I think there's much more people that are somewhat inclined to learn these skills and that have access to such equipment than you think. And plenty who don't work in any industry related to electronics that just happen to tinker with electronics as a hobby and effectively have gotten very proficient with a soldering iron. Don't underestimate curious hackers from places where fixing your own equipment makes economic sense.

For me, disassembling my iPhone and replacing its battery was much more difficult than any sort of component-level repair. So if we're letting 'consumers' do that, why not let them also try component level repair?

I get where you are coming from but this isn't so cut and dried, as incompetent repairs are certainly capable of damaging or destroying other components. Someone I know once unknowingly messed up an antenna in the process of replacing a phone battery with an after market one, which caused all sorts of odd and intermittent symptoms with communication issues. Why should a manufacturer be expected to deal with that under warranty?

Part of the problem with consumer electronics is that they aren't really particularly designed to be serviceable, let alone user-serviceable. So it's not like a car manufacturer saying they'll refuse to warranty a rear shock because you changed your own oil or whatever.

I'm a strong supporter of right-to-repair, but I'm not convinced that should extend to forcing user serviceable designs where there is an actual design tradeoff. On the other hand this is pretty hard to prove - maybe all you can do is go after user-hostile design changes that serve no other purpose.

In fairness to Apple, that’s not fair at all.

I hope right to repair keeps gaining traction. If I need to buy a laptop any time soon it’s going to be a Framework. I replaced a DIMM in my current laptop (ThinkPad) and would have been pretty upset if I had to throw it away because of soldered RAM.

My fear with authorized repair programs as the only option is the risk of changing what’s considered fact. After a (people) generation where all training and education says “this is impossible,” people will believe it. The manufacturers get to dictate the new reality with no pushback from knowledgeable opponents because those opponents won’t exist anymore.

I’ve personally fixed many vehicle problems, a hot tub, a stove, a dishwasher, a fridge, a furnace, etc.. I’m 100% positive the manufacturers are lying about the complexity of everything and confident in saying that a lot of the complexity is intentionally engineered to be complex.

People want to fix their own stuff and they’ll try no matter what. The manufacturers like to tout the risks of DIY repair, but the biggest risk, by far IMO, is a lack of official schematics and docs. The manufacturers are literally creating the risk by withholding repair resources and forcing everyone to trust random internet strangers.

Learn how to discharge capacitors if you’re going to DIY fix anything :-)

Do they? Given that you later claim we don’t have the necessary criteria to determine repairability, this seems like an unsupportable claim.

I hear just as much from people obsessed with repair that confuses people in the other direction.

> I myself thought component-level board repair was a dead end until I stumbled upon Rossmann's channel. I think both you and peterlk are getting to the same point:

> we need that criteria if we're going to reach the full potential of the right-to-repair movement.

We do and we also need to understand the costs at scale.

Repairability may not be better overall if it comes at the expense of durability, or more use of materials.

It’s not at all obvious, for example, that we have the numbers to support say, making iPhones more repairable vs simply designing them to neeed fewer more expensive repairs and then recycle them when failed.

"Everything required to replace or repair parts of the device should be fully, clearly and publicly documented, including all discrete part numbers, tools, jigs, etc. Any parts that are manufactured only by the device's manufacturer under patent protection or trade secret must be available for purchase."

If jigs are required, they must at least fully describe the jig so that people can make their own, if required.

You can use glue as long as it can be removed without damaging the device, and the type of glue is documented and available for purchase.

Mandating a level of skill is not necessary. If a repair requires high skill, like desoldering, they can find someone to do that repair, or sell the device to someone willing to do that repair before purchasing a new device. The level of skill required to repair a device will become known, although I'm also not opposed to requiring that be declared up front.

As you said, the scope of possible designs is infinite, so there exist designs that can satisfy all of these requirements.

The whole point is to expand the lifecycle of devices and create a repair and recycling industry, rather than the existing limited lifecycle of manufacturer->consumer->ewaste.

> Finally, I actually think it is actually rather insulting how many people believe that fixing something like a phone PROPERLY is "not that hard" and "any tech can do it".

Perfect is the enemy of the good. If your phone is a brick and an improper fix makes it useful at a much lower cost than a whole new phone, that's all that matters. Sorry, but your comment just sounds super elitist. Even if only 50% of devices are successfully repaired because they're being done "improperly", that's still a 50% reduction in ewaste.

> and also you don't want to be on the hook for repairing really good counterfeits (and I have personally experienced the latter).

Then don't. I don't see why the manufacturer should be on the hook to repair a counterfeit.

> 5) Right to repair will not solve e-waste. My opinion is it won't make much of a dent.

I disagree 200%. I've repaired countless phones, TVs, computers and other devices for myself and friends and family, all without help of legislation that would ensure the availability of parts and instructions, and the right to repair would only expand this trend. Most people wouldn't do this themselves even with the right to repair, but they are almost certainly within 2 degrees of separation of someone that would.

You're also looking at this very myopically through a specific tech industry lens and ignoring one of the main motivations of the right to repair: super expensive farm equipment. John Deere has a stranglehold on farmers who tend to be very DIY, and this has been driving up their costs and sometimes even driving them out of business because they can't access service or parts at affordable prices, and they can't repair the devices themselves. Breaking this stranglehold would be huge.

No. We need to be able to repair devices so that they continue to function for longer without throwing them away.

The primary reason being that they are 97% of the available items, forcing any repair shop to get by through fixing the 3%. This results in a tug-of-war between repair shops being too far away (fewer of them) or too expensive, closing in on the price of a new disposable item.

Right-to-fix isn't about me being an expert on how to fix things, it's about me being able to get things fixed by someone other than the manufacturer. This increases the number of repairmen, which increases the attractiveness of repairable items in a virtuous circle.

edit: also in a lot of these manufacturer repair situations you're talking about mailing the item somewhere, not walking to a store and walking out with a new one. A world in which you arrive at a familiar repair shop, they transfer your data to a loner phone, and you get your phone back in a day or two and rsync the diff back - that doesn't sound radically different for the customer than the status quo, just radically cheaper and more environmentally friendly.

How can you say that I should not repair or upgrade my phone / laptop without Apple blessing because my device could harm you WHILE at the same time I can repair my car at a third party mechanic and fucking cars have more potential to cause damage then electronics and tractors, though car manufacturers are hating this are against right to repair and pushing this FUD campaigns. As long as you have the choice to repair your phone at an official place then is not your bussiness that some guy is capable to cleanup the water from the device itself or he is competent to fix is speackers or his car and fix it itself.

When I was a kid I was "fixing" digital watches by replacing broken parts from other broken watches(most of them were using compatible displays or bracelets) but in future this evil corps want to make it illegal, make proprietary scres and copy right them so I can;t open the device, put DRM in them so I can't change a display etc the result would be a lot e-waste and more money for the corporations. And who knows maybe if you see a kid that opened up an electronic device you will call the police to handle the dangerous situation.

So your logic is: if a part is replaced, the thing isn't actually repaired.

> It's blindly replacing parts

Blindly? Really? Every repair I've had done - even the ones where the tech doesn't speak the same fucking language as me - have clearly identified what's at fault, and told me what's being done. Hardly seems "blind".

> at the exact same prices.

If the genuine parts cost the same, why are you surprised the labour costs the same?

> which also happens to be better for the planet as it's less wasteful

Based on what? Have you really never heard of Repair/Refurbish for sale?

Ah, well if we can divorce ourselves from facts, then yes, we can believe anything.

What legal way am I locked out? There are exemptions in US (and other law) for copyright, patents have not changed, trademarks don't stop me.

There are zero items in my house (and I have all sorts of tech) that I cannot take apart (and routinely do) and fiddle with and hack on and change and repair if I feel so inclined.

Sure, the average person with low tech skills and low tech tools has a harder time, but the things being worked on are simply much more specialized and complex. I bet the average person has been unable to repair a fine watch for a century - that's needed a specialist, since it was high tech a century ago.

Or do you mean repair has gotten more complex as technology has gotten more complex? That has been and always will be the case. Repairing an axe is always going to be easier than repairing an iPhone.

I actually don't think they could care less if you fix it yourself. Apple, Samsung etc have done nothing to stop repair shops around the world that fix/replace phone or computer components and companies like MacSales have happily existed for years.

I can imagine if he has attempted to repair a MagSafe charger or a battery that Apple would rightly want to protect their customers but anything else would be largely harmless.

I could not possibly agree less. You wouldn't happen to work in a related industry, would you?

> It's more likely to be it costs way more to make as nice a device that people want, that's also repairable.

Based on what evidence? Current practices like locked engines, propeitary versions of standard interfaces, drm in printer cartridges, deliberately overbundled parts, deliberate incompatibility doing things like reversing screw threads on one type of screw for no mechanical benefit, planned obsolecence, etc don't support your take. These things aren't free to implement– there's a calculable ROI that they feel is worth spending millions of engineering and lobbying dollars to implement.

> How many people would pay that premium when they're never going to service it anyway?

Considering the current state is needlessly buying an entirely new device every time something breaks, which not only costs money, it uses a ton of resources, and the alternative is better engineered products and competitive local repair options, I don't think it will be a hard sell. If corporations screwed up the market bad enough to undervalue their products because they're mislabeled disposables, well then that's on them. If they can't make it work, I guarantee someone else will. Will there be downsides? There's downsides to everything. So far "stuff theoretically might be more expensive up-front even though this limits their ability to artificially extract money from customers later on without disclosing it" isn't quite a showstopper.

That doesn’t bother me, I just find it annoying when you want modularity but claim you want repairability. It usually comes attached with conspiracy theories and long rant. Feels watching a fake movement. Why can’t you accept that the companies don’t necessarily spend resources to make something non-modular? Why just don’t you demand consideration for ease of repair or modularity? Why you have to claim that iPhone’s are hard or impossible to repair when people get repairs all the time? I guess I don’t like the spirit of the movement.

No.... His logic is that he should have the freedom to hire someone to fix a device, instead of replace the part completely, if he chooses to do so.

> If the genuine parts cost the same

If people were free to do repairs differently, then it would be possible to do a repair more cheaply.

I am not sure how you could be misinterpreting what they are saying this much.

This is wishful thinking, caring about repairability does not magically make such devices appear on store shelves.

Besides people caring about repairability often have few option due to limited budget which is often why they care for repairability in the first place.

> I see, you are so smart and the rest of us are sheep like idiots for buying products they can't repair.

Being knowledgeable about a kind of product has nothing to do with being an idiot. Not knowing that you can buy a 4GB RAM with mid range cpu computer now, and upgrade to 8GB and better cpu later does not make you an idiot. To each her own field of expertise and most people are not computer hardware expert or do not have the luxury of having time to spend on this.

It can be done, but it is a huge waste.

Take the A1989 Macbook. Let's say you bring it in because it stops charging. It's 2019. It's dead. Let's pretend I am a normal repair shop, and not someone with youtube fame that can find someone at intersil/renesas that can get me chips.

Let's say the ISL9240 charging chip dies.

I can, in theory, do my research, and find out that the iPhone XR charging case uses the same chip. I can buy that charging case for $100+, disassemble it, locate the ISL9240, remove it, reball it, and replace it on the customer's logic board.

but......this is insane.

a) I have to waste a battery charging case, including the lithium battery.

b) I am adding $100+ to the repair cost since I have to stock & sell this case now just to get a chip.

c) I have to do research to figure out what other device on the market uses this chip, on top of the work of figuring out what is wrong on a complex 5+ layer PCB.

The viability of this repair, for a shop that needs to get their customer in & out in a day or two for them to remain satisfied, goes out the window almost immediately.

>Even if we're talking about Apple devices or even Sony devices, there needs to be a balance between repairability and access.

What does this actually mean? What is the downside to this chip being made available for sale, so that when the device fails it can be repaired? What are we balancing here?

>Now, someone with enough social followers can create a PR nightmare for a company based on something that's totally out of that company's control so it's no surprise that no one wants to open up that Pandora's box.

It is 100% within the company's control whether or not they want this part to be available; the reason it cannot be sold to anyone is because they make it that way.

>I'm fascinated by the fact that people like Louis Rossmann are both the perfect example of why Right to Repair should work while at the same time being an amazing example of why the current versions of R2R can't work.

Where is the argument in favor of why this cannot work, and how I am example of it? Where is the citation? How is it for decades parts and chips were made available with zero problems and now it can be asserted that this "can't work" with no explanation?

This increasingly feels like someone's throwing poo at the wall in the hopes of finding something that sticks.

With cars there is a key difference: car service people usually are required to complete a multi-year long education with proper certifications (at least in Germany), and they get proper service manuals, genuine tools, spare parts and utilities from the manufacturers (as a result of the right to repair laws mentioned in the article), and third party replacement parts have to be certified as well (at least in Europe).

With phone repair shops, you have no guarantee that the person doing the repair is actually skilled, or that the repair parts are genuine/certified in any way. The right-to-repair laws have to be extended to force manufacturers to provide genuine spare parts, the sooner the better. Lithium battery fires are a real and scary threat.

That goes for everything though, most people don't know how a car works, yet you can replace every single component. The same goes for desktop computers and household appliances.

This has been the norm across many technical devices that have become part of everyday life. How many regular users know how a radio works? The point is that regardless of how technical they are, these devices have remained repairable by anyone who is so inclined.

The movement to proprietize basic maintenance on the part of manufacturers is purely profit driven, and is carried out at the expense of consumers, the environment, and overall innovation.

And thus, the insight comes from someone who only repairs the components, not someone who knows about designing them. I wouldn't trust my mechanic to tell me that my car's engine was designed badly because chances are that opinion is solely based on how easy/cheap it is to repair.