Tag: right to repair

Right to repair

Right to repair is a proposed legislation/movement that allows consumers the ability to modify and repair their own electronic devices.  

Planned obsolescence is the practice when goods are manufactured with a pre-determined expiry date aimed at forcing consumers into repeat purchases. The term was first termed in the 1950s by American industrial designer Brooks Stevens. This practice was introduced in the advent of mass-produced manufacturing at the start of the 20th century. But the practice was not as severe and prevalent as it is in recent years. One of the recent changes in the product design has been to make the goods very hard for end consumers to repair.

For instance smartphones, a couple of years back had a user-replaceable battery but with more features crammed into the chassis of a phone. Manufacturers have not only made it unnecessarily difficult to replace the battery but also to even open the panels of smartphones. With the recent MacBook Pro releases, Apple has soldered the SSD (Solid State Drive) on the motherboard. The reasoning for justifying the soldering by Apple is better reliability and the thinness of the laptops. But there is also another aspect. Apple’s business model is about selling laptops and not upgrading the systems. Upgrading an SSD can be a potential loss for them and to counter that Apple might have decided to make the laptop non-upgradable. The problem is that even SSDs are definitely much more reliable than mechanical hard disks but SSDs still fail and combining them with the motherboard means that if one of the two fails, the whole system fails. This also makes it much more difficult for end-user to repair their laptop. It also becomes a problem for the third-party repair business to access the repairing of these devices. This is just one of the instances of how access to repair is being restricted by the manufacturers but various companies are attempting to follow similar practices with varying degrees.          

With the introduction of newer and sophisticated technological components in electronic devices, it has become much more complicated to operate these modern devices. To reduce the access to repair these devices, manufacturers state that repairing the devices might violate their “Proprietary” rights. These repair limitations are a critical problem for not just the first owners but also for the second-hand/ used market. Due to proprietary information and diagnostics tools while evaluating a device. It has become difficult for third parties and end-user to even attempt the repair their own devices that they own. It took Apple the lawsuit to introduce the battery replacement program after the fiasco of the performance throttling issue on older iPhones. It clearly indicates that companies do not like it when consumers try to fix their products and companies deliberately try to reduce the user experience of older devices so that they can sell the newer models to maximize profits. With a monopoly on repair manufacturer’s intent is to lock down the user to the official service centers which can be significantly expensive than third-party service shops.

The right to repair movement intends to enact power into the consumer’s hands for the devices that they own. This means that consumers can open and modify everything they own. Also to root, unlock or jailbreak the software in their devices.

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Longest running light bulb since 1901: The case of Planned Obsolescence

Centennial Light is the longest-running electric light bulb on record. It has been running continuously since 1901 and it has never been switched off. It is located in Fire Station 6 in Livermore, California. The ordinary dim light bulb looks like any other bulb and there is also a camera that live-streams the light bulb onto the internet.

Link for the official website and live webcam of the light bulb.

http://www.centennialbulb.org/photos.htm

It was manufactured in the late 1890s by the Shelby Electric Company, of Ohio, using a design by the French-American inventor Adolphe Chaillet. It has operated for over 100 years with very few interruptions. In 2011, it passed a milestone: One million hours of near-continuous operation. In 2015 it was recognized by Guinness World Records as the world’s longest-burning bulb.

The 60-watt bulb uses a carbon filament. One of the reasons for its longevity is that it seems to have an incredibly durable vacuum seal. There have been some researches done on bulbs manufactured by Shelby Electric Company of that era. But no one really exactly knows how these eternal bulbs were made as they were experimenting with various but the company was experimenting with a variety of designs at the time.

The electric model was quite different when first homes in The U.S had electricity. The servicing was the responsibility of the electric companies and customers would purchase entire electrical systems manufactured by a regional electricity supplier. The companies would also take care of the installation and servicing of any burned out electric bulbs would be replaced for free.

It made more logic for the suppliers to manufacture bulbs that would last longer and would burn out as least as possible. But this business model was later replaced and homeowners were responsible to change the light bulbs. It was soon realized that it would be more profitable to make cheaper bulbs that burned out faster. Since the mid-1900s goods were manufactured with a pre-determined expiry date aimed at forcing consumers into repeat purchases. This phenomenon has only been exacerbated in recent years. This can also be called planned obsolescence.

In 1924, the life span of the light bulbs was at least 2,500 hours. Phoebus cartel was formed in 1925 in Geneva. It comprised of the major incandescent light bulbs manufacturers at that time: Osram, General Electric, Associated Electrical Industries, and Philips. The cartel had directed their engineers to cut the life of the bulbs to 1,000 hours, which the engineers did by adjusting voltage and current. The cartel was intended to operate for 30 years but it was starting to fall apart in the early 1930s after General Electric patents expired and as the cartel faced competition from non-member manufactures from other regions. The cartel ceased its operations after the outbreak of World War II in 1939.

Planned obsolescence is a very critical area it does not only decrease the lifespan of the good but as a consequence, it is also wasteful. It is not sustainable for the environment and the main focus of this practice is to maximize profits. It also reminds us that technological innovations are often not accessible in favor of corporate greed.

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