Apple AirPod batteries and the need for right-to-repair reform | Hacker News Reader

Apple AirPod batteries and the need for right-to-repair reform

cnbc.com

24 pointsalexrustic24 comments

This is the worst possible example of why right-to-repair is a good idea. Even Apple does not repair AirPods, because they’re not engineered to be serviceable.

Surely it is a good example because it would force companies to engineer products to be serviceable?

Pretending there's no tradeoff between size/capabilities and reparability seems pretty naive

Pretending there's no reason at all to discuss that tradeoff and calling people naive for discussing it seems pretty rude or rushed.

Not when the person is calling for legal action to force everything to one side of the tradeoff

Fair; but, there’s a reason why, when discussing criminal justice reform, for example, we don’t talk about giving Dommer a shorter sentence.

There are better examples where that right can be agreed much more broadly and that can drum up support for the change in the law. Politics is, among other things, a popularity contest.

yeah but we're not talking about politics (thank god), just whether its better to have itty bitty headphones or force makers to have replaceable batteries, which is one imagined instance of a much broader situation (someone less generous might call it a strawman)

Right for repair will be solved in politics, which is what this is all about, at the end of the day

I have not seen any right-to-repair legislation that would do that. They typically require companies to share repair parts/tools/documents.

I would be against a right-to-repair bill that amounted to creative handcuffs for engineers. Engineering is an exercise in prioritization and there are sometimes very legitimate reasons to deprioritize serviceability. For example, the tires on my car are designed to prioritize safety and efficiency, rather than being able to be retreaded.

You will eliminate certain products, which probably includes airpods. Serviceability can have a real cost. And if you are on the cutting edge it cannot simply be added.

Not that I think that's a problem. I would be happy with companies being forced to engineer for serviceability.

Are there any repairable, washable, wireless earbuds out there that are decent with Bluetooth 5, noise cancelling, etc.? I haven't found one yet but I'd love to know if there is a site or wiki that lists repairable consumer electronics similar to /r/BuyItForLife/.

Weird, this seems like a strange hill for right to repair to die on.

...and most Right to Repair proponents aren't dying on it.

The majority of Right to Repair is about preventing artificial restrictions. Such as contracts with suppliers that prevent them from selling parts to third parties.

Very few people are talking about changing the design of products to be more repairable. This is Right to Repair, not Right to Products Designed for Easy Repair.

That’s why it’s so odd that proponents keep bringing up airpods and iPhone batteries.

You might like it to be about artificial restrictions - I would too, but the debate very much steers into forcing design decisions.

This is the first time that I have heard someone complaining about AirPod batteries and it really just seems like a marketing piece that is trying to associate with the Right to Repair hotness even if they don't really fit the main narrative.

Funny i was commenting to my coworkers how clever are engineers in China, on AliExpress you can buy a special tool to disassemble airpods and replace the battery. Same with the touchID and faceID sensors and a device to calibrate it.

See also:

Everyone's Airpods Will Die; Not Possible to Swap (2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21194977

I had my Air Pods Pro replaced for free due to a Apple recall for all those bought before October 2020 and having some bad sound issues.

Rechargable batteries are still consumables, perhaps with smarter charging and new battery chemisty their lives can be eeked out for longer, however the electronics also need to be robust.

I assume devices are designed with a mean time before failure, and it is no easy to ask to to diagnose and surface mounted components.

How worried should we be about rechargeable batteries being consumable? Alkaline batteries are also consumable and for powerful devices they need to be replaced much, much more often than rechargeable batteries.

Basically a $149 consumable wireless earphone. Somehow Apple managed to train a lot of people thinking these as consumables. And that by third year they will need a new pair because of battery, hence renewed purchase. From a company that claims they enrich people's life and care deeply about the environment.

A 13 gallon "garbage" bag, commonly used to dispose of waste in the USA weighs 22grams. Each Airpod, according to Apple, weights 4grams. (yeah, I'm just talking about plastic, but plastic really is part of this). The actual material (resource) cost of an Airpod is utterly insignificant (over the 3 years you cite as the lifetime) to the daily and weekly waste caused by each person in a western culture. The average waste per human for western cultures seems to be about 500+Kg per year. Over that time, the equivalent of about 375,000 Airpods. This is for materials disposed of each week, without thought - the numbers I'm using do not include any materials that are recycled. What is the actual useful "lifetime" of this garbage or trash? Perhaps a week? Or if it was a Starbucks coffee cup lid, perhaps 30 minutes. Doubtful it was 3 years.

The outrage at not being able to repair a 4gm Airpod when compared to the complete disregard to wasting other resources, in my opinion, has a very dubious moral stance.

I get that the price paid is indicative of the engineering that went into the product and you feel it might be outrageous to pay that amount for 2x 4gm.

Any argument about repairability needs to be considered in the context of actual resources used to make the product, what the cost to humanity was when compared to what it will cost to repair the product, including the human cost.

It's sad that even in over the ear wireless headphones the batteries are not easily replaceable. Is it too much to ask for a few discreetly hidden screws that allow the user to open the headphones up without destroying them? If that were possible, replacing a battery would take less than 10 minutes.

The same way that many good wired headphones allow you to replace the cables and earpads. That makes them last for decades as long as spare parts are available.

Now with wireless headphones when the battery dies you're SOL. You better pony up for a new pair even though the failed part costs ~$5 and could be replaced easily with good design and part availability.

I just used the Podswap service mentioned in the article. The swapped buds work great so far! I hope they figure out how to swap AirPod pro batteries soon.

surely it is a best example

Reply on news.ycombinator.com