“We must reinstate the reparability of all products put on the market,” said Parliament’s rapporteur Pascal Durand MEP: “We have to make sure that batteries are no longer glued into a product, but are screwed in so that we do not have to throw away a phone when the battery breaks down. We need to make sure that consumers are aware of how long the products last and how they can be repaired”.
Parliament wants to promote a longer product lifespan, in particular by tackling programmed obsolescence for tangible goods and for software.
This is a very noble goal, but I am afraid that in many product segments, this ship has sailed. Does anybody honestly expect, for instance, smartphone makers to go back to screwed cases and removable batteries? I would love if they did, but I just don’t see it happening.
They will go back if they have to by law. No?
Nope, like many many things at the European parliament (from french “parlementer” aka parley in english), they can always ask, they are neither bond nor entitled to nothing particular when it comes to actually enforce things on private corps, perhaps a bit more on governments on behalf of private corps, aka lobbying.
Just look the burlesque of ecology (COP21, Paris Agreement, french legalization of endocrine disruptor or neurotoxic insecticide for bees, …).
Just look the burlesque of tax evasion (Apple and Ireland, Luxembourg via Junker, …).
Get the idea? Only words to legitimate European deputies paid 8000€ a month while the average population earns less than 4 times less.
“Encore des mots, toujours des mots, …”
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x94jii_dalida-avec-alain-delon-par…
You failing to make progress in your country is not EP’s fault. I hate to break it to you but everyone shares responsibility.
Europe is not and should not be an actual dictatorship. You need to fight for what’s right, including repairable hardware.
Hi,
Nothing in the article suggests that the EU will force compliance. It’s all “will be encourged/discouraged” and “should”, without a single “must” or “mandatory”.
For a simple example; the EU could create a trademark to indicate that a product meets a set of “reparability conditions”; where manufacturers can choose to meet the conditions (and use the trademark to advertise the fact that they’ve met the conditions) or choose not to meet the conditions (and not use the trademark); and consumers can choose to buy products that have the trademark (or not).
Note that this kind of thing (trademarks used for advertising that a product *voluntarily* complies with a set of conditions/standards) is already used. One example is the “Energy Star” trademark (used by electrical appliances to indicate energy efficiency).
– Brendan
> I would love if they did, but I just don’t see it happening.
Unless they want to lose the EU market, they will comply.
Thom Holwerda,
It’s less important that they use “screws” and more important that they be replaceable/repairable.
It’s not that I want government regulation, but it’s that we have to recognize the times that the free market can fail to deliver on it’s own, as in the case of product lifespans. This is often the case when companies are disassociated with the costs of their own product wastes. There’s no incentive for competing companies to internalize those costs rather than let the public deal with it.
Some people don’t care about reusing/repairing their devices, and it’s not my goal to force them to get different devices. However that said I find it extremely annoying that free market forces are driving nearly all manufacturers towards this not-fixable/updateable bandwagon because shorter product lifespans drive up sales and stock futures.
So I’m glad the EU parliament is taking a look at this issue because the US has all but officially seceded it’s role in any such green initiatives for the foreseeable future.
The free market hasn’t wholly failed, though. In Europe at least, we do have companies who produce almost completely repairable products for those who want them. The Fairphone 2, from the Netherlands, is an excellent example:
https://www.fairphone.com/en/
I agree wholly with the point you make about internalizing the costs of product waste. The situation in the EU is better than that in the US, and the EU is working on making laws tougher as part of moving to what they call a ‘circular economy’. See, for example:
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/weee/index_en.htm
The EU’s approach is a combination of ever-tougher regulations prohibiting the most polluting materials, while providing economic incentives to those who make greener products. They also direct a lot of research grant money to researchers in universities working on these technologies, especially if they’re working in partnership with industry.
The proposals in the article Thom links to should be seen in the context of these broader initiatives. They make much more sense when situated in that context.
oskeladden,
The thing about the “the free market” is that it can work when the incentives align with social interests, but if you need a regulatory body to create those incentives then I’m not sure it’s proper to call it a “free market” any more.
Personally when I use the words “free market”, I mean the opposite of regulation, but I suppose some people might think of it as a “free market” within a regulatory framework, which is how I interpret your post.
Anyways I agree with you that some kind of controls are needed to make corporations behave in line with public interest, however we’ve lost control in the US due to a power struggle that has largely left the same group of people in control over corporations and government.
Yes, precisely. The opposite of a free market isn’t a regulated market but a rigged market – or a crony market, if you prefer: favourable conditions for the government’s favourites. Markets without regulation never survive for long, as the travails of modern-day extra-legal markets on the dark web amply demonstrate.
I 100% agree with you. This is about EU leadership. USA is failing.
They should rather standardize the batteries even if it came at a slight cost of regressing battery life. Repairability means nothing when spare parts cost easily more than the re-sale value of the whole machine or they are crappy Chinese fakes.
There is absolutely no reason for the batteries to be unique-to-device when actual device geometry varies only by 1-2 mm per dimension. (When talking about mobile phones; with laptops the issue is even more neglible.)
Edited 2017-07-05 18:20 UTC
sj87,
We had the same requirement for standard batteries with digital cameras, at least up until a several years ago. It went from the vast majority of cameras using standard batteries to virtually none of them without compromising on other aspects. So with our last two cameras we bought cameras with proprietary batteries and chargers, we didn’t really have any choice. You are right that it creates more waste and difficulties compared to having batteries that are standardized and interchangeable.
I’m not saying the old standards from years ago shouldn’t be updated to more modern use cases, but we transitioned from universal standards to completely proprietary batteries that are only good for that device and have to be special ordered
There’s truth in this. One of the boards in my $1k LED TV broke and the cost to replace the board was $2k.
How?!
Someone bought the TV, took the part out, and charged a markup on it.
That doesn’t make economic sense. Who would buy the overpriced component instead of a new TV?
I never said it made economic sense, i was just trying to explain why it was so expensive
While that is a bit extreme please realize that replacement parts are generally more expensive as the overheads are larger.
To distribute replacement parts costs money, keeping an inventory of parts is expensive and disassembly plus assembly takes time. Testing, both for determining which parts are faulty is time consuming in general and there have to be testing after assembly to verify the device works. There fact that there have to be repairers available costs money too.
Compare this with the considerably less overheads of keeping an inventory at the original assembly site and the testing, assembly etc. being done in a carefully designed pipeline. Management of people and parts are trivial and doesn’t involve multiple sites spread all over the world.
The way to reduce repair costs are to subvention them in the original device price – but that simply doesn’t work as less devices would be sold in the first place. Even for the consumer the current model is generally the best as the combined price (device cost + chance_of_failure*cost_of_repair) is probably the lowest possible.
There are many versions of glue intended to be non-permanent. Not as good bounding properties as a permanent glue but they would be better than just press fit etc.
Whenever the EU sets its sights on electronics, I’m on high alert. It was their 2006 lead solder ban that condemned every single Xbox 360 and PS3 to eventual hardware failure from cracked BGAs. Out of fear of toxic e-waste, they created an order of magnitude more e-waste everywhere in the world, and now they’re trying to mandate longer lifespans for electronics when they’ve been responsible for sabotaging the same?
EU rules are the quintessential Y problem. They could have mandated better reclamation, refurbishment, and recycling programs back in 2006, which would have put us well on our way to solving a real problem that still exists, but they decided they knew better than electrical engineers and created new problems instead. I hope they can acknowledge their mistakes, learn from them, and mandate the what while staying way the hell away from the how.
This is complete nonsense. The Xbox 360’s failure rate had multiple causes, one of which is rumoured to be that Microsoft chose the wrong type of lead-free solder [1].
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_technical_problems#Causes
What is this meant to refute?
While other design flaws contribute to the 360’s exceptionally brief working life, the PS3 and other hot-running, BGA-mounted chips from the era, like PC graphics cards, have the exact same problem, which lead-tin solder would not have caused. That Microsoft used the “wrong” lead-free solder is not a meaningful accusation if the “right” lead-free solder was not known to the industry.
All of this happened because the EU was afraid of e-waste with lead in it, so instead of creating a real plan to address e-waste, they banned the lead and created far more e-waste, which still isn’t being handled properly. That approach only makes sense to someone who views all electronics as following the same cycle of obsolescence and replacement, with no understanding of the unique character and capabilities of specialized computers like game consoles. You know, a bureaucrat.
Hopefully this time they leave the rules very, very general so engineers can be responsible for coming up with the right solutions.
I’m sorry, but it’s nonsense because you’re not providing any proof whatsoever for your claims. If you actually look at failure rate studies for the generation of consoles in question, you’ll see that the failure of the Xbox 360 is ~24% (11% without RROD), whereas for the PS3 it’s ~10%. About half of all the failures are disc-related, and the remainder of the failures have little to do with solder failures at all.
So the switch to optical media seems to have been a bad idea.
Interestingly enough, the failure rate for the Wii sits at only 2.3%. I guess Nintendo did find the magical lead-free solder?
https://www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/SquareTrade_Xbox360_PS3_Wii_Reli…
I’m sorry, but without any proof, I’ll have to conclude your claims are complete nonsense. If you provide us with proof, I’ll be happy to reconsider. This is OSNews – not the White House – and we like proof.
Edited 2017-07-06 07:19 UTC
The quad core LG G5 phone has a replaceable battery that pops out the bottom. It can be done!
Have a LG G3 with a battery that pops from the rear cover (once removed), like many other phones, so it’s not a big deal. Phones with no replaceable (or exploding) battery are the main problem.
Let’s go sub-system by sub-system.
Rechargeable battery:
Rechargeable battery has a life of maybe 500 recharge cycles (at the most). For one using the device extensively requiring a daily recharge, this could mean replacing the battery after 500 days (or less) – or “trowing-out” the device!
For cell/smart phones, a removable back-cover and a non-glued battery does the trick. Up to now, the battery has been user-replaceable in all the cell/smart phones I have purchased since the first one. Non-user replaceable battery is one key reason I have so far stayed away from iPhones (the price being another one).
Over the last couple of years, notebooks with non-user replaceable batteries are become more and more common. One example, the Lenovo T4x0s “ultrabook” now have both batteries, front and back, non-user replaceable since the T460s model introduced last year. I am pretty certain that with some clever design, it would still be possible to have user-replaceable batteries in all current ultrabooks.
Display:
Displays can crack and this is a limitation of having a glass sheet in them. There has been a move toward “bezel-less” displays. Such displays look fantastic yet the design makes it more difficult, if not impossible, to replace it when it has suffered damage. A design allowing easy shop replacement of the display could still be possible – if this was a requirement.
Motherboard:
Over the last few years, there has also been a shift to soldered RAM chips, soldered FLASH chips, fragile “connect-once” connectors, and many other improvements from a manufacturer’s view point. Chip manufacturing and smarter device drivers have, to some extent, diminish the need for replacement. How long should the “weakest” component on the motherboard be expected to last – 2 years, 5 years, more?
Overal:
The challenge is that corporations generally do not do what is right – unless forced to do so by financial incentives and/or regulations.
Will the EU “win” this battle? It is hard to say and I wish them good luck for our planet’s shake.
Agree. After a dropout, batteries charge-discharge behavior risks overheating. [Forget life expectancy.] No silicon logic to oversee this. SHOULD be replaceable.
BADGE Merchandising chains doesn’t go all the way down to places where 2nd or 3rd owners are last users. SHOULD be standard.
The simplest solution is to have much longer mandatory warranties on devices. That would emsure they are reliable and easy to repair.
Europe already has much longer warranties that the USA although some companies try to ignore it. For example the rectifier on a certain 4-cylinder motorcycle seems to melt in hot weather. My local dealer replaced on in May 2016. If failed again last week and guess what… it is out of warranty. That’s another £400 please sucker. got a replacement on EBay for £60 and took me 10 minutes to fit. Now I’ll carry a spare with me at all time.
As well as hardware we need to look at software. If a company can’t guarantee support including patches and updates for at least 3 years then the device should not be allowed to be sold in Europe. I’m specifically looking at the majority of android phones and tablets here.
BADGING has a place, on bleeding edge tech. People are willing to pay for the privilege.
As soon as new tech becomes Mainstream -within models at the medium and low end- regulation should require them to be assembled on standardized components.
Telling to EU: Leave free high end models. Creativity happening there. Regulate medium and low end.
High End Models should have mandatory “flow back” recycling.
The EU Parliament can leave it up to the consumer if he wants to buy quality products or throwaway junk.
No need for the appartchiks to tell me what to buy or not to buy.
Yeah, you want to be told what to buy by corporations.
Which corporation forces you to buy their stuff?
Told != force.
Hence the different words.
kwan_e,
Indeed, it’s hard for consumers to go green when corporations are making choices that promote their profits instead.
He said, while probably still being alive because of “appartchiks” telling her/him and her/his parents what they can and cannot buy.
With that attitude, we’d still be dying from preventable diseases, have tens ofthousands of traffic deaths every year, be dying of polluted water, and tons of other things.
The free market isn’t a panacea. Only sheltered rich kids think so.
Edited 2017-07-06 11:58 UTC
Sheltered rich kids do not appreciate the value of freedom because they have not experienced what it is like to have lost it.
Freedom has to be defended every day from all sorts of mafiosi trying to take it away from you.
The standardization of the charging port for portable devices started from the EU parliament, now we all use the same USB charger for most phones and it’s clearly a good thing.
Having the EU parliament taking care of other aspects of consumer electronics is very welcome news.
We do? Last I checked we have Micro USB (still common but on the way out), USB type C (on the way in), and Lightning (Apple). That’s three, not one. So much for EU standards, and the majority of Android phones (and Nokia when they were around) already used micro USB before the EU implemented their “standard” anyway.
Well, in the last years I’ve had phones from Motorola, Samsung and Caterpillar, and an Asus tablet. They all charge via the same port, so I guess for the other average Joes like me it’s a a good situation.
I don’t even want to remember the disaster of the early 2000’s, when even phones from the same manufacturer had different chargers.
Electronic stores full of charger and cable madness, until regulation established, Darknexus :/
Regulation Should happen also with phone dimensions [Tons and Tons of “covers” and protectors go all the way from China factories to 3rd World trash dumps, cellophane unmoved].
Why I talk about 3rd World? Because You set the example of conduct, most of the time.
What’s the problem? With smartphones lasting more time before obsolescence manufacturers will spend lesser money for continuous R&D of new products, lesser money for advertising and they will gain money by charging a bit more price on the spare parts and batteries.
Edited 2017-07-06 13:01 UTC
Know most of it is fashion. Also about procrastinating consumerism. It’s wrong. Having no immediate, total solution doesn’t absolve Us from walking in that direction.
Kudos to European Parliament on making the call. Find this path more approachable -just because is well tested. Till today -an excepting a few responsible societies- global culture has not established reliable recycling loops. NOTHING tell us this will change -near term.
Seen here also that all major Software Houses have been working on establishing longer term product cycles.
Edited 2017-07-06 13:47 UTC
I use an Android phone with a removable battery, you pry the back off easily with your fingers or nails, the battery is easily replaceable.
I wish my tablet was like this, it’s running fine (still plays high end games), but but the battery is getting old.
I do see it happening. The only thing we need to make it happen is for consumers to start seeing removable batteries as “cool”. Entire smartphone market is now purely about fashion and being “cool” and “hip” and “latest and greatest”. If majority of consumers would start saying glued-in batteries “are not cool”, manufacturers would switch to removable batteries literally overnight.
They should have though about this earlier.
Companies just want consumers to buy new stuff.
Maintaining factories to produce components for a longer period of time and training people to have knowledge on that takes investments.
I don’t think companies are anymore interested in either when all they care about now is automating manufacturing plants and pricing repairing facilities high enough so consumers will just end up refurbishing their devices and simply buying a new one.
This also applies for the accesories that come with your shiny new device.
Try finding an original TV remote from reputable company that is a few months old on the market.
Edited 2017-07-07 12:23 UTC