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- Hacker News
- I appreciate the intent to hold large corporations accountable, but I've lost faith in the EU being competent at doing so. Not as if I see anyone doing it better, but at least others aren't doing it so poorly.by alsetmusic
- isn't it often like this: the fines escalate if ignored?
- new requirements
- ignored => small fine
- still ignored => large fine
- not ignored anymore
by Garlef - I don't want to get down-voted but I like this regulation, good job EU!by m00dy
- Being in favor of right-to-repair is generally popular on HN, for obvious reasons.
- Do you like the intent, or the implementation and enforcement?
Politicians have a tendency to think that passing legislation fixes problems, where is its only the start of the process.
by graemep - I'm wondering whether it is now time for regulators to pressure mobile phone companies to install longer life batteries. There is not really an incentive to prolong device life for manufacturers and when I look at recent progress on the car industry and utility battery side there is imho. potential.by heisenbit
- Batteries always have a limited lifetime.
"back in the day" we had waterproof phones with user replacable batteries, you could just buy another battery and replace it yourself. I have no idea why we can't do this now.
by ajsnigrutin - This regulation seems to relax the rules a bit for batteries that last longer.
I wonder if it will just lead to using same size batteries more gently.
by maxerickson - Are there battery chemistries available which would allow for significantly longer life without sacrificing cost, power capacity, size, or safety? Generally the best way to prolong battery life is for the consumer to never fully charge or discharge.by nradov
- They don't comply with open source licenses, either.by mitxela
- All you really need are easy to replace batteries. That’s the only part that will wear out within a reasonable lifecycle.
Aside from FairPhone no one offers that
by 999900000999 - > All you really need are easy to replace batteries. That’s the only part that will wear out within a reasonable lifecycle.
This is far from true. Power connectors.
by chrisjj - > All you really need are easy to replace batteries.
They are easy _enough_ to replace already. Is it as easy as 20 years ago? Surely not. It also seems reasonable that something you're going to be realistically doing once per 3-4 years would require 1 or 2 hours.
Moreover, the regulation doesn't affect this process, apart from "no proprietary tools".
> That’s the only part that will wear out within a reasonable lifecycle.
Millions of broken screens and back glass/plastic panels beg to differ.
by StrLght - And the only part that an average user can hope to replace. I tried to replace a cracked sceen once, and ruined the phone. And I consider myself pretty handy, I do all my own car repairs, household plumbing, etc.by SoftTalker
- It's going to be cool to get user-replaceable batteries back in new phone releases. Depending how it goes I can see myself keeping a spare instead of a powerbankby library8848
- Powerbank: Works with all phones, Doesn't require you to shut down and take your phone apart, Can be charged with a regular phone charger.
Spare battery: ???
- It is not going to happen, because pretty much all major phone makers have exemption since their battery has still enough capacity after 2 years of use to be eligible for exemption.by Markoff
- The whole discussion on what the EU is doing has devolved into this idea that everyone will be forced to offer a backplate that pops out and a battery you can remove with your fingers.
The directive is far more complicated, and you will not see that at all.
by philistine - Contrary to popular belief, the EU is not very fast when it comes to enforcement on requirements like these. We already saw this with the ePrivacy Directive and GDPR: those scary hundreds-of-millions-of-euros fines are only handed out after ongoing and deliberate violation, where you've already received plenty of warnings and smaller fines.
18% compliance after one year with zero enforcement is not great, but it's already a massive increase over the near-zero repairable products we had only a few years ago. On top of that it is 18% of models, so there's a decent chance that a huge chunk of the noncompliant ones are obscure brands with near-zero sales: a handful of models by Apple and Samsung already add up to over 60% market share. And the report was literally written by iFixit, so there's a rather clear commercial incentive to underrepresent it and push for the strongest enforcement possible.
by crote - You can see the GDPR stats on https://www.enforcementtracker.com/statistics (scroll to “Enforcement over time” and click on “Total €”). 2018–2020 was effectively nothing compared to later.by robin_reala
- Does it really matter this early?
What I expect from this is rather that at least a few producers get more repair friendly so I as consumer have the choice again. (Writing this on my first phone without easily changeable battery, I've tried for very long)
So I as my families tech guru can give the right signals to my family and in a few years we see the actual change happen. Slowly but steadily
by herbst - I think it matters especially this early, to demonstrate that the legislation is a serious matter, not to be taken lightly and ignored.by zelphirkalt
- It does matter, yes. Because it won’t lead to the outcome you want until someone actually gets a painful fine.by jgilias
- Companies don't really care about rules per se. They care about their risk appetite, and whether the consequences of their actions create risk above that appetite level.
The simple calculus is: will it cost me more to comply, or more to ignore? If a company chooses the more costly option, they are betraying their shareholders and being managed poorly.
If you do not fine early and often, you are almost mandating that companies ignore the legislation. If this continues for several years, then you almost make it impossible to turn around later and fine, as businesses will want to know what's changed now. You will create an impression of uncertainty and instability, which is the last thing businesses want, and the last thing you want to do to encourage investment.
If you just set and enforce the rules from the start, then everyone can relax, do the right thing and be happy about it. It's funny how rarely this actually seems to happen.
by epihelix - Enforcement can be better, but I'm gonna give grace given how recently it was imposed. It's easy to point at extreme levels of enforcement being a key part of any regulation, but I have seen the breadth of the EU's scope and what needs to be balanced. Quite often I find that nonaction against compliance violations falls into the following:
- Lack of resources
- Lack of real consumer impact
- Awaiting legislation meant to clarify or strengthen impact of enforcement.
The article to me doesn't offer enough to justify any shout of doing anything different at the moment, rather it's just that they failed an audit. If they failed an audit and coupled this to swaths of consumer complaints, sure, but every EU member has a clear agency for consumer complaint, and I don't buy it that it is hard for consumers to report violations, it is far more likely in this case that they just don't care for the violations this particular group cares more about (like the links to Temu. I suspect a consumer doesn't care if it actually works still in practice, but we'd need surveys to confirm).
Consumer-replaceable batteries will be one area that WILL be a hot issue for consumers, so I would bet we will see much stronger reaction once that rule comes into effect.
by CorvusCrypto - > but every EU member has a clear agency for consumer complaint, and I don't buy it that it is hard for consumers to report violations,
The problem is the response is toothless. I reported Amazon for a violation to ICO in February 2019, received an automated email a month later asking for a swathe of information, replied to that, and 3 months later got an update that it would be assigned a Case Officer. That was the last time I heard from them on that matter.
Meanwhile, my local council will respond to pretty much _everything_ within 24-48 hours. I’ve reported all sorts of “small” things and when it comes up naturally friends are surprised that the council did anything. They’ve never actually tried reporting the issues, and assume it’s all fruitless.
by maccard - > Some records even refer customers to Temu or AliExpress for spare parts and repair instructions.
And if we go to Footnote 5 of the campaign's press release (https://repair.eu/news/one-year-into-eu-ecodesign-rules-80-o...):
> Sometimes, this situation is slyly camouflaged: Ulefone information sheets list a link that looks genuine (https://www.ulefone.com/pages/support-centers), but if you click the ‘parts store button’ on that page, it takes you to Aliexpress. When ordering parts from non-EU web stores, you as a consumer would be the importer and as such, responsible for paying import duties as well as ensuring compliance with all regulations.
But if you actually click through to that page, it is very specifically _their_ AliExpress store, not just any old random page on AliExpress. It's not clear to me that that's actually non-compliant with the Ecodesign regulation, even if it's not ideal that the consumer is the importer of record.
EDIT: Actually, on reflection, the importer thing might be more meaningful than I first thought. While the Regulation doesn't say so explicitly, it must mean that the spare parts be available for sale in the Union, and if the consumer is acting as the importer, then the parts are potentially not on sale in the Union. But the fact it is the manufacturer's store on a marketplace and not the manufacturer's branded subdomain is as far as I can see, neither here nor there.
by waiwai933 - As its the EU and regulation, its time to trott out your hobby horse.
So let me trot out mine: regulation is good so long as it is backed up by even handed, robust, transparent, quick and effective sanctions.
the Online safety act is a good example of a bad law, which is enforced badly. The first big test (X producing industrial quantities of minors engaging in sexual activity) was failed. Had a small company produced a service that did they same thing, they would have been fined, servers ceased and owners thrown in jail. X got a letter saying they should stop.
An example of good enforcement is the UK's scores on the doors, where the public can see what the standard is, and if they fall below a certain level, the food place is fined/shutdown/other until it improves.
Another good example is NCAP ratings.
by KaiserPro - Yes, Twitter frontpage should include a little counter with how much child exploitation it has facilitated today.
I don't think there's a single politician in Bruxelles that wouldn't love to come down hard on X. There is no love for Elon in those circles anymore. The problem is that he's attached himself to international politics through his daddy. Trump has threatened the EU with strict sanctions if they levy any sort of proportional fine to US tech companies.
The problem is no longer capitalist liberalism. The new challenge is American Fascism.
by delusional - > regulation is good so long as it is backed up by even handed, robust, transparent, quick and effective sanctions
Source for this claim? How can you say regulation is good without even defining what the regulation is? Or do you just believe that all regulation no matter what is always good?
by slopinthebag