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EU Accepts Resolution Abolishing Planned Obsolescence, Making Devices Easier to Repair (retaildetail.eu)
Long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo writes: The European Parliament accepted a resolution to lengthen consumer goods and software's longevity, a counter to the alleged planned obsolescence process built into a lot of products. The European Parliament now wants the European Commission to create a clear definition of the term "planned obsolescence" and to develop a system to track that aging process. It also wants longer warranty periods and criteria to measure a product's strength. Each and every device should also have a mention of its minimal life expectancy.
Devices should also be easier to repair: batteries and other components should be freely accessible for replacement, unless safety dictates otherwise. Manufacturers will also need to give other companies access to their components so that consumers can visit those companies for repairs.
Devices should also be easier to repair: batteries and other components should be freely accessible for replacement, unless safety dictates otherwise. Manufacturers will also need to give other companies access to their components so that consumers can visit those companies for repairs.
I remember that pretty much anything electronic from Radio Shack had a schematic at the back of the user manual. Nice to have if you want to fix it years later (and still have the manual.)
I have a Radio Shack clock radio with a huge LED time display. Have had it for maybe twenty years, and it recently decided to show random LED segments instead of the time. Yesterday, I opened it up to look for any obvious smoked transistors or leaky capacitors. No, looks fine. Playing the odds, I replaced the largest (power supply) capacitor, and now it works again. I saved the cost of a new one and saved the landfill from one more piece of e-garbage.
A dingo ate my sig...
Appliances are all junk now that require you to buy insurance from the store just to ensure that they make it to five years of operation.
Very few of them work well; for example, the energy-efficient dryer that requires you to run it twice, instead of once, or the energy-efficient refrigerator which specializes in spoiling food during its frequent "defrost" cycles.
Stuff worked better in the past. Toilets flushed. Refrigerators lasted for forty years. Washing machines actually produced clean clothes.
I am all for ecology, but the way we go about it is silly, mainly because it is an excuse to avoid seeing the real problems.
Alternative Right.
As European, i say labor costs are the primary factor why repairs are often infeasible.
It's not like our salary is that high. It's all the added taxes - starting with sales tax (also on repairs and other services) and not ending with labor taxes.
To bring home a $15 salary a technician would have to charge at least $65 / hour. And that's excluding the costs he or she might have for the shop, shipping, components etc. In effect it means that even a small 20-minute repair on, say, a smartphone will put you down at least a $120.
Any repair that is labor intensive will be costly. Component costs are only a fraction of the repair costs. And it happens that repairs are inherently labor intensive. Fix the tax system and repairs would get more affordable. But that's not gonna happen anytime soon.
A glitch a day keeps the bugs away.
This proposal is quite clever. They will have to put a sticker on the box that says "average time before something fails is X years", which instantly does two things:
1. Consumers know how long something will likely last, rather than just guessing based on brand reputation or anecdotes.
2. Longevity will become a selling point. Before they had stickers on vacuum cleaners showing how well they actually cleaned people just tended to buy the most powerful one, but now they make a more intelligent and informed decision.
Selling price isn't based cost of manufacture, it's based on what the market will stand. So for example goods often cost about the same in Europe as they do in the US (factoring in tax), but in Europe you get a much longer statutory warranty.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Now accepting that as true, and it is UK money returning to the UK. It returns without a political bias.
Tories are not keen on spending money in non tory areas and you can probably say the same about Labour too. The EU has put money into economically deprived areas without political bias So you get nice things when the government of the day would rather cut spending to areas that support the "opposition". Think thats true of most countries to be fair.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
No, the first was in the late 90's when they forced consumer electronics to have power factor corrected power supplies and limited harmonic distortion. The amount of money and resources wasted because of cheap power supplies requiring building electrical infrastructure upgrades was stupefying.
It is good to keep the US in check as the default standards-bearer. They have shown this repeatedly.