Right to Repair

[rackmonkey]

This is interesting. You buy it/own it, you should have the right to repair it. A (somewhat) organized movement appears to be developing behind the idea.

While i love the idea in principle, i can think of a few unintended consequences that could arise by mandating it, depending on the gory details, But the basic idea is overdue for public debate.


https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3vavw/half-the-country-is-now-considering-right-to-repair-laws

 

[peterc]

There was a very interesting article in Time a few years ago, about the rise of the second-hand tractor industry in the US because of this very problem. To avoid your new Jon Deere tractor from stopping in the field when it hits its service mileage. And theres nothing you can do until the service guy appears.....

There is also hacked software available on ebay to bypass these issues.

Interesting times.

 

[rackmonkey]

There was a very interesting article in Time a few years ago, about the rise of the second-hand tractor industry in the US because of this very problem. To avoid your new Jon Deere tractor from stopping in the field when it hits its service mileage. And theres nothing you can do until the service guy appears..

That issue is referenced in the article I linked. Seems to be the primary impetus behind the wave of US state-level efforts to address the bigger issue.

 

[pucho812]

I had a few thoughts that went with this.

1. Any designed gear should be easy to assemble and disassemble.  That means the designer should bench repair for sometime. Amazing how much you can learn what not to do by taking stuff apart.

2.any gear in production usually has common failures. For example when i was head bench tech at a known audio company,  we compiled a list of the common faults and how to address them. It was accurate about 97% of the time. Most people who called in for service RMA’s had basic tools and we could guide them at their choosing to fixing it. The joy they had in being able to repair things was easily observed.
Not everyone wanted to do it, but those that did were grateful. 

3.those that want to repair on their own have a different mindset then others best to let them go at it.

 

[PermO]

Intersting article, makes a lot of sense...

The Apple /John Deere / Tesla stuff..

But they also mentioned medical equipment in hospitals 

I'm not so shure about that one, a friend of mine who is an EE had to do an additional 4 years of study before he could touch anything "hospital" ...

I'm not against the idea of "qualified employees only" being allowed to work on medical equipment.

 

[gyraf]

..imo the medical-technology thing is just a strawman brought up by industry in order to legitimize monopolizing repair and lifespan decisions..

It's on par with the mandatory "security updates" that will prevent you from using your old macbook when it's decided that you've had it for too long.

/Jakob E.

 

[PermO]

Have not thougt about it in that way.... My guess is, you are probably right with your observation  ;D

It's all done to force you to be a customer, wheather you like it or not..

There's nothing so corrupt as software, if we had equally corrupt hardware it would probably be loaded with bullets and a tracker and shoot at you all day long  ;D

Computers can go a loooooong way.. if you don't connect them to the internet.
I run my hobby studio on a old XP P4 machine, no servicepacks nothing, running Nuendo3
for 15 years now, never a single hickup in 15 years and it boots like a rocket.
(for me it's just a recorder / edittor so no plugins needed, 32ch analogmixer and all outboard processing)
It's simply I choice I made and I've never regretted, but being a hobbyist is easy as there is noone demanding anything from me but myself.

 

[sahib]

Medical equipment is not something that could be left to a corner repair shop.

But I am all for the "right to repair". Though it is not so clear how they address SMT.

 

[Tubetec]

I had an amp in for repair a few years back , there was ventilation grill on the top of the amp , children had inadvertantly used these as coin slots , with catastrophic consequences .
No amount of pleading, cajoling or even a nondisclosure agreement would get the manufacturer to release me the schematic , many of the surface mount components had their identification scratched out . In the end I had to call it quits and tell the owner I couldnt do it , it left an extremely bad taste in mine and the owners mouth in the end , a brand killer for me .


I heard a story about a bulb replacement in a fairly modern car a while back , one of the led indicators lamps had malfunctioned , guy went into the dealership , asked could he get the part , was told the price then ontop that they needed to remove the bumber to access the lighting cluster so the car had to go up on the ramp ,he was told come back in half a day and the whole job would cost 150 euros , parts came to about 12 euros .
In some cars now telemetry is built into the headlamp clusters , Ive heard the replacement cost of these can run into the thousands , its a sealed unit ,so no serviceability built in. Good policy to swell the coffers of the spares department , reflects poorly on the brand .

A neighbour recently had an issue with his Skoda , some kind of actuator associated with the turbo was on the way out , luckily it was available as a seperate part , but Ive heard on many modern vehicles the entire turbine assembly gets swapped out and again it can run into the thousands if your unlucky enough with the model of car you buy.

 

[JohnRoberts]

This is interesting. You buy it/own it, you should have the right to repair jit. A (somewhat) organized movement appears to be developing behind the idea.

While i love the idea in principle, i can think of a few unintended consequences that could arise by mandating it, depending on the gory details, But the basic idea is overdue for public debate.


https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3vavw/half-the-country-is-now-considering-right-to-repair-laws

Again? Not a new concept.

It is not a successful marketing concept to tick off customers with expensive or impossible repairs.

There is a world of difference between designing SKUs that can be repaired by competent service technicians, and typical consumers. Most members of this forum are not typical consumers (I hope).

A change in design philosophy that I saw even late last century was a shift toward cheaper to assemble vs. cheaper to repair. It doesn't matter how easy it is to fix, if the customer buys a cheaper competitor.

===

Back when I was operating my kit business I offered a flat fee repair service for something like $20 (decades ago). I encountered some remarkable kit building failures, but fixed pretty much every one. One was so bad I just sent the kit builder a second new kit of components with a bare PCB and said try again... He had assembled all the thru hole parts into the wrong side of the PCB.

JR

 

[rackmonkey]

Sure, not a new idea. But it’s a general subject that gets thrown around here now and then. And now there’s money, politics and attention swirling around the idea.

My question is how far it should go. Is “right to repair” just about not voiding a warranty if you attempt to repair it? Or is it about how products are designed? Both? The John Deere example is a no brainer, and most things that similarly fall into the category of an “investment” (as in not-disposable/semi-disposable) would make sense to require owner repairability.

But what about things like TVs, that are obsolete within minutes of purchase? The technology moves so fast, I just wonder to what degree a requirement like that would even be practical. It seems to me that the market made a decision to trade durability and repairability for very low prices many years ago. And how many people would even take advantage of the ability to fix their own TV or game console?

And then there’s the miniaturization of components that marches on inexorably. The lower cost manufacturing that it enables along with more power packed into smaller spaces is a benefit for many items. And that alone would be an impediment to most people who might be inclined to “fix it themselves”. I guess you could mandate easily replaceable daughter boards and the like. But at the component level, even many of the people on this forum don’t do much with SMD/SMT.

So even though I like the idea of requiring user repairability for things that it makes sense for (you’d need a set of clear criteria to determine what types of products it would apply to), at this point it just raises more questions than I see answers for as the debate is currently framed.

 

[mjrippe]

And then there is this: https://hackaday.com/2021/03/15/cricut-decides-to-charge-rent-for-people-to-use-the-cutting-machines-they-already-own/

The sort of thing that they pull on non-technical folks like my stepmom.  Buy the device, use our cloud service, all is sunshine and rainbows!  Then they decide sunshine costs money and your device will not work if you buy it second hand.  It is bait-and-switch on the face of it, and evil corporate greed at the base.

 

[PermO]

Trough hole by law.


I want to see that I phone  ;D

 

[Whoops]

I'm advocate of the Right to Repair for some years now and I'm really happy that there's 25 states in the US that are finally contemplating enforcing that by law.

Europe (EU) is also changing regulations towards that.

The Northern European countries , Sweden and Norway, the most developed countries in the World in my opinion already have right to repair laws and also applied tax reduction policies for Repair shops.

Things really have to change, as I said , I'm happy that measures are being taken but more needs to be made, we are already late.
We are destroying the Planet, we are destroying the resources and we are destroying our happiness.

Planet Earth and Manking should not be ruled by a fictional character (Corporation) where profit is the only end goal. No one should expect increased profits every year, resources are not infinitive as so profits.

A good documentary on the subject, everyone should watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWJC5ieUAe4

Another important documentary on Electronic Waste:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDSWGV3jGek

 

[Whoops]

All the electronic products we have that are made obsolete by software updates or by failures that were designed to be irreparable are ending up somewhere. And I can guarantee you that they are not recycled ...

 

[user 37518]

You should consider yourselves fortunate, in my country is now illegal to repair or modify your own equipment, the penalty is up to 6 years in prison, the truth is that no one will ever go to prison, it just gives the police an excuse to extort small business owners and ask for more bribes. Then again, now it is legal to produce, store, commercialize, and use marihuana for recreational purposes here in Mexico.

https://linustechtips.com/topic/1219612-mexico-approves-law-against-right-to-repair-those-who-attempt-to-modify-or-repair-any-electornic-device-could-face-up-to-6-years-in-prision/?tab=comments

 

[PermO]

What ?




So now this forum is a hotspot for illegal activity  8)

 

[AusTex64]

I co own the best known parts and repair shop for automated stage lighting and controllers in North America. In business for 17 years. We've had manufacturers not only refuse to sell parts to us directly, they tried to block dealers from selling to us too. Which isn't legal in the US. Several years ago a company that rebuilt and sold used AMD semiconductor manufacturing equipment sued AMD for blocking parts sales to them. Same situation. I've never been in the automobile dealership or appliance business, but from what I've learned in our business repair and parts is likely as great or a greater source of revenue as new product sales. Look at the amount of real estate, parts stock, technicians and support staff at car dealerships compared to sales staff. They wouldn't be doing that if there wasn't money to be made.

There's a term for companies that handle everything after the sale - "reverse logistics". I learned this when someone from the Reverse Logistics trade organization called me, asking if we would like to join. Reverse logistics is a big business. Many manufacturers like Philips, Sony, etc use reverse logistics companies to repair their goods in and out of warranty, deal with customer returns, refurbish and resell RTS goods, etc. Come to find out we're a reverse logistics company for entertainment lighting.

Speaking of parts - many of the parts in products we repair are proprietary. Plastic molded bezels are a good example. Too high heat to 3D print ourselves, we looked into it. And they look different. So we have to either buy used fixtures and part them out, or get these parts somehow from the OEM. Then there are tons of parts that are off the shelf. Of course we buy those directly, avoiding the OEM markup. Which the rule of thumb for parts is usually 300% markup. But if we didn't do this, we wouldn't be profitable enough to survive. Then we are competing with the OEM for parts sales. Most if not all at this point either don't know or don't care. But we're pretty small, five people, down from ten before Covid. If we were talking about tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in repair and parts revenue, might be a different story.

End users repairing sophisticated goods themselves, well that's often a mess. We deal with experienced people all the time that still call us to walk them through repairs. And the church tech volunteers trying to diagnose and repair an automated light with 3000 parts - don't get me started! So manufacturers are supposed to support all these people with repair documents they pay someone to produce, parts and know how to repair their own goods, all the while reducing their own revenue? Doesn't sound like very smart business to me. I can see both sides of the argument. I live it every day.

But in the end, if people want to try to repair their own goods, I think they should be able to. But I'm not sure manufacturers and others in the repair business owe them a ton of support they're unwilling to pay for. I've actually had to ask some customers that have asked us for proprietary repair info we spent a lot of time and money learning "do you call a transmission repair shop and ask them how to repair a transmission without being paid?"

 

[mjrippe]

Ok, sometimes companies actually listen: https://inspiration.cricut.com/a-letter-to-the-cricut-community-from-ashish-arora-cricut-ceo/

 

[user 37518]

What ?




So now this forum is a hotspot for illegal activity  8)

I guess it technically is  ;D ;D ;D however, I believe its more oriented towards cellphones and laptops and such.

I've read other sources that say it is fake news that it was misinterpreted, that it is not true that it is illegal, apparently this controversy has something to do with the new Free trade agreement legislations between Mexico, Canada and the US regarding digital locks and content protection, apparently what is illegal is to modify the digital locks, like cracking the phone security, copying the manufacturers protection or distribute, the way I look at it is like adding a chip to a game console in order to be able to reproduce piracy or such is illegal, repairing the equipment not, I don't know, I would have to read the whole reform, what it is a fact is that the maximum sentence for this is 10 years. But apparently its more a copyright law rather than a repair ban law. You can basically fix the thing, but do not mess with it in a way that it violates copyright laws, I believe..