The EU wants to introduce a ‘right to repair’ for phones and tablets by 2021

[Elderberry]

The Verge by Jon Porter 3/11/2020

Part of plans for the union to become climate neutral by 2050

The European Commission has announced plans for new “right to repair” rules that it hopes will cover phones, tablets, and laptops by 2021. If successful, these rules will mean these devices should remain useful for longer before needing to be recycled or ending up in landfills. The plans were introduced as part of a wide-ranging set of product initiatives that also cover textiles, plastics, packaging, and food with the aim of helping the trading bloc become climate neutral by 2050.

As well as introducing new “right to repair” rules, the EU also wants products to be more sustainably designed in the first place. Under the new plan, products should be more durable, reusable, upgradeable, and constructed out of more recycled materials. The EU’s hope is to reward manufacturers that achieve these goals. Finally, the EU is also considering introducing a new scheme to let consumers more easily sell or return old phones, tablets, and chargers.

The EU introduced “right to repair” rules for household appliances like televisions and washing machines last year. Now, the organization wants to expand the amount of products covered by its eco-design laws to include these consumer electronic devices, less than 40 percent of which are thought to be recycled in the EU, The Guardian notes.

More: https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/11/21174941/eu-right-to-repair-phones-tablets-laptops-2021-ecodesign-directive

[Elderberry]

Climate Change Obsessed Britain to Outlaw the “Throwaway Society”

WUWT by  Eric Worrall  March 13, 2020

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/03/13/climate-change-obsessed-britain-to-outlaw-the-throwaway-society/

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

In an act of near Soviet level micromanagement, new British rules will require mobile devices to be fastened together with removable fasteners like nuts and bolts rather than press fit.

Why do I have a problem with rules requiring devices to be consumer accessible?

The reason is, it is already possible to make consumer accessible devices. There is a vast array of modular components for mobile phones, displays, small computers available online, along with instructions for how to use them, which can readily be wired together to make any kind of mobile device you can imagine.

Why hasn’t someone started taking these modules and used them to assemble consumer accessible mobile phones?

As someone who has built a phone out of consumer accessible modules, I feel qualified to answer this question.

What you end up with if you try this is a 90s style brick phone – just like the old days, when mobile phones actually were held together with nuts and bolts, and the individual electronic components were large enough to see without the aid of a microscope. All those nice removable fasteners and pluggable components take space, adding bulk and weight to the final product.

More at link.

[roamer_1]

I don't get it... I take apart and repair laptops, phones, and tablets all the time. They're accessible.

And the life of these gadgets often exceed their use... I have Vista era and early Win7 era machines laying around that work perfectly, that I can't give away.

[PeteS in CA]

So, will companies be forced to make programmed microcontrollers and storage ICs pre-loaded with firmware publicly available where competitors can reverse engineer and copycat their proprietary technology? How many pols who voted for this would understand that question?

[mortarman]

I don't get it... I take apart and repair laptops, phones, and tablets all the time. They're accessible.

And the life of these gadgets often exceed their use... I have Vista era and early Win7 era machines laying around that work perfectly, that I can't give away.

Since when did Vista ever work perfectly? Granted Win7 was a great system butt if anyone ever gave me something that had Vista on it at anytime in it's lifetime I'd tie a rope around it an' use it as a boat anchor.

 

[roamer_1]

Since when did Vista ever work perfectly? Granted Win7 was a great system butt if anyone ever gave me something that had Vista on it at anytime in it's lifetime I'd tie a rope around it an' use it as a boat anchor.

 

I always liked Vista... But that's neither here nor there. The point being that those machines have entirely outlived their usefulness. That is not a 'throw-away. The same proves true in the junk drawer.. I am pretty sure there is a couple flip phones and a Samsung Galaxy s4 in there that work just fine... Though I dunno why they're in there  - I'll never use em again.

[Cyber Liberty]

I don't like this, but I understand the sentiment that led to it.  Some high-level Bureaucrat got notified that some software or hardware company made an arbitrary decision to simply "stop supporting" something he/she needed.  It's built-in obsolescence.

Built-in obsolescence almost killed the Big Three carmakers in the 70's.

[PeteS in CA]

Our WinVista machine worked fine for about 5 years, and then the power supply died (crappy output capacitors, for terminally curious technoid life-forms). It was a Dell machine built for WinVista, and we got the maximum memory it could have.

There is no way in Hades, though, that we would have tried to upgrade a WinXP machine to WinVista. Upgrading Windows OSs takes serious techno-chops, which we do not have. From what I've read, WinXP machines often had insufficient memory for WinVista to upgrade and run well.

[Cyber Liberty]

Our WinVista machine worked fine for about 5 years, and then the power supply died (crappy output capacitors, for terminally curious technoid life-forms). It was a Dell machine built for WinVista, and we got the maximum memory it could have.

There is no way in Hades, though, that we would have tried to upgrade a WinXP machine to WinVista. Upgrading Windows OSs takes serious techno-chops, which we do not have. From what I've read, WinXP machines often had insufficient memory for WinVista to upgrade and run well.

A lot of third-party Drivers were not ported to Vista.  I had to throw away a 3-year-old HP Photo Printer because there was no way to get a Vista driver for it.  Tech Support at HP advised me to purchase a new HP printer.  The only thing wrong with that advice was the "HP" part.  I went with Brother. 

Never buy an HP printer because this is how they treat their customers.

[roamer_1]

Vista was the first time I could just let a Win box run like a Linux box...
And it was IMHO the most artful of all versions, with animated and colorful system icons, beautiful detail...

[Cyber Liberty]

Vista was the first time I could just let a Win box run like a Linux box...
And it was IMHO the most artful of all versions, with animated and colorful system icons, beautiful detail...

It could have been better had Microslop chosen to actually support it, and not treat it like Windows Millennium which Gates was walking away from even before it was released.  It was like Windows 8 (and 8.1) that was an abysmal attempt to make it look and behave like the Windows phone.  An effort doomed to failure because touch-screen desktops never caught on.

[Elderberry]

I have not had any problems keeping my HP Laserjet printers running for many years. I started with a LJ4 that refused to die. It was still running strong when I replaced it some 7 yrs ago with my current LJ1320.

[roamer_1]

It could have been better had Microslop chosen to actually support it, and not treat it like Windows Millennium which Gates was walking away from even before it was released.  It was like Windows 8 (and 8.1) that was an abysmal attempt to make it look and behave like the Windows phone.  An effort doomed to failure because touch-screen desktops never caught on.

I think it just got run over by seven.
Vista's biggest problem was that it was fat by default. If a guy knew how, and shut off about half the services and all the TSRs, it was just as nimble as seven - which was, for all intensive porpoises, the same OS with a less ornate look.

And ever since, they have been becoming less and less ornate, till you get the crappy flat look of 10

[Cyber Liberty]

I think it just got run over by seven.
Vista's biggest problem was that it was fat by default. If a guy knew how, and shut off about half the services and all the TSRs, it was just as nimble as seven - which was, for all intensive porpoises, the same OS with a less ornate look.

And ever since, they have been becoming less and less ornate, till you get the crappy flat look of 10

The problem I had with Vista was the drivers, and the sneaking (and it turned out to be true) suspicion that Microslop was walking away from it from before its release, thus guaranteeing it's early collapse.  Only Windows 8 died faster.

Mrs. Liberty still likes her 7 machine, and it continues to work just fine.  I installed a printer driver on it just last month.

Windows 7 was a good product.

[Cyber Liberty]

I have not had any problems keeping my HP Laserjet printers running for many years. I started with a LJ4 that refused to die. It was still running strong when I replaced it some 7 yrs ago with my current LJ1320.

I'm glad to hear that HP is better.  They learned from the angry reaction they got from users whose printers all turned into bricks when Vista came out.

[Elderberry]

Well I never ran my HP LJ printers on Vista. I hung onto XP until I jumped to 10. I do run a virtual 7 for some apps that won't run on 10.

[roamer_1]

I'm glad to hear that HP is better.  They learned from the angry reaction they got from users whose printers all turned into bricks when Vista came out.

I don't care much about peripherals...  My Epsons died on Vista too, as did my Umax scanner. But back in the day  used to spit at the name HP. Hated em almost as much as Compac, and then they bought the company.

Now I am almost entirely an HP shop. Yeah, they got the message.

[Smokin Joe]

I don't get it... I take apart and repair laptops, phones, and tablets all the time. They're accessible.

And the life of these gadgets often exceed their use... I have Vista era and early Win7 era machines laying around that work perfectly, that I can't give away.

I have an old Toshiba laptop with the postcard sized screen in the lid...runs Win 95, and a bunch of XP machines which are too slow for the web...