
We Need the Right to Repair Our Gadgets - sinak
http://www.wsj.com/articles/we-need-the-right-to-repair-our-gadgets-1441737868
======
chdir
A 3rd world country perspective : I've seen an increasing trend of appliances
at home that are intentionally designed to make repair difficult. The
manufacturer/dealer nexus forces you to depend on paid but poorly trained
mechanics that quote ridiculous prices for repairing (essentially using re-
furbished parts).

Another case, I've got a water purifier at home that uses a series of filters
(sediment, reverse-osmosis, UV radiation, carbon etc.). Due to the quality of
water supply, the sediment filter requires manual cleaning every month or two,
else everything down the line stands a chance of getting damaged. These
filters aren't cheap ($100 every 2 years in a 3rd world country). I find it
annoying that the design of these filters is such that it is cumbersome to
remove that simple sediment filter. Almost everyone I know ends up paying the
service provider for annual maintenance. In reality, a simple design change
can make the maintenance super easy.

It's the same story with modern cars, gadgets, washing machines, everything.
The money to be made from repair is a whole industry. On the brighter side,
the industry is begging to be disrupted.

P.S. I've tried repairing my laptop for broken hinges, displays, heat sink
etc. by watching youtube videos & ordering cheap parts from ebay. It's an
immensely satisfying feeling when the gadget starts working again. You not
only save money & environment, you can justify your engineering degree too :-)

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
Why not insert another sediment filter stage in front that uses easily
serviceable cartridges? Then leave the problematic one empty or in place with
longer service intervals. Bonus points if you can find a suitable filter media
and rebuild your own cartridges.

~~~
chdir
That's exactly what I did last year :-) A stand alone sediment filter where I
turn two valves to reverse the flow of water. It's not very aesthetic and it
takes more space but it does make my life easy.

Regarding your 2nd point, most of the cartridges use a "Welded Housing" and
carry the "Dow Filmtec" brand. However there are sellers on ebay that supply
housing that can be opened and you can fill your own filter material. I'm a
little skeptical on taking this route without an understanding or testing
ability of what effect it would have on drinking water. I wonder if there's an
off-the-shelf complete water test kit or a lab that would do that for me.

~~~
studentrob
Cool! Would you be willing to share photos or details of your setup? Or point
me to a similar one?

I live in Taiwan and currently get drinking water from fill-up stations
outside due to heavy minerals in the groundwater here. It's not too
inconvenient to do it once a week or so, and the water stations are
ubiquitous, but I miss having drinking water from the tap.

I've visited water filter shops 2-3 times with the intent of buying a
filtration system but am put off by the cost of replacement filters which I
know I will have to buy frequently. I'm being cheap but the engineer in me
keeps saying there's a better way.

Also, I was not able to figure out how I can test the water quality without
sending it to a lab in the US. Do you test your own water?

~~~
chdir
The extra only saves the trouble of cleaning the main filter too frequently.
The cost of filters, especially the RO membrane (the most expensive component)
that removes dissolved impurities would still be there. The advantage of my
setup would be to prevent RO membrane from getting clogged too early by
sediments.

The additional filter would look something like this [1]. It's an inline
sediment filter with a separate casing. For the rest of the unit, you might
still be able to buy a complete kit off ebay e.g. [2] & assemble it yourself
[3].

[1]
[http://www.osmiowater.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache/1/im...](http://www.osmiowater.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/i/n/inline_water_filter_15mm_push_fitting_ezfitpro.jpg)

[2] [http://www.ebay.com/itm/RO-Zoi-Xi-Pure-Filter-Kit-incl-UV-
Bu...](http://www.ebay.com/itm/RO-Zoi-Xi-Pure-Filter-Kit-incl-UV-
Bulb-/111509569265?hash=item19f67cfef1)

[3]
[http://www.watergeneral.com/support/pdf/RD102.pdf](http://www.watergeneral.com/support/pdf/RD102.pdf)

------
Fradow
The title irks me a little: you already have the right to repair, provided you
have enough knowledge. What the author demands is documentation.

I would love more documentation, like anyone, but you don't really need any
documentation to replace a broken capacitor (a very common failure for most
screens, I guess): you need to know how to spot a broken capacitor, find a
replacement, and basic soldering skills. There are tons of videos that teach
that, but few people really want to research that (generally because they are
afraid of electronics, or think they are not smart enough).

On the other end, some issues can't be fixed at all, because repairing is so
close to the full price of the device. Some examples that happened to me:
inflating smartphone battery that damages the motherboard, damaged screen due
to shock (wide vertical band of dead pixels).

Between that, there are probably a lot of small problems that are specific to
a particular model. It would be great that those ones are documented, indeed.

Some other basic things, like replacing a smartphone/laptop battery and
screens would be very welcome on the manufacturer website, but like
capacitors, you should be able to find tutorials for a lot of devices.

The truth is, to repair things, you need mostly knowledge to identify problems
and labor time to fix things. Both of which is what makes it expensive.

~~~
belorn
Limited access to parts is mostly about patents so even if you had all the
knowledge in the world you are prevent by the state to create what is needed
to do the repairs. After the patent is expired we often find that the social
contract between inventor and state is violated, and society do not in fact
gain the necessary information to replicate the invention by reading the
patent. There has been some political discussion to force car manufacturers to
provide equal access to parts in order to protect the free market for car
repairs and maintenance.

Then we have digital locks (DRM) which the article brings up which
artificially prevents customers from repairing. You can have all the knowledge
in the world and still not be able to fix a simple issue since the digital
signature of the part won't be accepted by the device. There has been
political discussion around the world to forbid this kind of technical
restrictions in cars or at least force retailers to inform the customer about
the limitations.

Both issues impacts customer rights and is entirely political in nature. The
problem of having enough knowledge, access to documentation, or skill to
perform repairs is all secondary problems once the political _right to repair_
is granted.

~~~
Fradow
Thanks, I didn't really consider this part of the problem. I thought, for
"gadgets" (pc, smartphones and small electronics), DRM was a limited problem
(I heard about coffee machines and cat litterbox DRM, and that's it). But it
may well becomes a problem, if manufacturers find that people repairing
gadgets reduce their revenue, which pre-suppose a non-negligible part of
potential consumers are motivated to repair instead of buying new (I am not
sure it's really a lot right now).

For limited access to parts, it depends what "parts" we are talking about. If
it is an electronic part (capacitor, microcontroller etc...), most gadgets use
off-the-shelf components, that are easy to find, provided you know where to
search. If it is a black-box with very specific requirements (screen, battery,
whole PCB ..), access to parts may indeed be a problem.

While I like the political right to repair, we have to be careful about what
this mean. How does it affect small companies, that may not have the time to
produce documentation, or very integrated products that can't really be
repaired (which, if there is an exception, becomes a loophole big companies
will use, of course).

~~~
Retric
Printers also use DRM resulting in ridiculous ink costs or people that treat
printers as disposable items. Even some water filtration systems have started
to use DRM.

~~~
Silhouette
I think this is a slightly different, though related, point. Built-in
artificial obsolescence, where an otherwise perfectly usable device is
deliberately crippled at some point by some sort of unnecessary software or
hardware barrier, is never in the customer's interests.

This one has an easy solution, though: manufacturers and vendors should be
compelled to prominently disclose exactly what the nature of any such
behaviour will be before the sale is finalised, so customers can vote with
their wallets and there is awareness in the market if anyone wants to compete
on the basis that they have no (or at least less customer-hostile) artificial
limitations. Fail to do so and be on the hook for whatever the normal
compensation would be for a device breaking at the time the limitation kicks
in, up to and including a partial or full refund of the purchase price or even
paying additional compensation for any consequential losses.

~~~
emp_zealoth
All you need to do is require 5 years of warranty that is not crippled beyond
reason. It would fix most of the problems within a year.

Anything non-consumable broke? Fix it.

It is getting unbearable: washing mashines, fridges, phones, laptops dying
within few years.

~~~
Silhouette
Five years is still an arbitrary interval though, so I'm not sure that really
does fix most of the problems.

For some devices, five years might be well into the range where a significant
proportion of devices would be expected to fail even without artificial
breakage. For example, it might be unreasonable to expect a minimum 5 year
warranty on a typical consumer hard drive being hulked around in a laptop.
It's possible to build more reliable drives with better components and more
robust cases with improved physical protection for those who need better
resilience, but it makes the products more expensive, and the market has
already provided for this with a range of different product types at different
price points.

On the other hand, I have plenty of white goods in the kitchen of my home that
have been working just fine for a decade and there's no reason they shouldn't
be. Fixing a 5 year warranty period regardless of context might have been an
open invitation to the manufacturer of my fridge to build in something that
would break after 61 months (which seems a lot closer to what you seem to get
with more modern kitchen white goods today).

I still think full disclosure is probably the best way to fight this trend.
You can artificially cripple your device if you want, but like the warnings on
cigarette packets, you have to use at least 30% of the space on your packaging
prominently warning users that your product is deliberately broken and
explaining exactly how so they can make an informed decision about whether
they still want to buy it. I'm going to guess a lot fewer manufacturers would
be so keen on nerfing their products if they also had to come clean about it
to their prospective customers _before_ they got their money.

------
mschuster91
Like with automobiles, where the law mandates fair availability of both
manuals and spare parts, the electronics industry should be regulated.

I'd like to see:

1) in case there is any (F)OSS component in the firmware, the device
manufacturer or distributor must provide the source of all (F)OSS components
and a working build environment, for every firmware version available, as well
as the neccessary tools/keys to upload said firmware to the device.

2) Disassembly and reassembly instruction manuals, as well as spare parts,
should be provided nondiscriminately to both the manufacturer and any
interested party. In case the device is "repaired" by swapping the defective
unit with a working one, the manufacturer is exempt.

3) In case proprietary screws, glues etc. are used, the manufacturer must
provide the same tools as used by official service at fair conditions.

4) All requirements above must be kept valid over the expected life time of
the device, plus two years.

In case a manufacturer or distributor fails to adhere to these rules, the
regulatory body must have the power to ban the product from sale until
manufacturer or distributor comply.

~~~
Silhouette
The trouble is, while it's easy to write that kind of wish list, it may simply
not be commercially realistic to grant all your wishes. Imposing burdens on
producing detailed technical documentation usable by anyone without the
manufacturer's own in-house training could be a huge cost, for example, and
totally blocking sales because someone objected to an unintentional omission
in such documentation would be wildly disproportionate. That's before you even
get to issues of trade secrets and the like.

What you _can_ reasonably legislate/regulate is that manufacturers/suppliers
can't _actively impair_ third parties who want to provide alternative services
and are able to do so to a sensible standard. Just blocking the kinds of legal
shenanigans that these giants use to tie up small/local potential competitors
would be a good start.

------
millzlane
If it can happen for cars it could happen for electronics.
[http://www.autonews.com/article/20140125/RETAIL05/301279936/...](http://www.autonews.com/article/20140125/RETAIL05/301279936/automakers-
agree-to-right-to-repair-deal)

I applaud dell for making their repair manuals available online. All companies
should be following in their footsteps. Apple give all sorts of information to
techs but not to consumers. No repair manuals and Even the support tools are
different.

~~~
kagamine
That's a slightly differnet scenario, as the disgnostics don't actaully "fix"
anything, although you can use disgnostics software to adjust settings like
ride height, injector settings etc. There really was no extra work involved by
the manufacturers in the link you provided, they had all the information well
documented and just refused to publish it.

There is a downside to diagnostics tools being freely available, you can clear
any fault codes before you sell the car to an unsuspecting buyer, this will
prevent the dash warning lights appearing until the sensor registers the fault
again, which could be under particular driving conditions. Of course, this is
little different from the normal 'buying a used car' pitfalls.

ON the other hand, I saved literally thousands of dollars by diagnosing my
air-suspension fault myself, and then carrying out the work required based on
that fault code. Pretty sure the dealership don't want me doing that, but then
maybe they shouldn't charge a high hourly rate for a 5-10 minute process of
attaching a cable and looking at the screen?

~~~
rjsw
If you had the full documentation on all the systems on a car you could also
reset the odometer before selling it to someone else, or turn off the alarm
system and unlock the doors.

Before the recent examples of using internet connected entertainment systems
to hack cars there was a case where someone found that there was a vehicle bus
connector in the wheel arch of certain vehicles, plug into it and you could do
anything to the car from outside.

~~~
JupiterMoon
These would not be problems if the car software/hardware is properly
constructed. The issues with the odometer, alarm and doors could be solved by
signing the relevant binaries/data with a digital key. The issue with the bus
connector is close to negligence in my non-professional opinion (the fuel cap
is locked on my car as is the switch to release the bonnet).

The security by obscurity argument is pretty dead at this time -- it doesn't
magically get resurrected just because the object we are securing is a car.

~~~
Dylan16807
Signing? Or just don't let it be changed. Odometers don't need updates.

~~~
rjsw
They do need updates if you need to replace the ECU where the odometer reading
is stored.

~~~
Dylan16807
Weren't we talking about diagnostic tools and security as it relates to
tampering?

 _Replacing the entire odometer_ is a different issue entirely.

And how does support for replacing a circuit board imply that the circuit
board needs to support software updates? I don't understand what you're saying
at all.

~~~
rjsw
A car is basically a LAN of fairly generic microcontrollers, they are fitted
to the car then programmed in place to match their required function, the
official odometer value will be stored in one of these microcontrollers picked
at random for that particular car. The main function of the one that gets
chosen could be anything, it could control seat position or electric windows
for example. If this controller needs to be replaced then the new one will
need to be programmed with the correct software then the old odometer value
stored into it.

The diagnostic tools provided to official dealerships handle reading fault
codes and reprogramming the microcontrollers fitted to the car. I think that
OBD-II is about as good a compromise as you are going to get to allow
aftermarket diagnostics.

In hindsight, it could have been better to have treated the car as a WAN, with
every controller firewalled off from each other, particularly as the
manufacturers have been talking for years about allowing access to the vehicle
bus from outside so that cars can be linked together into a train and all
changing speed at the same time. I don't think you would choose to do this
with CAN though and I don't know of any proposals for newer network standards
though it is a few years since I was a member of any of the ISO committees
that worked on this.

------
sageikosa
22 years ago: new toaster oven as wedding gift. 3 months later: oven died; I
planned on fixing it as I assumed it was just a simple component failure. In
the meantime, we pulled out an old unopened (ergo, in the box-new) toaster my
wife had inherited from her grandparents. 22 years later the chrome encased,
thick woven cabled toaster needs an occasional emptying out, but otherwise
goes on and on. We'll probably pass it on to one of our kids one day.

~~~
arbitrage
toaster oven != toaster

~~~
DiabloD3
toaster oven also != oven. That whole story was very confusing.

~~~
at-fates-hands
The point of the story is back in the day, things were built to last a
lifetime. These days, EVERYTHING you buy is disposable and not expected to
last very long.

~~~
jimmaswell
I've read that this is more due to increased complexity and smaller parts.
Maybe it's both that as well as companies wanting to make money off
repairs/replacements as implied.

~~~
sageikosa
I am not sure that toasting technology has gotten orders of magnitude
"better". Energy in toast out.

I also don't think it was necessarily a conscious decision to make disposable
toasters (or cell-phones or effectively computers), just that a market segment
opened up and overtook others. We might blame consumers, but we can only blame
them in aggregate for incenting a trend to continue by buying into it.

------
ArtDev
Self-repair Manifesto: [http://blogs-
images.forbes.com/jerrymichalski/files/2012/12/...](http://blogs-
images.forbes.com/jerrymichalski/files/2012/12/Self-Repair-Manifesto.png)

I don't buy Apple products anyhow.

~~~
lsc
> I don't buy Apple products anyhow.

I bought my first apple product six months ago. An iphone 5 32gb model. It had
been roughly used, and I got a discount.

I bought this, in part, because I can get cheap parts for an older iphone;
this is much less true of any other model of older phone.

Also, I can get updated software for an older iphone... this is also not true
of older android phones (as far as I can tell, CyanogenMod drops support just
as quickly as the original manufacturers. Yes, I could figure out how to port
the security updates to the device-specific package, but I could also write my
own phone OS, given enough time and effort. There's no reasonable/practical
way to get up to date software for an old android phone.)

A new apple phone isn't as better than a new android as people say... and god
damn, itunes is a piece of shit when it comes to managing podcasts. ios might
even be worse (no sd card, etc..) But an iphone that is a couple years old and
has sustained some damage is way better than an android of a similar vintage,
simply because of the software and hardware support.

Note, it is pretty unlikely that I would buy an apple workstation, for all the
reasons discussed in this article, and because I find their keyboard
unpleasant.... but the point remains that in practical terms, it's way easier
to repair an old Iphone than an old android phone, simply because of the wide
availability of parts.

(that said, the fork of the fork of the fork of the nokia linux that came with
my nokia n900 many years ago is still going, which is really kind of amazing.
But the n900 is pretty primitive at this point.)

~~~
robin_reala
Regarding your last point, sounds like you want
[http://neo900.org/](http://neo900.org/)

~~~
lsc
If I had more spare time, perhaps. I've got some n900 parts laying about that
could be used, if I could find them. I've already figured out how to use
swype, so while I'm not yet as proficient as a teenager, I can text on a
capacitive screen better than on the mediocre hardware keyboard the n900 came
with at this point.

Even so, spare parts for the iphone are gonna be way more available than spare
parts for the n900.

but I am time-poor right now. Perhaps to the point where if my iphone broke
I'd give it away to someone with more time to fix such things and buy another.

------
kagamine
Our oven broke due to a fault in a circuit board, also a common and well
documented fault for the model, and the replacement, while available, was
2/3rds the cost of the oven. New oven, different manufacturer.

~~~
teh_klev
You'll probably find that it's the same manufacturer, same parts, just a
different retail brand and a slightly different case/chassis design.

I just had my hob replaced, turns out the new hob, branded as Neff is exactly
the same hob branded by about 10 other electric hob makers you see in your
local white goods outlet. All they did was change the knobs.

It's the same with bog standard fridges/freezers. I used to service computer
equipment for a company that manufactured floor standing fridges/freezer
combos. I was told by staff there that they manufactured them for nearly every
conceivable well known brand in the UK - Hotpoint, Electrolux, Indesit. All
that really changed between brand were the plastic moulded insides that held
the shelves, door handles, and possibly the door facings. The actual
refrigeration/control electronics meat and potatoes, chassis, power supply
were pretty much the same across all the brands.

~~~
stevehawk
This.

My GE fridge was all Samsung parts.

Which were all made by someone else.

~~~
msandford
My "GE" fridge was all "Samsung" parts.

------
kmfrk
My MacBook Air 2012 shuts down at ~50% battery, and my iPhone 5S at 15%.

Meanwhile, my ancient Thinkpad T500 I owned before the MBA is alive and
kicking, and when its battery gave out after three years, I could just order
another battery to replace it with. On my MBA, everything is glued together,
so I have to pay a couple of hundreds for a 1st og 3rd party shop to replace
it instead - with no guarantee what the end result will be.

The future really sucks this way, especially since it’s not a secret that
batteries do worse over time - it’s in the friggin’ manuals for Apple’s
devices.

Apple’s products are a lot more affordable than they used to, when we
criticized them for being for the rich, but now they seem to expect us to
replace our products far more frequently than we used to.

—

On a lighter note, the remote for my Pioneer remote broke, and I literally
can’t adjust some of my speaker settings without it, and Pioneer have taken
weeks to respond to my query. It’d be ridiculous if I had to get a new sound
system, and surely losing a remote isn’t some obscure scenario to these
people.

~~~
kaolinite
You can take it into an Apple Store and they will replace the battery and
recycle the old one. Cost varies by device but I suspect it'll cost $200 or
so. Far less than replacing the device.

This isn't a conspiracy. If you want a thin (and light) device, you have to
make compromises. A user replaceable battery on a MacBook will add a slight
amount of thickness and weight (same with soldered vs in soldered components).
I totally understand if you're not a fan of it, but in that case you probably
ought to buy a ThinkPad instead.

~~~
skrause
> Cost varies by device but I suspect it'll cost $200 or so. Far less than
> replacing the device.

It's $129 (excluding taxes):
[https://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=servicefaq&geo=Unite...](https://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=servicefaq&geo=United_States&product=Macnotebooks)

~~~
joshvm
Which isn't that bad, that's the same price as buying a replacement battery
for my 2008 MB 5,1. I think I paid around £80 for the last one. At least
you're not being charged any extra for servicing.

------
wtbob
I completely agree that it should be possible to repair things, but this:

> Mr. Wiens is also part of a coalition pushing legislation in Minnesota,
> Massachusetts and New York that would require “digital electronic product”
> makers to provide owners and independent repair businesses with service
> information, security updates and replacement parts. This would, he says,
> increase choices and lower prices.

…is asininely stupid. In what possible world would the cost of writing,
illustrating and editing service information and maintaining security updates
_not_ increase costs, which will end up being passed on to customers as part
of the cost of doing business?

I'd _love_ for equipment to be supported, but I'm not so daft as to think that
means it'll be cheaper.

Heck, even mandating repairability can have costs: for one thing, it would
have prevented the existence of smartphones.

~~~
jellicle
Any electronics product from a major manufacturer will have provisions made
for repairs. Some repair/refurbishing center will have bid for the repair
contract, promising to repair FooPhones at $23/unit or whatever. They will get
documentation, parts from the manufacturer, and train a bunch of people in
FooPhone repair. Then when Timmy drops his brand new FooPhone, the
manufacturer can tell him that for just $79.99, he'll get a factory
refurbished one in 2-3 weeks.

Those supposed costs you talk about were already incurred. It's just a
requirement that the manufacturer not just limit repairs to "factory
authorized" repair centers. There's a very similar debate going on about
repairability of automobiles.

------
begriffs
Wendell Berry's criteria for technical progress:

1\. The new tool should be cheaper than the one it replaces. 2\. It should be
at least as small in scale as the one it replaces. 3\. It should do work that
is clearly and demonstrably better than the one it replaces. 4\. It should use
less energy than the one it replaces. 5\. If possible, it should use some form
of solar energy, such as that of the body. 6\. It should be repairable by a
person of ordinary intelligence, provided that he or she has the necessary
tools. 7\. It should be purchasable and repairable as near to home as
possible. 8\. It should come from a small, privately-owned shop or store that
will take it back for maintenance and repair. 9\. It should not replace or
disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and
community relationships.

------
gurkendoktor
Hardware may become harder and harder to fix. But what about software? If
Apple can't be bothered to release security fixes for the iPhone 4, should
they be forced to let us flash our own OS on these devices? I'd love to see
this happen, but I don't know how realistic it is (unwieldy binary driver
blobs come to mind).

------
at-fates-hands
You can also draw an analogy with cars. When I was in college, I drove several
1970's Chevy Trucks. All big block 350 engines. It broke down several times
and all I had to do was to visit the local junkyard, go get a part from a
junker truck for under $50, and within a few hours, I was able to fix my
truck. These days, no way you could that with a truck bought as far back as
1995.

This is the same issue with smartphones. Back in the day, it was easy to get
your phone fixed. I ran both a Verizon and a Nextel service shop. The carriers
were more than happy to provide training and access to tools and parts. For a
mom and pop shop it took several hundred dollars for tools and a good starting
point with parts (antennas, replacement screens, keyboards, flips, and main
boards). Then you had a list of what they charged for each repair. Parts and
costs and a set price for repairs.

The carriers really don't see this as a revenue driver anymore and dropped
their service centers. Now you see other "unathorized" shops springing up that
handle repairs these days. the problem is the cost of the parts. A display
assembly for an LG2 is somewhere in the neighborhood of $75.00. Add in labor
and now you're around $125-$150 to get your screen fixed. Not bad, but most
people balk at those prices and simply opt to trash their phone and find
something on craigslist or ebay.

Until the carriers get back involved, it's an expensive proposition (on both
sides of the equation) to do phone repair.

~~~
ericabiz
Counter-point: I co-own a repair shop and we do a ton of phone repairs,
including the LG G2. Wholesale cost on the screen for a G2 is $53 right now
(not $75), so we do the repair for ~$110. Given the small number of G2's still
on the market, we do a fair amount of repairs on them.

Sometimes people will opt to replace them, especially since the G4 is out now
and the G2 is 2 generations behind. But most people don't have an upgrade
available right now, can't afford to live without a phone, and -- perhaps most
importantly -- really like the phone they have, and the data that's stored on
it.

People also hate buying on craigslist or eBay because of shoddy quality and
scammers -- we've seen a ton of people get scammed with iPhones that are
iCloud locked that people bought on craigslist not understanding that you
can't remove an iCloud lock from a phone and it's only good for parts.

This has been my experience; we do over 100 phone repairs a week on average
from a single store.

------
acomjean
Olympus cameras are another nightmare to repair. The button broke, but they 1)
won't sell the parts to the repair store, 2) want it shipped to the factory
and $200 to repair. A button that shouldn't have broken in the first place
(I've take thousands and thousands of pictures and never had one fail before.

Its micro four-thirds so my next camera will be panasonic.

~~~
pizza234
I had the opposite experience, to be fair. The shutter button broke (I think
the spring), and they repaired it, for free.

~~~
acomjean
You figure they would just do that for the good will it engenders...

------
bobbles
>Samsung wants people to go to “qualified” technicians. In a statement, a
spokesman said, “The technology found in TVs today is more sophisticated than
ever before and often requires a level of expertise and technical proficiency
to repair most of these high-quality products.”

>I’ve heard this argument echoed elsewhere in the electronics industry. But
the view is not unanimous: Dell, for one, makes repair guides and parts widely
available on its site. So do H-P and Lenovo. Are we to believe that repairing
a TV is so much more complicated than poking at a laptop?

Opening up a laptop and replacing a part available from the Dell online store
is an entirely different scenario to fixing a burnt out TV...

Would the author be arguing the same thing if he'd tried to fix something
himself and been zapped in the process?

~~~
mahyarm
Do LCDs have the high voltage death risk that CRT TVs had?

~~~
callesgg
It has mains power in it. 230v in my country which is fairly lethal.

But as i see it we already have the right to fix or own stuff. I mean the
warranty will be voided... which i my mind seams fair.

~~~
kagamine
The author does mention unplugging it before starting a repair. I think the
mains voltage isn't the issue unless you are feeling really down about the
device breaking, so down in fact that you would leave it plugged in before
commencing work. Or do I not understand some fundamental of electronics repair
that has high voltage on a unplugged device? (genuine question, not an
electronics repair shop employee)

~~~
rahimnathwani
You could also accidentally connect a live wire to the metal housing, causing
the entire outside of the device to become live when you plug it in after the
repair.

~~~
PeterisP
That should not be an option - the device should (and IIRC is required to) be
designed with a grounded housing, so if you do actually accidentally connect a
live wire, then it would just blow a fuse by that short circuit.

~~~
rahimnathwani
True. So I'd have to make at least two mistakes: let a live wire make contact
with the case, and disconnect the ground connection to the case.

------
ddingus
I had a coffee spill on my MacBook Pro. It's $2K machine, and of course, Apple
suggested I get a new one! Apple also said, I need to get a different one,
because mine is old. Not that old, but just old enough that I should get a new
one. Slick, those guys. Real slick. :)

Turns out, I can order keyboard and top case for $150 from Hong Kong.

Got it, and moved all the parts from the old machine to the new one. And it
took a long day. Mine is a 2012 model, and it's reasonable to perform many
repairs on it, though I did need to source a few odd screwdrivers. Harbor
Freight had them in one of those kits with 20 some odd bits.

Honestly, I really like this machine. I could get a new one, but I don't like
the new ones as much as I like this one. The repair day was totally worth it.

Growing up, I didn't have a lot. Spend to solve a problem generally was not a
viable option. Fix to solve was, and I did a lot of fixing, scrounging,
combining, etc... growing up, and I'm really noticing how hostile some
products are turning out to be.

Doesn't have to go this way. I know a lot of people are making a lot of money,
but that's artificial value.

I hate artificial value.

If people are going to make lots of money, let them! Heck, any of us here
would gladly join them, or do our own thing to get our share too. The more the
merrier.

But let's make damn sure that money is made on real value, not artificial
value, or we all will be losing out.

------
chrisBob
The "right to repair" really only means that the government shouldn't be
allowed to create laws stopping you from making these repairs. You may not
technically have that, but I am also not aware of any laws that prevent you
from fixing things you own.

As for the actual repairability, this is something that the consumer actually
gets to help decide! Unfortunately checking on the repair documentation before
purchase is way way down the list. If it is something expensive and it is
important to you then by all means, do the research.

I am strongly against mandating that a manufacturer provides you any
information or parts that they don't want to. Let the market decide and vote
with your own dollars.

~~~
Silhouette
_...I am also not aware of any laws that prevent you from fixing things you
own._

There are numerous examples where intellectual property laws have been abused
for this purpose.

Token encryption on most physical media means that building anything that can
play that media without the appropriate licensing arrangements is illegal in
many places, for example, and suitable terms may or may not be offered by the
IP rightsholders. That led to dumb things like not being able to buy a
DVD/Blu-ray player that would skip the pointless junk at the start and just
play the movie, because no-one was legally allowed to make such a machine and
compete for business with the ones everyone hates.

It also meant that when my PVR failed, the manufacturer wanted the whole box
back and couldn't let me swap out the (apparently fine) hard drive with all
the programmes I'd recorded (that data being the _entire point of the device_
) because, they claimed, of some terms in their own agreement that let them
manufacturer a device that could play OTA HD content.

Onboard electronic and diagnostic systems in cars is another field where
manufacturers are very cosy with their franchised dealerships in a lot of
countries and plenty of shady things happen to prevent otherwise perfectly
competent local garages from competing for servicing and literal repair
business.

Exactly none of these things are in the customer's interests, and exactly none
of them have anything to do with whether a third party has the technical
capabilities to produce or repair the equipment as required. It's just huge
corporations and special interests abusing laws intended for very different
purposes to lock up their markets against otherwise normal (and obviously
likely to be successful) competition.

------
carapace
"We Need the Right to Repair Our Gadgets"

Holy Space Pope! Isn't that pretty much _exactly_ what started RMS on the Free
Source mission!? He wanted to repair [the code in] his printer.

------
mattholtom
Nice to see it's not just me with this frustration. I had the same problem
with my Sammy LNT4061. One capacitor and 5 years later, and it's still going
strong.

If only my Kobo aura H2O had the same story. One drop on an airport floor and
it's an expensive paperweight. Kobo does not repair, nor sanction repair, nor
is it even really possible.

------
compactmani
The author wrote all this and not one word on proprietary software.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
Yes, this should have been brought up too.

We have gone back to proprietary messaging formats. Home automation, I feel,
will always be held back because everyone wants to do their own protocol. The
list goes on.

There should be a push for as many open protocols as possible. Differentiate
yourselves by what you DO with the open protocols.

------
tmaly
we have UL labels, energy star ratings, and various organic labels. Why not
have some form of repairable rating system that people can place on electronic
products?

