New York decides not to tinker with vendor lock-down for now Another US state has missed a legislative deadline to make third-party tech product repair legal. New York state was considering a law requiring companies to publish things like repair manuals, but it didn't make it to a vote in the current legislative session. The bill was sponsored by Republican Phil Boyle, and was similar …
aggressive stance taken by the auto industry,
While it may be aggressive, it is subject to a set of laws and regulations which result in spare parts and (in the USA) alternative/replacement OEM parts being available for nearly anything. Cars are repairable objects. I would not say the same about 95% of the consumer tat coming in a container from China. It is made deliberately difficult if not impossible to repair.
What exactly in a cell phone can or should be repairable? Should the flash be socketed so you can replace it if it goes bad - and you're just supposed to not care how that will cause performance and reliability to suffer? Should you be able to replace a fingerprint sensor, even if making that possible compromises the security of the device?
Should a $50 wireless router use all socketed / replaceable chips, even if that turns it into a $100 wireless router?
How is an average person supposed to figure out what part has gone bad in his electronics? Take it to Best Buy? Even if the Geek Squad can diagnose the problem, if it costs more to fix than the device was worth in the first place, I fail to see how that's a win.
Cars are repairable because they cost a LOT of money, especially relative to most of the common repairs. While it might be feasible to repair a $2500 65" 4K TV, what about a $200 37" HDTV? If it costs $50 just to get a diagnosis, and $50 for the part, and $50 to replace the part and test to verify it was actually fixed, it is a pretty hollow "victory". The reason you can't repair most electronics isn't a conspiracy, it is because it isn't economically viable when you consider the repair vs replacement cost, and the speed at which technology is changing.
The stumbling block is going to be parts. Since nobody is going to require that manufacturers don't use custom parts the best you can hope for is the ability to buy their parts at a reasonable cost for as long as they choose to make parts to themselves (which may not be as long as the warranty period; rather than keep the spares inventory or make a certain part practical to replace they can choose to replace the whole device. That's a cost/vendor decision for them that won't of course take any account of your third-party repair needs)
It's not the average person who does the repair, it's engineers like Lois Rossman (look him up on YouTube) and many other independents who do the repairs. And they can be cheaper and better than the big companies. Because they care about their customers. So it can be economically viable to repair in many cases.
"What exactly in a cell phone can or should be repairable"
The legislation was about providing information and spare parts.
I some lab equipment which developed a fault causing it to read almost exactly twice what it should.
I could probably locate the cause of the fault to within 3 or 4 components just by looking at a circuit diagram. Circuit diagrams are not available which means I would likely spend hours reverse engineering and investigating the fault. With circuit diagrams the repair cost would probably be £20 or about 10% of its cost, without the unit is just scrap.
That is why we should have 5 year warranties on electronics. Then they would have to consider the repair cost or replacement cost when designing it and one way or another you would see up front what the true cost of a gadget is likely to be..
But lots of the stuff I've found dumped on the street needed only trivial work to be restored.
Most recently a brand new IKEA stand lamp, most components still in wrappers. The fuse in the plug had failed !
A few years ago a rash of flat screen monitors with a couple of years' use and blown capacitors in the PSU -- simple to diagnose and pennies to cure by anyone with a soldering iron.
Not sure why the EU permit the irresponsibility of phones with fixed batteries and the bizarrely wide range of batteries used in other phones -- and in cameras and power tools. If (for example) watch and radio makers can design around a limited range of batteries, what's the issue ?
After legislation to standardise connectors some phones now come without a charger and people are forced to recycle one of the many old ones we all have lying in a drawer somewhere..
Not sure why the EU permit the irresponsibility of phones with fixed batteries and the bizarrely wide range of batteries used in other phones -- and in cameras and power tools. If (for example) watch and radio makers can design around a limited range of batteries, what's the issue ?
After legislation to standardise connectors some phones now come without a charger and people are forced to recycle one of the many old ones we all have lying in a drawer somewhere..
I don't understand why the electronics industry *hasn't* standardized on a set of power adapters by now. Just how much trouble must it be to engineer, contract-out and stock all those hundreds (or even thousands) of variations of a simple power adapter; would make more sense to decide on 4 or so standard voltages, (3v, 9v 16v, 24v, or whatever steps they feel appropriate), decide on a handful of power tips (to allow for the size of the device being powered), and perhaps even a colour coding system for the cords. Then they could buy stock parts which should be way cheaper because they would be massively produced. It's not like selling spare proprietary adapters is going to boost their bottom line much (if at all, given the above-mentioned costs of stocking, etc).
And once that specification was established, you'd see the UPS makers start making units with built-in outputs for the various voltages to outright bypass having an adapter that had to take it's own plug socket. Or perhaps even wall-socket replacements with the various ports on them (I am picturing an "adapter-socket" cord end defined by the voltage/amperage spec).
The automakers are not the only ones who want to lock up the spare parts market.
Certain high end watch manufacturers1 also have taken steps to dry up the spare parts market; and force consumers to return a watch for "factory service".
That being said, there are a lot of places that perform watch repair, that are barely qualified to do much more than replace the battery, crown and crystal (watch glass). Getting a mechanical movement running is a skill that is slowly being lost as the 'old timers' die.
1 I am referring to those manufacturers of mechanical movements here, not the digitally made tat.
Some of us care about this, some of us don't (but should). So to make it easier for us capable creatures to know if our shiny new thing is disposable or repairable, perhaps a sticker on the package? We can even use the standard text that's usually BURIED in the instructions and unavailable until you've already purchased the widget.
WARNING: This product has no user-replaceable or serviceable parts. When it fails for any reason including end-of-life battery failure, you must return it at your expense for factory service. Or preferably buy a new one, MUHAHAHAAA!
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