The Fight for the "Right to Repair"

Smithsonian ^ | 13 July 2016 | Emily Matchar

[Lorianne]

Manufacturers have made it increasingly difficult for individuals or independent repair people to fix electronics. A growing movement is fighting back ___

Fifty years ago, if your television broke you could bring it to the local electronics shop to be repaired. These days, a broken TV likely means a trip to Best Buy for a new one.

Electronics have become harder to fix. This is, in part, because they’ve become more complex. But some of the problem is by design. Manufacturers have increasingly restricted repair information to authorized repair centers, leaving consumers and independent repair people unable to deal with even simple problems. It's just easier (and sometimes cheaper) to buy something new.

A growing number of people, seeing this as an unreasonable state of affairs, are fighting back. In a so-called “right to repair” movement, this loose coalition of consumer advocates, repair professionals and ordinary individuals are working to create legislation that would make it harder for companies to keep repair information proprietary.

The idea of planned obsolescence is nothing new. But the use of “repair prevention” as a method of making products obsolete is growing, say right to repair proponents. Many companies that manufacture electronics—anything from laptops to refrigerators to your car’s onboard computer—now have restrictions that prevent consumers from having them fixed anywhere besides a licensed repair shop. Some companies use digital locks or copyrighted software to prevent consumers or independent repair people from making changes. Others simply refuse to share their repair manuals. Some add fine print clauses to their user agreements so customers (often unwittingly) promise not to fix their own products.

[T-Bird45]

Nor will they provide needed parts...

Here's the real deal on parts: most manufacturers rarely make every part needed in their machine, instead buying them from disparate other manufacturers that specialize in that component. The manufacturer will buy additional parts for spares/repairs for a certain period of time and the actual manufacturer will make the part for the general marketplace for a period of time. After that time...unobtainium unless you can find an out-of-service unit that still has the part you need in working order.

[old gringo]

i have a 1938 allen eternal cookstove still going strong the temp. gauge on the oven still works.can’t get a temp gauge to last 6 mons. on my truck.

[CaptainAmiigaf]

What you say is obvious and well-known. The crux of the problem is that a WATCH can become a true personal treasure for so many reasons.
OK, in my book a write of a young soldier who put a NEW watch on, 1/2 mile from Normandy’s Omaha beach on D-Day. I was astonished and asked how old he turned that famous day.
This 6’5 elderly gentleman answered, “I turned 17 that day. I lied about my age and got in because I was so big even as a kid. This watch and I made it to the Elbe and came home, both still working as new. Two stores told me the watch wasn’t worth repairing.”
For his watch we still get parts. A “nothing watch” worth more than GOLD to the owner. That’s what I’m talking about.

[Texas Fossil]

I still know how to repair electronics, but documentation is quite another matter. And components have changed. My old ham op friends were artists at repurposing. Few of the new ones ever did any construction.

[dadfly]

absolutely right, you’ve hit on a major aspect of their over all strategy. despite their “green” mantras, the globalists don’t want you repairing stuff, especially on your own.

one big reason why: repairing stuff takes an order of magnitude greater skill then the workforce the globalist wants under his control.

[T-Bird45]

I will defer to your superior knowledge as regards the watch industry and the emotional attachment owners have for their timepieces. As for your opening sentence on my comment about manufacturing realities being obvious and well-known, my follow-up question would then be why do we have this article about a “right to repair” which would require an obligation on the manufacturer to always have and make available repair parts? I would contend it’s not so obvious or well-known.

[Captain Rhino]

Agree. But this has been going on for sometime.

About 20-25 years ago, had one of the kid’s VCRs go out after a thunderstorm. It was a couple of years after we purchased it but it had cost @$250, so it might be worth fixing. Took it into the repair department of a big box electronics store. Service department wanted a prepaid $90 troubleshooting fee up front in addition to the ultimate cost of the repair. No, thanks. Went around to the VCR section and bought a new one with better features for $150. Took the old one to the electronics salvage point at the county dump.

But this “don’t repair, get a new one” doesn’t just apply to inexpensive low end items. Bought a $1700 55” Sony Bravio Digital TV system (TV+Blu-Ray Player+Sound System+Speakers) in 2009 with a supplemental 4 year warranty. After 20 months of service, the power supply in the TV developed a problem. Called the warranty number to set up a repair visit. Day later, warranty department calls back. This particular model was out of production and the power supply problem was so widespread they had used up all the spare repair kits. Result: 100% purchase price store credit ($1700) towards the purchase of a new television. Spent a little more and got a 3D Sony set WITH an extended warranty. Still going strong after 5 years. When it goes out, it will go to the salvage point as well.

Next one will probably be 4K, maybe curved. May be awhile. With the kids grown and out on their own, we don’t watch that much television any more(on the big screen that is) - except, of course, during football season.

[Mears]

“I hate throwing something away after 18 months ago, even if it is cheaper to replace than to repair. “

—

Me too——and don’t even get me started on the shodiness of toasters and electric can openers.

I gave up on the can opners and went back to manual but still have to have a toaster. :-(

.

[The Toll]

My Direct TV Receivers suddenly die for no reason once every two years. It’s strange because one will just shut off and never power back up. Then I say to my wife “hmmmm wonder how long until the other one does that”. Then in the next week or so the second receiver will just suddenly quit for no apparent reason.

Whenever I call Direct TV they can never simply replace my receivers. There has been upgrades of some sort and my old model no longer works, I’ll have to pay blah blah blah amount for the new versions.

Jerks!

[CaptainAmiigaf]

Oh Oh!! I will admit that I was speaking ONLY, and ONLY about the watch industry. Any other manufacturing industry is way out of my knowledge scope OR interest. I guess I should have stressed that I mentioned “manufacturing realities for the watch world only. Sorry.
My example of old tyme servie in MY industry. In 1960 Bulova watch introduced the ACUTRON watch. Bulova put on seminars across the country to teach us how to service and repair these ne HI_TECH wonders. Included were coffee and danish...NO charge..and we got tech and instruction sheets.
That was then and of course.. this is NOW>

[Mr. Douglas]

I was using a Beta hi-fi vcr in the mid-80’s with a fisher tube preamp for the audio. One day the pre-amp sent a funky signal to the VCR and fried the audio in it. Since the VCR was rather expensive (Around $1,000), I tried to fix it.

I took it apart and noticed, on the main PC board exposed when removing the bottom plate, that one long trace of copper on the PC board was black and burned. I ran an insulated single strand copper wire over it and soldered it to the connection at each end and that fixed it.

Sometimes (usually) it’s physically obvious stuff - and sometimes it really does take a repair shop to fix it.

The cool thing is that if it is defective components, they usually fail within warranty. The exception is fatal software crashes as happened with my wife’s phone.

[wally_bert]

Thanks for the link. It can never hurt to know stuff.

I don’t work on home gear any more with the exception of mine and parents mostly.

When a laptop has a severe hardware problem, I call Dell pro support and a guy changes out boards and screens.

[wally_bert]

I hope to upgrade my main PC monitor to a 48” 4K.

[Captain Rhino]

Wow.

Make sure to wear something to protect you from all the thermal energy coming off that screen at such a close distance.

BTW, how much does a 4K 48-inch color monitor cost?

[wattojawa]

To be fair the compressor is the single most expensive part of the fridge... you have to put soderless piercing valves in the freon loop, pump out the old freon, cut out the old compressor, remove the piercing valves replacing them with proper service ports flow nitrogen through the tubing, braze int he new compressor, then pup the tubing down to vacuum, then finally put in new freon.

[oh8eleven]

Thx - you sound like you know what you're doing. Yeah, I knew that replacing the compressor would be expensive, but Lowe's didn't even send out a repairman to diagnose.
I guess the sales people have heard the noise complaint so often, they know what the problem is w/o even looking.
The real problem is an inability to design the products for efficent home maintenance. Throw in cheap - made in China - parts and you have a real $hitstorm.