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Europe Is Guaranteeing Citizens the Right to Repair

1014 points by janvdberg 6y ago

antattack 6y ago
Speaking of waste. I researched about photoresistor (LDR) recently and learned from Wikipedia that cadmium based ones are restricted in EU. I wonder why they are not outlawed in US if the substance is toxic and can leak into water supply, etc. As to right-to-repair, EU seems ahead on that front but US has one regulation which EU does not which is Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act.
- simongray 6y ago
  > Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act I'm not that familiar with US consumer law. What makes this regulation favourable compared to the equivalent EU laws?
  - jsmith45 6y ago
    In the US it is illegal to "void" a warranty based on the user swapping a part out with a third party component, or having a third party service the device. There are of course some exceptions. You can void a waranty with respect to damage caused by impropper servicing, or damage caused by the replacement parts. Alternatively you can void warranty on basis of using third party parts or servicing if you provide said parts/services for free. Idea was: Warranty void is non-GM parts are used => Illegal, unless GM provides all parts for free. Waranty void for getting oil changes at a non-dealer => Illegal unless oil changes are provided completely free at the dealers. While I suspect that most EU countries have similar rules for cars and the like, in the US these rules apply to any consumer good that costs $5 or more with a warranty (there could be some rare exceptions, as the FTC can grant waiver if the manufacturer can show that it is not possible for a third party to provide parts or service that will work properly, and that granting the waiver is in the public interest). Further free parts and services requirement applies to any form of repair and servicing. In the US, if you don't provide free screen replacement for a cell phone dropped by negligence, then you cannot legally deny warranty on the battery solely because a third party screen was used, unless you can show the third party screen or the process of installing it caused the battery problem. Of course, if you can show the battery problem was caused by dropping it in the first place, then you can deny warranty replacement.
nashashmi 6y ago
As a someone who goes against anti-right-to-repair laws, I am not so enthused with a mandate that all devices be repairable. Because there maybe cases where devices can’t be repaired. What kind of problems will something like this create for future device manufacturers?
- alexfromapex 6y ago
  What are those cases? This is just ensuring that consumers have the option to repair so the manufacturers aren’t mandating waste or planned obsolescence
  - dghlsakjg 6y ago
    I make a small specialty electronic device that is optimized for size and weight. Its a side hustle, so I do it just to break even. It consists of three parts: a 2-piece plastic case, and a single circuit board with around 25 smt components. The user can replace the battery. I'm not going to publish my schematic or board design because I already open sourced my code, and the device is designed to be stupidly easy to manufacture for my own sake. Basically I don't want people to start making their own. A competent EE could figure it out in a day or two, but a anyone with that ability could design their own in the same amount of time. If something on the board goes bad, I'm not going to offer guidance to repair it. It isn't worth anyone's time. That said, I do offer a lifetime warranty/buyback option since the unit cost is less than $10. This is a bit of a contrived example since there is literally only one part that can fail, but the point is that there is a very fuzzy line around how far we can go with repairability. Should I be forced to provide a full schematic/board design (giving away my IP essentially)? Should I be forced to provide 'parts' (there is really only one part, and that is the product itself)? I'm sympathetic to the 'right to repair' movement, but I'm curious how it would be implemented across such a broad spectrum of products. Perhaps it could just be a transparency rule: planned obsolescence (unrepairable) items should be marked as such and an e-waste tax added. If you want to avoid that marking you have to offer to trade broken parts for new for 5 years after first sale at cost.
- gostsamo 6y ago
  The legislation does not cover all devices so there is both deliberation and lobbying when choosing which are going to be regulated.
haakonhr 6y ago
This is great, although it somehow seems to me to be starting in the wrong end. The underlying problem is that it is more profitable/cheaper to just give you a new product (if something breaks while under warrantee) and then just throw away the old instead of repairing it. I don't know if it is because the externalities of waste are not taxed properly or if it is because manufacturing products that are hard to repair gives more robust products and less waste in the end.
- readflaggedcomm 6y ago
  When repair labor costs more than automated production, then it's cheaper to replace whole units than mend parts. This is very much in line when what the Luddites understood. Fixation on "waste" is a by-product of unrelated worries which are fashionable today, but cheap production at a distance is what labor should worry about, instead.
  - simongray 6y ago
    > Fixation on "waste" is a by-product of unrelated worries which are fashionable today We have finite resources on this planet. Policies like this that deal with negative externalities aren't driven by fashion, they are driven by our long term needs. And we do need to recycle more and consume less. This is part of the solution. > cheap production at a distance is what labor should worry about, instead You're simply describing the status quo. The same status quo which has resulted in the warmest year on record for how many years in a row now...?
    - readflaggedcomm 6y ago
      It's the most fashionable cause, since it can be shoehorned into anything. Yet carping about warming, and unstated assumptions about efficiency differences between levels of consumption and locations of production, don't guide us to fair labor practices.
  - zug_zug 6y ago
    >> When repair labor costs more than automated production.. When companies deliberately build products in unrepairable ways then repair labor costs more than automated production. Imagine if mac butterfly keyboards were replaceable. Or for example I recently fixed my dad's washing machine, but it took a couple hours of labor to replace the pump because you had to remove about 4 other things to get to it (when they could have just made a door on the side/bottom. It's sort of like if you had to spend an hour disassembling your case to swap the ram in your machine.
fridek 6y ago
I can't describe how much I hope something comes out of it. Not because I have some illusion of this tackling corporate greed, or helping the environment - devices will likely become more expensive and bulkier as a result, supply chain of replacement parts is generating heaps of waste too. I simply am surrounded by tens and hundreds of sort-of-broken devices that don't force me to replace yet, but are not fixable either. The laptop overheats, phone compass never works properly, one port in the TV is dead, there is no light in the fridge (but it still works). The list goes on. I just want a world where stuff lasting a lifetime exists.
- emteycz 6y ago
  But it exists - it's not that stuff is worse now than it was before, you just have to spend the value (not amount) of money you spent back in the 60's. Our family houses are full of stuff that lasts a lifetime and/or can be easily fixed - you just can't buy the first thing the ad in TV suggests.
  - vagrantJin 6y ago
    That manufacturers are actually hostile towards end users says a lot about our current state of helplessness.
    - emteycz 6y ago
      I had multiple manufacturers of kitchen appliances send me schematics so I could fix it myself instead of paying for a service visit. Many vendors have service guides online, including lists of parts. That's not hostile at all. You have to choose what you're buying, but it's not hard to buy from a solid company.
      - Scoundreller 6y ago
        I had to fix my circa 2005 Kenmore dryer and it had a folded up paper schematic behind the panel!!! Note: whenever throwing those things out, save the knobs. They’re like $10+ each.
kevmo 6y ago
The EU and USA are on completely opposite trajectories right now.
recursivedoubts 6y ago
A proposal: All durable consumer goods may apply for a repair QR code. At landfills, items with repair QR codes are scanned and the company is charged 50% of the cost of processing the item. If one is not applied for, the producer must pay the full cost of processing the item up front. This would encourage companies to make repair & upgrade and longetivity a priority. It's a rough idea.
- rlpb 6y ago
  How about this, along the same lines: Manufacturers must pay 100% of the cost of safe, environmental disposal of all consumer goods they sell. This is collected in the form of a tax, for all manufacturers over some threshold sales value/volume, based on an impact assessment of disposal cost. The assessment is based on the typical practical burden to disposal facilities to process each SKU. There's no need to individually account for every item going into waste disposal facilities. It can be assumed that every item sold will eventually be disposed of. And the problem is in primarily bulk sales of consumer items, so accounting in bulk is fine, and considerably cheaper in processing cost.
  - m000 6y ago
    Bad plan. The problem is not have someone pay for the disposal, but delay disposal for as long as possible. And the ones who make the decision for the disposal are the consumers. Having the manufacturer pay a tax in advance puts little pressure on the consumer. Moreover, anything that involves an "assessment" is bound to be gamed by the manufactures. See e.g. the recent VW car emission scandal.
    - rlpb 6y ago
      The point is that the economic equation will change. Why is it that it's cheaper to buy new than repair old? In part, it's because the cost of disposal has been shifted away, rather than being incorporated into the price of the replacement. Having the manufacturer pay a tax in advance does put pressure on the consumer, because that tax has to be incorporated into the product pricing. > Moreover, anything that involves an "assessment" is bound to be gamed by the manufactures. See e.g. the recent VW car emission scandal. I agree it's a challenge. I wonder if there's some way to close the loop - so that manufacturers who game the system to achieve an artificially low disposal price end up making up the shortfall when the fake price isn't achieved.
dartharva 6y ago
If the admin of this site is seeing it, please note that the captcha guard you're using is broken. Not only is it mandating storage of cookies, it is absolutely refusing to accept my answers as correct despite several trials.
mytailorisrich 6y ago
First reaction is that this is good news, but I think two things needs to be looked at: One, what drives people to replace devices? I feel (not scientific at all!) that wanting a new shiny device and, if broken, cost of repair, are higher on the list than not being able to repair. Two, the law of unintended consequences: Making devices more repairable may increase their footprint in terms of material and thus waste. If people do not have their devices repaired more (e.g. because of (1) above ) then the net result might be worse than the current situation.
- mrweasel 6y ago
  If people don’t adopt a mindset of repair/upgrade and just continue to replace devices at the same rate, then sure more material is going to be used. Those devices will be easier to take apart and recycle though. This isn’t just about phones and laptops, but also appliances, and people aren’t really upgrading fridges or stowes because a new model is available. Many only get new cars because the repair bill now exceed the monthly cost of a new car.
  - mytailorisrich 6y ago
    > Those devices will be easier to take apart and recycle though. That's not a given. For things like smartphones I would much rather they enact laws to make them more recyclable than more repairable. And, let's be honest, smartphones don't require repairs often, if at all. Most common issue is probably shattered screen and that is already replaceable everywhere. > and people aren’t really upgrading fridges or stowes because a new model is available. Indeed, but they may replace an appliance (which already tend to be quite repairable) that is 5-10 years old and that has broken down because the cost of repairing it (parts plus labour) is in the same ball-park as the cost of a new one. Making appliances even more repairable won't change that.
    - dvdkon 6y ago
      > smartphones don't require repairs often I've had people come to me with broken screens, old batteries, non-functional/muffled earpieces, wonky USB connectors, cracked lenses and other problems. Smartphones do require repairs and people, at least the ones I know, do want to repair them. But when I tell them the part will take a month to arrive and might not have the same quality as the original, not to mention the non-zero risk of cosmetic damage during disassembly, I can't blame them for rather buying a new phone. My parents have a washing machine that's now over 15 years old. It still gets repairs regularly. The parts cost is going up though, because they haven't been made in a long time now. Imagine how long we could keep this washing machine if the parts were standardised or their CAD files available online, maybe some manufacturer would be making clones of them right now.
franczesko 6y ago
As a person who is living in EU, I didn't know that there's even a discussion about whether you can or can't repair the things you own. Sounds pretty weird. Repairing things is a common practice since I can't remember when. Did I miss anything?
- mrweasel 6y ago
  There really isn’t much debate about “right to repair”, compared to the US. I think most just assume it’s not worth the hassel and cost. I would guess that the cost of repairing the average TV be at least 25 to 50% of the cost of a new TV. Highend stuff have always been repairable. The focus needs to be on making things repairable by the consumer, and easy to recycle. Both mean that you need to be able to take the item apart, and that will require redesigning almost electronics.
  - modo_mario 6y ago
    >Highend stuff have always been repairable. As some have found out if you try to offer repairs of something as a service because it requires a bunch of technical knowledge in a way that the company doesn't like you can get sued into bankruptcy. Things aren't repairable by consumers however easy it is to take em apart if you can't get official parts (at a reasonable price) and aren't technically allowed to use alternative ones.
    - mrweasel 6y ago
      You’re right, they are only repairable by manufacturer or a “certified” technicians, so it’s still a problem. It is however going to be easier for a company like B&O who already have a field servicable TV to comply with new regulations
beyondcompute 6y ago
> Fix it. Where? I’d wanted to repair the most popular electric kick scooter in one of the Northern European countries for couple of years and I couldn’t find any place to do it (I asked all the sellers, sent lots of emails to different web shops, etc.). The economy in prosperous countries appears to be such that repair (especially of less fancy products) is so costly that it makes no sense often or is not possible as in the case described above.
- rasz 6y ago
  Hacker space is a good place to start.
- sigmike 6y ago
  A Repair café[1][2] if you have one nearby. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repair_caf%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repair_caf%C3%A9 [2] https://www.repaircafe.org/en/visit/ https://www.repaircafe.org/en/visit/
macspoofing 6y ago
If you follow the laptop/smart-phone repair community [1], the problems they run into is lack of access to technical manuals, diagnostic tools and in cases, being prevented from buying replacement parts by suppliers under the direction of Apple (for example). To me, it seems that this is where government or industry regulation would be helpful and provide most value with minimal impact on innovation and market disruption. On the other hand, I am uneasy with regulators mandating specific designs (e.g. all phones must have replaceable batteries), or specific standards (e.g. all phones need to use USB-C) or doing things like forcing Apple to include a charge cable or headphones with their devices. [1] I'm thinking of Jessa Jones and Louis Rossmann specifically.
- tracnar 6y ago
  Europe imposed a standard for phone chargers and thanks to that you don't need a different charger per brand, or even per model, like it was 15 years ago. AFAIK they did not specify the exact standard, except that it has to be some common industry standard, so it did not prevent moving from micro-USB to USB-C (and whatever Apple is using).
  - macspoofing 6y ago
    >Europe imposed a standard for phone chargers and thanks to that you don't need a different charger per brand ... The rest of the world didn't and yet I hadn't needed to get a different charger per brand for, I'd say, a decade or more. What's the utility of creating a regulatory and enforcement framework for something that happened anyway?
    - Marrand 6y ago
      The rest of the world didn't have to because if the Brussels effect. When the EU legislates it is basically cheaper for companies to just fall in line rather than create separate production lines. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect
      - 6y ago
magicalhippo 6y ago
Just yesterday my SO told me the subwoofer was broken. It's a wireless unit, which pairs with the soundbar, which I got with my TV about 5 years ago. I quickly come to the conclusion the power supply is broken. And of course the power supply is internal. I tried to open up the thing, being fairly competent with electronics. But try as I might, I just couldn't figure out how this thing comes apart. I don't want to brute force it, thing is stylish and my SO likes that about it, but also a lot of plastic so easy to break. Ok, I searched the web for a service manual. Nothing. Not even close. In contrast, the DVD player my mom uses (mostly as a glorified CD player) died before xmas. It's an old Sony unit, bought in 2000 or 2001, and been on ever since (standby or active). I searched and I found a beautiful service manual, with detailed schematics and instructions for disassembly and reassembly. Even the PCB itself has lovely markings making it very clear what is going on where. Quickly discovered the issue in the power supply and ordered some replacement parts (still waiting). Sure I could probably have found a second-hand DVD player for cheap. But yeah it just seemed so senseless to toss away a perfectly good unit when by all accounts it just needs $3 worth of parts.
- Scoundreller 6y ago
  Bad caps?
  - magicalhippo 6y ago
    PSU is a flyback design. I think the main freewheeling diode went (it's open now), and the resulting switching spikes from the transformer caused the switching converter[1] to fail. So far those are the only two parts that appear broken. As for the sub, I'd love to know! [1]: integrated switch, I misspoke earlier
tyingq 6y ago
I wonder how far this goes. If the built-in Netflix app on my really old smart TV isn't working because it hasn't been updated, for example.
khawkins 6y ago
Louis Rossman owns a repair shop in NYC and has been touring the nation lobbying for Right to Repair. He's rarely sees success though because the lobbyists for places like Apple have deep pockets and there isn't a lot of public outrage. The article is wrong to give any credit to Apple for being on the side of Right to Repair, as Louis explains in numerous videos. https://youtu.be/zFA3szW9nWk https://youtu.be/zFA3szW9nWk
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  The problem here isn't just lobbying but that the people in the government that we entrust to make these decisions are complete idiots. The lobbyists' arguments are so flawed that anyone with half a brain or a bit of common sense should be able to say "hold on, this is bullshit!" and yet these people are swallowing it whole. I'd have more respect for them if they outright turned around and said "yeah we know we're screwing you over but the lobbyists' money is too good to pass up" but in this case they appear to be getting played without even realizing it themselves.
  - ckocagil 6y ago
    Are they idiots, or do they get something out of it?
    - Nextgrid 6y ago
      Some of the arguments made by the lobbyists deserve pushback even if you're secretly in their camp just because of how absurd they are. Given this isn't happening, I'm not 100% convinced the senators are doing this on purpose or if they're legitimately too stupid to understand the argument at play. Furthermore I remember Louis Rossmann saying in one of his videos that one senator turned out to not even be checking his official government e-mail account... that's not someone I would entrust with understanding anything even remotely related to technology.
    - bmn__ 6y ago
      > do they get something out of it? "robust conversations"
wombatmobile 6y ago
I strongly prefer to repair devices and am reluctant to throw any broken manufactured good out, even when I have poor prospects of repairing them. Instead, I just hold on to them. Phones, stereos, vacuum cleaners, clocks, computers. My shelves are full of broken items, and good intentions, frozen in amber. Why do I think like this? I think it is a psychological condition. It isn't a rational choice. If I apply my educated, articulate self to analysis, I can tell you it's an expression of how I want the world to be, not a realistic evaluation of how modern manufacturing commerce works. A stereo or an espresso machine that is non-serviceable costs 1/10th as much to buy and performs twice as well as an equivalent device from 50 years ago. The price we pay for that bounty is that 5% of the manufactured items fail early. It costs more to provide repair infrastructure than to run a warranty program, so the dead stuff ends up as waste. I get it. Still, I don't like waste, and I love repair. My feelings are not economics, they are emotions. And so so they persist. And that's perfectly OK.
- eeZah7Ux 6y ago
  > I think it is a psychological condition. People can have trouble letting go of obsoleted, unneeded object due to some emotional attachment. [Unless you hoard socially acceptable items, like status symbols or plain money, in that case most people will not see the problem] > an espresso machine ... performs twice as well as an equivalent device from 50 years ago ...or not. A rational reason for fixing stuff is that many products are objectively worse. > My feelings are not economics, they are emotions Another perfectly rational reason is prevent environmental collapse. It does not get more reasonable than that.
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- lostlogin 6y ago
  > an espresso machine ... performs twice as well as an equivalent device from 50 years ago This is a terrible example. How coffee is made has not changed much, so machines don’t need to change much. New hardware trends towards more plastic, more logic boards and at the worst end of the scale, more proprietary parts, including the actual coffee. I have repaired and built up several 25+ year old espresso machines and grinders, and currently run a 37 year old grinder and a 23 year old espresso machine. Older machines are easier to service, easy to get parts for and nice to work on. The quality of the coffee is hard to beat and I would need to pay around US$3k for a new version of the machine, where the old one is generally around US$250. Often the changes over time are few (eg La Cimbali Junior). Brands like La Marzocco, La Cimbali, Rancilio and Mazzer have a lot of great machines going back a very long time. Electric parts often connect with spades or screws, there is documentation and parts are easily ordered and you can usually talk to someone at the supply end about difficult repairs. New coffee machines at the lower end of the price scale are mostly just disposable crap, and make bad coffee. They are not cheaper over their lifetime.
joking 6y ago
Nice, I broke a mixer cup, and now I had to buy a new mixer with his electronics and motor because there is no way to buy only the cup. My fault for buying a white labeled mixer instead of a recognised brand one, but I don't get why there are so many systems for mixers, there should have a compatible system and mixers and cups should be interchangeable between brands.
WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
This measure shamefully disrespects the needs of shareholders for endless profit and hampers large corporations from exploiting and curtailing the rights of end users. It's the most un-american thing I've ever seen.
nfriedly 6y ago
I just replaced the battery in my Pixel 2 this past weekend. It was a 2-3 hour project that involved a whole kit of tools in addition to the new battery. It was a PITA, but I am thankful that a) iFixit provided a helpful guide and a kit with all of the things I needed except for the rubbing alcohol and b) it was legal and there weren't any software issues to deal with. Aside from the aging battery and occasionally running out of storage, the phone was completely fine for my needs. For ~$50 and a few hours of time, I've essentially doubled the lifespan of my $700 phone.
- larelli 6y ago
  I'm in the same boat. What kept me from replacing the battery is that the device is EOL and won't receive any software updates, including security fixes. Did you also change the firmware?
  - ossuser 6y ago
    Just switch to Calyx or Graphene, Pixel 2 is well supported
  - nfriedly 6y ago
    Not yet - it's currently on stock software, but I've run custom ROMs before and I'm planning to switch back to one soon. I was basically waiting to see if I could successfully replace the battery before putting much effort into the software side.
- Mauricebranagh 6y ago
  But why not buy a cheap motog phone and save $500 in the first place
  - nfriedly 6y ago
    In general, I am a big proponent of getting used equipment and keeping it running for well after the manufacturer has abandoned it. Before the Pixel 2, I hadn't purchased a new phone in like 12 years - I had gotten a couple of used Android phones, and used Windows Mobile before that. They all had the issue of essentially 0 support from the manufacturer by the time I got them, so I was dependent on community ROMs to keep them up-to-date. The phone I was using at the time had multiple issues, including an aging battery, physical damage, and something wrong with the GPS sensor. A couple of the big reasons I bought the new phone rather than another used one were the promise of 3 years of support (which Google delivered) and waterproofing (which has come in handy a few times). I also just liked the phone in general, and there wasn't much on the used market with a similar feature set. I like tinkering with my phone, but this was shortly before my second child was born and I knew I wasn't going to have the time to mess with custom ROMs to fix whatever was broken that week. Now that my kids are a little bit older and I can sleep through the night most nights, I think I'm ready for that "fun" again.
maxekman 6y ago
I have been helping friends and family replace their smartphone batteries to give them new life. I recommend all of you who are comfortable with tinkering to do the same, it can go a long way!
apexalpha 6y ago
This couldn't come soon enough. I just had my washing machine break. It kept giving error codes and the door won't lock. I called the company who said the model is way to old to have warrenty, which is true, and then said they couldn't assist me in repairing. They said they could only send a (paid) technician. I Youtubed the model and found an array of DIY repair videos. I used those to dissassemble the door lock mechanism only to find out it had short circuited. Here's the pics: https://imgur.com/a/ECM5AuI https://imgur.com/a/ECM5AuI And after I called for replacement parts they started berating me for trying to fix it myself, saying it could be dangerous and a potential fire hazard. I hope this new law will help in this aspect; it's ridiculous I have to go to YouTube to find out how to repair a washing machine and the company itself refuses to help... And 2 year warrenty is way too short anyway. I hope they change it into something dynamic like 1 year per €200 sale price or so.
Barrin92 6y ago
Gonna say thanks to the European Union for that one. Much maligned, very bureaucratic, somewhat slow but honestly compared to how much tech regulation in the world is solely focused on surveillance and stripping privacy from people the EU still seems to at least have the roughly the right idea most of the time.
TLightful 6y ago
Great. Doesn't this impact Tesla too!? Good ... those fricking drivable iPhones need to be opened up.
acd 6y ago
We must mandate that all consumer devices can load open source operating systems. That manufacturers provide open design specifications and follow reasonable standards. That is after a few years, manufacturers do not have an incentive to fix the operating system of devices. Unless we can load open source operating systems, old devices will have security holes which is bad for security. What I want to say is we should be able to fix and repair the hardware and software of devices. I want to reach out and thank citizens of France for leading the way on repair index!
fab1an 6y ago
This is to be commended, though I wish the market itself would provide this value as an emergent feature as it does in some other areas (e. g. Leica cameras and lenses, hundreds of thousands of which are still being used after _decades_ - I'm not sure if it's true, but read somewhere that the used market for Leicas is several multiples of Leicas revenue on new stuff)
- DaedPsyker 6y ago
  Leica cameras are also some of the most expensive cameras in the world. Their reputation for the build quality is part of that. More like a fine watch than an iPhone so there will be discrepancy.
foofoo4u 6y ago
Products are having shorter lifespans with ever decreasing levels of repairability. Like what others have said here, our expectations have become so low that it is commonly expected that the things we buy will only last a year or two before we end up throwing them away. This can be easily resolved if people simply paid more money for better quality products and brands that ensure repairability and longevity. But, of course, as time has shown, cheapness has won over consumer behavior. I'd consider this a market failure. I've always thought that this failure could be corrected by simply increasing the cost of disposal ("throwing things away") via some kind of tax. When my vacuum cleaner, my toaster, or even my coffee maker dies, throwing it away costs very little money. So little money that it is better worth my time to simply dispose it in the trash and buy a new one. But if I find disposing them to be costly, I'll certainly reconsider my options.
- xixixao 6y ago
  There was a simple system for this with bottles: There is a premium which you pay, that is returned when you correctly dispose of the bottle. Perhaps a similar mechanism could be applied. The “cost” of disposing is then the time to get the money back, not the premium itself.
  - labawi 6y ago
    This might work. A big issue with paying for disposal is the motivation to avoid payment. It's hard to get people to dispose of trash responsibly. If they had to pay, we'd be surrounded by illegal dumps. I think there should be disposal fees, but they must be paid upfront. EU actually has recycling fees on purchase, but they seem to be laughably small (like < 1 EUR for a vacuum cleaner).
- MzHN 6y ago
  How do I as a consumer know if a product will last or not? High price does not automatically signal longevity. The other thing is that nothing lasts forever, so eventually you'd need to repair. Most things you can't repair by yourself, so if the repair costs more than new, and the suggested increase for disposal, I'd still end up buying new to save the hassle. My wishlist is: - For consumers, incentivize repair over disposal and buying. - For companies, incentivize manufacturing quality and design for repairability. But the question still stands how to do either?
immmmmm 6y ago
Louis Rossmann's youtube channel is a great source of information on this topic.
amelius 6y ago
Does this also cover the repair of software bugs?
shimonabi 6y ago
I recently bought a 50€ electric chainsaw at an Aldi discount store in Europe (against my better judgement). After a few uses, the chain tightening bolt broke into two pieces. I begged them to send me just the bolt, but NO. They said I'm not entitled to repair it. I was even willing to pay for it, but I couldn't find it below 15€ on the internet. So I sent the whole chainsaw to the repair service on their dime and they sent me a brand new one. They probably tossed the perfectly fine old chainsaw into the dumpster. Because of a 0.10€ bolt. The corporate throwaway culture is incredible.
- grecy 6y ago
  Now you have one with an in-tact screw you should take it out and figure out the size and thread-pitch so if it breaks again you can buy a generic one. And then post the info online somewhere - even if it's a random Reddit thread Google will pick it up and a search like "Aldi chainsaw chain tightening screw replacement" should pick it up.
  - shimonabi 6y ago
    It's a special bolt. I would have to buy a lathe. I have a 3D printer at home and I taught myself 3D design so I already made a bunch of replacement parts out of plastic.
    - lostlogin 6y ago
      How is the saw? I went the expensive route and got an electric Stihl. It’s a monster. I find the proper use of the saw to be more important that with a petrol saw as it isn’t immediately clear if it’s on or not. Others in the area are immediately aware when there is an idling chainsaw, but not so much with an electric one.
      - shimonabi 6y ago
        Well, you did the right thing. I think I will sell mine, because I also have an old small gasoline Stihl for firewood. It sure is an interesting feeling how the blade stops immediately. Mine is 2000W. I always handle it like it is spinning, so there is no difference safety-wise.
causalmodels 6y ago
This is an anecdote but I think it's worth mentioning. Several years ago my washer dryer unit developed a crack in the wash basin. Instead of buying a new machine, I ordered a replacement basin from GE. When I received the part, it had developed a crack from shipping. I was told to throw the broken replacement part in the trash and they would send me another. This happened two more times. It took four shipments of new wash basins for me to actually repair the machine. Right to repair is a good thing in and of itself. We shouldn't need to couch pro consumer movements in terms of other good objectives like resource conservation or environmentalism. I understand that my experience is probably not typical, but one screw up like mine basically wiped out any gain conservationist gains for me and several other people. If we want to further conservation and environmental efforts we should do so explicitly rather than achieving half measures on the back of other causes.
Proven 6y ago
Translation: a minority made of vocal socialist fanatics assisted by manipulative politicians have managed to introduce a new tax on EU consumers. Whereas before you could buy a device that would be smaller and cheaper to own because it was built with a minimal number of field-replaceable parts, soon you'll have no choice (whether you want to fix old junk or not) but to buy a bulkier, more expensive device for which suppliers have to stock and sell spare parts and provide support. All of which will reflect in the price of that product. "Europe is guaranteeing citizens the right". I'm touched! Thank you, Brussels!
ogre_codes 6y ago
I kind of wonder if we're looking at solving this the wrong way. Instead of mandating that manufacturers take specific steps to fix the waste problem, maybe it would be better to tag items at manufacture and charge device makers a percentage based on how long before it enters the waste stream. Manufacturers could solve this by either: - Making their things easy to repair - Creating in house recycling programs - Making equipment more durable and longer lasting Any combination of the above. By picking one specific way of reducing waste, we are ignoring other factors. Few people care to repair Android phones because you can't upgrade the OS after 2 years regardless. It doesn't matter if the hardware is repairable, the device is greatly devalued at that point. Like wise, if it's super expensive to repair an iPhone, people aren't going to bother and will just replace it. By focusing on the end result -> Devices entering the waste stream <- the manufacturers are responsible for ensuring hardware gets responsibly recycled, repaired, or just doesn't break. Obviously, to make this work the cost per device entering the stream would have to be significant compared to the cost of the device. Also, the cost should be the responsibility of the maker. Currently in some place in the US, consumers pay the cost to dispose of/ recycle televisions. The result is we end up with TVs on the side of the road. Often on the way away from the dump where people refuse to pay the disposal fee then toss the TV out the door on the way home.
- aembleton 6y ago
  Making the producers responsible for the disposal might be the best way. I don't exactly know how it would be implemented but I'd like to see it for packaging too. Local authorities should be able to collect up all Mcdonalds packaging and hand it back to them. Make them responsible for its disposal. Then they will be incentivised to reduce the amount of packaging that they produce.
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    > Local authorities should be able to collect up all Mcdonalds packaging and hand it back to them. Absolutely! It is far too easy to create disposable crap that ends up dumped all over the planet. I get so frustrated seeing garbage all over the place in natural places. I do think its a lot easier to focus on the higher ticket items first.
mkhpalm 6y ago
How does this affect Tesla in Europe?
pkaye 6y ago
They need to also demand "design for reparability". I had a dryer where to replace a thermal fuse, you had to remove all the outer panels and a bunch of other things to replace a tiny component. They could implemented a service panel on the back which you could unscrew to replace that part.
phaedrus 6y ago
In my opinion, if they really cared about their stated goals, the EPA should have also rolled right-to-repair protections for the relevant equipment into emissions rules for car manufacturers. They should have mandated interchangeable parts, standard connections, and openly available documentation. Recently I rebuilt a 1996 car. The previous owner had misplaced a fuel tank topper that contained valving for the emissions controls. The parts needed were simply not available for purchase from the manufacturer or the aftermarket. At the time I couldn't source a used fuel tank for the 96, but I was able to find a 1999 model year of the same car in a junkyard. Between 1996 and 1999, the fuel vapor emissions controls went from "somewhat complicated" to "really complicated." In theory I should have been able to either hook up just the plumbing needed by the 96 system, or upgrade the whole car to the 99 system. However in practice I could do neither. The fittings had all changed. The charcoal canister was changed from round to square. (And really what is the point of installing either canister when both are probably "used up" at this point? Why can't I buy new canisters at the same stores where I can buy new air filters?) But the biggest impediment was obtaining information on the two systems. The information in the service manual was perfunctory and nonspecific; multiple different systems had been used in different years and regions. The diagrams of internal valving on the tank toppers small enough that important connections (or lack of them) were obscured by smudges. I had more luck reading EPA whitepapers to at least get a theory of operation. In the enthusiast community I can find information about how to put a cylinder head from one year of this car onto a block from another. I can even find information about what ports to block off or drill open to remount the cylinder head on BACKWARDS, if I'm so inclined. There's not a similar subcommunity for people trying to repair their emissions equipment. A similar problem exists with safety equipment. Most enthusiasts of this car just delete their ABS, or they never service it. I want to rebuild mine (this just consists of replacing internal O-rings), but I can't find information or get parts except from overseas. In Europe and other countries that are not the USA, the manufacturer did service and rebuild these ABS units.
stvndvs 6y ago
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deleted 6y ago
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mikx007 6y ago
All we need is something like sci-hub for repair manuals...
boatsie 6y ago
I think a good way to ensure repairability is to require manufacturers to honor a relatively long warranty. For example many large appliances have 1 year warranties. After that you have to pay to repair (which is often 25-50% of the cost of new and not guaranteed) or toss it and buy new. If there were required warranty service based on waste generated from an item, eg a refrigerator must be warranted for 20 years, then you would see much better reliability and repairability. Smaller, cheaper, more tech heavy items might have shorter required warranties, but the point is that you need to align the incentives by forcing manufacturer to bear the cost of the repair.
yoran 6y ago
Regulations like this are great and I applaud them. But they do harm innovation, because often the cost to become compliant with such new regulations is fixed. So the cost for a large corporation to be compliant is roughly similar to the cost of a startup to be compliant. This makes it comparatively harder for startups to get going and thereby gives large companies an unfair advantage. This stifles competition and innovation. We are seeing this first-hand with our startup in the EU investment space. The costs to be compliant with the various regulations (MiFID, AML, etc...) are mostly fixed, so they're a lot harder for small firms to implement such as ourselves than for large firms. That's also why a lot of smaller firms are merging into larger firms. As a solution, there should be relaxed regulations for startups. They would have to be fully compliant only once they reach a certain scale.
JoshTko 6y ago
This doesn't make sense. I have sold every single iPhone that I have owned (about 6), and virtually all were 100% functional at time of sale. Making the products openable will likely to make them heavier, more expensive, larger, and more prone to damage (i.e., water damage), and thus less durable overall. I don't want this as a consumer as it will lead to more waste.
- esturk 6y ago
  Not sure how your personal anecdote comes into play. So you have replaced your phone every 2 years while it's still working, good for you. But have you considered that some people will replace their phone only when it's broken beyond repair?
  - JoshTko 6y ago
    Apple's approach still makes sense in that scenario since the phones in general will be easier to make more durable. There are far many more phones that are exposed to water than there are people who regularly repair/upgrade their phones. Openable phones are going to be nearly impossible to waterproof, or will make them far larger and more expensive.
tomjen3 6y ago
This sucks, since it will probably mean that I can't buy the new all in one apple laptops. Yeah they can't be upgraded (a bit of a bummer), but when was the last time you upgraded any laptop that you owned other than with more RAM, adding an SSD or a new battery? When was the last time you wanted to? My grandparents old laptop finally died, and they offered me it for parts but I had to straight out tell them that there was nothing on it that was worth anything.
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walshemj 6y ago
I do wonder how the German car manufacturers will respond
macinjosh 6y ago
Europe is guaranteeing products are more expensive and further out of reach for the poor.
- jojobas 6y ago
  Car repairability standards have been there forever and some say there are more cars than there should be. Making things repairable impacts their size much more than manufacturing cost (which is typically about 25-40% of retail price for electronics). Phones etc working for longer means fewer sales in the long run and I'm OK with that.
deadbunny 6y ago
Unless they are mandating software support for the lifetime of the device as well what does this achieve in the long run? Don't get me wrong I 100% support right to repair/tinker/hack but without software support this is kinda pointless.
mementomori 6y ago
Are there any incentives for corporations to reduce waste? Designed obsolescence is the main business model of smartphones. If anything disrupts the profits in this business model, there has to be an incentive (either reward or punishment) that is enforceable and actually enforced. If a law is made and corporations end up circumventing it, that doesn't count. I kind of expect corporations to continue successfully circumventing/overcoming the efforts against designed obsolescence. Convincing consumers it's OK not to get a new phone every year is another issue.
CharlesIvia 6y ago
Isn't it ironic some mobile phone manufacturers leave the charging brick out of the box for the "environment" and then proceed to make their phones impossible to repair?
8bitsrule 6y ago
Good, altho RTR was always obvious until some foolish clowns got some laws passed to try to stop it. Good luck with that. When I pay for some physical product it is MINE. If you put something fancy in there, you sold it to me, IT is MINE. I can't copy it and sell the copies, that's fine. If it's a truly great product, I won't have to fix it. If it wasn't as good as you could make it, you've cheated me. If I can't fix it then you've cheated me in an attempt to keep not just the product but me tethered to your stockholders. Sad. Sad for you. If it's worth fixing, and you expect to bleed me to fix it, I can fix it myself, or find someone who can. That's a LOT easier than before. And you've lost another customer for a lifetime, one who will spread the word at every chance.
jgimenez 6y ago
"Guaranteeing" is a strong word. For now they want manufacturers to label products with the estimated time it's going to last. I'm not sure if this is going to be useful at all if there is no economic incentive (eg. offering a warranty during that time frame). Example: Opel just stopped providing the OnStar service, rendering the hardware useless. My car is only 3 years old, still under warranty, but they're no longer providing service (nor offering an alternative == a repair)

1014 points by janvdberg 6y ago

Speaking of waste. I researched about photoresistor (LDR) recently and learned from Wikipedia that cadmium based ones are restricted in EU. I wonder why they are not outlawed in US if the substance is toxic and can leak into water supply, etc. As to right-to-repair, EU seems ahead on that front but US has one regulation which EU does not which is Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act.

simongray 6y ago
> Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act I'm not that familiar with US consumer law. What makes this regulation favourable compared to the equivalent EU laws?
- jsmith45 6y ago
  In the US it is illegal to "void" a warranty based on the user swapping a part out with a third party component, or having a third party service the device. There are of course some exceptions. You can void a waranty with respect to damage caused by impropper servicing, or damage caused by the replacement parts. Alternatively you can void warranty on basis of using third party parts or servicing if you provide said parts/services for free. Idea was: Warranty void is non-GM parts are used => Illegal, unless GM provides all parts for free. Waranty void for getting oil changes at a non-dealer => Illegal unless oil changes are provided completely free at the dealers. While I suspect that most EU countries have similar rules for cars and the like, in the US these rules apply to any consumer good that costs $5 or more with a warranty (there could be some rare exceptions, as the FTC can grant waiver if the manufacturer can show that it is not possible for a third party to provide parts or service that will work properly, and that granting the waiver is in the public interest). Further free parts and services requirement applies to any form of repair and servicing. In the US, if you don't provide free screen replacement for a cell phone dropped by negligence, then you cannot legally deny warranty on the battery solely because a third party screen was used, unless you can show the third party screen or the process of installing it caused the battery problem. Of course, if you can show the battery problem was caused by dropping it in the first place, then you can deny warranty replacement.

nashashmi 6y ago

As a someone who goes against anti-right-to-repair laws, I am not so enthused with a mandate that all devices be repairable. Because there maybe cases where devices can’t be repaired. What kind of problems will something like this create for future device manufacturers?

alexfromapex 6y ago
What are those cases? This is just ensuring that consumers have the option to repair so the manufacturers aren’t mandating waste or planned obsolescence
- dghlsakjg 6y ago
  I make a small specialty electronic device that is optimized for size and weight. Its a side hustle, so I do it just to break even. It consists of three parts: a 2-piece plastic case, and a single circuit board with around 25 smt components. The user can replace the battery. I'm not going to publish my schematic or board design because I already open sourced my code, and the device is designed to be stupidly easy to manufacture for my own sake. Basically I don't want people to start making their own. A competent EE could figure it out in a day or two, but a anyone with that ability could design their own in the same amount of time. If something on the board goes bad, I'm not going to offer guidance to repair it. It isn't worth anyone's time. That said, I do offer a lifetime warranty/buyback option since the unit cost is less than $10. This is a bit of a contrived example since there is literally only one part that can fail, but the point is that there is a very fuzzy line around how far we can go with repairability. Should I be forced to provide a full schematic/board design (giving away my IP essentially)? Should I be forced to provide 'parts' (there is really only one part, and that is the product itself)? I'm sympathetic to the 'right to repair' movement, but I'm curious how it would be implemented across such a broad spectrum of products. Perhaps it could just be a transparency rule: planned obsolescence (unrepairable) items should be marked as such and an e-waste tax added. If you want to avoid that marking you have to offer to trade broken parts for new for 5 years after first sale at cost.
gostsamo 6y ago
The legislation does not cover all devices so there is both deliberation and lobbying when choosing which are going to be regulated.

haakonhr 6y ago

This is great, although it somehow seems to me to be starting in the wrong end. The underlying problem is that it is more profitable/cheaper to just give you a new product (if something breaks while under warrantee) and then just throw away the old instead of repairing it. I don't know if it is because the externalities of waste are not taxed properly or if it is because manufacturing products that are hard to repair gives more robust products and less waste in the end.

readflaggedcomm 6y ago
When repair labor costs more than automated production, then it's cheaper to replace whole units than mend parts. This is very much in line when what the Luddites understood. Fixation on "waste" is a by-product of unrelated worries which are fashionable today, but cheap production at a distance is what labor should worry about, instead.
- simongray 6y ago
  > Fixation on "waste" is a by-product of unrelated worries which are fashionable today We have finite resources on this planet. Policies like this that deal with negative externalities aren't driven by fashion, they are driven by our long term needs. And we do need to recycle more and consume less. This is part of the solution. > cheap production at a distance is what labor should worry about, instead You're simply describing the status quo. The same status quo which has resulted in the warmest year on record for how many years in a row now...?
  - readflaggedcomm 6y ago
    It's the most fashionable cause, since it can be shoehorned into anything. Yet carping about warming, and unstated assumptions about efficiency differences between levels of consumption and locations of production, don't guide us to fair labor practices.
- zug_zug 6y ago
  >> When repair labor costs more than automated production.. When companies deliberately build products in unrepairable ways then repair labor costs more than automated production. Imagine if mac butterfly keyboards were replaceable. Or for example I recently fixed my dad's washing machine, but it took a couple hours of labor to replace the pump because you had to remove about 4 other things to get to it (when they could have just made a door on the side/bottom. It's sort of like if you had to spend an hour disassembling your case to swap the ram in your machine.

fridek 6y ago

I can't describe how much I hope something comes out of it. Not because I have some illusion of this tackling corporate greed, or helping the environment - devices will likely become more expensive and bulkier as a result, supply chain of replacement parts is generating heaps of waste too. I simply am surrounded by tens and hundreds of sort-of-broken devices that don't force me to replace yet, but are not fixable either. The laptop overheats, phone compass never works properly, one port in the TV is dead, there is no light in the fridge (but it still works). The list goes on. I just want a world where stuff lasting a lifetime exists.

emteycz 6y ago
But it exists - it's not that stuff is worse now than it was before, you just have to spend the value (not amount) of money you spent back in the 60's. Our family houses are full of stuff that lasts a lifetime and/or can be easily fixed - you just can't buy the first thing the ad in TV suggests.
- vagrantJin 6y ago
  That manufacturers are actually hostile towards end users says a lot about our current state of helplessness.
  - emteycz 6y ago
    I had multiple manufacturers of kitchen appliances send me schematics so I could fix it myself instead of paying for a service visit. Many vendors have service guides online, including lists of parts. That's not hostile at all. You have to choose what you're buying, but it's not hard to buy from a solid company.
    - Scoundreller 6y ago
      I had to fix my circa 2005 Kenmore dryer and it had a folded up paper schematic behind the panel!!! Note: whenever throwing those things out, save the knobs. They’re like $10+ each.

kevmo 6y ago

The EU and USA are on completely opposite trajectories right now.

recursivedoubts 6y ago

A proposal: All durable consumer goods may apply for a repair QR code. At landfills, items with repair QR codes are scanned and the company is charged 50% of the cost of processing the item. If one is not applied for, the producer must pay the full cost of processing the item up front. This would encourage companies to make repair & upgrade and longetivity a priority. It's a rough idea.

rlpb 6y ago
How about this, along the same lines: Manufacturers must pay 100% of the cost of safe, environmental disposal of all consumer goods they sell. This is collected in the form of a tax, for all manufacturers over some threshold sales value/volume, based on an impact assessment of disposal cost. The assessment is based on the typical practical burden to disposal facilities to process each SKU. There's no need to individually account for every item going into waste disposal facilities. It can be assumed that every item sold will eventually be disposed of. And the problem is in primarily bulk sales of consumer items, so accounting in bulk is fine, and considerably cheaper in processing cost.
- m000 6y ago
  Bad plan. The problem is not have someone pay for the disposal, but delay disposal for as long as possible. And the ones who make the decision for the disposal are the consumers. Having the manufacturer pay a tax in advance puts little pressure on the consumer. Moreover, anything that involves an "assessment" is bound to be gamed by the manufactures. See e.g. the recent VW car emission scandal.
  - rlpb 6y ago
    The point is that the economic equation will change. Why is it that it's cheaper to buy new than repair old? In part, it's because the cost of disposal has been shifted away, rather than being incorporated into the price of the replacement. Having the manufacturer pay a tax in advance does put pressure on the consumer, because that tax has to be incorporated into the product pricing. > Moreover, anything that involves an "assessment" is bound to be gamed by the manufactures. See e.g. the recent VW car emission scandal. I agree it's a challenge. I wonder if there's some way to close the loop - so that manufacturers who game the system to achieve an artificially low disposal price end up making up the shortfall when the fake price isn't achieved.

dartharva 6y ago

If the admin of this site is seeing it, please note that the captcha guard you're using is broken. Not only is it mandating storage of cookies, it is absolutely refusing to accept my answers as correct despite several trials.

mytailorisrich 6y ago

First reaction is that this is good news, but I think two things needs to be looked at: One, what drives people to replace devices? I feel (not scientific at all!) that wanting a new shiny device and, if broken, cost of repair, are higher on the list than not being able to repair. Two, the law of unintended consequences: Making devices more repairable may increase their footprint in terms of material and thus waste. If people do not have their devices repaired more (e.g. because of (1) above ) then the net result might be worse than the current situation.

mrweasel 6y ago
If people don’t adopt a mindset of repair/upgrade and just continue to replace devices at the same rate, then sure more material is going to be used. Those devices will be easier to take apart and recycle though. This isn’t just about phones and laptops, but also appliances, and people aren’t really upgrading fridges or stowes because a new model is available. Many only get new cars because the repair bill now exceed the monthly cost of a new car.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  > Those devices will be easier to take apart and recycle though. That's not a given. For things like smartphones I would much rather they enact laws to make them more recyclable than more repairable. And, let's be honest, smartphones don't require repairs often, if at all. Most common issue is probably shattered screen and that is already replaceable everywhere. > and people aren’t really upgrading fridges or stowes because a new model is available. Indeed, but they may replace an appliance (which already tend to be quite repairable) that is 5-10 years old and that has broken down because the cost of repairing it (parts plus labour) is in the same ball-park as the cost of a new one. Making appliances even more repairable won't change that.
  - dvdkon 6y ago
    > smartphones don't require repairs often I've had people come to me with broken screens, old batteries, non-functional/muffled earpieces, wonky USB connectors, cracked lenses and other problems. Smartphones do require repairs and people, at least the ones I know, do want to repair them. But when I tell them the part will take a month to arrive and might not have the same quality as the original, not to mention the non-zero risk of cosmetic damage during disassembly, I can't blame them for rather buying a new phone. My parents have a washing machine that's now over 15 years old. It still gets repairs regularly. The parts cost is going up though, because they haven't been made in a long time now. Imagine how long we could keep this washing machine if the parts were standardised or their CAD files available online, maybe some manufacturer would be making clones of them right now.

franczesko 6y ago

As a person who is living in EU, I didn't know that there's even a discussion about whether you can or can't repair the things you own. Sounds pretty weird. Repairing things is a common practice since I can't remember when. Did I miss anything?

mrweasel 6y ago
There really isn’t much debate about “right to repair”, compared to the US. I think most just assume it’s not worth the hassel and cost. I would guess that the cost of repairing the average TV be at least 25 to 50% of the cost of a new TV. Highend stuff have always been repairable. The focus needs to be on making things repairable by the consumer, and easy to recycle. Both mean that you need to be able to take the item apart, and that will require redesigning almost electronics.
- modo_mario 6y ago
  >Highend stuff have always been repairable. As some have found out if you try to offer repairs of something as a service because it requires a bunch of technical knowledge in a way that the company doesn't like you can get sued into bankruptcy. Things aren't repairable by consumers however easy it is to take em apart if you can't get official parts (at a reasonable price) and aren't technically allowed to use alternative ones.
  - mrweasel 6y ago
    You’re right, they are only repairable by manufacturer or a “certified” technicians, so it’s still a problem. It is however going to be easier for a company like B&O who already have a field servicable TV to comply with new regulations

beyondcompute 6y ago

> Fix it. Where? I’d wanted to repair the most popular electric kick scooter in one of the Northern European countries for couple of years and I couldn’t find any place to do it (I asked all the sellers, sent lots of emails to different web shops, etc.). The economy in prosperous countries appears to be such that repair (especially of less fancy products) is so costly that it makes no sense often or is not possible as in the case described above.

rasz 6y ago
Hacker space is a good place to start.
sigmike 6y ago
A Repair café[1][2] if you have one nearby. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repair_caf%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repair_caf%C3%A9 [2] https://www.repaircafe.org/en/visit/ https://www.repaircafe.org/en/visit/

macspoofing 6y ago

If you follow the laptop/smart-phone repair community [1], the problems they run into is lack of access to technical manuals, diagnostic tools and in cases, being prevented from buying replacement parts by suppliers under the direction of Apple (for example). To me, it seems that this is where government or industry regulation would be helpful and provide most value with minimal impact on innovation and market disruption. On the other hand, I am uneasy with regulators mandating specific designs (e.g. all phones must have replaceable batteries), or specific standards (e.g. all phones need to use USB-C) or doing things like forcing Apple to include a charge cable or headphones with their devices. [1] I'm thinking of Jessa Jones and Louis Rossmann specifically.

tracnar 6y ago
Europe imposed a standard for phone chargers and thanks to that you don't need a different charger per brand, or even per model, like it was 15 years ago. AFAIK they did not specify the exact standard, except that it has to be some common industry standard, so it did not prevent moving from micro-USB to USB-C (and whatever Apple is using).
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >Europe imposed a standard for phone chargers and thanks to that you don't need a different charger per brand ... The rest of the world didn't and yet I hadn't needed to get a different charger per brand for, I'd say, a decade or more. What's the utility of creating a regulatory and enforcement framework for something that happened anyway?
  - Marrand 6y ago
    The rest of the world didn't have to because if the Brussels effect. When the EU legislates it is basically cheaper for companies to just fall in line rather than create separate production lines. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect
    - 6y ago

magicalhippo 6y ago

Just yesterday my SO told me the subwoofer was broken. It's a wireless unit, which pairs with the soundbar, which I got with my TV about 5 years ago. I quickly come to the conclusion the power supply is broken. And of course the power supply is internal. I tried to open up the thing, being fairly competent with electronics. But try as I might, I just couldn't figure out how this thing comes apart. I don't want to brute force it, thing is stylish and my SO likes that about it, but also a lot of plastic so easy to break. Ok, I searched the web for a service manual. Nothing. Not even close. In contrast, the DVD player my mom uses (mostly as a glorified CD player) died before xmas. It's an old Sony unit, bought in 2000 or 2001, and been on ever since (standby or active). I searched and I found a beautiful service manual, with detailed schematics and instructions for disassembly and reassembly. Even the PCB itself has lovely markings making it very clear what is going on where. Quickly discovered the issue in the power supply and ordered some replacement parts (still waiting). Sure I could probably have found a second-hand DVD player for cheap. But yeah it just seemed so senseless to toss away a perfectly good unit when by all accounts it just needs $3 worth of parts.

Scoundreller 6y ago
Bad caps?
- magicalhippo 6y ago
  PSU is a flyback design. I think the main freewheeling diode went (it's open now), and the resulting switching spikes from the transformer caused the switching converter[1] to fail. So far those are the only two parts that appear broken. As for the sub, I'd love to know! [1]: integrated switch, I misspoke earlier

tyingq 6y ago

I wonder how far this goes. If the built-in Netflix app on my really old smart TV isn't working because it hasn't been updated, for example.

khawkins 6y ago

Louis Rossman owns a repair shop in NYC and has been touring the nation lobbying for Right to Repair. He's rarely sees success though because the lobbyists for places like Apple have deep pockets and there isn't a lot of public outrage. The article is wrong to give any credit to Apple for being on the side of Right to Repair, as Louis explains in numerous videos. https://youtu.be/zFA3szW9nWk https://youtu.be/zFA3szW9nWk

Nextgrid 6y ago
The problem here isn't just lobbying but that the people in the government that we entrust to make these decisions are complete idiots. The lobbyists' arguments are so flawed that anyone with half a brain or a bit of common sense should be able to say "hold on, this is bullshit!" and yet these people are swallowing it whole. I'd have more respect for them if they outright turned around and said "yeah we know we're screwing you over but the lobbyists' money is too good to pass up" but in this case they appear to be getting played without even realizing it themselves.
- ckocagil 6y ago
  Are they idiots, or do they get something out of it?
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    Some of the arguments made by the lobbyists deserve pushback even if you're secretly in their camp just because of how absurd they are. Given this isn't happening, I'm not 100% convinced the senators are doing this on purpose or if they're legitimately too stupid to understand the argument at play. Furthermore I remember Louis Rossmann saying in one of his videos that one senator turned out to not even be checking his official government e-mail account... that's not someone I would entrust with understanding anything even remotely related to technology.
  - bmn__ 6y ago
    > do they get something out of it? "robust conversations"

wombatmobile 6y ago

I strongly prefer to repair devices and am reluctant to throw any broken manufactured good out, even when I have poor prospects of repairing them. Instead, I just hold on to them. Phones, stereos, vacuum cleaners, clocks, computers. My shelves are full of broken items, and good intentions, frozen in amber. Why do I think like this? I think it is a psychological condition. It isn't a rational choice. If I apply my educated, articulate self to analysis, I can tell you it's an expression of how I want the world to be, not a realistic evaluation of how modern manufacturing commerce works. A stereo or an espresso machine that is non-serviceable costs 1/10th as much to buy and performs twice as well as an equivalent device from 50 years ago. The price we pay for that bounty is that 5% of the manufactured items fail early. It costs more to provide repair infrastructure than to run a warranty program, so the dead stuff ends up as waste. I get it. Still, I don't like waste, and I love repair. My feelings are not economics, they are emotions. And so so they persist. And that's perfectly OK.

eeZah7Ux 6y ago
> I think it is a psychological condition. People can have trouble letting go of obsoleted, unneeded object due to some emotional attachment. [Unless you hoard socially acceptable items, like status symbols or plain money, in that case most people will not see the problem] > an espresso machine ... performs twice as well as an equivalent device from 50 years ago ...or not. A rational reason for fixing stuff is that many products are objectively worse. > My feelings are not economics, they are emotions Another perfectly rational reason is prevent environmental collapse. It does not get more reasonable than that.
- deleted 6y ago
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lostlogin 6y ago
> an espresso machine ... performs twice as well as an equivalent device from 50 years ago This is a terrible example. How coffee is made has not changed much, so machines don’t need to change much. New hardware trends towards more plastic, more logic boards and at the worst end of the scale, more proprietary parts, including the actual coffee. I have repaired and built up several 25+ year old espresso machines and grinders, and currently run a 37 year old grinder and a 23 year old espresso machine. Older machines are easier to service, easy to get parts for and nice to work on. The quality of the coffee is hard to beat and I would need to pay around US$3k for a new version of the machine, where the old one is generally around US$250. Often the changes over time are few (eg La Cimbali Junior). Brands like La Marzocco, La Cimbali, Rancilio and Mazzer have a lot of great machines going back a very long time. Electric parts often connect with spades or screws, there is documentation and parts are easily ordered and you can usually talk to someone at the supply end about difficult repairs. New coffee machines at the lower end of the price scale are mostly just disposable crap, and make bad coffee. They are not cheaper over their lifetime.

joking 6y ago

Nice, I broke a mixer cup, and now I had to buy a new mixer with his electronics and motor because there is no way to buy only the cup. My fault for buying a white labeled mixer instead of a recognised brand one, but I don't get why there are so many systems for mixers, there should have a compatible system and mixers and cups should be interchangeable between brands.

WarOnPrivacy 6y ago

This measure shamefully disrespects the needs of shareholders for endless profit and hampers large corporations from exploiting and curtailing the rights of end users. It's the most un-american thing I've ever seen.

nfriedly 6y ago

I just replaced the battery in my Pixel 2 this past weekend. It was a 2-3 hour project that involved a whole kit of tools in addition to the new battery. It was a PITA, but I am thankful that a) iFixit provided a helpful guide and a kit with all of the things I needed except for the rubbing alcohol and b) it was legal and there weren't any software issues to deal with. Aside from the aging battery and occasionally running out of storage, the phone was completely fine for my needs. For ~$50 and a few hours of time, I've essentially doubled the lifespan of my $700 phone.

larelli 6y ago
I'm in the same boat. What kept me from replacing the battery is that the device is EOL and won't receive any software updates, including security fixes. Did you also change the firmware?
- ossuser 6y ago
  Just switch to Calyx or Graphene, Pixel 2 is well supported
- nfriedly 6y ago
  Not yet - it's currently on stock software, but I've run custom ROMs before and I'm planning to switch back to one soon. I was basically waiting to see if I could successfully replace the battery before putting much effort into the software side.
Mauricebranagh 6y ago
But why not buy a cheap motog phone and save $500 in the first place
- nfriedly 6y ago
  In general, I am a big proponent of getting used equipment and keeping it running for well after the manufacturer has abandoned it. Before the Pixel 2, I hadn't purchased a new phone in like 12 years - I had gotten a couple of used Android phones, and used Windows Mobile before that. They all had the issue of essentially 0 support from the manufacturer by the time I got them, so I was dependent on community ROMs to keep them up-to-date. The phone I was using at the time had multiple issues, including an aging battery, physical damage, and something wrong with the GPS sensor. A couple of the big reasons I bought the new phone rather than another used one were the promise of 3 years of support (which Google delivered) and waterproofing (which has come in handy a few times). I also just liked the phone in general, and there wasn't much on the used market with a similar feature set. I like tinkering with my phone, but this was shortly before my second child was born and I knew I wasn't going to have the time to mess with custom ROMs to fix whatever was broken that week. Now that my kids are a little bit older and I can sleep through the night most nights, I think I'm ready for that "fun" again.

maxekman 6y ago

I have been helping friends and family replace their smartphone batteries to give them new life. I recommend all of you who are comfortable with tinkering to do the same, it can go a long way!

apexalpha 6y ago

This couldn't come soon enough. I just had my washing machine break. It kept giving error codes and the door won't lock. I called the company who said the model is way to old to have warrenty, which is true, and then said they couldn't assist me in repairing. They said they could only send a (paid) technician. I Youtubed the model and found an array of DIY repair videos. I used those to dissassemble the door lock mechanism only to find out it had short circuited. Here's the pics: https://imgur.com/a/ECM5AuI https://imgur.com/a/ECM5AuI And after I called for replacement parts they started berating me for trying to fix it myself, saying it could be dangerous and a potential fire hazard. I hope this new law will help in this aspect; it's ridiculous I have to go to YouTube to find out how to repair a washing machine and the company itself refuses to help... And 2 year warrenty is way too short anyway. I hope they change it into something dynamic like 1 year per €200 sale price or so.

Barrin92 6y ago

Gonna say thanks to the European Union for that one. Much maligned, very bureaucratic, somewhat slow but honestly compared to how much tech regulation in the world is solely focused on surveillance and stripping privacy from people the EU still seems to at least have the roughly the right idea most of the time.

TLightful 6y ago

Great. Doesn't this impact Tesla too!? Good ... those fricking drivable iPhones need to be opened up.

acd 6y ago

We must mandate that all consumer devices can load open source operating systems. That manufacturers provide open design specifications and follow reasonable standards. That is after a few years, manufacturers do not have an incentive to fix the operating system of devices. Unless we can load open source operating systems, old devices will have security holes which is bad for security. What I want to say is we should be able to fix and repair the hardware and software of devices. I want to reach out and thank citizens of France for leading the way on repair index!

fab1an 6y ago

This is to be commended, though I wish the market itself would provide this value as an emergent feature as it does in some other areas (e. g. Leica cameras and lenses, hundreds of thousands of which are still being used after _decades_ - I'm not sure if it's true, but read somewhere that the used market for Leicas is several multiples of Leicas revenue on new stuff)

DaedPsyker 6y ago
Leica cameras are also some of the most expensive cameras in the world. Their reputation for the build quality is part of that. More like a fine watch than an iPhone so there will be discrepancy.

foofoo4u 6y ago

Products are having shorter lifespans with ever decreasing levels of repairability. Like what others have said here, our expectations have become so low that it is commonly expected that the things we buy will only last a year or two before we end up throwing them away. This can be easily resolved if people simply paid more money for better quality products and brands that ensure repairability and longevity. But, of course, as time has shown, cheapness has won over consumer behavior. I'd consider this a market failure. I've always thought that this failure could be corrected by simply increasing the cost of disposal ("throwing things away") via some kind of tax. When my vacuum cleaner, my toaster, or even my coffee maker dies, throwing it away costs very little money. So little money that it is better worth my time to simply dispose it in the trash and buy a new one. But if I find disposing them to be costly, I'll certainly reconsider my options.

xixixao 6y ago
There was a simple system for this with bottles: There is a premium which you pay, that is returned when you correctly dispose of the bottle. Perhaps a similar mechanism could be applied. The “cost” of disposing is then the time to get the money back, not the premium itself.
- labawi 6y ago
  This might work. A big issue with paying for disposal is the motivation to avoid payment. It's hard to get people to dispose of trash responsibly. If they had to pay, we'd be surrounded by illegal dumps. I think there should be disposal fees, but they must be paid upfront. EU actually has recycling fees on purchase, but they seem to be laughably small (like < 1 EUR for a vacuum cleaner).
MzHN 6y ago
How do I as a consumer know if a product will last or not? High price does not automatically signal longevity. The other thing is that nothing lasts forever, so eventually you'd need to repair. Most things you can't repair by yourself, so if the repair costs more than new, and the suggested increase for disposal, I'd still end up buying new to save the hassle. My wishlist is: - For consumers, incentivize repair over disposal and buying. - For companies, incentivize manufacturing quality and design for repairability. But the question still stands how to do either?

immmmmm 6y ago

Louis Rossmann's youtube channel is a great source of information on this topic.

amelius 6y ago

Does this also cover the repair of software bugs?

shimonabi 6y ago

I recently bought a 50€ electric chainsaw at an Aldi discount store in Europe (against my better judgement). After a few uses, the chain tightening bolt broke into two pieces. I begged them to send me just the bolt, but NO. They said I'm not entitled to repair it. I was even willing to pay for it, but I couldn't find it below 15€ on the internet. So I sent the whole chainsaw to the repair service on their dime and they sent me a brand new one. They probably tossed the perfectly fine old chainsaw into the dumpster. Because of a 0.10€ bolt. The corporate throwaway culture is incredible.

grecy 6y ago
Now you have one with an in-tact screw you should take it out and figure out the size and thread-pitch so if it breaks again you can buy a generic one. And then post the info online somewhere - even if it's a random Reddit thread Google will pick it up and a search like "Aldi chainsaw chain tightening screw replacement" should pick it up.
- shimonabi 6y ago
  It's a special bolt. I would have to buy a lathe. I have a 3D printer at home and I taught myself 3D design so I already made a bunch of replacement parts out of plastic.
  - lostlogin 6y ago
    How is the saw? I went the expensive route and got an electric Stihl. It’s a monster. I find the proper use of the saw to be more important that with a petrol saw as it isn’t immediately clear if it’s on or not. Others in the area are immediately aware when there is an idling chainsaw, but not so much with an electric one.
    - shimonabi 6y ago
      Well, you did the right thing. I think I will sell mine, because I also have an old small gasoline Stihl for firewood. It sure is an interesting feeling how the blade stops immediately. Mine is 2000W. I always handle it like it is spinning, so there is no difference safety-wise.

causalmodels 6y ago

This is an anecdote but I think it's worth mentioning. Several years ago my washer dryer unit developed a crack in the wash basin. Instead of buying a new machine, I ordered a replacement basin from GE. When I received the part, it had developed a crack from shipping. I was told to throw the broken replacement part in the trash and they would send me another. This happened two more times. It took four shipments of new wash basins for me to actually repair the machine. Right to repair is a good thing in and of itself. We shouldn't need to couch pro consumer movements in terms of other good objectives like resource conservation or environmentalism. I understand that my experience is probably not typical, but one screw up like mine basically wiped out any gain conservationist gains for me and several other people. If we want to further conservation and environmental efforts we should do so explicitly rather than achieving half measures on the back of other causes.

Proven 6y ago

Translation: a minority made of vocal socialist fanatics assisted by manipulative politicians have managed to introduce a new tax on EU consumers. Whereas before you could buy a device that would be smaller and cheaper to own because it was built with a minimal number of field-replaceable parts, soon you'll have no choice (whether you want to fix old junk or not) but to buy a bulkier, more expensive device for which suppliers have to stock and sell spare parts and provide support. All of which will reflect in the price of that product. "Europe is guaranteeing citizens the right". I'm touched! Thank you, Brussels!

ogre_codes 6y ago

I kind of wonder if we're looking at solving this the wrong way. Instead of mandating that manufacturers take specific steps to fix the waste problem, maybe it would be better to tag items at manufacture and charge device makers a percentage based on how long before it enters the waste stream. Manufacturers could solve this by either: - Making their things easy to repair - Creating in house recycling programs - Making equipment more durable and longer lasting Any combination of the above. By picking one specific way of reducing waste, we are ignoring other factors. Few people care to repair Android phones because you can't upgrade the OS after 2 years regardless. It doesn't matter if the hardware is repairable, the device is greatly devalued at that point. Like wise, if it's super expensive to repair an iPhone, people aren't going to bother and will just replace it. By focusing on the end result -> Devices entering the waste stream <- the manufacturers are responsible for ensuring hardware gets responsibly recycled, repaired, or just doesn't break. Obviously, to make this work the cost per device entering the stream would have to be significant compared to the cost of the device. Also, the cost should be the responsibility of the maker. Currently in some place in the US, consumers pay the cost to dispose of/ recycle televisions. The result is we end up with TVs on the side of the road. Often on the way away from the dump where people refuse to pay the disposal fee then toss the TV out the door on the way home.

aembleton 6y ago
Making the producers responsible for the disposal might be the best way. I don't exactly know how it would be implemented but I'd like to see it for packaging too. Local authorities should be able to collect up all Mcdonalds packaging and hand it back to them. Make them responsible for its disposal. Then they will be incentivised to reduce the amount of packaging that they produce.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  > Local authorities should be able to collect up all Mcdonalds packaging and hand it back to them. Absolutely! It is far too easy to create disposable crap that ends up dumped all over the planet. I get so frustrated seeing garbage all over the place in natural places. I do think its a lot easier to focus on the higher ticket items first.

mkhpalm 6y ago

How does this affect Tesla in Europe?

pkaye 6y ago

They need to also demand "design for reparability". I had a dryer where to replace a thermal fuse, you had to remove all the outer panels and a bunch of other things to replace a tiny component. They could implemented a service panel on the back which you could unscrew to replace that part.

phaedrus 6y ago

In my opinion, if they really cared about their stated goals, the EPA should have also rolled right-to-repair protections for the relevant equipment into emissions rules for car manufacturers. They should have mandated interchangeable parts, standard connections, and openly available documentation. Recently I rebuilt a 1996 car. The previous owner had misplaced a fuel tank topper that contained valving for the emissions controls. The parts needed were simply not available for purchase from the manufacturer or the aftermarket. At the time I couldn't source a used fuel tank for the 96, but I was able to find a 1999 model year of the same car in a junkyard. Between 1996 and 1999, the fuel vapor emissions controls went from "somewhat complicated" to "really complicated." In theory I should have been able to either hook up just the plumbing needed by the 96 system, or upgrade the whole car to the 99 system. However in practice I could do neither. The fittings had all changed. The charcoal canister was changed from round to square. (And really what is the point of installing either canister when both are probably "used up" at this point? Why can't I buy new canisters at the same stores where I can buy new air filters?) But the biggest impediment was obtaining information on the two systems. The information in the service manual was perfunctory and nonspecific; multiple different systems had been used in different years and regions. The diagrams of internal valving on the tank toppers small enough that important connections (or lack of them) were obscured by smudges. I had more luck reading EPA whitepapers to at least get a theory of operation. In the enthusiast community I can find information about how to put a cylinder head from one year of this car onto a block from another. I can even find information about what ports to block off or drill open to remount the cylinder head on BACKWARDS, if I'm so inclined. There's not a similar subcommunity for people trying to repair their emissions equipment. A similar problem exists with safety equipment. Most enthusiasts of this car just delete their ABS, or they never service it. I want to rebuild mine (this just consists of replacing internal O-rings), but I can't find information or get parts except from overseas. In Europe and other countries that are not the USA, the manufacturer did service and rebuild these ABS units.

stvndvs 6y ago

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mikx007 6y ago

All we need is something like sci-hub for repair manuals...

boatsie 6y ago

I think a good way to ensure repairability is to require manufacturers to honor a relatively long warranty. For example many large appliances have 1 year warranties. After that you have to pay to repair (which is often 25-50% of the cost of new and not guaranteed) or toss it and buy new. If there were required warranty service based on waste generated from an item, eg a refrigerator must be warranted for 20 years, then you would see much better reliability and repairability. Smaller, cheaper, more tech heavy items might have shorter required warranties, but the point is that you need to align the incentives by forcing manufacturer to bear the cost of the repair.

yoran 6y ago

Regulations like this are great and I applaud them. But they do harm innovation, because often the cost to become compliant with such new regulations is fixed. So the cost for a large corporation to be compliant is roughly similar to the cost of a startup to be compliant. This makes it comparatively harder for startups to get going and thereby gives large companies an unfair advantage. This stifles competition and innovation. We are seeing this first-hand with our startup in the EU investment space. The costs to be compliant with the various regulations (MiFID, AML, etc...) are mostly fixed, so they're a lot harder for small firms to implement such as ourselves than for large firms. That's also why a lot of smaller firms are merging into larger firms. As a solution, there should be relaxed regulations for startups. They would have to be fully compliant only once they reach a certain scale.

JoshTko 6y ago

This doesn't make sense. I have sold every single iPhone that I have owned (about 6), and virtually all were 100% functional at time of sale. Making the products openable will likely to make them heavier, more expensive, larger, and more prone to damage (i.e., water damage), and thus less durable overall. I don't want this as a consumer as it will lead to more waste.

esturk 6y ago
Not sure how your personal anecdote comes into play. So you have replaced your phone every 2 years while it's still working, good for you. But have you considered that some people will replace their phone only when it's broken beyond repair?
- JoshTko 6y ago
  Apple's approach still makes sense in that scenario since the phones in general will be easier to make more durable. There are far many more phones that are exposed to water than there are people who regularly repair/upgrade their phones. Openable phones are going to be nearly impossible to waterproof, or will make them far larger and more expensive.

tomjen3 6y ago

This sucks, since it will probably mean that I can't buy the new all in one apple laptops. Yeah they can't be upgraded (a bit of a bummer), but when was the last time you upgraded any laptop that you owned other than with more RAM, adding an SSD or a new battery? When was the last time you wanted to? My grandparents old laptop finally died, and they offered me it for parts but I had to straight out tell them that there was nothing on it that was worth anything.

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walshemj 6y ago

I do wonder how the German car manufacturers will respond

macinjosh 6y ago

Europe is guaranteeing products are more expensive and further out of reach for the poor.

jojobas 6y ago
Car repairability standards have been there forever and some say there are more cars than there should be. Making things repairable impacts their size much more than manufacturing cost (which is typically about 25-40% of retail price for electronics). Phones etc working for longer means fewer sales in the long run and I'm OK with that.

deadbunny 6y ago

Unless they are mandating software support for the lifetime of the device as well what does this achieve in the long run? Don't get me wrong I 100% support right to repair/tinker/hack but without software support this is kinda pointless.

mementomori 6y ago

Are there any incentives for corporations to reduce waste? Designed obsolescence is the main business model of smartphones. If anything disrupts the profits in this business model, there has to be an incentive (either reward or punishment) that is enforceable and actually enforced. If a law is made and corporations end up circumventing it, that doesn't count. I kind of expect corporations to continue successfully circumventing/overcoming the efforts against designed obsolescence. Convincing consumers it's OK not to get a new phone every year is another issue.

CharlesIvia 6y ago

Isn't it ironic some mobile phone manufacturers leave the charging brick out of the box for the "environment" and then proceed to make their phones impossible to repair?

8bitsrule 6y ago

Good, altho RTR was always obvious until some foolish clowns got some laws passed to try to stop it. Good luck with that. When I pay for some physical product it is MINE. If you put something fancy in there, you sold it to me, IT is MINE. I can't copy it and sell the copies, that's fine. If it's a truly great product, I won't have to fix it. If it wasn't as good as you could make it, you've cheated me. If I can't fix it then you've cheated me in an attempt to keep not just the product but me tethered to your stockholders. Sad. Sad for you. If it's worth fixing, and you expect to bleed me to fix it, I can fix it myself, or find someone who can. That's a LOT easier than before. And you've lost another customer for a lifetime, one who will spread the word at every chance.

jgimenez 6y ago

"Guaranteeing" is a strong word. For now they want manufacturers to label products with the estimated time it's going to last. I'm not sure if this is going to be useful at all if there is no economic incentive (eg. offering a warranty during that time frame). Example: Opel just stopped providing the OnStar service, rendering the hardware useless. My car is only 3 years old, still under warranty, but they're no longer providing service (nor offering an alternative == a repair)