
There is now a European standard for measuring how easy it is to repair stuff - kackbein
https://de.ifixit.com/News/35879/repairability-standard-en45554
======
_ph_
Whenever repairability of modern electronic devices is discussed, I have to
look at my mechanical wristwatch. Yes, there is an enormeous amount of
technology integrated into a smartphone or compact laptop, but my wristwatch
contains over 100 moving parts in a tiny volume. And still, every trained
watchmaker can open and service it. It requires specialized tools, but those
have been avialable to watchmakers for hundreds of years. A time traveller
could buy a current Rolex and have it serviced in 1950, possibly even in 1850.
The watchmakers of those times wouldn't have access to the right spare parts -
those are surprisingly high-tech, but basic service would be possible.

And that is why I cannot stand the current state of repairs in the electronic
world. I am especially looking at Apple in this respect, because they have
demonstrated a surprising skill at making things repairable, which they want
to be serviceable. Just look at the brilliant mount for the USB ports in the
new Air.

While end-user serviceability might not be desirable for something highly-
integrated, the benchmark really should be whether someone trained like a
watch-maker has the ability to service a device. Which would be great for the
local economy wherever in the world a customer is, because traditionally most
towns would have at least one watchmaker, a well paid professional who would
keep the money local vs. creating more electronic waste and shipping a new
device around the world.

~~~
cheesecracker
Sorry, but isn't a wristwatch like a bazillionth of complexity of a modern
smartphone? How many transistors do you need for a wristwatch?

The whole idea of servicing modern electronics is romantic nonsense. The
hourly rate of an expert will make it too expensive quickly, because
industrialized mass production is too effective.

(Edit: according to this link on Quora, several billion transistors are not
unrealistic in a smartphone [https://www.quora.com/How-many-transistors-are-
there-in-the-...](https://www.quora.com/How-many-transistors-are-there-in-the-
average-smartphone?share=1) )

What is the hourly rate of a watchmaker?

~~~
_ph_
When I was talking about servicing a laptop, I was thinking about the usualy
components, like battery, keyboard, SSD, fans. Things which can break or are
going to wear out over time. By that count, a laptop has perhaps 10-20
"parts". Compare that to the complexity of a mechanical watch.

I don't know the going rate for a watch maker, it is probably not cheap. But I
know what I paid for servicing my watches before and a multiple of that for
having my dealer upgrade the disk in my iMac. Which still has an internal SATA
port, but unfortunately is glued together. This is something which should cost
less than a watch service, even at the same rate.

~~~
cheesecracker
Components are glued or soldered together because that makes the device
smaller and probably also more efficient to build, wasting less resources,
too.

------
apexalpha
Let's hope this catches on just like the energy labels did. After the EU
forced manufacturers to improve energy use in their devices it soon improved
situations for everyone on this planet.

Many other countries follow EU regulations directly or indirectly so let's
hope for some easily repairable products in the future!

~~~
switch007
> After the EU forced manufacturers to improve energy use in their devices it
> soon improved situations for everyone on this planet.

I don't know (talking as fairly pro-EU kind of person). I kind liked washing
machines that properly heated to 90C and vacuum cleaners that actually picked
up dirt. But the EU are only partly to blame. Companies are relentless in
their pursuit of cutting production costs. Going "green" just excused their
greed for a while. And these newer machines feature more plastic parts, are
harder to repair and generally considered disposable (e.g. I'm happy that a
dishwasher/washing machine/fridge lasts 5 years). How's that good for the
planet?

~~~
nolok
> I kind liked washing machines that properly heated to 90C

I will be honest with you this one I just don't understand. My washing machine
is A+ in EU norms and it heats properly. Maybe you bought a not so good model
?

If anything those norms should be re-evaluated with new tougher levels now,
you have to go out of your way to buy something that's not at least A (which
is good and it means it worked, but also that it's time to ask for more).

> vacuum cleaners that actually picked up dirt

Again, if you buy a Dyson that follows EU norms it still works great. But if
at the same time as those norms arrived you also switched from being main
brand product to cheaper off brands, then you're confusing the two.

It's easy to find a vacuum cleaner that works great, but they're not at the
same price as most models, because the market aligned with the cheap ones that
people actually buy.

Yes, LIDL and similar often have special sales on vacuum cleaner, yes they're
frankly cheap, and no, they're not as good as "the vacuum cleaners of old".
They're barely adequate, which is fine for most customers and allow a cheap
price, that's why they sell this.

> And these newer machines feature more plastic parts, are harder to repair
> and generally considered disposable (e.g. I'm happy that a
> dishwasher/washing machine/fridge lasts 5 years). How's that good for the
> planet?

That is quite literally the point of the anti waste regulation (the last one
and the future one), and of the repair law being discussed here.

~~~
michaelt
_> Maybe you bought a not so good model?_

Rinse quality is lower in modern washing machines in order to meet water
economy standards - even if you buy an £800 Miele and turn on all the 'extra
rinse' options.

I know this because I have a relative with sensitive skin, who resorts to
rinsing things by hand after taking them out of the washing machine - and
doing such a rinse visibly dirties the water. Feel free to test this yourself.

This has happened across the entire market - so much so that 'Which Reports'
(UK consumer reports equivalent) have lowered their standard for 'five star
rinse quality' as nothing on the market could meet it.

~~~
nolok
Ah you might be right but I think they're allowed to have it not just do it in
the normal program.

Both my (single washer / drier /and my parents (two separate machines) have an
extra button that add a "second extra rinse 5 minutes after the normal one"
thatwwe always use by default because the normal rinse is indeed not good
enough.

Now I'm wondering if it's not possible to have a proper rinse within the norms
of if having found that workaround stopped them on fixing the issue.

------
Vinnl
I have a Fairphone [1], for which repairability was a major focus (the latest
two models are the first smartphones to get a perfect 10 from iFixit, IIRC).
At some point, it started having some issues. Likewise, a friend of mine who
had one wanted a new phone as well.

By combining parts from mine and his phone, I now have a properly working
phone again with very little effort. This is so important.

(That said, the reason I started having issues in the first place was because
some connections didn't fit as tightly anymore. This is supposedly better with
the latest model, whose screen you can no longer replace without tools, but
needs a regular Philips screwdriver that actually comes with the phone. Less
gimmicky on parties, but should be an improvement.)

[1] [https://www.fairphone.com/](https://www.fairphone.com/)

~~~
moksly
This is anecdotal, but everyone in my circle of friends who bought a
fairphone2 (2015) has replaced it. Meanwhile my mom is still using my old
iPhone 5s (2013). And my wife uses her iPhone SE(2016).

Hell the fact that they have released one in 2013, 2015 and 2019, kind of goes
against their message doesn’t it?

~~~
rowanG077
That doesn't surprise me. The crowd of people who are aware of the fairphone
are most likely techies. And I would wager techies are much more likely to
replace a Phone then the Generic Apple user.

~~~
moksly
No one I’d call a techie bought it, it was the artsy environmental types. The
reasons for replacing it ranges from the OS not being updated to run modern
Apps to the phone breaking.

We’re pretty digitised in Denmark, so if you can’t download apps from the iOS
or play stores you’ll have a harder time transferring payments to friends,
using public transportation, ordering food online, interacting with the public
sector, accessing your citizen mail box and stuff like that, and Android isn’t
very good at longevity.

~~~
Avamander
Android is fine. It's the sub-par hardware that isn't, poor flash memory gets
unbearably slow at some point and that bogs down pretty much everything.

Second and related problem is developers that abuse storage, no, you don't
need to fsync your logs or DB to the storage after each row. It really fucks
with devices that have lost a bit of IOPS.

~~~
moksly
I’m not really into it, but the problem they seemed to have with the fairphone
was that it wasn’t getting new android versions for some reason. I guess you
could argue wether or not developers should support old android versions but
the reality is that they don’t.

------
snops
If anyone wishes to read it or similar European standards, each nation is
required to sell it at a price proportional to the average wage, and hence the
Estonian standards body is selling it[1] for €14, instead of the £204 the
British standards institute wants.

[1] [https://www.evs.ee/en/evs-en-45554-2020](https://www.evs.ee/en/evs-
en-45554-2020)

~~~
martimarkov
I know this is off topic but... As an European this is the first time I learn
you need to pay to read EU standards. Anyone has any explanation why you need
to pay for access to standards?

~~~
klohto
You don’t. This is not an European body, but a derived standard for Estonia.
EU version at
[https://www.cenelec.eu/dyn/www/f?p=104:22:1562386624244501::...](https://www.cenelec.eu/dyn/www/f?p=104:22:1562386624244501::..).

~~~
tpmx
That shows an empty table.

~~~
klohto
Weird behavior on that URL. But search for ‘EN 45554:2020’ and you should find
it :)

~~~
tpmx
Please be less vague/imprecise.

------
fsflover
I hope it will finally force Apple to become more climate-friendly. Their
scores in phone repairability are disappointigly low:
[https://www.ifixit.com/smartphone-
repairability](https://www.ifixit.com/smartphone-repairability).

~~~
princekolt
Every android phone in that page has a score lower or equal to all the
iPhones. This has to be a joke, right? Example:

Galaxy S20 Ultra [3/10]:
[https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Samsung+Galaxy+S20+Ultra+Tea...](https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Samsung+Galaxy+S20+Ultra+Teardown/131607)

iPhone 11 Pro Max [6/10]:
[https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+11+Pro+Max+Teardown/1...](https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+11+Pro+Max+Teardown/126000)

But sure, lets keep bashing Apple because that gives us all the internet
kudos, am I right?

~~~
saiya-jin
That's a fine example of whataboutism. Look, others are doing the same bad
thing, what's your problem?

~~~
sokoloff
It seems very reasonable to look at direct competitors when considering
whether a company is making good engineering or marketing choices.

------
zubspace
I had a Fairphone 1 once. It fell on the floor and the display cracked. I was
able to order a replacement screen and replace the cracked screen in about 2
hours thanks to iFixit [1]. And I have no idea of electronics whatsoever!

This is remarkable but unfortunately not sustainable. The manufacturer needs
to enable repairs, provide howto's and he needs to guarantee, that you can buy
those replacement parts.

At some point after Fairphone 2 was released, which was priced a lot higher, I
was unable to download newer android versions even though that was promised.
It was just too complex for them provide an update.

That's the sad truth: Support for old hardware diverts manpower from more
lucrative things in the business: Creating and selling new phones.

[1]
[https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Fairphone_1](https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Fairphone_1)

------
Priem19
Fantastic. Gone with planned obsolescence:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence)

------
fsflover
Great news. As the author says, please support the right to repair movement in
Europe if you care about repairability:
[https://repair.eu/](https://repair.eu/),
[https://repair.eu/smartphones/](https://repair.eu/smartphones/).

------
squarefoot
Speaking of phones, they often are purposely rendered obsolete by preventing
them to install OS upgrades or migrating them to other more open OSes long
before they break for other reasons. While this is a laudable initiative,
sadly it won't be much effective against phones planned obsolescence. Opening
hardware specs would be a true giant step against this. Not holding my breath
though.

~~~
488643689
True. I deeply regret not spending idk 70€ more getting an iPhone SE instead
of the Moto G5 Plus. Last security update was January 2019, as I got about 2
of 3 years of "support". Somehow I was assuming there was going to be an
official lineageOS build. Guess what...

I am now in the situation where I can't bring myself to buy Android again, but
don't really have the 500 bucks for the new SE. Honestly, new techy features
became the least important factor for decision making for me. Support/security
> connectivity > battery > repairability > X.

~~~
627467
I've found that the best solution is: get (used) previous gen high-end (and
popular) that has unlocked bootloader. Being popular means I'll find plenty of
parts for repair and likely have options for firmware installs.

I got myself a S8 when S10 was about to come out. Fraction of the price and I
can keep updating it beyond Samsung efforts.

I still own a Nexus5 5 which seems to be the target of most non-android OS
development effort despite its age.

(Another aspect I try to consider is repairability, which phones such as S8
hardly make it easy which it's fragile curve OLED display)

We're past peak smartphones now, I see no need to run after the latest cpu
increase or extra camera so that it takes bokeh better. But that's me.

------
bserge
Wow, this is some great news! Hopefully this trend of electronics that are
nigh impossible to repair will be gone next decade.

------
pgt
Would be cool to have a standard for measuring the difficulty of repairing
software.

------
jnxx
Repairable device of decent quality can also yield much better second-hand
prices, which can even drive up the value of the original product. Thinkpad
laptops are a good example.

------
bzb3
As long as having a certain score is not mandatory...

I like my iPhones, and I couldn't care less about their repairability. If they
stop working and I'm out of warranty I just buy a new one.

~~~
dieortin
iPhones’ repairability is fine, but your attitude of not caring about the
environment at all isn’t.

------
mahesh_rm
This looks clearly like a laudable effort and positive trend, but I can't
avoid to foresee paradoxical scenarios along the lines of "I needed to replace
my 3 years old perfectly functional fridge with repairability class F with a
new one with repairability class D++"

~~~
tuukkah
What is the paradox here? The standard won't force replacements.

~~~
mahesh_rm
The paradox is "A standard aimed at preventing replacement will be used to
catalyze replacements". Standards never enforce replacements. Regulations and
Fashions enforce replacements on the basis of standards.

~~~
tuukkah
Can you give an example of what such a regulation could look like and of
standards as a significant driver of fashion?

~~~
mahesh_rm
"Reduced" property taxes on low environmental impact residential units. Which
in fact turns into increased property taxes on "environmentally inefficient"
residential units. Which turns into higher fiscal pressure for people that
cannot afford to refurbish their homes. Which turns into them selling their
properties (sometimes built by their great grandfathers) to rich turists that
are able to afford the required refurbishments.

