This week(ish) in repair: iFixit teardowns caused waves, governments had mixed thoughts about repair legislation, and car repair got a fancy facelift.
Repairability: a nay and a yay
On Halloween, online repair manual iFixit published a teardown of AirPods Pro to assess their repairability. The results? A score of zero, or, completely unrepairable. So expensive, and so disposable, that the US Public Interest Research Group advised consumers to steer clear. Although the “earworn wearables” include a non-proprietary, rechargeable battery, the entire pod must be basically destroyed to access them, and they’re so glued-in that removal is essentially impossible. Apple hasn’t been shy about stating that the pods are “replaceable” rather than “repairable.”
In a strange moment of this specific story rocketing to a meta-level of cultural relevance, Chrissy Teigen unknowingly amplified the news a week later by encapsulating the entire crisis of electronics ownership and attitudes of present day with a single tweet:
my mom treats her air pods like they’re disposable. buys a few a month. she says they would be easier to not lose if they had….a cord
— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) November 6, 2019
After swift backlash that included at least one shoutout to e-waste, Teigen apologized (but not specifically to the earth…yet).
In a happier teardown turn, iFixit also tackled the Microsoft Surface Pro X last week with markedly more optimistic results. While Microsoft still has not-great policies on upgrading drives and self-repair, its move toward modular design in this tablet iteration is an encouraging step in the right direction.
Government officials: they’re trying, kind of?
More and more states are introducing right-to-repair legislation. This would in effect compel device manufacturers to make service manuals and spare parts widely available, rather than hoarding them and creating a repair monopoly where repairs are prohibitively expensive and new purchases are incentivized. Right-to-repair is closely related to the ongoing monopoly investigations coming from over 20 states’ attorneys general, who are looking into anti-competitive behaviors from big names in Big Tech (hi again, Apple!).
However, not everyone sees why being able to repair devices is such a big deal. Most notably, representatives in New Hampshire, who blocked a right-to-repair bill late last month in part because they apparently don’t see anything wrong with purchasing and tossing cellphones at will.
“In the near future, cell phones are throwaways. Everyone will just get a new one,” said Rep. John Pocutek, who probably doesn’t know how much he has in common with Chrissy Teigen’s Twitter feed.
We are all drowning in ewaste, but at least now we have this great graphic about it (thanks BoingBoing).
But not all elected officials are the worst. Recently, the EU passed right-to-repair legislation of its own, specifically targeted at designing household appliances like refrigerators and washing machines to be serviced and repaired for a longer lifespan. According to EcoWatch, if Europe’s washing machines were used for just one extra year, the offset energy from not producing the new appliances that would normally be purchased in that time would serve a benefit equivalent to subtracting 133,000 cars from traffic.
Not to yell about it, but…
USING 👏 THINGS 👏 LONGER 👏 SAVES 👏 THE 👏 ENERGY👏 OF 👏 PRODUCING👏 NEW 👏 THINGS 👏 PASS IT ON 👏 SERIOUSLY 👏 IT’S VERY IMPORTANT 👏 THAT WE ALL UNDERSTAND THIS CONCEPT 👏
“Mechanics are skilled technicians … you have to support them correctly.”
These delightful words fell straight from the lips of Wrench CEO Ed Petersen, whose mobile car-repair company employs full-time mechanics directly, rather than contracting labor. In this way, it differs from the “independent contractor” model of apps like Uber, and can thus perhaps avoid a similar apocalyptic fall from the grace of the “sharing economy” into the endless purgatory of late-stage capitalism.
Fool us once and all that, but Wrench (which offers car-repair services that travel to the customer, vs. the other way around) actually seems to value its laborers and offer an intriguing, alternate model for expanding what shape repair can take in a modern economy.