Right to Repair/Ownership
- www.theregister.com LG to offer subscriptions for appliances and televisions
Subscription fatigue is a thing and regulators are circling, but Korean giant reckons you're ready to cough up after buying hardware
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1539142
> LG to offer subscriptions for already purchased appliances and televisions, evolving into a provider for “Home as a Service”::Subscription fatigue is a thing and regulators are circling, but Korean giant reckons you're ready to cough up after buying hardware
Nicked a hose on my new dishwasher and had to repair it. In the app Bosch gives you the option to buy parts straight from them, with breakout illustrations showing each part to make sure you get the right one. Parts were extremely reasonable and came within 2 days. Could almost build the thing from spare parts! Best repair experience I’ve ever had.
- arstechnica.com Fairphone 4 has an incredible 5-year warranty, aims for 6 years of updates
If you want a smartphone with a long life, Fairphone is leading the industry.
Can't say anything bad about product quality, I've used this toothbrush for 4 years now and the battery still lasts for more than a month. I did treat it well though, almost never depleted the 9.36Wh cell or charged it completely to 100%. Just the USB cable was over 20 bucks when it was still available. Model is Oclean One.
Can't say anything bad about product quality, I've used this toothbrush for 4 years now and the battery still lasts for more than a month. I did treat it well though, almost never depleted the 9.36Wh cell or charged it completely to 100%. Just the USB cable was over 20 bucks when it was still available. Model is Oclean One.
Hi there, I'm from Singapore and I'm trying to fix the battery on a Samsung Galaxy Active3 smartwatch. However, I can't seem to find any sellers for replacements - Samsung doesn't seem to sell any non-appliance parts, iFixit doesn't ship outside the US, and I can't find any for sale online.
Besides this watch, I tried to replace the back glass on an old burner iPhone, and couldn't find a good enough replacement that would ship at a reasonable time, so I had to resort to AliExpress. The glass is fine, but the print on the back looks off, and the adhesive that came with it feels like it could come off at any moment. I was wondering if there are any distributors in Singapore/SEA that sell higher-quality spare parts? Thanks
If you are lurker please help us grow the community by commenting and posting interesting on topic quality info/discussions so we can attract more people and make this community more interesting to spend time on. ✌️
Previous milestone: https://lemmy.fmhy.ml/post/489828
This is going to be a long term effort from my side to build a library of resources on the topic of right to repair/ownership to make it easier for people to learn about the topic. Of course this sub is not Louis Rosmann circlejerk, it's just that he shared a lot of great videos/views on the topic of right to repair/ownership. I also don't want him to be the face of this movement (and he doesn't want that too) I just decided to start building the library starting from him and that's all. You can help me make this community grow by sharing the resources on the topic yourself to speed up the process of building the library. Please avoid sharing stuff from Louis Rosmann because no matter what you share it's guaranteed that I will find it myself later and it will result in a duplicate post because as of now I don't have a way of tracking what's in the library and what's not. Hopefully I find a scalable way to organise my workflow soon enough.
YouTube Video
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I've been using Graphene OS for a while now and it feels like a miracle to have access to the play store yet not be so locked in with Google. Changes like the ones in the video make me worry that this is a flash in the pan and that Google will lock the play store into their Android for that sweet tracking data
If you are lurker please help us grow the community by commenting and posting interesting on topic quality info/discussions so we can attract more people and make this community more interesting to spend time on. ✌️
Previous milestone: https://lemmy.fmhy.ml/post/376126
Next goals: 400, 550, 700, 850, 1000
Honestly, if we could upgrade the RAM in phones, I'd probably be fine with this one for a decade. (Or until they start making phones with qwerty keypads again.)
YouTube Video
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- www.eff.org The Right to Repair Is Law in Minnesota. California Should Be Next
Last week, Minnesota governor Tim Walz signed an omnibus bill that includes a comprehensive right to repair law requiring manufacturers to make spare parts, repair information, and tools available to consumers and repair shops. This law builds on smaller, but still significant, wins in Colorado,...
- https:// www.assnat.qc.ca /en/travaux-parlementaires/projets-loi/projet-loi-29-43-1.html
The bill introduces a legal warranty of good working order for certain new goods that are commonly used. As regards the warranty of good working order for used automobiles, the bill updates the classes of such automobiles.
The bill enhances the legal warranty of availability of replacement parts and repair services for goods of a nature that requires maintenance work by specifying that the availability of the information necessary to maintain or repair the goods must also be guaranteed. Merchants or manufacturers who are bound by the warranty of availability must make the parts, repair services and information necessary to maintain or repair the goods available at a reasonable price. The bill also provides that it must be possible to install the replacement parts using commonly available tools, without causing irreversible damage to the goods. In addition, consumers have the right, under certain circumstances, to request the repair of goods requiring it.
Under the bill, merchants must provide information on legal warranties of good working order before entering into a contract that includes an additional warranty. Consumers may resolve such a contract, at their discretion, within 10 days after the contract is entered into. The bill proposes to prohibit the business of trading in goods for which obsolescence is planned and to prohibit the use of techniques that make it more difficult for consumers to maintain or repair goods. In addition, automobile manufacturers must provide the owner or long-term lessee of a vehicle, or the repairer of the vehicle, with free access to the vehicle’s data.
With respect to long-term contracts of lease of automobiles, the bill provides that merchants must propose an inspection free of charge of the automobile before the end of the consumer’s lease and specifies the cases in which the merchant may not claim charges for the abnormal wear of goods.
The bill gives the Government the regulatory power to determine technical or manufacturing standards for goods, including standards for interoperability between goods and chargers.
The bill also allows a court to declare, on an application by the consumer, that an automobile is a “seriously defective vehicle”, in particular if the defects affecting it render it unfit for the purposes for which it was intended and several attempts have been made to repair it.
As a hobby, I like buying broken phones off the internet, fixing them up, play with it for a bit, then resell. Recently, I bought a Redmi 8A from Facebook Marketplace. The phone in question has a corrupted firmware/operating system. I've resurrected phones (mostly Samsung and older Xiaomis) with such issues before, so I thought it was an easy fix.
With my past experience with resurrecting a bricked Xiaomi phone, I would normally just disassemble the phone, short out some pads on the motherboard, flash the firmware, and off I go.... This time though, you have an extra step. Before the computer even starts flashing the firmware into the phone, it will ask for an authorized Xiaomi acccount (that has special permission to flash devices using EDL).
Older Xiaomi phones: Disassemble phone > Short out pads > Connect phone to PC > Flash firmware > Done
Newer Xiaomi phones: Disassemble phone > Short out pads > Connect phone to PC > Log-in to authorized Xiaomi account > Flash firmware > Done
It's not as simple as creating an account and then logging into it. You have to buy a special account for around $30 from some sketchy sources, and that would only allow you to flash one time. If you made a mistake, that's $30 down the drain. Another option you could do is use a special software, but requires a subscription. Which is $20-30 for three months. I went with this. At least, I can flash as much as I want.
Now the phone is question is now fully functional. Which is good, but imo, I shouldn't have to pay for anything in the first place, like I did in the past.
You might be saying, you should have just went into fastboot and flashed the firmware that way. Or even unlock the bootloader, and then reflash. Well, it's not that simple. In order to flash anything using fastboot, you have to unlock the bootloader. And in order to do so, you'll have to boot into Android, then enable OEM unlocking in the settings. Which isn't possible in my case.
I believe, most Android phones are gonna be like this if you have to unbrick it. Had this happened on a Motorola, Huawei, and on a Pixel too (with a locked bootloader).
Samsung and LG phones are easier to recover, which has a download mode, which allows for recovering/unbricking regardless of the bootloader status (just hold the volume up button, the connect to PC). Even iPhones are also easy to recover. You just have to hold down the home button, connect to the computer, and then let iTunes do the rest. All three manufacturers makes it easy, that an average Joe can do it at the comfort of their own homes. They don't even have to take the phone apart. I wish all Android manufacturers would make it that easy.
TL;DR: It used to be that Xiaomi (and most Android phones) are easy to recover/unbrick, but sometime down the road, they made it a bit difficult by requiring an special account, which you'll have to get through sketchy sources. Or use a special subscription-based software. LG, Samsung, and Apple are the exception since they make it easier.
- fighttorepair.substack.com With Governor’s Signature, Minnesota Gives Residents A Right to Repair
Signed into law by Governor Tim Walz on Wednesday, the Digital Fair Repair Act is the second broad, consumer right to repair law in the U.S., after New York enacted a narrower bill in December.
- www.theverge.com Logitech partners with iFixit for self-repairs
iFixit’s Logitech Repair Hub will provide spares and repair guides.
Official spare parts, batteries, and repair guides for select Logitech hardware will be available through iFixit starting ‘this summer.’
- arstechnica.com A new jailbreak for John Deere tractors rides the right-to-repair wave
Exploit now provides root access to two popular models of the company’s farm equipment.
- gizmodo.com Some Epson Printers Are Programmed to Stop Working After a Certain Amount of Use
Users are receiving error messages that their fully functional printers are suddenly in need of repairs.
1. What is right to repair/ownership
Video format:
- Linus Tech Tips - https://youtu.be/nvVafMi0l68 ("We need Action - Right to Repair Explained")
- Marques Brownlee - https://youtu.be/RTbrXiIzUt4 ("What Is Right To Repair?")
- Louis Rossmann - https://youtu.be/JORnFzbN5F0 ("A New HOPE (2022): Right to Repair - You Should Have the Right to Fix What You Own")
Blog/Article format
- ifixit - https://www.ifixit.com/News/61140/what-is-right-to-repair ("What Is Right to Repair?")
Pages/Tools
- https://www.looria.com/reviews ("Learn how products perform over their lifetime")
2. Examples of anti-repair/ownership behavior from the side of corporations
We never hear about broken and worn-out products. Pretty much all gear nowadays is baseline ok, it’s the negatives that really set things apart.
That's why I'm building ExitReviews to change the way people review products. Let's reflect upon how a product performed over its duration of service instead of when it first arrived and people haven’t spent much time with it to learn the quirks.
We can then build a collection of how long products last, where they break, and how to fix them. Even if certain products are not available anymore, it still gives a good picture of brand deterioration.
Let me know what you think! I'm sure this sub could contribute many submissions :)
Any thoughts on how to promote this community? It's currently still facing the chicken-egg problem, so we would need some PR or partnerships to make this popular.
Full title: Such detailed factory schematics were included with every electronics' item sold in Poland for decades, direct from the manufacturer, for easier repair. Now that everything is made in China for the same 20 foreign corporations, I haven't seen a schematic included with a product for years.
Apparently I’m not allowed to open my fan to clean it four Phillips head and two of whatever these are