'Right to repair' law to come in this summer

[Infrasonic]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56340077

Appliances such as fridges, washing machines and TVs should last longer and be cheaper to run under new rules.

Ministers have confirmed that from the summer consumers will have a right to repair on goods they buy.

They are keeping a promise to implement EU rules aimed at cutting energy and bills – and reducing the need for new materials.

Many consumers have complained that goods don’t last long enough, then can’t be fixed in the home.

Manufacturers will be legally obliged to make spare parts for products available to consumers for the first time – a new legal right for repairs.

Cont.

[88V8]

Hooray.
A ten-year law has existed for cars for some years, in respect of 'major parts' I think.

What is also essential however is a legal requirement not to withdraw or obsolesce the software that unnecessarily insinuates itself into so much equipment nowadays. Those with a modern television will be particularly familiar with that problem, and I hope the law-makers are.

V8

[bungeejumper]

Welcome news - we've all been there. But easier said than done, I'd imagine. Manufacturers frequently source their components from the cheapest Chinese suppliers they can find, and never mind if they come in (ahem) "bespoke" sizes. So what happens when the parts go phut after three years and the suppliers have vanished or moved on to other specialisms, and nobody's making that size?

And then there's the method of construction. A few years ago, I borrowed a large electric lawn aerator which ran for fully ten minutes before a bearing failed in the main cylinder and the whole thing came to a juddering halt. It quickly became clear that the shell had been seam-welded into position, for the sake of ruggedness I presume. (It was a pretty fearsome beast.) Either way, there would have been no prospect at all of extracting the failed part without an angle grinder. So I had to buy my neighbour a new lawn aerator. Which hurt. But would I rather the beast had been put together with bolts and pop rivets? I don't think it would have lasted too long.

I wish the manufacturers all the very best in finding ways of meeting this requirement! Perhaps it'll result in greater standardisation of component parts? I think it might take a while, though.

BJ

[Infrasonic]

https://www.pcmag.com/news/a-fully-modu ... his-summer

Ever wanted to own a laptop that could be customized and upgraded like a desktop PC?

A startup in San Francisco called Framework is working on a fully modular Windows laptop built with swappable parts, including the CPU. On Thursday, it introduced the product, which it plans to start selling this summer. The 13.5-inch laptop looks a lot like an Apple MacBook, thanks to the aluminum casing.

But the real standout feature is how all the parts can be easily replaced and upgraded. For example, you can swap out the ports along the laptop's side and switch from USB-C, USB-A, MicroSD, DisplayPort, and HDMI via special expansion cards, which can be slotted into the machine.

Cont.

[Infrasonic]

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

[quelquod]

What is also essential however is a legal requirement not to withdraw or obsolesce the software that unnecessarily insinuates itself into so much equipment nowadays. Those with a modern television will be particularly familiar with that problem, and I hope the law-makers are.

V8

Right on!

We have a top end Sony TV which cost a small fortune only 3 years ago and its ability to play various video formats has steadily fallen behind changing standards to the extent that more than half the time I have to run a conversion of some sort before it will play a downloaded video. AFAIK there hasn’t been any software upgrade in the time we’ve had it. I’d never buy a Sony again however good the picture engine is.

[UncleEbenezer]

What is also essential however is a legal requirement not to withdraw or obsolesce the software that unnecessarily insinuates itself into so much equipment nowadays. Those with a modern television will be particularly familiar with that problem, and I hope the law-makers are.

V8

Right on!

We have a top end Sony TV which cost a small fortune only 3 years ago and its ability to play various video formats has steadily fallen behind changing standards to the extent that more than half the time I have to run a conversion of some sort before it will play a downloaded video. AFAIK there hasn’t been any software upgrade in the time we’ve had it. I’d never buy a Sony again however good the picture engine is.

That's a risk with any proprietary product and unpublished formats. Skype, for example, has ceased to run on various devices, leaving users in the lurch.

Forty years ago, Richard Stallman was furious that, in the absence of a right to repair the software that powered a system, the whole system wouldn't do the job. He was a young man with the get-up-and-go to Do Something About It. And so the Free Software movement was born, and history was made.

[Arborbridge]

Lond overdue - let's hope it will be effective.

Thank goodness for the EU, and we stand to benefit

[AF62]

Hooray.
A ten-year law has existed for cars for some years, in respect of 'major parts' I think.

What is also essential however is a legal requirement not to withdraw or obsolesce the software that unnecessarily insinuates itself into so much equipment nowadays. Those with a modern television will be particularly familiar with that problem, and I hope the law-makers are.

V8

But with that view the manufacturers are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

Sonos ran into this problem when it said older hardware wouldn’t get its new software update, resulting in much moaning from owners of the hardware. Trouble was the older hardware wasn’t capable of running the demands made by the features in the new software.

So should the government ban software development and tell people ‘tough, nothing new for you’ in order to protect existing owners?

[gryffron]

My immediate thought is this didn't sound very practical. And whilst the mainstream media are crowing about it, the only post with any details seems to share my reticence.
https://repair.eu/news/new-ecodesign-re ... to-repair/

The same laws have tightened energy requirements, but tried to reduce obsolescence. Which is surely contradictory.

Even desktop PCs aren't truly line replaceable. Try to upgrade a 10yo desktop. The motherboards are different sizes, expansion card standards have changed. CPU sockets have changed. Memory standards have changed. Power interfaces have changed. Connector standards have changed. Disk interfaces have changed. You might as well bIn it and start again.

Pie in the sky fantasy IMO. Sounds great to a Brussels bureaucrat. Unworkable in the real world.

Gryff

[jfgw]

Hopefully, the law will not leave any loopholes. Spares would need to be realistically priced and available within a reasonable time. There is also the trick of selling sub-assemblies rather than individual parts.


Julian F. G. W.

[gryffron]

Hopefully, the law will not leave any loopholes.

The law is a farce. Read my link. Spares only need be made available to "qualified repairers". Whatever they are? Is there a recognised qualification for washing machine repairers? Restrictions on delivery times. Monopoly access for 2 years. Etc. Etc.

Gryff

[jfgw]

Even desktop PCs aren't truly line replaceable. Try to upgrade a 10yo desktop. The motherboards are different sizes, expansion card standards have changed. CPU sockets have changed. Memory standards have changed. Power interfaces have changed. Connector standards have changed. Disk interfaces have changed. You might as well bIn it and start again.

I still have my first PC and the case is still the original! I expect my next motherboard to be ATX and to fit, although the CPU and RAM will need replacing at the same time. Standards overlap: my first motherboard had ISA and PCI slots, and my current motherboard has PCI and PCIe slots. My PSU has some spare connectors that might be needed and, as long as the new motherboard has SATA sockets, my existing SSDs will work.

Trigger's broom has been mentioned before.


Julian F. G. W.

[mutantpoodle]

notwithstanding any and all of the above...

when you buy something your guarantee is with the retailer NOT the manufacturer

so this 'idea' if it ever gets off the ground, will serriously cause grief for retailers who must be 'our' first port of call for repairs

I forsee gallons of handwash being needed and used

[swill453]

notwithstanding any and all of the above...

when you buy something your guarantee is with the retailer NOT the manufacturer

so this 'idea' if it ever gets off the ground, will serriously cause grief for retailers who must be 'our' first port of call for repairs

I forsee gallons of handwash being needed and used

I don't see anything in the BBC article that changes the responsibilities of retailers.

Scott.

[jfgw]

when you buy something your guarantee is with the retailer NOT the manufacturer

The guarantee is usually with the manufacturer; this is in addition to one's consumer rights. I suspect that the vast majority of people claim under the guarantee if something goes wrong unless it is a recent purchase, and I think it unlikely that this will change.

The right to repair will be more relevant to items out of guarantee.


Julian F. G. W.

[Arborbridge]

notwithstanding any and all of the above...

when you buy something your guarantee is with the retailer NOT the manufacturer

so this 'idea' if it ever gets off the ground, will serriously cause grief for retailers who must be 'our' first port of call for repairs

I forsee gallons of handwash being needed and used

Either they will refer this back to the manufacturer, or possibly they will have a nice new market selling spares to subcontractors to make repairs. Maybe not grief after all as spares could be quite profitable.

I see the downside that repairing old stuff is still likely to be uneconomic so things will still just be replaced. The hope for the longer term, obviously, is that manufacturers will be pushed to make their products more repairable cheaply, and more reliable. Unfortunately for them, this tends to undermine their business model of the past 80 years - that of encouraging new purchases to keep the business flowing.

Arb.

[Arborbridge]

Pie in the sky fantasy IMO. Sounds great to a Brussels bureaucrat. Unworkable in the real world.

Gryff

We have to try!
Anyhow, NOT sending kids up chimneys or keeping them at school until 14 was at one time said to be impossible to implement, having too many disadvantages. Society improves only because sometimes we do try wacky ideas - not always successfully, but in general society has improved by taking these controversial steps.

Arb.

[Mike4]

This plan to force manus to sell spare parts they don't want to interfaces terribly with the distance selling rules.

I get streams of enquiries for me to sell parts for boilers but on the odd occasion I have given in and sold something, as likely as not I get a demand to return it as "it didn't work when I fitted it", as is their right when buying mail order. The problem being the muppets over-confidently misdiagnosing the fault in the first place or incorrectly fitting it rather than me supplying a faulty part.

So now I never sells nothing to the general public that I am not installing myself too!

[gryffron]

So I'm not saying it is impossible to achieve this. Nor even undesirable. But it requires a MASSIVE quantum shift in how manufacturing works. I really don't think the Brussels Bureaucrats understand what they're asking for.

Currently, you buy a containerload of the cheapest components you can find, and build a batch of the latest models around it.

A "right to repair" law means this is right out. Manufacturers will need to either:
Purchase components only from long term suppliers who they can guarantee will still be around for decades
OR
Purchase a warehouse full of spares for every model and store them for 10 years, and then quite likely scrap them. Very green!

Both of these push up costs - a lot! Will consumers bear this? The former option stifles all competition and innovation. No-one is going to buy any component from a new startup, no matter how cheap & competitive they are, nor how much "better" their component is compared to the established competition. Back to the days of Soviet Lada who built the same model for 40 years!

The third option of course is to go bankrupt and reform the company every couple of years - like small housebuilders do to avoid guarantees. This achieves the exact opposite of what the lawmakers and consumers want. But such transient companies should be able both to massively undercut the established big name brands, and produce better, more innovative products.

Oh, and BTW, "right to repair" means more manpower costs at both manufacturing and maintenance stage. Inserting nuts and bolts takes far more manpower than a robot welder. Manpower is very expensive in Europe, much cheaper in the Far East. I wonder where these new devices will be built? At the moment most "white goods" are built in Europe because of the high cost of shipping - not for much longer!

Typical EU. Loads of useless rules no-one wants which strangle domestic producers, competition and innovation.

Gryff