The Android phone maker says go ahead, fix your own phone.
The right-to-repair movement continues to gain steam as another big tech company shows its support for letting people fix their own broken devices.
Google endorsed an Oregon right-to-repair legislation Thursday calling it a “common sense repair bill” and saying it would be a “win for consumers.” This marks the first time the Android phone maker has officially backed any right-to-repair law.
The ability to repair a phone, for example, empowers people by saving money on devices while creating less waste,” said Steven Nickel, devices and services director of operations for Google, in a blog post Thursday. “It also critically supports sustainability in manufacturing. Repair must be easy enough for anyone to do, whether they are technicians or do-it-yourselfers.”
In the Oregon repair bill, manufacturers will be required to provide replacement parts, software, physical tools, documentation and schematics needed for repair to authorized repair providers or individuals. The legislation covers any digital electronics with a computer chip although cars, farm equipment, medical devices, solar power systems, and any heavy or industrial equipment that is not sold to consumers are exempt from the bill.
Google has made strides in making its Pixel phones easier to fix. The company enabled a Repair Mode for the phones last month allowing the protection of data on the device while it’s being serviced. There’s also a diagnostic feature that helps determine if your Pixel phone is working properly or not. That said, Google’s Pixel Watch is another story as the company said in October it will not provide parts to repair its smartwatch.
Apple jumped on the right-to-repair bandwagon back in October. The iPhone maker showed its support for a federal law to make it easier to repair its phones after years of being a staunch opponent.
Sure, but most people wouldn’t even want to attempt a board replacement and would rather take it to a repair shop. Replacing an entire section of a device because one tiny part is broken is not helping the e-waste problem repairability is trying to work on.
These companies just want to upsell you to a new device, they want to group parts into assemblies to increase the price, and if the repair is going to cost just a small amount less than buying a new device, people are likely just to buy a new one, now that old device becomes e-waste and the company made a sale. Instead of it being a cheap repair, keeping that device going for as long as possible.
Just to be clear, reducing e-waste is just a fringe benefit and kinda beside the point. The real reason for repairability is that it’s the device owner’s property right, and to try to restrict repairs (or worse, make them “illegal” via inserting frivolous DRM and invoking the DMCA) is to infringe on that right.