almost impossible to have things fixed. replaced

#Almost impossible to have things fixed. replaced upgrade#
#Almost impossible to have things fixed. replaced software#

Such is the case with printers, which are deliberately sold cheaply the manufacturer then makes a healthy profit on ink or toner cartridges. But sometimes new electronics are priced so cheaply that repairing them doesn't make financial sense. Repairing rather than replacing gadgets usually saves their owners money.

We need enforcement that isn't happening,' she said. But the salesperson at the counter is not going to know,' said Gay Gordon-Byrne, of the Repair Association. 'Companies have backed down when consumers know their rights. If a company insists they won't honor a warranty because you tried to repair a product, advocates say the intrepid consumer should keep trying, escalating to managers if they need to. 'This creates a chilling effect because just lifting the tape damages it and it becomes evidence of tamper consumers take pause before removing it,' Peter Mui, founder of the Fixit Clinic, said in a letter to the FTC.

A sticker might not have an explicit warning but might strategically cover a panel that needs to be removed to repair a device. Consumer advocates point to the 1975 Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act and antitrust laws, which forbid companies from making warranties conditional on using specific parts or repair services.Ī post shared by Logical Repairs are more subtle ways of discouraging repair. And if you so much as open the wrong panel, you'll void the warranty. You tinkered? No warranty for you!Įlectronics' paperwork usually hammers home the point that no one, except for the company that made the product, can be trusted to repair it. 'Even with the correct tools, consumers and independent repair shops likely have limited knowledge of a battery and product's sophisticated safety features, which creates an inherent risk during repair and when the product is being used after repairs are completed,' the group said in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission. For instance, PRBA-The Rechargeable Battery Association points to a 2011 incident in which an airplane passenger's smartphone caught fire on a flight as an example of the dangers of do-it-yourself repair. Manufacturers often say that such measures are for the customer's protection. The bottom of an iPhone 7 is held in place by two five-pointed screws. Disassembling the iPhone 12 requires four different types of screwdrivers, according to Hugh Jeffreys, a technologist and advocate of the Right to Repair movement. (iFixit reverse-engineered a screwdriver to be able to unlock the device it has since become broadly available).

Apple in 2011 pioneered the use of five-pointed screws (dubbed 'pentalobe' screws) for iPhones, which couldn't be opened with a standard screwdriver. And I think that is another way of forcing people to buy a new machine instead of upgrading an old machine.' Proprietary screwsĮven getting into a device has become more challenging.

#Almost impossible to have things fixed. replaced upgrade#

'You're hitting a point where you cannot upgrade your technology anymore. The center ran an electronics repair program in New York for over a decade before pausing last year. They are not these distinct elements anymore that you could swap out,' said Christine Datz-Romero, executive director of the Lower East Side Ecology Center in New York. 'Especially with laptops, both the memory and the hard drive now are oftentimes incorporated into the motherboard. And the proliferation of internet-connected 'smart' devices is adding to the stream of hard-to-repair items, consumer advocates say. That comes to about $330 per household every year. Americans waste $40 billion each year from not being able to repair products, the group noted in a report last week. That practice not only trashes the planet but costs consumers big bucks, according to PIRG.

#Almost impossible to have things fixed. replaced software#

'When you see a project demoed, you don't think about its lifecycle - you don't think about what happens when the software updates stop coming,' said Nathan Proctor, director of the Right to Repair Campaign for U.S. But there's a downside, say consumer advocates: Most of the products are challenging, if not impossible, for most people to fix, and are likely to last just a few years before becoming e-waste. Electronics makers this week are unveiling a slew of consumer gadgets designed to make life cleaner, safer, more comfortable, more entertaining and even more eco-friendly.