get into this home pod easily except apple doesn't want you to. Looking at the design, there is no way you could argue that apple doesn't have the time or chops to make a repairable device. That thing is gorgeously made and has tons of completely custom components. They chose to do this.
- IntronExon 9y ago
  What percentage of consumers fit that bill? .1%? .01%? Less? It’s almost as if highly mainstream products are not made with the technical hobbyist in mind.
  - grogenaut 9y ago
    Look at desktop PCs. Millions sold, almost all with swappable parts. There's a difference with "not made with x in mind" and "purposefully difficult to do anything with". If we want engineers who can build these products in the future it also helps that they can tear them apart as kids. Again is that what you actually want to reward? Do you want to be able to use your IoT device a week after the startup goes under or apple decides that it's time to sell everyone a new $500 speaker?
    - IntronExon 9y ago
      Desktop PC’s are upgradeable by design, and frankly require repair pretty regularly. This is some IoT shit that will have support pulled before it can break and I suspect that you know that.
      - KozmoNau7 9y ago
        I honestly can't remember the last time I had to repair anything on my desktop PC, but I think it was a hard drive (which I promptly replaced with an SSD). It's been running flawlessly since 2011.
        IntronExon 9y ago
        While admirable, 7 years of no repair, upgrades, or replacement is not the norm.
        KozmoNau7 9y ago
        Every desktop I've owned, I've replaced because it eventually got too slow to be practical. I still have a 733MHz P3 and a 350MHz K6-2 somewhere, both probably still work just fine. Computers don't just break randomly.
  - jaysonelliot 9y ago
    Entire industries were built around repairing consumer products. For decades, people were able to start small businesses repairing televisions, radios, vacuum cleaners, watches, etc. The average consumer wasn't able to repair their own typewriter, but they were able to pay a local entrepreneur a few dollars to do it for them. Mainstream products didn't become disposable instead of repairable until very recently.
    - IntronExon 9y ago
      In general I agree with you, but the IoT is the soul of planned obsolescence. They flip a switch, and you’re the proud owner or a brick. A tractor, a PC, a cellphone? Sure, make it repairable. A networked speaker? I say that’s not a battle worth fighting. It’s also worth noting that history is full of disposable products, but since they tare need to break or be disposed of, we focus on the outliers which remain. The old bread mixer which can run until the end of time is memorable, the cheap blender is not.
      - xg15 9y ago
        Except this is not cheap. It's sold as a $300 luxury item and marketed as the height of technological development. Also I think the bigger picture is more worrying. Yes, planned obsolescence seems to be the soul of IoT - and for reasons perfectly understandable from the industries' PoV there seems to be immense push to make this the new norm. So if zero reparability isn't supposed to become the norm (more than it already is), I think drawing a little attention to cases like this is justified.
        IntronExon 9y ago
        I never said that it was cheap, just that it’s IoT shit. Avoid the IoT, it’s as simple as that. Nobody actually needs a networked toaster or HomePod, so don’t support it. Reforming something as born-broken as IoT is a mistake!
        xg15 9y ago
- rebuilder 9y ago
  This is a "smart" speaker. It's going to be obsolete long before any of its components reach EOL. I'd guess it's designed for a lifespan of 2-3 years at most.
  - grogenaut 9y ago
    And again that's ok? Looks like you could easily replace the A9 and keep the rest with this design as well.
    - rebuilder 9y ago
      It's not that it's OK, it's that not being able to repair the hardware is not the biggest issue here.
      - grogenaut 9y ago
        I forgot, Internet discussion rule #1 we can only discuss the biggest issues. Obviously you do care about it since you responded to it. There are billions of people on the planet, they can care about different things. I care about this and the waste thereof of the leading style brand in electronics.
        rebuilder 9y ago
        If you care about ability to repair, I don't think a smart speaker is the product for you. Even if you can keep the hardware in working order, the software will lose support and probably the whole design concept will morph so far that this device will not even have the user interface necessary to perform the functions of smart speakers a few generations from now. IOW: repairing this is pointless. Buy a speaker. Don't buy a speaker that is also a computer, and especially don't buy a smart speaker that fills a small niche in a large corporation's vision for how to extract maximum profit from consumers by locking them into an endless upgrade cycle
  - ProAm 9y ago
    So you are essentially leasing a speaker for $116/yr?
- rbanffy 9y ago
  The screws will get loose and will introduce unwanted vibrations unless the structure they're on is very firm (and heavy, and expensive). All parts that can be vibrated out of position will (this is a speaker with a long travel woofer) and on contacts oxides will form, further distorting analog signals. Sometimes, making something easily fixable also makes it worse. I can imagine a couple joints that would not bring too much vibration problems, but the speaker would be larger, heavier and costlier to manufacture. Soldering wires or flat pads instead of removable connectors could fix the remaining issues, but that would come at a price in the form of extra manufacturing steps. Finally, a Kindle is a flat board with components on both sides and a plastic shell around everything. This is a mechanically complex thing, with lots of consideration paid to details.
  - petee 9y ago
    > The screws will get loose and will introduce unwanted vibrations Which is what they invented thread-locker and lock-washers for
    - rbanffy 9y ago
      Without extra care about the design of the surfaces being joined, it'll still introduce points where the structure is fixated separated by areas where the surfaces are contacting, but not pressed against each other. Attach that to a large woofer and you'll see all sort of weird harmonics. You'll need a lot of screws, a lot of tread washers, a lot of pressure and textured surfaces with precise displacements so that everything is equally pressed together. Either that, or just glue everything together.
- madeofpalk 9y ago
  > Looking at the design, there is no way you could argue that apple doesn't have the time or chops to make a repairable device Well, it was delayed. So it could be argued that they didn't have time to do that.
- madeofpalk 9y ago
  I'm not a hardware engineer, but I would imagine it's easier to build a device without having to make it more modular and easier to open it up and repair it. It's just a matter of priorities and market forces. It's cheaper and easier for Apple to do it this way, and there's no need for them to not to.
spitfire 9y ago
I have a pair of B&O speakers from 1988, with no reason to upgrade them. They still sound as good as new (and look better than newer speakers) after I installed new surrounds on the speakers. You can choose to buy well and half things last a lifetime. So far these speakers have given 30 years of pleasure and I have parts on hand (a baggie with some extra surrounds) to ensure they last another 30 years. You don't throw away your house when the paint peels, do you?
- grogenaut 9y ago
  Those B&O speakers are likely completely repairable and came with a manual that talks about how to do so. This home pod will be obsolte in 2 years.
  - spitfire 9y ago
    They absolutely are. I have the complete wiring diagram for every piece of equipment I own. As long as the ROM's in the master/cd players don't die on me I can replace every electronic part in them for decades to come. Which is why I chose them, and why I'm buying more to fill the rooms in my house. I can control them, repair them and fit them to suit my tastes.
    - grogenaut 9y ago
      What's the max age on roms? No way to dump them? I just finished overhauling a 12" craftsman lathe tonight. It's from 48. The company who bought out the lathe business from sears still makes and sells the parts for it.

by Yabood 9y ago

grogenaut 9y ago

To some of us, popping 2 screws and replacing a speaker with one off of amazon or ebay is just what we do after breakfast on a weekend. There's no reason major parts of this $300+ device can't be repaired except that apple prefers you buy a new one. Same as with the batteries in the phones. It's a complete waste of their customer's money (and thus time), as well as terrible for the environment. Heck there are several little connectors in there that could come loose, you can't get at those either. I can replace the screen on my e-ink kindle for $25, instead of $100 for a new one. Have done this about 8 times (lots of kindles lots of backpacking). There's literally no reason that you can't get into this home pod easily except apple doesn't want you to. Looking at the design, there is no way you could argue that apple doesn't have the time or chops to make a repairable device. That thing is gorgeously made and has tons of completely custom components. They chose to do this.

IntronExon 9y ago
What percentage of consumers fit that bill? .1%? .01%? Less? It’s almost as if highly mainstream products are not made with the technical hobbyist in mind.
- grogenaut 9y ago
  Look at desktop PCs. Millions sold, almost all with swappable parts. There's a difference with "not made with x in mind" and "purposefully difficult to do anything with". If we want engineers who can build these products in the future it also helps that they can tear them apart as kids. Again is that what you actually want to reward? Do you want to be able to use your IoT device a week after the startup goes under or apple decides that it's time to sell everyone a new $500 speaker?
  - IntronExon 9y ago
    Desktop PC’s are upgradeable by design, and frankly require repair pretty regularly. This is some IoT shit that will have support pulled before it can break and I suspect that you know that.
    - KozmoNau7 9y ago
      I honestly can't remember the last time I had to repair anything on my desktop PC, but I think it was a hard drive (which I promptly replaced with an SSD). It's been running flawlessly since 2011.
      - IntronExon 9y ago
        While admirable, 7 years of no repair, upgrades, or replacement is not the norm.
        KozmoNau7 9y ago
        Every desktop I've owned, I've replaced because it eventually got too slow to be practical. I still have a 733MHz P3 and a 350MHz K6-2 somewhere, both probably still work just fine. Computers don't just break randomly.
- jaysonelliot 9y ago
  Entire industries were built around repairing consumer products. For decades, people were able to start small businesses repairing televisions, radios, vacuum cleaners, watches, etc. The average consumer wasn't able to repair their own typewriter, but they were able to pay a local entrepreneur a few dollars to do it for them. Mainstream products didn't become disposable instead of repairable until very recently.
  - IntronExon 9y ago
    In general I agree with you, but the IoT is the soul of planned obsolescence. They flip a switch, and you’re the proud owner or a brick. A tractor, a PC, a cellphone? Sure, make it repairable. A networked speaker? I say that’s not a battle worth fighting. It’s also worth noting that history is full of disposable products, but since they tare need to break or be disposed of, we focus on the outliers which remain. The old bread mixer which can run until the end of time is memorable, the cheap blender is not.
    - xg15 9y ago
      Except this is not cheap. It's sold as a $300 luxury item and marketed as the height of technological development. Also I think the bigger picture is more worrying. Yes, planned obsolescence seems to be the soul of IoT - and for reasons perfectly understandable from the industries' PoV there seems to be immense push to make this the new norm. So if zero reparability isn't supposed to become the norm (more than it already is), I think drawing a little attention to cases like this is justified.
      - IntronExon 9y ago
        I never said that it was cheap, just that it’s IoT shit. Avoid the IoT, it’s as simple as that. Nobody actually needs a networked toaster or HomePod, so don’t support it. Reforming something as born-broken as IoT is a mistake!
        xg15 9y ago
rebuilder 9y ago
This is a "smart" speaker. It's going to be obsolete long before any of its components reach EOL. I'd guess it's designed for a lifespan of 2-3 years at most.
- grogenaut 9y ago
  And again that's ok? Looks like you could easily replace the A9 and keep the rest with this design as well.
  - rebuilder 9y ago
    It's not that it's OK, it's that not being able to repair the hardware is not the biggest issue here.
    - grogenaut 9y ago
      I forgot, Internet discussion rule #1 we can only discuss the biggest issues. Obviously you do care about it since you responded to it. There are billions of people on the planet, they can care about different things. I care about this and the waste thereof of the leading style brand in electronics.
      - rebuilder 9y ago
        If you care about ability to repair, I don't think a smart speaker is the product for you. Even if you can keep the hardware in working order, the software will lose support and probably the whole design concept will morph so far that this device will not even have the user interface necessary to perform the functions of smart speakers a few generations from now. IOW: repairing this is pointless. Buy a speaker. Don't buy a speaker that is also a computer, and especially don't buy a smart speaker that fills a small niche in a large corporation's vision for how to extract maximum profit from consumers by locking them into an endless upgrade cycle
- ProAm 9y ago
  So you are essentially leasing a speaker for $116/yr?
rbanffy 9y ago
The screws will get loose and will introduce unwanted vibrations unless the structure they're on is very firm (and heavy, and expensive). All parts that can be vibrated out of position will (this is a speaker with a long travel woofer) and on contacts oxides will form, further distorting analog signals. Sometimes, making something easily fixable also makes it worse. I can imagine a couple joints that would not bring too much vibration problems, but the speaker would be larger, heavier and costlier to manufacture. Soldering wires or flat pads instead of removable connectors could fix the remaining issues, but that would come at a price in the form of extra manufacturing steps. Finally, a Kindle is a flat board with components on both sides and a plastic shell around everything. This is a mechanically complex thing, with lots of consideration paid to details.
- petee 9y ago
  > The screws will get loose and will introduce unwanted vibrations Which is what they invented thread-locker and lock-washers for
  - rbanffy 9y ago
    Without extra care about the design of the surfaces being joined, it'll still introduce points where the structure is fixated separated by areas where the surfaces are contacting, but not pressed against each other. Attach that to a large woofer and you'll see all sort of weird harmonics. You'll need a lot of screws, a lot of tread washers, a lot of pressure and textured surfaces with precise displacements so that everything is equally pressed together. Either that, or just glue everything together.
madeofpalk 9y ago
> Looking at the design, there is no way you could argue that apple doesn't have the time or chops to make a repairable device Well, it was delayed. So it could be argued that they didn't have time to do that.
madeofpalk 9y ago
I'm not a hardware engineer, but I would imagine it's easier to build a device without having to make it more modular and easier to open it up and repair it. It's just a matter of priorities and market forces. It's cheaper and easier for Apple to do it this way, and there's no need for them to not to.

spitfire 9y ago

I have a pair of B&O speakers from 1988, with no reason to upgrade them. They still sound as good as new (and look better than newer speakers) after I installed new surrounds on the speakers. You can choose to buy well and half things last a lifetime. So far these speakers have given 30 years of pleasure and I have parts on hand (a baggie with some extra surrounds) to ensure they last another 30 years. You don't throw away your house when the paint peels, do you?

grogenaut 9y ago
Those B&O speakers are likely completely repairable and came with a manual that talks about how to do so. This home pod will be obsolte in 2 years.
- spitfire 9y ago
  They absolutely are. I have the complete wiring diagram for every piece of equipment I own. As long as the ROM's in the master/cd players don't die on me I can replace every electronic part in them for decades to come. Which is why I chose them, and why I'm buying more to fill the rooms in my house. I can control them, repair them and fit them to suit my tastes.
  - grogenaut 9y ago
    What's the max age on roms? No way to dump them? I just finished overhauling a 12" craftsman lathe tonight. It's from 48. The company who bought out the lathe business from sears still makes and sells the parts for it.