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Europeans get ‘right to repair’ for some electrical goods
- alexf95 6y agoThis is a really important step for the enviroment. In todays age it feels like some machines are constructed in a way so that they fail after a few years. Meanwhile my parents are still using a fridge from like 15 years ago without a problem. Intrested in how this will develop!
- dvfjsdhgfv 6y agoIt will be very difficult to unwind. Years ago it was natural for electronic devices such as mobile phones to have a replaceable battery. Then a popular brand decided to make the battery irreplaceable by the consumer and the rest followed. The justification was the need to make thinner devices is far more important. Now user replaceable batteries are a rare thing in last generation devices, even in laptops! So call me skeptical if after a decade or so they will all go back to what we had before, when one could upgrade a HDD or memory in a typical laptop in a couple of minutes, and business models were even more easy to service.
- aequitas 6y agoBut technology still advances, so in the future Apple will present their thin and battery replaceable revolutionary new iPhone.
- HPsquared 6y agoI prefer ~~products~~ PHONES where everything is glued together, it makes for a much stronger structure. Old phones which were screwed/clipped together were thick, bendy and creaky. Closed structures (think of an egg shell) are more structurally efficient. The price to pay is it's harder to open when you need to repair it, but that's a sometime-maybe-never activity, vs. using/holding it which is hours per day.
- blub 6y agoNot true at all. High end Symbian phones were rock solid. One just has to use quality materials.
- HorkHunter 6y agothe only phone people swear -or meme- by how strong and sturdy it is had a replaceable battery!
- HPsquared 6y agoStrong yes but it's also thick and plasticky with wide borders around the (2-inch) screen. The battery is tiny. In other words: because of the construction method, lots of space is needed for structural elements. Large glass screens require a rigid structure (or a border of some kind).
- southerntofu 6y ago> Strong yes but it's also thick and plasticky with wide borders A lot of people are pretty happy with that. For those that aren't, there's been a lot of progress in engineering in the past two decades since the 3310 came out. It's not impossible to make something strong, while enjoying newer features. If we had a conscious choice in the shop between a slimmer phone that'll break apart in 6 months, and a thicker phone we could keep for 10 years, most people i know would choose the latter. There's just no such information for customers. > The battery is tiny. That was a technical limitation of the time and does not apply to today's batteries.
- diggernet 6y agoJust checked my Nokia collection... N800, E90, N8, N97, N900, N950, N9, E7, 920, 1020... Big screens, rock solid. Thicker than an iPhone? Sure. But most are thinner than the protective cases most folks I know put their iPhones in.
- anon98356 6y ago> So call me skeptical if after a decade or so they will all go back to what we had before. The implicication of the article is that they won't have a choice. If your product doesn't meet the repairability standards then you won't be able to sell in the EU.
- xyzzy123 6y agoModern fridges are an interesting example. Most of the "active" parts and fittings are repairable with effort, even if manuals and parts are not easy to get. However in all modern fridges I have looked at, the structure is folded sheet metal which is not designed to be taken apart. Certain key panels cannot be opened out without distortion that will affect the fit. Inside the voids there is polystyrene (or similar) insulation. Eventually that insulation gets stinky and moldy and that is pretty much the end of the fridge because the insulation is inaccessible and cannot be replaced. You can try hitting it through vents, with bleach, but you cannot get it back to "as new". This kind of non-mechanical failure eventually renders the fridge un-usable for food. It seems like it would take an entirely different design to anything I have seen on the market to create a true "50 year fridge".
- southerntofu 6y agoWell it's not just a feeling. It's a conscious strategy that was developed by the industry after the first world war, because they were afraid over-production would lead to some kind of unprofitable luxury communism. It all started with the Phoebus cartel in the 1920's and what we nowadays called "planned obsolescence" is a worldwide strategy by the industry. A fridge is capable of lasting way more than 15 years. Many people use fridges or washing machines that are over 50 years. Anything that's not built to be repairable and last decades is just harmful to users and the environment. For example IoT is really something that should never exist.
- jen20 6y agoHave you looked into the energy consumption of a 50 year old refrigerator vs a modern one to determine that the modern one is an environmental harm?
- southerntofu 6y agoWell i don't have links at hand but there's been plenty of studies in different fields (computers, cars) and overall the environmental costs of new hardware are always (to my knowledge) greater than the environmental costs of keeping inefficient hardware around. For example, it will without any doubt take more energy/ressources to build a Raspberry Pi than to keep your old desktop computer powered. However, from an economic perspective the opposite is true because as consumers we pay energy far greater prices than the industry does. Which means i can buy a raspberry pi for the price in electricity that my desktop would consume in a few years. That device will then use a lot less energy to run, but took so much to produce it's meaningless. That is, without even taking into consideration recycling concerns. Recycling for electronics mostly doesn't exist (see open-air landfills with children taking metals apart using dangerous chemicals), and in any case also requires energy/resources and produces pollution. We are economically incentivized to destroy the planet. All those "buy a new car" programs are not meant to save the planet, they're meant to save big corp profits by keeping everyone buying new stuff. That's what is really worrying in my view.
- aaronmdjones 6y agoIndeed. I've had the same generic white good counter-top dish washer for more than 9 years, and it's still working just fine, with absolutely no servicing or repairs whatsoever. They can be built to last, they just often aren't.
- EdwinLarkin 6y agoAnother scam pushed by the EU that will make things more expensive. The cost of labor to repair anything is so high that no one will ever want to do it unless their appliance is the top of the high end stuff that costs thousands of euros. I have an older 1000$ Miele washing machine and to repair it it costs 400$. For that price I can have a brand new machine with all the functions I want.
- anon98356 6y agoCurrently it costs $400 to repair. If products become more repairable it also becomes cheaper to repair them (in theory at least). This kind of legislation is likely to push up the initial purchase price but the overall cost should come down. So the $1000 Miele now costs $1200, but only costs $50 to repair.
- blub 6y agoIt's ok if things are more expensive, as long as they can be repaired and last longer. That's the whole point... stopping waste.
- alexf95 6y agoI think what he was referring to that it's cheaper for him to get a new one instead of repairing it? Which would defeat the whole point of repairing it completely, because no one would choose to repair instead of replacing it.
- dmak 6y agoAm I in the minority who’s okay with forgoing repairability for the better design and integration? I really don’t want a cheap back cover that pops off and takes up milimeters of space.
- southerntofu 6y agoAccording to my very unscientific measurement of user dissatisfaction with irreparable products, you are in the minority. Also please keep in mind besides our personal feelings as users, such matters have a strong influence on the environment. More computers/smartphones have been produced than there are human beings on earth, yet we keep producing more. Planned obsolescence is a crime against humanity.
- accurrent 6y agoI don't see why something can't be repairable and have good ergonomics/aesthetics. Just because something is repairable doesn't mean it needs to be made of cheap plastic or pops off easily. The bigger issue here is (1) e-waste, (2) critical infrastructure.
- ohgodplsno 6y agoThis law doesn't prevent you from gluing your phone shut, as a manufacturer. You can very much justify it with saying it's the only way to give IP68. However, you are encouraged to think about it thoroughly, and above all give out the schematics to fix it should the need arise. Additionally, you haven't read the article properly because it concerns mostly large appliances like washing machines, dishwashers, fridges, etc. This is not exactly the kind of devices where you'll pop off covers and save up millimeters of space.
- rocgf 6y agoI definitely hope you are in the minority. I will just tell you how your comment sounded to me. "I don't care about the biggest challenge humanity is facing at the moment if that means I will have to be slightly inconvenienced by the design and integration of products."
- lousken 6y agowith regular house appliances i dont really see an issue with adding milimeters on my dishwasher, blender or whatever
- feralimal 6y agoWe can trace the throw away culture back to Edward Bernais. https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/pr-created-consumerism-lessons-sustainability https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/pr-created-... I think consumer goods were made and advertised as being 'made to last'. However, it is far better for the manufacturer to have a customer that buys the same goods more frequently, say every 5 years, rather than every 20 or 30. Bernais created the concept of a consumer and influenced the masses to buy goods so they could meet their unconscious desires, not according to function. That is the root of the issue. If as consumers we think we're buying a fridge, but are actually unknowingly buying an aspirational lifestyle. We may think we're too savvy for to be taken in by marketing - but we are not. We need to get far more savvy! What I would love to see is open source white goods: fridges, printers, ovens, cars even. And to use them.
- esperent 6y agoThis is great news. Of course, it remains to be seen if the law is implemented in a sensible manner, and given recent tech laws from the EU I'd give that about 50/50 odds. However, as someone who likes to repair electronics, so often when I open something up it's clear that it was designed to be unrepairable. Impossible to open without breaking something, unnecessary glue everywhere, and so on. It's time this was recognized as the ecological disaster that it is and made illegal. Even a poorly implemented law is a step in the right direction here. And before someone chimes in - it is possible to create small, thin, lightweight electronics and still have them be repairable. However, this law will also apply to bigger machinery like farming equipment, fridges, cars, and so on.
- alexf95 6y agoYour last point is very important, as it covers the biggest offenders of being replaced way too often in regard to how often they should have been replaced. Smaller machines make smaller waste (even tho they might sometimes create more dangerous waste e.g. phone batteries.)
- esperent 6y ago> e.g. phone batteries In another few years most vehicles will be battery powered too, with much bigger batteries.
- Symbiote 6y agoFrance is now requiring repairability scores on electronics. This was posted a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26279350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26279350
- southerntofu 6y agoThat is true but the scoring system is not user-friendly. Linear progress makes sense for actual evaluation, but for user recommendation only an exponential progress makes sense. For instance, iPhones are terrible to repair yet come up with 6/10 score. A user would think it's not that bad. But it is that bad, 6/10 in evaluation should be 0/10 for end-users information (only >9/10 should be considered any good). Also, in my view it should be a criminal offense and a crime against nature/humanity to build a product that's explicitly designed not to be repairable. But well, we're not quite there yet.
- southerntofu 6y agoIt's a start, but i believe it's not nearly enough. Building for a decade is what anyone could do mostly without efforts. Products from the past decades used to last decades (plural), and that's where we should be back at. If you've ever acquired furniture/tools/machines from the past century (or before that), you probably know what i'm talking about.
- alexf95 6y agoWell someone has to start somewhere! As someone who gets very attached to things he buys I also hope we go back to the "good old days".
- southerntofu 6y ago> Well someone has to start somewhere! I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand i agree a marathon has many small steps to walk. On the other hand, governments/companies have a long history of not caring about actual issues and stopping after the first step gave them good conscience that they were doing something about the problem...
- lotsofpulp 6y agoHow do you know the furniture/tools/machines from the past you are using aren’t subject to survivorship bias? And that today’s high end items won’t similarly be usable in the future?
- esperent 6y agoIt's a fair point and probably partially true. But I'm pretty certain the only way an iPhone will survive for a century is if someone removes the battery and places it into a locked vault. With regular, or even just occasional use, it's unlikely to last past a decade.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoWhat is the significance of an iPhone not surviving for a century?
- gandalfian 6y agoGoods used to be expensive and labour cheap. So you called a repairman, people even had their ovens serviced. Now goods are cheap but labour is expensive so you replace it...
- southerntofu 6y agoYes but there is nothing "natural" about this. It's just the resulting incentives produced by multinational supply chains without social/environmental regulations. We could (should) come back to the previous balance, and that would probably have a better environmental impact than all the (broken) promises of our governments.
- kalleboo 6y agoYou are never going to get enough people voting for a government that will make TVs expensive enough that they're worth repairing on a component level
- southerntofu 6y agoAs an anarchist i don't believe in choosing our masters (elections) as a viable strategy for anything, really. People in power have only ever been compelled to do good by popular pressure. But arguably a lot of people would support candidates/measures that introduced actual environmental/social regulations for products (driving prices upwards) if it were counter-balanced by a public program providing free repairs to all your utilities for decades. A such public program would certainly cost a lot less than repeated public funding of new technology. Take cars for example. Most cars/trucks from the past century could be repaired given public support for that. That would be a strong ecological measure. However, governments around the world have invested billions of euros in "buy new cars" programs in the name of environment protection.. bringing even more ecological damage in the process. For most products, the bulk of pollution and energy usage is related to production, not daily usage.
- gandalfian 6y agoAbsolutely, I'm all for greater repairability. BUT the natural historical solution to labour costs is a peasant class living more basic lives and cheaply supporting their betters. I don't want that solution and I'm not sure there is an easy alternative. I'm not suggesting things couldn't and shouldn't be better, but possibly don't get your hopes too high for the results...
- teterphiel 6y agoI'd rather have a Europe-wide application of the French approach of forcing manufacturers to disclose repairability scores at the point of sale (and let consumers decide who important repairability is to them) rather than bureaucrats getting involved with engineering and microeconomics.
- watt 6y agoIt's way too late for that. The unrepairable goods trend is too far gone. I think it's very appropriate that government steps in like this: the message to manufacturers is "you reap what you sow".
- amelius 6y agoI think we need more hackers in different parliaments everywhere. It's probably going to be a boring job, but you can work on your favorite FOSS project as an unofficial side job :)
- amelius 6y ago(the other folks won't understand what you're doing anyway)
- Proven 6y agoHere we go again... Idiots... 1) They have always had the right to repair. It was harder to exercise it because appliances tend to be designed for the average customer who wants to refresh and does not want to spend money on servicing old crap. 2) What this reallly is is socialist busybodies forcing manufacturers to design products differently. What's wrong with that? Well, it violates rights of manufacturers (designers, manufacturers, business owners, etc.). Secondly, it increases the price of products for everyone. Now that guy who hates fixing old crap still won't fix it, but will have to pay more for a fixable product. It is nothing more but yet another tax for the poor bastards in the EU.