

Get Ready for Disposable Hardware - jheitzeb
http://www.hackthings.com/get-ready-for-disposable-hardware/

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DanBC
E-Waste is amazing.

Here's a clip form a programme about luxury goods. This is about the e-waste
dump in Agbogbloshie, Accra, Ghana.

(<http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sch78>)

(<http://videobam.com/rcEUM>)

It's pretty depressing. There's no kind of sensible plan to recovering useful
stuff. Seeing a boy smashing polyester / polystyrene capacitors off an old PCB
with a rock so he can sell them is just grim.

All the lead, tin, copper, heavy metals, leach into the soil and thus water
supply. Wires and cables are burnt to get rid of the insulation and leave
copper - these fires happen in the open air, with no kind of masking.

I love the idea of tiny, cheap, single purpose electronics. But often the
quality is not great; and they're totally locked down. Manufacturers should
learn that leaving some test pads on the boards, and putting a few documents
on some websites, means that hackers will tinker, and that can lead to a lot
of publicity.

~~~
r00fus
Agreed, we're headed for Wall-E world pretty quickly. The problem of business
models that require planned obsolescence is a huge part of this problem.

My work boots will last 5-6 years, but my running shoes only last 12 mo. tops.

A disposables oriented society is inherently unsustainable.

~~~
nooneelse
I don't see why it is inherently unsustainable. There is nothing in the very
nature of disposability that precludes a robust recycling path to close the
matter loop. And nothing that precludes including the cost of that recycling
in the price of the items that will eventually be recycled and/or the next
things made with the material.

Trees dispose of their leaves, those rot and feed a chain of creatures and the
material is recycled to the trees. This is something of an existence proof
that such a system is possible.

I would agree we currently do a terrible job of approximating any such ideal.

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dustinupdyke
It is disappointing to me that as companies, as engineers, and as people, we
don't consider the end of life for hardware components.

There must be a better solution than building things that are expected to
simply be thrown away.

~~~
jiggy2011
Hopefully they will be easy to re purpose. This of course means that they will
have to general enough to support more than one use case and also unlocked in
such a way that reflashing the firmware is trivial.

Maybe like some service you link devices to and it gives you a list of all the
various gadgets that it can turn a piece of hardware into.

~~~
ejlowry
I think it's going to take real design effort if we expect people to reuse
these devices. I like your idea of the service helping you repurpose gadgets,
or maybe even a deposit on your gadget -- send it in when you are done with it
to recycle its rare components.

If a digital device only costs a couple of bucks, and a better/faster/cheaper
one comes available a year later, the old one is going to get tossed. How many
people repurposed their 2005 iPods, and those cost real money?

Culturally we are accustomed to just tossing aside the old, particularly with
electronics. We're going to need significant cultural/technical/legal/design
shifts to keep up with these changes. And quickly!

~~~
npsimons
A large factor in this is the "lock-down" culture that has sprung up, and
people buying into the bullshit that it's necessary for devices to be
"secured" to be user friendly. I know it won't solve the cultural problems,
but it's a complete non-starter if you can't even legally re-purpose your own
hardware, or if it takes too much effort.

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bagosm
Dear capitalist America,

Even the notion of hardware that is disposable is appalling and out of tune in
the state of the world today. Please, don't focus on cheap production of items
that are intended to have a short lifespan.

We need modular hardware. New camera came out and you really want a new
camera? Sure, go ahead, upgrade the one you have on your iModularPhone.

Need crash-proof stuff? Sure, here is some of our flexible screen phones.

You see, durability, for the end user, could as well mean cheapness.
Upgradeability, for the end user, could as well mean cheapness.

So, instead of dreaming the perfect product, or as a hacker have the need to
improve and upgrade, please don't even for one second accept cheap, fragile
items.

Limited features is ok (but possibility to upgrade is non-optional). Limited
lifespan is never ok.

~~~
svantana
I don't see why disposableness would be intrinsically bad -- however if not
dealt with by society, it will most likely lead to environmental damage.
Personally I advocate large taxes on dangerous materials and chemicals,
perhaps recoupable when recycled.

~~~
nooneelse
Exactly. Internalize the externalities.

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saidajigumi
I'm really disappointed that the (clickbait?) tagline is about "disposable"
hardware, when one might more positively look at the implications and impact
of ubiqitous computing ( _sans_ disposable hardware). A $600 tablet device is
a far different beast from a $60 or even a $6 tablet device. For example, how
can a device improve when it's cheap for its sensors and UI to extend
throughout a building (e.g. the Nest)?

A $600 mobile device is expensive enough that it's still "personal computing".
The cheaper devices start to become "user interface of our environment".

Also, RIP Mark Weiser[1]. It's too bad he didn't live to see all this stuff
coming to fruition.

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Weiser>

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GotAnyMegadeth
I bought 3 of these [0] for £10 each from phones4u the other day, they are a
whole lot more functional than the phone in the video at the bottom.

[0] [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-E2121B-Black-unlocked-
mobile...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-E2121B-Black-unlocked-
mobile/dp/B004S62YO2/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1366044978&sr=1-3&keywords=samsung+phone)

~~~
michaelbuckbee
Well, the little black 'phone' in the article is actually a spy device. If you
put a SIM in it to give it a number, you can then call it at any point, and it
will silently answer and you can listen in to what's happening.

~~~
nooneelse
Which is really too bad. Make one with a button that calls a single number
programmed in via the usb connection and it would be a sweet little
communicator. Parents would love to strap one on their kid(s).

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twrkit
Couple this trend with the progress being made in 3d printers (eg, recent
developments in 'printing' simple circuits and electronics) and one can easily
see that the low-end consumer electronics market segment is due for a paradigm
shift (cliche intended!).

Once consumer-grade 3d printers are ubiquitous, it would truly spell the end
for brick and mortar retail for 'simple electronics,' since even printing out
a cheap demo model at home will be much more cost effective than hopping in
your SUV and guzzling a few $7 gallons to pick up a spatula with a built in
thermometer.

Plus, we may see a resurgence in 'illicit' devices such as blue boxes back
from the phreaking days. Some ne'er-do-wells will populate Thingiverse with
designs for devices we could only dream of back in our mischievous youths and
that could never be sold in a retail establishment.

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hcarvalhoalves
This isn't a trend because it's not sustainable. The only reason these are
cheap is because China artificially lowers their currency related to dollar,
but with increasing pollution and social pressure, it's clear this can't go on
forever.

~~~
r00fus
Don't worry, US lawmakers will be "open for business" to prevent the
outsourcing of waste - and we'll keep piling on the waste right here in the
USA... just in "garbage towns" and the like.

Quite dystopic.

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ctdonath
A key factor will be disassociating highly personal information &
configuration from the hardware. One subversive marketing point of the
iPad/iPhone is how it ties so tight to a single user. With something
disposable, cloud integration will become important, making the hardware
fungible to the user.

~~~
webjprgm
If you use iCloud backup on your iPhone/iPad then you can set up a new
iPhone/iPad quickly with all your personal data and settings without
connecting to a computer or the old device. So you can already drop your
hardware in a lake and not mind, as long as it's been backed up recently.
(Which it probably hasn't been if you're vacationing at a lake.)

You can also remote-wipe lost hardware to prevent others from getting your
personal data off of a discarded device.

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jasonlgrimes
Good point about the waste. That's a problem worth solving if it can be done.
I'm excited to see what innovations come next.

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jasonlgrimes
Great read Joe! I still can't wrap my head around $11 cell phones, but you are
right hardware is getting cheaper.

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ctdonath
[snip] Nevermind, I overlooked the "package of 10" explaining the price
difference. Thanks, realo.

~~~
jheitzeb
I bought the one shown in the video for $15.80 (including shipping)

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oftenwrong
Exciting times ahead for lovers of e-waste.

