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> Technology has advanced to the point where they can get some components to fail soon after warranty period expired with decent accuracy. Power unit failure te

by smt88 5y ago

> Technology has advanced to the point where they can get some components to fail soon after warranty period expired with decent accuracy. Power unit failure tends to be a common one. Unless the hardware is designed to be damaged (or restricted) by software, there's no way this is true. Technology can be great, but you can't "program" hardware to die on a certain date without knowing how it will be used, how long it will be used, what temperatures it will operate in, etc. And you're not even considering that the manufacturer has no idea when the hardware will be sold and therefore doesn't even know the date that the hardware "should" fail. Unless you have some evidence that this is both possible and happening, it's just a conspiracy theory.

DeathArrow 5y ago
>Unless you have some evidence that this is both possible and happening, it's just a conspiracy theory. It's quite easy and I think most manufacturers of electronic devices, electric appliances and even cars are doing it. You just have to calculate what the average working time during the warranty period and adjust the quality of materials and the build quality so the MTBF is just a bit higher than that time.
- smt88 5y ago
  > even cars are doing it Cars are not doing it. Like I said: provide a source that isn't your own suspicions and anecdata. I am a shareholder of an auto insurance company, and our actuaries would know if cars were doing it. There is a lot of very high-quality data about vehicle reliability, and major trends are very visible. Car companies are often stupid and/or evil, but they can't (and don't) precisely plan obsolescence. Car usage is a huge bell curve, with the average American driving ~15k miles/year, but large groups of people driving far less or far more. You couldn't possibly plan a car to fail at X years.
  - vortext 5y ago
    Car manufacturers usually set the warranty as 36 months/36,000 miles, for example. I'm not claiming that this is the case, but it'd be far easier to plan for X miles than years.
porlw 5y ago
It's not really a conspiracy, just the natural outcome of design optimization - any part that still works reliably at the end of the design lifespan is a candidate for cost cutting in the next iteration.
- smt88 5y ago
  > any part that still works reliably at the end of the design lifespan is a candidate for cost cutting in the next iteration This assumes a positive correlation between quality and price for parts. That isn't always the case. There's no reason a better part will be more expensive. And again, you're ignoring my primary argument: "lifespan" is not measurable in calendar years for electronics. Some people I know use their laptops 360 hrs/mo, and some people (like me) only use them when traveling, ~20 hrs/mo. After a calendar year of that, my laptop has only 240 hrs of life lost, while another laptop might have 4,000+ hrs of life lost. Please provide a source about how a hardware manufacturer (without the aid of software) could plan for a component to fail after either 240 hrs of usage or 4,000 hrs of usage.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
blihp 5y ago
It could be from the standpoint of thermal design and having a reasonable idea of how long components will last at the temperatures they will typically run at. Realistically, all you need is a capacitor or two to fail in the ballpark to achieve that end with most customers. Granted, one wouldn't be able to to say 'after exactly X years of expected usage it will fail' but more likely be able to say 'after no more than X years of expected usage most units should fail'. Some heavy users would have theirs fail early and the company might have to correct via a warranty claim but that could easily be more than made up for by the masses of other customers that arrive for replacements roughly on schedule. One doesn't even need to be that devious: just make 'consumables' like batteries and flash drives not easily replaceable nor easily sourced. Then just sit back and wait for them to start failing. As long as most manufacturers did this, you wouldn't have to worry about losing business to your competitors due to the practice. Pretty sure you can put a check mark next to most phone and laptop manufacturers on that front these days. This isn't unique to tech. A couple of real world examples of planned obsolescence via designed-in failure modes: incandescent lightbulb filaments were designed to fail ~1000 hours of use (even though they could easily have lasted far longer) and most clothes washers are designed to fail after ~10 years (IIRC, manufacturers design a seal in the tub to slowly disintegrate via your laundry detergent.)
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  > One doesn't even need to be that devious: just make 'consumables' like batteries and flash drives not easily replaceable nor easily sourced. Then just sit back and wait for them to start failing. As long as most manufacturers did this, you wouldn't have to worry about losing business to your competitors due to the practice. Based on the lack of profits from selling hardware in the first place, it makes more sense to me that these lower quality products are made with tradeoffs that result in a lower price for their target audience. The grand conspiracy idea, even if it were true, clearly did not pan out considering the loss in market value for basically every laptop brand other than Apple. > This isn't unique to tech. A couple of real world examples of planned obsolescence via designed-in failure modes: incandescent lightbulb filaments were designed to fail ~1000 hours of use (even though they could easily have lasted far longer) and most clothes washers are designed to fail after ~10 years (IIRC, manufacturers design a seal in the tub to slowly disintegrate via your laundry detergent.) Source? Unless there was only 1 or 2 washing machine manufacturers, it seems kind of trivial for a competing company to sell the tub with a better seal with a longer warranty. Once again, it is probably lower quality products aimed for people who want to pay lower prices. The speed queen or Miele washer with 5 year warranty is available for those who want to spend for it. Personally, I would rather buy a washing machine that costs half as much from Costco which comes with a 4 year warranty, and trash it when it breaks. If another manufacturer wanted to sell a washer with a 5 year warranty that cost the same, or a 10 year warranty that cost less than double, I would be game for that. The same situation for the light bulb. If there are competing manufacturers, people would rather pay more to not have to change light bulbs. Although, this depends on how easy it is to change the bulb. For a parking lot light needing a truck with a boom, I would spend double to get a quality bulb with a better warranty. For a house bulb I can change with a step ladder, I would rather pay $2 and gamble on it lasting longer than a $4 bulb, because even if it does fail after 1 year instead of 2 years, I am not going to spend my time warrantying a $4 item.
dogma1138 5y ago
It’s fairly easy you calculate the MTTF when you design anything. That said it’s probably not as malicious as people might think their goal isn’t to artificially lower the MTTF to just beyond the warranty period but rather that they don’t put any effort in extending the MTTF beyond that. And really it’s not that companies in the past did that much better, it’s just that in the past getting replacement parts was easier and you had fewer integrated components. Today everything is pretty much in a single package even basic electric circuits like a bridge rectifier. So things got smaller and are more likely to fail and they are harder to replace.
- smt88 5y ago
  > It’s fairly easy you calculate the MTTF when you design anything. Where did I disagree with this? What I'm saying is that MTTF is measured in usage time, whereas warranties are measured in calendar time.
  - dogma1138 5y ago
    Cycles under normal usage conditions aren’t that hard to calculate.
    - smt88 5y ago
      The range of "normal" is massive for things like cars and laptops. Again, provide a source please. Otherwise this is just unprovable speculation on your part for something that is theoretically difficult in the first place.
ksec 5y ago
>Unless you have some evidence that this is both possible and happening, it's just a conspiracy theory. we are close to 2022, this shouldn't really be a conspiracy theory anymore As some have mentioned Lightbulb is one of those prime examples. Where vast majority of LED lightbulb offer say 10 years of warranty, and yet because manufactures know most people dont bother sending them in, they cheap out on quality. Most LED ( if not all LED ) dont fail at all, it is the controller that fails, it is expensive and makes the difference. As long as it last 3-4 years, no one is going to complain. People will attribute this failure to bad luck / QA and just buy another one. As well as other mention of capacitor. One easiest way is to get have Power Unit fail after 3-5 years, which seems long enough for Consumer Electronics. Most dont go and figure out it was X failure and just buy a new one. Synology J series NAS power unit is an example of this. Consumer Electronics has been doing this in China for over a decade. There are reason why things are cheaper. And most internet user are still stuck with "Spec" comparison as if spec means everything. >And you're not even considering that the manufacturer has no idea when the hardware will be sold and therefore doesn't even know the date that the hardware "should" fail. Electronics get used when they are sold. MTBF since usage in many cases can be extremely predictable. There is another point to look at it, a lot of consumer actually prefer to have CE fail within reasonable time so they get an excuse to buy something new. The market for some people like me who thinks something should last at least 10 - 20 years is ridiculously tiny. Although the buy for life internet following is certainly helping a bit.
- smt88 5y ago
  > As well as other mention of capacitor. One easiest way is to get have Power Unit fail after 3-5 years, which seems long enough for Consumer Electronics. You're moving the goalposts here. You said that: > they can get some components to fail soon after warranty period expired with decent accuracy But then you specifically mention a window of 2 years. From a business perspective, 2 years is not "decent accuracy".
  - ksec 5y ago
    I am pointing at normal circumstance with example for Synology, which in itself is a decent brand. Power unit is also the easiest to game when the devices is constantly on. There are cases where the accuracy is in months. Digital TV STB sold that last only 9-12 months with a 6 months warranty. And all it takes is using low quality components and capacitor in a special batch. These dont ever reach the shore of US or EU unless you order them via Aliexpress. Consumer protection and expectation sets things apart. But doesn't mean vendors dont do it. I also gave the LED light bulb example where evidence are given with respect to warranty and lifetime usage. And no one implied that all of these product, every single batch of it will specifically failed at the same time. Which I think is what you are getting at. My original post only mention it is technically possible, and in many cases actively done so.

by smt88 5y ago

DeathArrow 5y ago

>Unless you have some evidence that this is both possible and happening, it's just a conspiracy theory. It's quite easy and I think most manufacturers of electronic devices, electric appliances and even cars are doing it. You just have to calculate what the average working time during the warranty period and adjust the quality of materials and the build quality so the MTBF is just a bit higher than that time.

smt88 5y ago
> even cars are doing it Cars are not doing it. Like I said: provide a source that isn't your own suspicions and anecdata. I am a shareholder of an auto insurance company, and our actuaries would know if cars were doing it. There is a lot of very high-quality data about vehicle reliability, and major trends are very visible. Car companies are often stupid and/or evil, but they can't (and don't) precisely plan obsolescence. Car usage is a huge bell curve, with the average American driving ~15k miles/year, but large groups of people driving far less or far more. You couldn't possibly plan a car to fail at X years.
- vortext 5y ago
  Car manufacturers usually set the warranty as 36 months/36,000 miles, for example. I'm not claiming that this is the case, but it'd be far easier to plan for X miles than years.

porlw 5y ago

It's not really a conspiracy, just the natural outcome of design optimization - any part that still works reliably at the end of the design lifespan is a candidate for cost cutting in the next iteration.

smt88 5y ago
> any part that still works reliably at the end of the design lifespan is a candidate for cost cutting in the next iteration This assumes a positive correlation between quality and price for parts. That isn't always the case. There's no reason a better part will be more expensive. And again, you're ignoring my primary argument: "lifespan" is not measurable in calendar years for electronics. Some people I know use their laptops 360 hrs/mo, and some people (like me) only use them when traveling, ~20 hrs/mo. After a calendar year of that, my laptop has only 240 hrs of life lost, while another laptop might have 4,000+ hrs of life lost. Please provide a source about how a hardware manufacturer (without the aid of software) could plan for a component to fail after either 240 hrs of usage or 4,000 hrs of usage.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

blihp 5y ago

It could be from the standpoint of thermal design and having a reasonable idea of how long components will last at the temperatures they will typically run at. Realistically, all you need is a capacitor or two to fail in the ballpark to achieve that end with most customers. Granted, one wouldn't be able to to say 'after exactly X years of expected usage it will fail' but more likely be able to say 'after no more than X years of expected usage most units should fail'. Some heavy users would have theirs fail early and the company might have to correct via a warranty claim but that could easily be more than made up for by the masses of other customers that arrive for replacements roughly on schedule. One doesn't even need to be that devious: just make 'consumables' like batteries and flash drives not easily replaceable nor easily sourced. Then just sit back and wait for them to start failing. As long as most manufacturers did this, you wouldn't have to worry about losing business to your competitors due to the practice. Pretty sure you can put a check mark next to most phone and laptop manufacturers on that front these days. This isn't unique to tech. A couple of real world examples of planned obsolescence via designed-in failure modes: incandescent lightbulb filaments were designed to fail ~1000 hours of use (even though they could easily have lasted far longer) and most clothes washers are designed to fail after ~10 years (IIRC, manufacturers design a seal in the tub to slowly disintegrate via your laundry detergent.)

lotsofpulp 5y ago
> One doesn't even need to be that devious: just make 'consumables' like batteries and flash drives not easily replaceable nor easily sourced. Then just sit back and wait for them to start failing. As long as most manufacturers did this, you wouldn't have to worry about losing business to your competitors due to the practice. Based on the lack of profits from selling hardware in the first place, it makes more sense to me that these lower quality products are made with tradeoffs that result in a lower price for their target audience. The grand conspiracy idea, even if it were true, clearly did not pan out considering the loss in market value for basically every laptop brand other than Apple. > This isn't unique to tech. A couple of real world examples of planned obsolescence via designed-in failure modes: incandescent lightbulb filaments were designed to fail ~1000 hours of use (even though they could easily have lasted far longer) and most clothes washers are designed to fail after ~10 years (IIRC, manufacturers design a seal in the tub to slowly disintegrate via your laundry detergent.) Source? Unless there was only 1 or 2 washing machine manufacturers, it seems kind of trivial for a competing company to sell the tub with a better seal with a longer warranty. Once again, it is probably lower quality products aimed for people who want to pay lower prices. The speed queen or Miele washer with 5 year warranty is available for those who want to spend for it. Personally, I would rather buy a washing machine that costs half as much from Costco which comes with a 4 year warranty, and trash it when it breaks. If another manufacturer wanted to sell a washer with a 5 year warranty that cost the same, or a 10 year warranty that cost less than double, I would be game for that. The same situation for the light bulb. If there are competing manufacturers, people would rather pay more to not have to change light bulbs. Although, this depends on how easy it is to change the bulb. For a parking lot light needing a truck with a boom, I would spend double to get a quality bulb with a better warranty. For a house bulb I can change with a step ladder, I would rather pay $2 and gamble on it lasting longer than a $4 bulb, because even if it does fail after 1 year instead of 2 years, I am not going to spend my time warrantying a $4 item.

dogma1138 5y ago

It’s fairly easy you calculate the MTTF when you design anything. That said it’s probably not as malicious as people might think their goal isn’t to artificially lower the MTTF to just beyond the warranty period but rather that they don’t put any effort in extending the MTTF beyond that. And really it’s not that companies in the past did that much better, it’s just that in the past getting replacement parts was easier and you had fewer integrated components. Today everything is pretty much in a single package even basic electric circuits like a bridge rectifier. So things got smaller and are more likely to fail and they are harder to replace.

smt88 5y ago
> It’s fairly easy you calculate the MTTF when you design anything. Where did I disagree with this? What I'm saying is that MTTF is measured in usage time, whereas warranties are measured in calendar time.
- dogma1138 5y ago
  Cycles under normal usage conditions aren’t that hard to calculate.
  - smt88 5y ago
    The range of "normal" is massive for things like cars and laptops. Again, provide a source please. Otherwise this is just unprovable speculation on your part for something that is theoretically difficult in the first place.

ksec 5y ago

>Unless you have some evidence that this is both possible and happening, it's just a conspiracy theory. we are close to 2022, this shouldn't really be a conspiracy theory anymore As some have mentioned Lightbulb is one of those prime examples. Where vast majority of LED lightbulb offer say 10 years of warranty, and yet because manufactures know most people dont bother sending them in, they cheap out on quality. Most LED ( if not all LED ) dont fail at all, it is the controller that fails, it is expensive and makes the difference. As long as it last 3-4 years, no one is going to complain. People will attribute this failure to bad luck / QA and just buy another one. As well as other mention of capacitor. One easiest way is to get have Power Unit fail after 3-5 years, which seems long enough for Consumer Electronics. Most dont go and figure out it was X failure and just buy a new one. Synology J series NAS power unit is an example of this. Consumer Electronics has been doing this in China for over a decade. There are reason why things are cheaper. And most internet user are still stuck with "Spec" comparison as if spec means everything. >And you're not even considering that the manufacturer has no idea when the hardware will be sold and therefore doesn't even know the date that the hardware "should" fail. Electronics get used when they are sold. MTBF since usage in many cases can be extremely predictable. There is another point to look at it, a lot of consumer actually prefer to have CE fail within reasonable time so they get an excuse to buy something new. The market for some people like me who thinks something should last at least 10 - 20 years is ridiculously tiny. Although the buy for life internet following is certainly helping a bit.

smt88 5y ago
> As well as other mention of capacitor. One easiest way is to get have Power Unit fail after 3-5 years, which seems long enough for Consumer Electronics. You're moving the goalposts here. You said that: > they can get some components to fail soon after warranty period expired with decent accuracy But then you specifically mention a window of 2 years. From a business perspective, 2 years is not "decent accuracy".
- ksec 5y ago
  I am pointing at normal circumstance with example for Synology, which in itself is a decent brand. Power unit is also the easiest to game when the devices is constantly on. There are cases where the accuracy is in months. Digital TV STB sold that last only 9-12 months with a 6 months warranty. And all it takes is using low quality components and capacitor in a special batch. These dont ever reach the shore of US or EU unless you order them via Aliexpress. Consumer protection and expectation sets things apart. But doesn't mean vendors dont do it. I also gave the LED light bulb example where evidence are given with respect to warranty and lifetime usage. And no one implied that all of these product, every single batch of it will specifically failed at the same time. Which I think is what you are getting at. My original post only mention it is technically possible, and in many cases actively done so.