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from the an-industry-group-of-notorious-for-lobbying-to-protect-is-repair-monopolies dept.
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
When you buy a game console, smartphone, dryer, vacuum cleaner, or any number of other complicated electronics, there’s usually a sticker or a piece of paperwork telling you that trying to repair the device yourself will void your warranty. That’s illegal under the federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. Companies offering a warranty on their goods aren’t allowed to void that warranty if the user attempts to repair it themself, but that doesn’t stop the company from scaring customers into thinking it’s true.
It’s such a huge problem that US PIRG—a non-profit that uses grassroots methods to advocate for political change—found that 90 percent of manufacturers it contacted claimed that a third party repair would void its warranty [pdf]. PIRG researched the warranty information of 50 companies in the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM)—an industry group of notorious for lobbying to protect is repair monopolies [sic]—and found that 45 of them claimed independent repair would void their warranty.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by urza9814 on Monday October 15 2018, @01:07PM
I'd call that a manufacturing defect either way....
It's not just about standardization, it's also about lack of proper engineering. Apple is a good example. You know one part that almost *never* fails in Apple products? Fuses. The protection circuitry is worthless by design. No wonder some minor change elsewhere can fry the whole board. With a car you've got peoples lives at risk, so you can have multiple hoses or other components rust completely through and the damn thing still drives; but one part slightly out of spec on a smartphone and it blows up in someone's hand.
If my encryption algorithm becomes insecure the moment someone reads the source code, then it's a garbage algorithm. If my smartphone becomes less robust the moment someone pops the case open, then it's a garbage product. You CAN build stuff that survives user interaction quite well, and it doesn't even have to cost that much. Look at a Raspberry Pi for an excellent example. You have NO IDEA how many times I've hooked something up with a Pi, gone "Hmm, what's that burning plastic smell?", and realized the goddamn thing was on fire...then I rip it all apart and figure out what I screwed up in my wiring, then put it back together and *it still worked fine*. If I had a dollar for every time I was *sure* I fried a Raspberry Pi and it ended up being perfectly fine then I'd be retired already. So why can't a $1000 phone be even half as robust as a $40 computer? Probably because this whole culture of phones lasting 1-2 years is EXTREMELY profitable to the manufacturers...why would they want to manufacture something better when people are willing to just keep overpaying for garbage?
Those both seem VERY unlikely, especially if it's a decent quality board. There's probably a few hundred people every single day building PCs on their living room carpet without ever having an ESD issue. I've done it dozens of times myself. And I've done it with phones, cameras, stereos, and plenty of other devices. I also regularly throw my phone -- every time I tell someone they need a better phone case, I demonstrate mine by whipping it against the nearest wall. If that doesn't loosen a transistor, then a careful repair attempt isn't going to do it either. On the other hand, I rip pads off of solder joints with embarrassing frequency, so I think you probably WOULD have pretty good evidence of a botched repair when you see a component with half the damn pads missing or disconnected solder joints or whatever else. Attempts to repair without tools shouldn't be capable of doing much damage (at least without it being very, very obvious like components ripped right off); attempts to repair with incorrect tools will generally cause very obvious damage like missing solder pads or incorrectly installed components; and attempts to repair with proper tools carefully applied will generally mean the person doing the work already knows enough that they aren't likely to break anything else.
If you wanna offer a good warranty, then either you spend money building a good product, or you spend money constantly replacing your garbage.