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Comment by degski | Hacker News Reader

The result is obvious, spare parts will be available for ten years, but at crazy prices.

They can't do that because the same spare parts are used by the manufacturer's official support. Νow in case they say that spare part X costs 100euros but only 10 if we do the repair, the regulators could easily jump in and fine the company for unfair tactics. Of course such tactics should be taken into account in the relevant legislation

Edit for spelling errors

Yes, but already now they say it's 100 Euros, so they'll just keep on saying that.

Also this doesn't give you the right to repair your own devices. It gives you the right to take it to a "professional" who'll repair it for you.

And this is exactly the problem. The article talks about the huge amount of carbon that could be prevented from going in to the atmosphere because devices will last longer and be repaired. Well think about how much more would be saved if anyone could repair their own thing. And I say this because a new screen for my iphone that I put in myself is about 20$, if I go to Apple I am looking at 99$. I Can't afford to go to Apple and having replaced my screen multiple times as I am currently running an iphone 4s which came out in 2011 with the tiny little screen that has been broken at least 5 times if not more. So making it for professionals is just another barrier these companies were able to squeeze into the law in their favor. We are talking about swapping components here this isn't Rick's Restoration anybody with some basic know how and determination could do these jobs but the companies got away with arguing it was for reliability and product safety.

I absolutely agree the spare part should be available to everyone. However, keep in mind the article is about home appliances.

There is a non-trivial risk associated with repairing appliances connected to the power mains - incl. electro-shock of the repair man... or the users.

Water damage, leaking, flooding for washing machines, dish washers and the like.

I do see the point you make, it would be very easy for someone to forget a gasket or not tighten a hose and end up with a flood. But I also believe this is just yet another excuse to try and lock customers out of their right to repair. Something like a microwave has a large capacitor and serious electrocution could occur. However, most appliances like a washer and dryer fridge and stove do not have these giant capacitors and simply by unplugging them one can pretty safely work on them. They could very easily do something like the xbox 360 did which had security stickers that you had to break in order to open your xbox. Pretty obvious that an xbox has been opened. They could do the same with their appliances and just use registered one time screws that break when opened and and only authorize professional repairs will be provided the same screws from the companies. This way the average guy could do it just without the registered screws. If there was a problem resulting in damage the company could verify you had all your registered screws in place or your warranty is void. Furthermore is these companies are so worried about us damaging ourselves then they could very easily provide some documentation on how to properly repair these things without risk. They don't want that. This is nothing but them trying to maximize profits at the cost of the customer and the environment.

You want to allow companies to not honor their warranty if the owner of the product opens their own property? That sounds like a terrible idea. If I buy a product, I am legally allowed to do with it whatever I want, which obviously includes looking at the inside or modifying it for my needs, and it would be a massive limiting of my rights if that suddenly would mean that the manufacturer is not responsible for manufacturing defects or design errors anymore.

I actually do want companies to honor their warranty even if I open up the device but generally I do not need to do that if it is under warranty. I was more thinking after that period when it breaks and you can't have the manufacture repair it. These companies still don't want someone doing unauthorised repairs and starting house fires then saying these machines cause fires when really it is was a bad repair. But on the other hand there are countless people that are capable or out of necessity will repair a machine. With my suggestion of registered one time screws it was not to stop the customer from doing work but just to indicate they did work if there was some negative effect afterwards.

On a side note my son accidentally sat on his ereader, a popular model, but there is no place to buy a screen. There were a couple on eBay but they wanted 20$ less then a new ereader. It is frustrating.

Well, but then what would be the consequence of the customer doing work? I mean, either there is some legal consequence to it, then it's a bad idea, or there isn't, then it's useless?! Especially considering that the mere indication that the appliance was opened does not tell you anything about what was done to it and thus whether there is any likely connection to a given defect.

And while you might not need to repair appliances under warranty, mind you that there are other reasons for opening appliances, from curiosity to quality control to wanting to modify things for your needs.

Whether these companies want me to do repairs really seems like a completely irrelevant interest. It's my property, and if property means anything, then their interest to protect their trademark certainly does not trump my interest in having control over my property, or else you could use the same reasoning to justify pretty much any right for them to control and limit what you can do with your property.

The stickers ("warranty void if removed") are illegal both in the EU and US.

Even simple maintenance like dust cleaning would "void" the stickers.

If those parts are standard there is no reason for them to be too expensive.

Look inside your washing-machine, and you'll see there are no std-parts. To make this problem 'go away' for the industry is to charge high prices.

Can you build an iPhone from standard parts?

This is a law for appliances.

Nevertheless the same issue applies. You can't build everything from standard components.

Hopefully the laws don't allow apple-esque DRM on third party components.

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