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Fixers Know What 'Repairable' Means—Now There's A Standard For It - Ifixit:
[Earlier this year], three years of arguing with industry finally paid off, as the European standard EN45554 was published. This official document with an unexciting name details "general methods for the assessment of the ability to repair, reuse and upgrade energy-related products." In plain English, it's a standard for measuring how easy it is to repair stuff. It's also a huge milestone for the fight for fair repair.
We want to repair the stuff we own, so we can use it for longer. This is not only important because we want our money's worth out of the things we paid for, but because manufacturing new products is a huge and underestimated driver of climate change. So if we want to avoid cooking our planet, we need to stop churning out disposable electronics and start repairing more. Like, right now.
The problem is, industry won't do this by itself. Managers get ahead by showing quarterly sales growth, not increased product lifespans. Hence we need the government to step in, banning unrepairable products and helping consumers—that's you!—to identify the most durable products out there, so as to empower them to make better purchasing decisions. And in the EU, our political leaders are getting ready to do so.
But here's the rub: those leaders don't know what a repairable product is. If you ask manufacturers, they will all tell you their products are repairable. If you ask us, some devices clearly are more repairable than others, and some are frankly just not repairable at all.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday July 06 2020, @09:31AM (8 children)
You? Probably not. But a fixer could. To the benefit of everybody except the manufacturer.
One can hope to see a reduced prevalence of planned obsolescence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ledow on Monday July 06 2020, @10:17AM (5 children)
There's a point of practicality here - I just want to swap the module for a working one. What a repairer does in a back-room to then turn a "broken" module into a "non-broken" module that they can sell on is not my concern. With modern electronics, those kinds of SMD/solder reflow jobs aren't particularly cost effective even with the best equipment in the world.
But there's nothing stopping making things modular for the consumer so they can "repair" things themselves. If my washing machine breaks, I'm not tearing the thing down to break out the soldering iron. I'm looking for a working replaceable module - available from someone who can supply one. If they can even turn the old "broken" one into a working one is far beyond certain.
Far more important is modularity, the availability of alternative compatible modules if necessary, and the standardisation of interfaces to allow that.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by anubi on Monday July 06 2020, @10:46AM (1 child)
There is a market for rebuilt car parts. In order to get a freshly rebuilt part, you need to give back your broken one. Else, you pay an additional "core charge".
Very common on parts with custom castings...alternators, starters, and things like computer modules.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday July 07 2020, @12:50AM
Yes, definitely. I work on cars a fair amount for someone who doesn't do it as a job. Anyway, more and more the aforementioned parts are NOT being offered as rebuilt- sold as new only, coming from China of course. They're so inexpensive that it's not worth rebuilding them. Many recent examples: water pumps, alternators, starters, etc. It's great that they're so inexpensive and you're getting new parts, but I question the quality and I'd rather have rebuilt older ones. More and more I've taken to buying the parts- like bearings and seals and brushes and rebuilding the things myself. One alternator I took apart- I could not find anything wrong with it, so I blew out the dust (air nozzle) and reassembled it and it's been working perfectly for 2 years. I reason there must have been a loose connection that I unknowingly fixed by disassembling and reassembling.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Dr Spin on Monday July 06 2020, @12:21PM (2 children)
Take your straw man, set it on fire, and then jump into the fire: Not all repairs involve soldering hardware.
I have several phones which work, but the OS is obsolete, and the information does not exist to replace it because the datasheets for the parts
and the boot loader API are not publicly available.
The manufacturer should be required to put these in escrow before being permitted to sell the device, so that the FOSS community can
replace the bloatware with a usable alternative if it performs better than his shitstorm or he forces an upgrade on me with a UI that is worse
than shit.
Failing that, he should be treated as a serial fly-tipper, and fined several thousand for each phone he sells, on pain of lengthy terms in prison
for each and every director if the company turns out to have supplied duff information, or defaults on payments.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 2) by ledow on Monday July 06 2020, @05:14PM (1 child)
You're now introducing software specifications.
Almost every phone is nothing but an ARM chip, the bootloader isn't necessary to boot an alternative OS (proven by LineageOS).
What you're suggesting is completely open hardware - admirable but more unlikely that someone just making a "CPU board" that can be replaced by any other that connects to a "GSM board", a "screen module" and so on. Often datasheets
While ideally you'd be right, it has nothing to do with repairing the device (and you accuse me of strawman?). Datasheets for things like the x86 chips are just sitting out there for everyone - doesn't help you crack the XBox, etc.
But if you could just swap out the CPU module for an OS-version one, you'd be laughing, and could even get better, more suited chips/BIOS for the things you want to do. Then "the OS" just becomes a pluggable module, in effect.
And with security heading towards secure-booting everywhere, you can have all the details in the world - if you don't have the bootloader key, you can never load the OS (without invalidating the warranty by permanently flipping a bit, like how phones work now) even if you know every other detail of how it works. And Samsung aren't going to sign your bootloader or provide an opportunity to bypass it without it being extremely obvious (as they already do).
You're two steps ahead. But my suggested step would not only make your possible, but would probably negate the need for it anyway. Buy a new phone, buy an "open" CPU module... done.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Dr Spin on Monday July 06 2020, @06:38PM
Prior to Bill Gates, almost all hardware had published datasheets which the manufacturer would happily send you free of charge.
The 8008 datasheet explained exactly how the instructions were executed, to the gate level (I have a first edition).
I headed a team that wrote an OS for the 8080 quite similar to CPM (could read CPM, Intel ISIS and RSX/11 files).
DEC would supply you with free manuals explaining the internals of all the parts to the level required to write Unix.
In the 1970's no procurement team would buy chips (or any other component) for which there was no second source.
Hence Intel and AMD cross licensed a load of chips, All was happy.
Then came manufacturers of video chips which were "proprietary" - primarily because they were so bug infested that
anyone who read the datasheet risked their head exploding (I wrote OS/2 drivers for S3 chips).
But my suggested step would not only make your possible, but would probably negate the need for it anyway. Buy a new phone, buy an "open" CPU module... done.
No, its not about my phone - it is about Mr and Mrs Twit and their kids buying stuff that manufacturers are free to brick and send to landfill. There should be no "freedom to
make money by trashing the planet" any more than you are free to enter my house and enter your trash can on the carpet.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SpockLogic on Monday July 06 2020, @11:40AM (1 child)
The curse of the MBA strikes again. Short term gains over long sustainability every time.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 06 2020, @08:24PM
It is a bit funny as our company was just looking at extending our warranty from something like 10 years to 15 or 20.
Then again, we don't sell consumer grade stuff. This is seriously industrial stuff, and we sell at a mark up for our quality.
Companies are willing to pay a bit more when they know they wont have to touch it for the next 25 or so years.