What if I want to buy a car that has no lights,breaks and pollutes 100x more then the norms?
There are many hardened phones that are repairable.
Edit: also a main issue with repairability is DRM and evil companies trying to use the copyright law so you won't publish repair manuals and schematics. Your ceramic phone won't suffer if someone shares a manual about it's internals
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Most cars are repairable, there is an industry of alternative parts, you go to a mechanic, he plugs the laptop with the software , find the problem, then you chose from a website with parts the one you want , you have different alternatives. Also you can visit places with scraped cars and you can find parts there for cheap. There is no DRM at the moment to stop you reusing a door from a different car or a door made by any third party(not sure about latest models, maybe Tesla does this).
I am not familiar with the latest models, do they changed that dramatically and I am out of date? Can't a competent mechanic replace any part on your new car?
Yeah, Tesla does (though perhaps not with doors, yet). And if you look at the industrial tractor industry, you can see the future where it applies to even more and more vehicles.
> Edit: also a main issue with repairability is DRM and evil companies trying to use the copyright law so you won't publish repair manuals and schematics. Your ceramic phone won't suffer if someone shares a manual about it's internals .
I certainly think that you should have the absolute right to attempt to repair your device, and you shouldn't be legally prevented from doing so.
On the other hand, I would like a secure, lightweight device, which lasts as long as possible on battery. All of those things will suffer if people who don't understand how modern phones achieve those things attempt to force them to be made up of piecewise-replaceable components.
The idea is not that you should be able to swap your battery as easy as you can with an Nokia 3310 but that you or a competent person could swap the battery with tools made for that purpose. Also I should have the right to use components from a broken iPhone into a different broken iPhone so I get a working iPhone(and if you claim security then wipe the phone before you allow this swap).
> The idea is not that you should be able to swap your battery as easy as you can with an Nokia 3310 but that you or a competent person could swap the battery with tools made for that purpose.
On many modern devices, you don't have "a battery", you have battery cells fit into every available space and wired together. You're certainly welcome to try replacing those. I just don't want to see that reverted to a discrete battery design.
> Also I should have the right to use components from a broken iPhone into a different broken iPhone so I get a working iPhone
By all means! And "components" here may well mean "single integrated board", as it does on many laptops and phones.
> On many modern devices, you don't have "a battery", you have battery cells fit into every available space and wired together. You're certainly welcome to try replacing those. I just don't want to see that reverted to a discrete battery design.
Source for this. No device has unpackaged unprotected battery cells just floating around.
They may have many discrete batteries to use up all of the available space, but each unit is self contained with protection electronics and can be swapped independently of the others.
I didn't say "unpackaged" or "unprotected". But I've seen the internals of multiple devices that have simple plastic wrappers (not hard shells) around the various battery cells, with wires connecting those plastic wrappers, and they don't have duplicated battery electronics, just one set.
I'm not sure how that is relevant to the right of being allowed to swap parts. If you can't make parts yourself but you can take salvageable parts from a broken device. Why should you be prevented from doing this repair? Also, why should third party manufacturers be prevented from making compatible parts?
> I'm not sure how that is relevant to the right of being allowed to swap parts. If you can't make parts yourself but you can take salvageable parts from a broken device. Why should you be prevented from doing this repair?
As I stated earlier in this thread, you should absolutely have the right to attempt such repairs. I just don't believe that there should be requirements to make devices use more modular components, at the potential expense of other desirable properties.
Those are pouch batteries, they never need a hard shell.
Each one will have a tiny PCB with protection circuitry on it. It’s the only way to prevent them from accidentally catching fire or exploding.
Batteries are far more complex than most people expect. Especially lithium batteries found in phones. The chemistry is super sensitive, and anything except careful monitoring of each battery pack risks catastrophic failure. Hence the tiny PCB on each battery pack.
Firstly there is component level repair, faulty chips on a circuitboard can be de-soldered and replaced. It is not rocket science, it's perfectly normal level of repair and is worthwhile on a $500+ device.
Then there is no phone that literally has a single board, there are other components such as the camera, earpiece, screen, etc. that are still replaceable.
> I just don't want to see that reverted to a discrete battery design.
WHY?! You'd end up with stuff 3-5mm thicker, but basically the same weight. Let's drop the "thinner" fetish once and for all, nobody cares about some mm of "wasted" space (that usually improves cooling anyway) inside a devices case and it being a bit chunkier, as long as it's almost just as lightwieght!
Fffs, let's go back to getting gold plated or diamond encrusted laptops and watches for showing off status! That's way better than the thinner/lighter nonsense...
Sure, getting smth. thinner bc technology actually improves (eg. displays) is cool, but shaving micrometers by packing everything close together is stupid.
(Oh, and we could start fixing our brains to think the same about cases for... people! Eg. housing. Like in kill the micro-apparments disease, there's enough room on the planet for all to leave confortable... in bigger rooms, and with chunkier laptops if that makes them more recyclable. "Space" IS mostly "free" ya know - very little of Earth's surface is actually usable for stuff like agriculture, energy production, mining etc.)
I was not talking about hardened phones, quite the opposite, a pure design item, so small and precise that any breakage of the shell could destroy it - that's the current direction of the market, which I like very much. Who exactly will I hurt with my phone, and when exactly is it going to gain around 1 metric ton and be hurtling down a highway? Since when is it fashionable to justify regulation with completely unrelated health/safety issues?
It was a metaphor for how things are wrong in the grand scheme of things even if they are possible and available. Repairability of things makes for less waste, if you ignore that fact and knowingly buy a phone which is going to end up in a bin after 2 years with no possibility to get proper recycling and repairing, you have a similar mindset to the SUV buying bunch. That is what he is trying to say (I think).
As a society we have to make choices. We prefer having repairable items over beautiful unrepairable ones, as the latter has been abused as an excuse to deny repairability even when possible.
Do we? I am not really sure we do. I think it's very hard to talk about what "the society" wants, and I know that it differs very much around 150 km to the north from me (where the border is) and that it is also roughly the opposite around 300 km to the south from me (where another border is).
> I think it's very hard to talk about what "the society" wants
People vote for representatives, those representatives enact legislation, and the free press reports on it, causing a feedback effect. Over time we have a picture of what society wants. It's really not that hard.
Obviously, there are many different interconnected societies in the world and not all of them have representative democracy or a free press. Maybe that was your objection?
During the last EU parliament elections, 28.4% people voted (in my country of 10 million). These 28.4% have chosen 21 representatives into a parliament of 736, which means 2.85% of all seats.
I think it's clear why this tells us nothing about what the society here wants. It might be said that the EU was the voice of the nations before they removed the unilateral agreement requirement, but not today.
Nobody here (parties, the representatives) is even talking about the right to repair, how can you be so sure the society here wants it?
> I think it's clear why this tells us nothing about what the society here wants.
On the contrary, it very clearly tells us that your society is apathetic about the EU and does not care about decisions made in the European parliament.
In my own country, 2/3 voted in the latest EU parliament elections. The debates here were dominated by environmental policy, so I'm really not surprised that legislation like this is now being considered in the EU parliament.
> On the contrary, it very clearly tells us that your society is apathetic about the EU and does not care about decisions made in the European parliament.
Exactly, that is the only thing that is clear. And the reason is that we have much greater political problems to deal with so the EU is not that relevant to us, especially not issues like right to repair (which is not an issue to anyone I know and google gives me mostly no online discussions in our language). It still does not give anyone the right to shovel us "what the society wants". Our society didn't want the Lisboa agreement, but our politicians signed it anyways - so what exactly does our society want and what exactly should the EU be saying about it?
Even if 100% of people voted, still the 2.85% of voice don't seem like much space to express what our society wants, you know? And why there should only be space for one central opinion? That doesn't seem that diverse.
> Our society didn't want the Lisboa agreement, but our politicians signed it anyways - so what exactly does our society want and what exactly should the EU be saying about it?
Then vote for a different set of politicians and leave the EU. The UK paved the way. I believe in you!
> Even if 100% of people voted, still the 2.85% of voice don't seem like much space to express what our society wants, you know? And why there should only be space for one central opinion? That doesn't seem that diverse.
Humans aren't borgs, but that doesn't mean we can't generalise about the general tendencies of society. Do you want me to admit that not everyone in a society has the same opinion? Seems a bit pointless, but sure, I'll admit that.
Yes in the end its a preference, we have to make choices and I too would like to have the choice to buy unrepairable item. We too are "the society" so if we want to still have the option we have to fight the law. One thing to do is obviously do not vote for or support the law .
Eh, no, my country is one of the best of EU in recycling and waste management. I dispose of all waste exactly as I should in a clear, structured and very practical way. (any) phones are taken back for recycling by most sellers, for example.
Which country is that ? You can easily check recycling import/export per country online so that should be trivial to fact check. Pro tip: it doesn't look good for US/EU.
It is not my fault what the state does with it after I correctly dispose it. I am not sure how that looks for my country and I mostly don't care - not my job to do, I (have to) pay taxes for that.
I can't change anything about that. I need to pick my battles. I am doing my part exactly as I should, now the politicians need to do theirs. These things are already unlawful - what can I do to fix it? The administration nor the justice is an elected body.
And how exactly does this change the fashion of buying the latest iPhone-looking phone every second year? The older devices are perfectly functioning, they just don't look like the owners wish. Most people I know have a drawer full of 100% working phones, some broken displays here and there but that is trivial to have repaired today.
Don't iPhone look very similar? why do people need a new one?
There are probably many answers depending on person, some just want latest and greatest, some people were affected by the battery issue(while it was hidden from them), some people break the phone and don't have an Apple store near or don't have the time to wait for a repair and they get a new phone. Sometimes the updates make the old phones slow or incompatible and websites and applications are pushing you to buy a new one.
Apparently they are different enough that people mod them to look like year-later models. Since these wouldn't have different capabilities it can only be for asthetics or social signaling.
We're talking about Europe, iPhone is the minority here. Most phones are Androids, so no battery issue of iPhone is much relevant, same with Apple Stores.
Any phone (including iPhone) can be taken to nearly any service shop and it will probably be repaired within a day for an affordable price (if they have all parts, which they can order no problem; tools are not a problem a tall).
They also don't want the latest and greatest because that costs them way too much, most phones are mid market here, and the capabilities of these phones don't change much (same hardware for a number of years is not an exception) - but the design does. And no, the display notch is a very distinct status symbol that made the upgrade very much needed, same with multiple cameras on the back.
The few people who are buying Apple can choose between Apple stores, official Apple resellers and also a huge selection of unofficial (called "post-warranty") service shops. Not sure if it's OK with Apple, but it's definitely legal here, and it doesn't seem like these people have any problems with getting parts, getting tools or repairing the phones, but I agree that there should be an official way of doing so.
It's true that some phones became unusable with and because of software updates - that is wrong, but also an unrelated issue.
But the point still stands - older phones are perfectly capable (and these phones are very repairable, too), just not beautiful enough. Some people having drawers of them signifies that even though these phones work, there is no demand for them.
Then you'll be out of luck. Same as you cannot legally buy leaded fuels in most countries anymore, even tho you might prefer them, and same as Bayer will not sell you Heroin(tm) to treat your cough anymore.
I for one would love this. It used to be that you got a complete circuit schematic when buying a new TV.
Perhaps we don't need to go that far, but just removing the moats that prevent people from building compatible hardware would go far. That toners include DRM chips just to protect consumer unfriendly business models still bothers me. It's just e-waste for no good.
No, I think it should be illegal for companies to sell new products. Which has the same net result as a buying ban for the new goods markets (and used goods market over time).
Now the question that needs careful consideration is what constitutes "unrepairable" legally? It has to be sensible and legally ironclad.
You can buy your stuff in China or whereever if you really want to.
And I wouldn't include any used goods sold between actual people (not the corporation people) and grandfather in any products that were first put on the market before a certain date (and make that date a few years in the future as a grace period). And maybe even progressively introduce different restrictions.
But yes, by and large it has the same effect and yes, I think that this effect is to be desired.
The legislation (at least ones like this) are not implemented thoughtlessly. Its likely that just allowing parts which have a short service life to be replaced would be enough.
Also anything which is structural is likely not going to be the part which maintenance needs to be done on
The cookie problem we have is because the sites are actually tracking you m so maybe they should have forced to say "We are tracking you, please accept". Coockies used for actual technical reasons like to store a session ID do not need warnings. GDPR improved on that by forcing the websites to show me what are collecting and with who are sharing the data. I like this transparency, if you want to track me then tell me the details and I will decide if I visit your page or maybe find a different one.
I'd rather be continuously tracked by a thousand websites and volunteer my birthday and location history to them than ever click a cookie or GDPR popup again.
