Oregon Governor Tina Kotek has now signed one of the strongest US right-to-repair bills into law after it passed the state legislature several weeks ago by an almost 3-to-1 margin. Oregon’s SB 1596 will take effect next year, and, like similar laws introduced in Minnesota and California, it requires device manufacturers to allow consumers and independent electronics businesses to purchase the necessary parts and equipment required to make their own device repairs.
Oregon’s rules, however, are the first to ban “parts pairing” — a practice manufacturers use to prevent replacement components from working unless the company’s software approves them. These protections also prevent manufacturers from using parts pairing to reduce device functionality or performance or display any misleading warning messages about unofficial components installed within a device. Current devices are excluded from the ban, which only applies to gadgets manufactured after January 1st, 2025.
↫ Jess Weatherbed at The Verge
Excellent news, and it wouldn’t be the first time that one US state’s strict (positive) laws end up benefiting all the other states since it’s easier for corporations to just develop to the strictest state’s standards and use that everywhere else (see California’s car safety and emissions regulations for instance).
As a European, I hope this will make it way to the European Union, as well.
As long as this voids the warranty it seems like a solid law.
A counter example would be someone works on some industrial equipment and makes unapproved modifications (they have to own that now and not the manufacturer if something goes wrong).
I have not having read the law, but I disagree with your post and hope it works like it does for auto manufacturers: The original warranty won’t cover the 3rd party repair, but otherwise the manufacture warranty is required to stay intact.
I don’t know, I see both sides. I’ve been on both sides. It stinks when someone uses some cheapo part that destroys the rest of the device and asks for warrantee service. The cheap motherboard you found that works, had bad capacitors which blew up the custom device attached. There is a reason why sometimes specific parts are required that have been validated to work under unique circumstances.
And then there are those absurd markups for car parts from exotic car companies which are really just a ford part that you can get for 1/100th the price. I’m sure there are equivalent situations in electronics.
Sure, but this isn’t really new. The computer parts industry has been around for a long time and installing new parts doesn’t typically void the warranty of the other parts unless it can be shown that they were abused.
Yes, yes, yes!