WSJ: We Need the Right To Repair Our Gadgets

An anonymous reader writes: An editorial in the Wall Street Journal rings a bell we've been ringing for years: "Who owns the knowledge required to take apart and repair TVs, phones and other electronics? Manufacturers stop us by controlling repair plans and limiting access to parts. Some even employ digital software locks to keep us from making changes or repairs. This may not always be planned obsolescence, but it's certainly intentional obfuscation." The article shows that awareness of this consumer-hostile behavior (and frustration with it) is going mainstream. The author links to several DIY repair sites like iFixit, and concludes, "Repairing stuff isn't as complicated as they want you to think. Skilled gadget owners and independent repair pros deserve access to the information they need to do the best job they can."

Comments

Good example

[jez9999]

A good example is removable batteries in mobile phones. I was shopping around a few days ago and the only major Smartphones that still have removable batteries are the LG G3/G4, Samsung S5 (not the S6), and I think the Moto X. Everyone else has jumped on the Apple ship and denied you access to the smartphone battery, preventing a hard reset.

Stop copying Apple, you lemmings!!

Re: Good example

[sremick]

Wrong

A typical lithium ion battery will show noted loss of capacity even after 2y. And it's not just about the overall lifespan of the battery: it's about being able to quickly pop in a freshly-charged spare and get on with your day without having to be stuck tethered to a charging cable.

Or, if you work remotely from charging sources for extended periods, having a handful of $10 charged batteries handy is a lifesaver.

Re:Good example

[sremick]

This is precisely why I got the S5 even though if I had waited a month I could've gotten the S6. I knew the S6 wouldn't have a removable battery, and with that being a critical feature I made sure I voted with my wallet.

Re: Good example

[jandrese]

Phone batteries tend to be around 50-60% of their original capacity after a couple of years. Here is the thing though, it may be difficult but it is not impossible to replace the battery in something like an iPhone. It requires a special screwdriver, but that is easily found online from the same places that sell replacement batteries. The actual procedure isn't especially difficult on most phones. It's not something you would do regularly, but as something you do maybe once to a phone its really not so bad. The tradeoff is that the phone is thinner and lasts longer on the charge. You also lose the ability to carry extra batteries with you on a trip and swap them in as needed, but that was not typical even when it was possible, and less necessary with the higher capacity "permanent" batteries on phones.

The one thing you do miss is the ability to pull the battery from your phone if you suspect it has been compromised and is spying on you. With baseband hacks you can never be sure if the phone is completely off the way you could back when you could yank the battery.

Re: Good example

[jez9999]

it is that more people would rather have a thinner phone

What is it with that, can anyone explain to me? My LG G3 is maybe a centimetre thick and I don't need it to be any thinner. Honestly, why do you need your phone to be thinner than that (and probably more likely to bend)? Are you planning to use it as a credit card?

Unibody?

[Aqualung812]

Since we love car analogies here, do you think the trend towards non-removable batteries is comparable to the changes in car body design?

It seems older cars used body-on-frame and other designs that basically allowed the person performing the repair to unbolt parts, work on them or replace them, and then bolt them back on.

The disadvantage to this was a weaker body, or a heavier one.

That seems to be the trend with phones: A lightweight and small phone means a sealed case.

Re: Unibody?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can still fix those cars/devices, it's just a little harder, especially for the people used to the old 'bolt and ratchet' style.
 
The same exact thing can be said for phones in this case... If all you have is a n00bs experience and the 30 dollar Radio Shack toolkit you're going to have a hard time of it. We see plenty of non-manufacturer-trained techs out there setting up businesses for replacing screens, batteries, etc. I guess the "lock-in" is more a matter of "I can't do it as easily as I could with the phone that did half as much but twice the weight and volume."
 
This, to me, is like the guys who remembered a time when you could replace daughter boards in a PC that are now mostly integrated devices. When's the last time you seen a consumer level PC with a discrete ethernet card or sound card?
 
You're going to have to put up with this if you want your spiffy phone with all the bells and whistles in a slim form factor while maintaining an acceptable battery life.

Re:Unibody?

[itsenrique]

Cars have become much harder to work on over the last 2 decades. At first, before that, during the muscle car era, things were simpler and there was a lot more room under the hood to work and see. Then things became compact, lighter, more efficient (and complex). Makes sense. Got a little harder to work on, and definitely harder to learn, but we got really efficient cars. But recently, with the increased electronification of cars, the automakers have been fighting in court to prevent reverse engineering their software. The thing is, what is done by software is a list that gets bigger all the time. So, yes, people who work on cars a lot have been feeling the lack of love for a while. A lot of these cars that are coming out now will have a lot of broken gadgets and other irreparable systems possibly leading to an early trip to the metal scrappers. The auto makers want you to buy new, the aging American fleet concerns them for obvious reasons.

Re:Unibody?

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Most of that is scare tactics. Most cars are basically the same with varying build quality and materials. There is nothing mechanically special with a Saab when compared to any other gasoline powered FWD vechicle. Granted there may be some differences like with BMW and their current double VANOS system but even that isn't all that special just a neat way of doing variable valve timing and valve lift. Of course an unbalanced half shaft is going to cause problems and there are shops that can check and fix that that aren't Saab. Also all brake systems are high pressure and are really easy to work on. Since most vehicles don't use drum brakes anymore it is so much easier to do. The hardest set of disk brakes I have ever done were the ones on my old Bronco II and that was only because there were 2 pins that you have to pound out that held the caliper in place. The most difficult repair I ever did to a vehicle was replacing the valley pan on my previous car and I decided that since I was in there any way I would also to valve cover gaskets, and the CCV as well. It took about 8 hours but I didn't have any problems. After that the next worst repair was replacing the blower motor in that E39 BMW and that was mostly because physically getting the dash in and out of the car was a real bitch.

Re:Unibody?

[sjames]

Actually, to reach apple level, the manufacturers would have to do away with the openable hood as well. If it needs an oil change, throw it away and buy a new one.

Re:Unibody?

[Grishnakh]

That's a bunch of BS. Cars built in the last 2 decades are lasting longer than ever and easily going 100-200,000 miles without any major repairs. And who cares about reverse-engineering the software in your power steering controller anyway? If it goes bad (which it doesn't, because there's no hydraulic pump any more and rubber hoses to degrade, just an electric motor), then you just replace the parts; it's a simple bolt-in affair, and certainly much easier than messing around with hydraulic fluid taking a circuitous route around the engine compartment.

Honestly, things are *simpler* now, from a repair perspective, and far improved in reliability. Those shitty old cars needed a LOT of work all the time; constant "tune ups" and adjustments, which modern cars don't ever need.

Finally, electronics never fail, unless you have bad capacitors. No moving parts, remember?

Re:Unibody?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I wish that were all true, but...

Time required to change headlight bulb in my car 15 years ago: 1-2 minutes.

Time required to change headlight bulb in my current car: usually faster to drop by the dealer, because they seem to know a shortcut for doing it without disassembling the entire front of the car per the handbook and have whatever tools they need to take that shortcut.

Time required to change headlight bulb in next generation car with state-of-the-art lighting: it's not one headlight bulb, it's a whole assembly with multiple lighting components, associated sensors, and software. And you'll be needing a mortgage if it ever goes wrong.

Also, MTBF for headlight bulbs in my car 15 years ago was probably 2-3 years, while for my current car it's probably under a year despite all the claims that bulbs in modern cars should last the lifetime of the vehicle. $DEITY help the poor schmuck who gets a shiny new executive car with the cool new lighting technologies if those lights are similarly unreliable, though.

FCC's trying to break improving router firmware

[jddj]

The FCC is currently trying to end 3rd-party wifi router firmware (think Tomato, DD-WRT, OpenWRT, etc.), by requiring manufacturers to build devices that only accept firmware updates signed with the manufacturer's keys.

This means you'll only be able to install software the manufacturer has certified comes with their own bugs, embedded backdoors and security #fails, rather than be able to put something better on your hardware.

It also may mean that router manufacturers will be required to place NSA backdoors in the firmware and be unable to tell consumers about them due to National Security Letters.

The WSJ is right: We Need The Right To Repair Our Gadgets.

Re:FCC's trying to break improving router firmware

[jonnythan]

They're trying to end 3rd party *radio* firmware, because so many of them allow you to boost power levels well beyond what is allowed by current regulations.

They don't give a whit about router firmware. Of course, the end result will probably be manufacturers locking down router firmware entirely, but all they would need to do is lock down the radio itself.

Re:For a reason.....

[mordjah]

Pffft! Come on.. PSU, main board, sound board, breakouts for controls, driver board.. Come on. Not a big deal.. Sure, you aren't doing any component level repair any more beyond some shitty cheapo dried caps , but that ship sailed a while ago unless you are a hobbiest with good tools and a steady hand. It pisses me off to no end that you cannot even buy a repair manual unless you are a "factory authorized service center" no matter how out of warranty.

TLDR: quit buying Apple products

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

I only buy Android phones for me and my family that cost less than $100. If they break (and it has yet to happen), oh well - I'll just buy another one. Ditto tablets (though I've tossed and replaced two of those). Our laptops are also cheapy Toshiba/HP's that cost maybe $300 each.

All of these have replaceable batteries, and I can generally replace the disk, screen, keyboard and other major parts of the laptops for $60.

The common thread here? None of these are Apple products.

Hostility towards Consumers

[Sir_Eptishous]

I think in general there is hostility towards consumers, and not just with things like consumer electronics.

Digital media such as music, books, video or films?
While there is an immense catalog of choice with what we can consume, we are are getting less and less able to have control over their choices, due to how "rights holders" and others corral us into their vision of how to consume and deliver this media.

'Skilled gadget owners'

[kheldan]

For various values of the word 'skilled'. I've been working in electronics for over 30 years. To 'repair' something used to mean 'replace components', but after a certain point it became 'replace an entire circuit board', which will always be a weak substitute so far as I'm concerned. But the real problem is that with the advent of surface-mount components, the door to repairing a circuit board largely became shut and locked to the vast majority of people. When you need (high) magnification and some specialized soldering equipment and supplies just to replace common passive components (YOU try to remove and replace 0402 SMCs with the naked eye!) it puts the job just out of reach of many. Of course most times passive components aren't the problem, and when the integrated circuits are in BGA (ball grid array) packages, and you need a $3000 setup just to remove one, and help from a diety to install a replacement, for 99% of anyone thinking of trying it, it just went entirely out of reach. This is not even touching on the subject of schematics for the device you're trying to repair, which for many/most things you're not getting your hands on for any amount of money, and in some cases you might get threatened with legal action just for trying to get it. Then there's the subject of proprietary software tools that might be necessary, and you're not getting those for any reason from a manufacturer. Even the manufacturers themselves often don't bother repairing anything, they'll just 'recycle' it and send you a new one because the cost in labor alone to repair exceeds what the thing costs.

Of course I'm going to be reminded that nobody is trying to repair the circuit board in their phone, they just want to replace the battery or cracked screen or whatnot. Manufacturers have never wanted consumers repairing their own devices, so yes they make it as difficult as possible sometimes. It's always been like that. Don't expect that to change, either. You're always going to have to go to 3rd party sources for parts and supplies and information. When we really need to cry 'Foul!' is if they try to make it illegal, though.

my 1st gen kindle fire doesn't charge any more

[circletimessquare]

it's a well-known issue

https://www.ifixit.com/Answers...

amazon said they'd give me $15 off the purchase of a new one because it doesn't charge any more. instead i purchased the $5 repair USB port:

http://www.amazon.com/Charging...

looked through some videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

and tried it out

in the first 15 minutes, i succesfully broke a tiny plasticzif connector:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

great, nothing to see here, move along, cross your fingers it will stay with some rubber cement

then i made a hilariously inept attempt to solder tiny connections of the new USB port with a fat soldering iron and some eye glass repair magnifying glass

but lo and behold it worked. it charged! ...for half an hour. now it's dead as a door knob

here's the real issue:

i don't have the time to do this shit, and the cost of modern electronics makes the cost of new electronics compared to the time investment to attempt a repair means repair is not an option

go to repair places and the cost of a repair is also prohibitively expensive as compared to the cost of a new item

therefore: welcome to our throwaway culture

i tried. i really did

i just don't have the time or patience anymore, not to join now myself

sorry

Re:my 1st gen kindle fire doesn't charge any more

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

I'll fix your SHIFT keys for free.

Re:my 1st gen kindle fire doesn't charge any more

[Anonymous Coward]

I take it you turned his offer down then?

How about a manual at least?

[Maxwell]

Could we start with requiring documentation? We just got a new FTTH Hub from our ISP. No manual. No instructions. Vendor has nothing online and refers to ISP insists who there is no known documentation for the Hub. Sagemcom f@st 5250 for those wondering. So not only is it non repairable it's non-troubleshootable and no way to tell anything about the device.

Consumers made this decision ...

[MacTO]

Consumers helped to make this decision a long time ago when they decided that it was better to replace than to repair. Yes, there were external factors. This includes things like the cost of getting someone to make repairs and the faster turn around of buying a replacement. On the other hand, their inability to conduct the most basic repairs on their own (e.g. fixing a frayed cable or swapping a replaceable component) went a long way in convincing manufacturers that planned obsolescence can be a viable business model. The prioritization of compact and more integrated devices over serviceability is also a huge factor. Computers are an excellent example of that. Contrast an early 80's computer, where nearly everything was in a socket or soldered through-hole, to a modern phone where there is barely enough space for a plug and socket for the battery.

We also can't claim that consumers didn't see this coming. Again to the computer example: there was a shift from the early 80's computers to modular desktops of the late 80's and early 90's (where the modules were more or less standardized), to the laptops of the late 90's and early 2000's (where the modules were less standard), to the present day. Ah, the present day: a time when a replaceable battery or an SD card for memory expansion (not so much to repair as to extend the service life of a product) is considered an anti-feature by some.

Manufacturers may have implemented these decisions, but it was the consumer who made the decision.

Spectrum and interference

[xtal]

Blame people using frequencies and EIRP they're not supposed to and interference generated as a result. That's the downside to the software defined radio approach; the software needs to be locked to maintain compliance with FCC regulations.

Has nothing to do with networking or repair.

You can always get a router that takes a FCC-approved wireless card and route to your heart's content.