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Right To Repair Advocates Are Hosting YouTube Town Halls To Show You How To Get Involved In the Movement (vice.com)
iFixit, a company that advocates for the right for users to repair their own devices, is hosting live town halls on YouTube to help get new people involved in the movement. "We're going to do them every two weeks while the legislative season is in full swing," Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit, told Motherboard in an email. Motherboard reports: The first town hall aired on Thursday, and featured prominent right to repair leaders like Repair.org's Gay Gordon-Byrne and US PIRG's Nathan Proctor. The broadcast covered topics such as the benefits of right to repair to consumers and the environment, and gave out information on how to talk to legislators about right to repair laws. Thanks to the right to repair movement's efforts, 15 states have introduced right to repair legislation in 2019 so far. Repair.org and iFixit's livestream gives people in those states information to help push their legislators to vote for bills protecting the people's right to repair. People living in states where legislation isn't yet being considered can learn all about how to kickstart their own local movements.
Getting involved in the push for right to repair legislation is as simple as watching a recording of the first town hall broadcast. From there, you can then head over to Repair.org's advocacy page, where, you can navigate to a direct link for each state that will tell you where right to repair legislation stands in your community, who your legislators are, and how to get in contact with them. If folks across America agitate for change, we can enjoy a future where people can freely repair their own devices.
Getting involved in the push for right to repair legislation is as simple as watching a recording of the first town hall broadcast. From there, you can then head over to Repair.org's advocacy page, where, you can navigate to a direct link for each state that will tell you where right to repair legislation stands in your community, who your legislators are, and how to get in contact with them. If folks across America agitate for change, we can enjoy a future where people can freely repair their own devices.
Last month the battery started to crap out, now takes 5-8 hours to charge, but 90 minutes to drain. Took it to a repair shop yesterday, for the price they quoted I can buy a new one for another $20.
Last 2 cellphones I bought were because the existing batteries died.
I'd love to see a law that requires electronics to have an easily replaced battery. Spending $160 for a new device, as opposed to $30 for a battery, is stuck on stupid.
Those things are a lot more complicated than you're making them out to be. Repair codes can be read by anyone with a $100 device. The devices that the dealerships have just provide a lot more live data. Like all data (including the diagnostic codes), they need to be interpreted properly to be useful. Also, individual repair shops usually can buy equipment to provide them with the same information as the dealerships, it's just really expensive if each official product individually (such as VACOM for VW). But they can buy devices from companies like Autel and SnapOn that will work on pretty much any make.
As for John Deere, it's a similar situation just with a much larger piece of equipment. If you own a John Deere then there's an authorized dealership nearby, and they will come to you assuming you're under warranty.
I think the problem is that you're conflating diagnostics with repairs. Nowadays, repairing automobiles and farm equipment isn't much more difficult than it was in the past. But due to the amount of sensors that allow the PCM/ECM to maximize efficiency, diagnostics have become much more difficult. For instance, your idiot light might say "camshaft position sensor" but that doesn't necessarily mean that you have a bad camshaft position sensor. It could be a problem with your variable valve timing system, it could be a timing issue, it could be a short in the wiring for the sensor. As vehicles have become more complex, diagnostics have become more and more difficult. Despite their fancy equipment, the type of service you'll get at a dealership is only as good as the techs who use that equipment.
"Right to repair" should mean that you can't be forced to sign a user agreement saying that you can't tinker with something you own. It shouldn't mean that manufacturers have to make things simple to tinker with. As a user, I should have the right to buy something that's horribly difficult to work on as long as I'm not legally prohibited from trying. I prefer the style of my MacBook to laptops that have batteries that pop out. An easily replaceable battery is a design constraint that isn't worth it to me. I'd rather take it to the Apple store and have them do it.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
All the law needs to do is to require that if a manufacturer of a product (whether that be a combine harvester, a chest freezer, a cellphone or a commercial airliner) provides parts, tools, diagnostic equipment, service manuals, service updates, repair guides, software or anything else to manufacturer repair shops or authorized service centres they have to provide those same items to anyone else who wants to run a repair shop or repair items.
No exemptions, no restrictions, no "sorry you can't buy that unless you have a license to act as a motor vehicle repair shop" or other crap and no charging huge prices for things (with an appropriate government agency given powers to act if a manufacturer is charging prices above what is reasonable)