TX Passed a "Right to Repair" Bill, sorta...
After fixing my kids phone last week I got to wondering how things were going with the Right to Repair folks out there. The first device I ever opened up was my cassette player back in middle school. I had no way to get it back together and had upgraded to a portable CD player by then anyway. But the first time I got something apart and back together was in 2011. My son dumped a bottle of bubble solution on my MacBook Air's keyboard. The Apple Store wanted over 700 to repair it. It was worth 900 new. Lol.
So I did a quick eBay search and found a replacement keyboard for about 50 bucks. Sold! There were youtube videos at that point and forum posts to follow along and see just how to get the old board out and the new one in. Being a MacBook Air it was essentially riveted into the aluminum housing of the laptop itself. I had to first unscrew about 40 microscopic 000 screws with 2 threads on them. Not kidding. I did end up ruining the backlight film but I didn't need it. Then forcefully rip out the old keyboard by busting all these micro rivets from the aluminum. (If you watch the rest of that video you can see it.) Like, why make it like that? That's why apple wanted 700 bucks, they weren't going to actually replace that keyboard they were going to just hot swap my motherboard into a new base and call it a day. Compare that to something like a ThinkPad where a whole new keyboard can be swapped in and out in under a few minutes with like 5 screws and a ribbon cable. (I'm going to get a ThinkPad one day.)
But after repairing that MacBook I felt that I could repair anything. I took apart and refurbished Gameboys, consoles, phone screens, anything that had a youtube tutorial and cheap parts on eBay was fair game. Now, that MacBook keyboard did work, it just wasn't as flush as it was before because I had to literally destroy part of it to replace the keyboard. Sometimes replacement parts would die on me after a year. I swapped batteries in my Flash Zunes in 2020 and the batteries went spicy three years later.
I know the right to repair thing really focuses on stuff like phones and game consoles because they cost so much in the first place it's wasteful and expensive to expect people to treat them as disposable when they break. A brand new dishwasher or washing machine can cost as much as a phone but when those break we have entire companies set up with parts and stuff who can come to your house and swap out a fuse or coil in them and fix it for a fraction of the cost of a new unit. Imagine having to replace your whole dryer just because the coil pops. (I've changed those 4 times now.)
But large appliances have large components. Handheld electronics get smaller and smaller by the minute. You need to account for voltages, heat, static, getting dropped, getting wet, being left in a hot or cold car, etc. Tiny electronics are very delicate so the engineers have to maneuver around this when designing things for end users who you have to assume will treat it the way a 4 year old would a toy.
Let's take a laptop for example. It's two flat rectangles with a screen, keyboard, trackpad, internals and a battery. You use ribbon cables to connect the peripherals to the main board just like you would anything else. You find a battery that would give the laptop enough power but it would make the case too large. So you design a custom battery to fit in the case. To save space you glue it to the chassis, leaving more room for airflow inside. Now you need to add a hard drive. A physical one again takes up too much space so what do you do? Switch to solid state, ok but now you notice that users complain about the solid state becoming loose after traveling with the laptop. So now you integrate the hard drive components on the motherboard. Same with the keyboard, nice thick chocky keys feel great but make the laptop thick and heavy, so you go with a slim one that you integrate into the case. (Just like the MacBook Air) We can save more space and weight by having the LCD manufactured within the screen lid itself. Now we have a wildly thin, light, custom and super laptop that we as the manufacturer have engineered into the ground for power and efficiency.
But now say I own this laptop and I put it in my bag and as I'm getting out of my car to go to work my bag rips open and it falls on the concrete. I shatter the screen, dent the case, and now my spacebar won't work. So I take it to the shop that sells the fancy laptop and they say it's not fixable because everything is onboard and integrated and replacing one part means replacing all parts so the best they can do is 10% off the purchase of a new one.
We started to have this problem around the iPhone 7. It's all one thin thing glued and fused together - forever. Removing the screen to get to the battery ran a bigger risk of cracking the screen in the process. When taking the screen off a 4/5/6 was just two screws and you slid the screen up and off, no glue or suction cups required. I had an original Nokia Lumia that was in serious need of a replacement battery. The entire phone is encased in plastic, no screws, the only access is the screen. Did anyone sell replacement parts? Why? By the time it needed replacement I could just get a newer phone.
Places that once serviced TV's and VCR's switched up to PC repairs around the late 90's. Now those places, if they are still around, repair phones and consoles. When everyone's Xbox 360 RROD'd we took them there for a quick and easy repair. Ours even put in a bigger fan that had a blue LED on it that made the xbox even cooler to play at night. But the RROD issue was bigger than we all realized and replacing the thermal paste was basically a bandaid. The repairs were temporary, causing problems for shops like this when it came to warranties. Same with other 3rd party parts, if the part shorts out and ruins the device or the repair tech accidentally desolders a diode during a repair (because everything is so close together and microscopic) they are on the hook for all of this, making it harder to sustain as a business.
I had a Kindle years back that cracked it's display when it got put in a backpack. Amazon's helpdesk essentially said they couldn't do anything about it and said they could give me 10% off a new model. So I remember that forever because if they sold replacement screens I could have done the job myself.
But also, I'm not everyone. Most people should NOT try to repair their delicate electronics. You can short out parts. You can electrocute yourself. You can rip a ribbon cable. You can pull traces and pins by being too rough with things. You do have to know what you are doing to an extent. ONLY because the parts aren't designed for end users to repair or swap parts.
Nearly anyone able to drive a car has the capacity to replace something like spark plugs or a valve cover on their car. Most people who drive a car should not attempt to replace something critical like brakes or a timing belt. Have I changed my own brakes before? Yes. Will I ever again? No. I should be able to go to a shop that does this for me to save money and ensure my car is safe to drive. But I also shouldn't be forced to have all repairs done by the dealership who keeps telling me how much they want to buy my suburban and how much I could get with it as a trade in. (It's paid off, leave me alone.)
That's where the whole R2R movement came in and pointed out that this is really a consumer protection issue. You paid a lot of money for a device from a company that says only they can do the proper repairs which tend to lean on them handing you a discount code for a new model. They don't need to dumb down a design to make it more repairable for the general public but they should create a design that is repairable by someone who can replace surface mount components. They should also allow those repair shops to purchase authentic components so that repairs last longer and are at less of a risk to the user.
So yes, back to the title.
Texas passed a bill in June for HB 2963. The bill requires manufacturers to provide parts, manuals, and tools for equipment sold or used in the state. It became effective September 1st.
Now, I'm not all that sure what this is going to cover since so much stuff is not manufactured here, but it's at least a start. If I started manufacturing phones here I would have to follow the rules. Fine with me, but take a look at what it doesn't cover:
Applicability and Waiver
C.S.H.B. 2963 applies only to digital electronic equipment with a wholesale price of at least $50 that is sold to a consumer in Texas. The bill's provisions do not apply to the following:
information technology equipment that is intended for use in critical infrastructure as defined by the federal Critical Infrastructures Protection Act of 2001;
a motor vehicle manufacturer who complies with a memorandum of understanding or any other industry-recognized agreement relating to the diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of digital electronic equipment;
an autocycle or motorcycle;
a medical device or product found in a medical setting, including diagnostic, monitoring, or control equipment, or offered for purchase or prescribed by a health care provider;
a manufacturer of farm equipment who complies with a memorandum of understanding or any other industry-recognized agreement relating to the diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of digital electronic equipment;
aerospace, airplane, or train equipment;
heavy equipment;
commercial and industrial electrical equipment, including power distribution equipment, such as telecommunications network infrastructure, commercial visual display equipment, medium/low voltage switchgear and transformers, power control equipment, such as medium/low voltage motor control and drives, power quality equipment, such as uninterruptible power supplies, remote power panels, power distribution units and static/transfer switches, and any tools, technology, attachments, accessories, components, and repair parts for any such equipment;
a home appliance that has digital electronic equipment embedded within it, including refrigerators, ovens, microwaves, air conditioning units, and heating units, excluding other countertop or stand-alone small appliances;
safety communications equipment, the intended use of which is for emergency response or prevention purposes by an emergency service organization, such as a police, fire, or medical and emergency rescue services agency;
fire alarm systems, intrusion detection equipment that is provided with a security monitoring service, life safety systems, and physical access control equipment, including electronic keypads and similar building access control electronics;
a video game console; or
an original equipment manufacturer that provides an equivalent or better, readily available replacement part at no charge to and only at the discretion of the consumer.
I would like to know who added video game consoles to this list because it was an amendment before it got passed. Consoles are far easier to repair than phones and computers. Lots of plastic tabs and shielding. Just this past winter I reattached a cable connector to the motherboard in a PS4 that had its traces pulled when a friend tried to replace their power supply. It took longer for my soldering iron to heat up than it did to open the thing.
Most people are upset about the farm equipment part. Agriculture is big here and many tractors and equipment have so much integrated tech that they require a visit to or from the dealership repair guys to fix their tractors. These are professional farmers who know how and have the equipment to repair farm equipment, but the modern machinery locks them out of it. Folks were hoping this bill would apply to equipment like this so they could do their own basic maintenance. I understand a company who makes professional products not wanting to have to offer parts to anyone off the street, but this is for literal professionals.
Anyway, I thought it was interesting because for a while I thought about looking into what it would take to open a repair shop for things like consoles and phones etc. Being able to source authentic parts would be a huge plus for that.