But of course we all know that the big manufacturers don’t do this not because they can’t but because they don’t want to. Planned obsolescence is still very much the name of the game, despite all the bullshit they spout about sustainability.
But of course we all know that the big manufacturers don’t do this not because they can’t but because they don’t want to. Planned obsolescence is still very much the name of the game, despite all the bullshit they spout about sustainability.
What I don’t get is how no company seems to have worked out a legitimately good service and maintenance model for tech products. Fairphone hasn’t invented the wheel here. They’re going to make money on maintenance, parts and repair.
I would think there would be lowered costs involved in not having to push out a new product every 6 months and market it to customers who just bought something less than a year ago.
The business models of the current tech giants are very much based on planned obsolescence. Selling you a gadget for $ 1000 every two years will always be more profitable than selling you one very five years and doing service in the meantime.
Are you aware that the current version of iOS is supported by the phones Apple released in 2018? And they’re still releasing security updates for the prior version, with support for 2017’s iPhone 8?
and thats fine until you need replacement for a cracked screen or a bad battery and you find out its almost as expensive as a brand new phone. it good that they are doing it but software is just 50% of the problem.
This is before you even get into the ewaste and limited precious metals
Even for unrepairable, at fault replacement(you stepped on it) apple will normally sell you a reconditioned perfect replacement for 50% the cost.
Reliable repair and ultrafast swap and restore are one off the reasons I stick with apple.
In no case is it ever “ almost the price of a new one”.
ill repost this for good measure:
thats the price of another equivalent, or a decent brand new android.
The service and maintenance model is largely “replace it”.
Everyone looks to a desktop computer where you swap out a stick of ram or whatever. But the real key is to look at laptops. Yes, a LOT of vendors solder the god damned ram in place and so forth which is bullshit. But repairs are generally less “okay, let me re-solder this one connection” since that connection is a via that is embedded in a circuitboard. So it becomes “let’s replace that board”. And yes, efforts can be made to split up the board more but you lose latency savings and increase the complexity of the boards because you now need to add connection points and so forth.
And then you look at earbuds where… do you even have room for connectors like that? Near as I can tell, Fairbuds let you replace a few pieces of plastic, the rubber earplugs, the in-bud battery, and the charger (possibly just the battery?). That is definitely a step in the right direction but it also becomes a question of how much that even matters. In particular, I am wary of the value-add of the internal batteries since charging a lithium battery is largely “solved” and these have an external controller (the case) that can preserve the battery.
While I think we can do better in some spaces, the reality is that a lot of modern tech is fundamentally un-repairable. Not because of evil conspiracies but just because it is a lot easier to print a PCB and slot in some components than it is to connect vacuum tube diodes. And when so many of those components are fairly complex chips and the damage is less “oh, the metal prong on this chip broke” and more “oh, the via shorted out”?
Stuff like the fairbuds just seem… real stupid to me. Fairphone level “replace and repair” is kind of borderline but I think is generally good. And while I have series issues with how Framework does it and the resulting e-waste, I love the ethos of their laptops.
But We need to pick and choose our battles to be ones that make sense. Will Smith’s Tested’s Adam Savage just uploaded a video where he gushed about how easy it was to repair a kitchenaid mixer and that is an AWESOME video. That is the kind of repairs that people can meaningfully make. Using an x-ray machine to detect a possible short in a chip and hoping that was the only short… is not.
And in those cases? We need strong warranties AND strong e-waste recycling programs and incentives. Electronics are increasingly disposable for good and bad reasons. The junk drawer full of old phones and swelling batteries is bad.
That’s the thing about capitalism, it doesn’t have to be a conspiracy to be evil. Capitalism will optimize for the cheapest option to acquire the most profit, and generally the cheapest option is also the one that’s the worst for the workers/environment/consumers.
Li-ion batteries wear out with normal use, or even sitting on a shelf fully charged. I suspect the battery is the primary reason most devices with onboard charging become unusable over time, and ensuring that it is user-replaceable will greatly increase average service life.
The wear and tear is greatly exaggerated (more specifically, it is based on older tech and before we had chargers that cycled correctly) and the technology (bluetooth has made leaps and bounds the past few years) is likely to be outdated long before the battery fails.
It is one of those things that I want on principle but very much question the value of. And considering that this is a zero sum game where the time and cost of the replaceable battery comes from somewhere else (in the case of cost: the consumer’s pocket because holy crap these are expensive…).
My Sony linkbuds S only last two hours now. It’s a product from 2022. When did they solve batteries? Because it wasn’t in 2022
The product in question is not outdated because they rolled out updates for the new features, like Bluetooth LE audio
Honestly? it sounds like you bought a stinker then. Because I have some (I forget if they are anker or jabra) earbuds that are MAYBE a few minutes off of what they were when I got them before the pandemic (so 2019/2020).
It depends on how many hours a day you use them, not comparable between people