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New EU law requires devices to be repairable - Every phone, television or washing machine you buy in Europe must be easier to repair starting tomorrow. That’s when the European Right to Repair Act tak (www.nporadio1.nl)
submitted 2 months ago* by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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The products covered by the obligation to repair currently include:

  • washing machines and washer-dryers
  • dishwashers
  • refrigerators
  • electronic displays
  • welding equipment
  • servers and data storage products
  • mobile phones, cordless phones and tablets
  • tumble dryers 
  • e-bikes and e-scooters batteries (from 18 February 2027)
  • local space heaters
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[–] 22 points 2 months ago (9 children)

So I saw that my car offered up all sorts of useful diagnostic information for self diagnosing stuff. Was very excited and went to look at it for a generic fault without having to get software to tell me what the fault is. I thought "it's stupid it has fully functional computer display yet tells me basically "contact a dealer, but it's safe to drive" instead of what the problem is. Then I find out that because I'm in the USA, the company keeps it to themselves...

So if they see value in treating regions differently, they will absolutely go out of their way to screw over the regions that will let them.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 months ago (6 children)

    Car manufacturers screwed over consumers the last 10-15 years big time! Cars used to be the big thing many could fix a lot on by themselves and were proud to do so. Then they basically just said incrementally to the DIY'ers "it's all computers now, not your cup of tea", purposely made cars less and less self repairable and got away with it! It's infuriating.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    Do you seriously think they computerized cars to make them less repairable? That's some tin foil hat stuff there.

    They started computerizing cars to make them more efficient, reliable (ironically), safer, etc. The problem is that beyond OBDII there is no standard for diagnostics, and makers keep these proprietary.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago*

    They didn't have to keep it proprietary, and I think in many "computer problems" the certified dealers will just replace 1 circuitboard by a new one, but it's a part which private customers are not able to order and replace themselves

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago

    I think they are making their vehicles much more computerized and much more software-driven, and at the same time supplying their technicians with tools to deal with that, but not customers. And they are constantly flirting with ideas for subscriptions and advertising and tracking. So maybe not all that to purposely make them less repairable, but it's more of an ecosystem that they control and the end user doesn't.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago

    Okay, but the economics of doing that are different between software and hardware. It's much more expensive to have a full second hardware design compared to just turning a software feature off in certain markets.

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