It gave as an example clothes dryers. The way most home clothes dryers working back then was you put the clothes in, you turn a dial on a timer to the number of minutes you want the dryer to run, and you press start.
The mechanical timers were very reliable. There hadn't been any substantial improvement in their design in decades because there really wasn't anything to improve. There had been improvement in the materials used, and in the cost, but fundamentally mechanical timers was a solved problem.
If the mechanical timer ever broke the repairperson would have replacements in their van. Even if they didn't have the specific one for your dryer it didn't matter because they all worked pretty much the same. They could just put in another one. Maybe the mounting holes wouldn't be in the right place, but they could easily improvise some way to mount it in your dryer.
The book went on to say that somewhere there is an engineer designing a new clothes dryer, and instead of a mechanical timer that engineer is putting in a digital timer. It has a microprocessor, 7 segment LED digit displays for the time, some buttons for interacting with it (such as setting the time and correcting mistakes), and a power supply. And let's not forget that it has software.
That digital timer has no advantage to the user over a mechanical timer. But it has disadvantages. The interface will be worse. It will cost more. It won't be more reliable and possibly will be less reliable, and if it does need repair the repairperson probable won't have the parts. If they have another brand's digital timer on hand they probably won't be able to adapt it to your dryer.
So why is that engineer designing the new dryer with a digital timer?
Because mechanical timers are boring. Digital electronics was at the cutting edge of consumer engineering then, and so by using a digital timer the engineer got to play with exciting new technology.
But also, some slop in the timing accuracy is just fine. The user doesn't really know how long precisely the drier needs to run to dry their clothes. They just know that if they set this timer to 45 then the clothes come out dry.
The only things that broke are plastic door hinges.
> That digital timer has no advantage to the user over a mechanical timer. But it has disadvantages.
The mechanical timer is known to degrade over time, which is why the repair person has spares in their van. Does the digital timer really have no advantages? Will it ever fail and need to be replaced? How much more does it cost?
Yes, engineers are tempted to use shiny tools all of the time. Evaluating whether or not the tool is right for the job is _hard_. But it feels wrong to say that novelty is the only motivation behind upgrading tools?
The digital timer was made by an engineer, too, who designed it to be a more reliable replacement for faulty mechanical timers. It has both advantages and disadvantages compared to mechanical timers, which is why the engineer made it in the first place?
Surely the expected lifetime of a digital timer is shorter than that of a mechanical timer.
In practice, cost engineering is going to mean neither is completely reliable, but it should be cheaper to make an electronic timer reliable enough. Especially today, where the cost of a functioning mechanical timer is probably an order of magnitude more than an equivalent electronic timer.
There are so many different mechanical things that can break, jam, get gummed up...
Going into the realm of unlikely scenarios, electronics are more susceptible to EMPs.
Additionally, I would be very surprised if the digital solution is not cheaper to make. Maybe not when first originally introduced, but nowadays it very likely is.
You're right that repair-ability is hurt in some ways... but the industry has moved to compensate. You can buy boards and replace them. They aren't inherently hard to service, because the form factor doesn't really have limitations.
As a homeowner, I wish someone (anyone!) still sold reliable analog appliances that just did their job simply and made repair parts and schematics reasonably available.
Granted, none of my large appliances are younger than 10 years, but I think I could build new ones (expensively) for the all the parts and schematics available, even wiring diagrams.
In comparison, the mechanical timer is physically moving. A clockspring, or some sort of mechanism that physically sets the time remaining. Depending on how it's built, vibrations are a harder problem to solve. Not impossible, obviously, but it certainly adds cost.
Also, for most appliances we deal with today... they usually ARE simple to work on. Simple switches and mechanical contrivances. Parts are typically readily available... even PCBs, although possibly not at great pricing. There's certain appliances where you are basically screwed (fridges come to mind...), but that is mainly in my view because the typical failing part is the compressor. Nobody is rebuilding a compressor themselves.
Source: The episode of 'The Secret Life of Machines' on fridges. Search it on YouTube.
On the compressors, there was a vast swath of Samsung and LG fridges that had known defects on compressors causing them to fail. Right now, the ice machines are probably most problematic. If you own a Samsung fridge with an ice maker you know what I mean.
A few years ago I was renting a house that came with a Samsung fridge that provided chilled water / ice. My kids loved the chilled water.
However, our usage of it caused the paint to start bubbling below the dispenser, and the owners of the rental wanted me to replace the door at a cost of ~$800 USD(!).
I argued that we were using the fridge as designed, so we weren't liable, instead they should discuss what looked to me like an obvious design flaw with Samsung.
They disagreed, so we ended up in court. My defence was about 12 pages printed from an appliance review site of people specifically complaining about this paint bubbling.
Easiest win ever, but seriously, how do you put a device that works with water into a fridge and fail to ensure it can't leak under the paintwork?
The supply chain issues are hurting the servicing part, repair feasibility, and manufacturing part.
People make similar claims about cars, but old cars broke down all the time and new ones are basically appliances that “just work” without the driver needing to know anything. Similar for computers to smart phones (though obviously both digital in that transition)
Eventually digital became cheap, and enabled new features like dryers that had various sensors that could be used to optimize drying, but that was several years down the road.
"Repairability" is becoming slightly nonsense because even as someone who is a programmer, who has done electronics at a hobbyist level myself, I'm not going to be able to fix a lot of stuff purely because you have to become an expert on it, the time investment is too high. As systems get more complex (to the overall benefit of all of us) the value of repairing something yourself vs getting an expert to do it, changes.
I think right to repair is good though, but purely meaning that companies to not intentionally attempt to thwart the repair of their devices and that parts/manuals are available where needed. Even so, this doesn't mean that every phone repair place is going to debug some sub-circuit inside some small part of the newest iPhone - they'll just identify the overall broken module and replace the entire board/module.
The worst engineers I've worked with are ones who, in their first week, fall behind on their onboarding plan because the company's compiler needs a rewrite.
They probably knew it was dumb but implementing it was easier than getting around all the organizational permissions to make an exception.