Consumers Starting To Realize Gadgets Can Be Fixed

An anonymous reader writes "Consumers seem to be paying more attention to the possibility of fixing gadgets instead of sending them to the landfill. It may be because 10gb in your iPod is more than enough for any normal person, it may be a deep, abiding love for the environment or it may just be the price. A New York Times article explores how new sites like FixYa and old standbys like Macintouch can aid the average user in restoring their 'slightly used' gear. Practically every gadget has their own website devoted to helping owners help each other deal with problems that arise. I personally like AVS Forum for my living room needs. From the article: 'Most other gadgets come with batteries that are easy to replace without custom tools. Replacement batteries for cellphones are often marked up by the devices' manufacturers, while third-party replacements are often available for 60 percent to 80 percent less. Companies offering replacement batteries for iPods often offer better batteries with higher capacities and longer lifetimes. Ipodjuice.com, for instance, sells a 1,200-milliamp-hour battery that will replace the 600-milliamp-hour battery that shipped with a fourth-generation iPod -- an improvement that lets the Web site claim that the repaired iPod will "last 100 percent longer."'"

Comments

There are a lot of greenies out there

[blueZ3]

but let's face it, this is almost certainly the result of economics, rather than some magical new sensitivity for the environment.

Call me when people start putting effort into recycling or repairing their $25 gizmo, instead of when they decide to shell out $100 for the repair of a $300 item.

The title of this article should probably be something like "expensive gadgets not such a commodity item for middle class Americans, after all"

Re:There are a lot of greenies out there

[thynk]

I put effort into repairing a lot of items, regardless of the cost. What true geek ever throws something away?

I usually try to fix it... either fix it or get frustrated and buy the upgrade I really wanted anyway and put the broken one in a box for "parts". Never know when a scrap of wire or micro switch might come in handy down the road. Or I let the kids play with it, never hurts to expand their minds - and I'd rather have them taking apart the broken PS2 controller than the working Xbox 360 :-)

Mostly thanks to the Internet

[kalpol]

The Internet caused a real breakthrough in fixing stuff for me - before, I'd have to find someone who knew more than I did, or hit the library, or just figure it out myself. Now I can find parts for my old Mercedes and my Fiat, repair the lawn mower, put a new power supply in my old LaserJet, recap my Marantz amplifier, refoam my Bose woofers - repair all nice old stuff that probably would have been tossed out without the ability to easily search for repair hints and sources of parts.

Re:Welcome back!

[Gonarat]

Until the late '70s / early '80s, things were designed to be fixable. I remember going to the store with my Dad to get a cord for my Mom's clothes iron. The iron was designed so it could be opened up so that the old cord could be replaced. The power cord would fray from use over time and need to be replaced, but the iron itself was designed to last for years.

Now the iron is designed to be disposable. There is no way to replace the cord even if the iron would last longer than the cord. Forget the waste -- it is more profitable to make you buy a whole new (cheap) iron instead of a cord. The extra waste in the landfill is not the corporation's problem.

Rinse and repeat for most consumer products today -- most products are designed with to be replaces after x amount of time instead of lasting for years so that people with be forced to throw away the old and buy the new. I hope this will change, but I am not holding my breath.

Re:Ink Jet Cartridges

[veganboyjosh]

I work in print production. We have some inkjets and some laser machines. All the printers we use (and I'm guessing lots of others) have at least one part which has a chip that's designed to stop working before the life of the part is used up. It drives us nuts here. My boss has taken to pulling the old chips off old broken parts, for use in other parts with "used up" chips.

We've since been switching our inkjet machines to use ink resevoirs, which are these big tanks that sit outside the body of the printer, and can be refilled while the thing is printing. They're clear plastic (lexan, maybe?) so you can see how low they are.

Planned obsolescence should be punishable by some sort of recursive punishment.

Children of the New Depression

[Jafafa Hots]

I was telling my sister and brother-in-law about how I was planning on doing a repair to my dad's fridge. They were almost outraged that I wasn't going to just replace it, kept cutting me off, wouldn't even let me speak "just buy a NEW one." Almost disgusted at me.

I personally see it as almost immoral, given the current state of things, to throw out a huge appliance that barely gets used anyway and buy a new one because it needs a simple fix.

The idea of repairing something almost offends them. I was staying at their house and their dishwasher quit, it was 2 years old but out of warranty. They were going to buy a new one and were bitching about it, I hired a guy to replace a faulty switch for $100 and my sister acted like it was a strange novelty. She had to hide the fact it had been repaired from her husband, he'd be pissed.

I have the same attitude as my dad, the sort of environmentalism of the depression era - waste not, want not. Simple as that. I don't keep garbage, but unlike my sister and brother-in-law I don't buy a new PC every six months rather than just keeping it clean of malware, putting in a new HD, memory, etc.

Part of that is because I have to live off of disability... but still, these people who are consumer droids buying a new cell phone for every kid in the household every six months... that's just fucked up.