Interestingly, the number is over a span of 15 years, and is only the calculated "Growth and investment".
Other numbers are "Savings in production costs" at €15.6 billion, and "Consumer savings" at 25€ per consumer per year for an impressive total of €176.5 billion.
It also lists "Business adjustment costs" at €8.1 billion, "Business administrative costs" at just €69.8 million and "Implementation and enforcement" at €105.5 million.
I wonder why "Growth and investment" was chosed as the number to use. Maybe to keep emphasising their gist of "the EU is the future for sustainable growth"?
Also, here are the announcements by the Commission:
If I buy an Android phone, I should be able to maintain/update the operating system.
If I buy a MacBook, I should be able to maintain or change the operating system.
If I buy a TV, smart watch, microwave - I should be able to maintain their software.
The only thing prohibiting this is the fact that drivers are obfuscated and/or hardware schematics sufficient to produce drivers are not provided.
IMO, if the EU wants any technical sovereignty, they'd address this as I don't see European companies producing a competitor to the MacBook - I do however see European companies being capable of creating a competing operating system (or Linux) to install on a MacBook, but only if Apple is compelled to allow them.
The same goes for smartphones, cars, and any digital device
It really should be required for manufacturers to publish full details about how the hardware works so that alternative software can be developed. I'd wholly support that.
Of course you should, pal! You should not buy any proprietary shite to stop investing into even more invasive proprietary antiuseful technologies. But you use to not do that, so we both are going to experience suffering. Thank you for being the bad actor for me.
It's pretty likely that manufacturers would charge handsomely for these requirements. At least at first.
You'd probably also get things like TVs with very basic software at import, with much better software available for people willing to obtain it outside the EU.
You are able to do that, just like you are able to drill out the cylinders of your brand new car. If you are skilled enough. But the manufacturer doesn't have any obligation to teach you how.
I would like to see small appliances inbuilt batteries (mostly Li-Ion based) be prohibted. It contributes to device obsolescence and is a security risk --> burning waste dumps.
I think this regulation that comes into effect February of next year concerns all kinds of batteries, not only those of smartphones https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... . I think, because I didn't doublecheck right now further than reading the first matching "appliances" paragraph (ctrl-f).
What I know off the top of my head, from reading the legislation a while ago. Is that technical reasons, such as waterproof devices, will still be able to retain non user replaceable batteries if it is needed to keep the device waterproof.
> including a repair obligation for manufacturers of certain products
Unfortunately regulations often don't go far enough.
I have a ~10 year old iPad Pro in perfect working condition. I can basically do nothing with it, and increasingly it can no longer even browse the internet because Safari is so outdated on it.
The iPad is easily Apple worst product in terms of consumer friendliness. A lot of iPads shipped with way to little storage and I'd be surprised if Apple didn't know this.
The 10 year old iPad is still a perfectly capable device, but it suffers from the lack of an updated operating system and enough storage to apply a would be update. There are millions of people for whom an iPad is all the computing they'd ever need (many just use their phone as well), but the larger screen makes it a good option of online shopping, banking, emails, government documents, calendar and appointment booking. The price is reasonable, but it doesn't need to replace every three to five years to serve that purpose. Arguably I don't know how Apple would make money on it long term, but the lack of update should count against them in terms of their environmental image.
Apple is far from the worst, their phones updates for a long time, longer than most. Their laptops equally so. The iPad is very disappointing, because even if they issue an OS update, not all the devices can apply it, because of the lack of storage. Still better than my wife's old Samsung phone that was unable to apply any operating system update ever, because the storage was to limited.
I think for these kind of scenarios what Apple should do is unlock the device when it officially stop supporting with new iOS updates. You bought the device and you own it, so you should be able to use it as long as you want.
Divorcing the OS from the hardware means stuff just lasts far, far longer.
Like just a few years ago it became impossible to run 32bit windows which effectively killed all OS software updates for hardware older than ~2005. Most application software followed.
On the Linux they just dropped support for the 486 and older versions of the kernel will likely still get security updates for a while.
I recently had to throw out a first gen iPad that was physically still in mint condition (even including the battery, somehow), simply for the lack of support essentially turning it into a useless brick.
the main issue is that's an ipad and it's locked. In contrast - a 15y+ laptop can be used (after few upgrades - i5-560M, 8GB RAM, 500GB SSD, AC-8260) to do office work: it runs the latest Firefox and Open Office + googledocs and friends without too much trouble.
Is bricking accurate there? From what I've read the old Kindles can no longer download from the Amazon store, which is the only reasonable way to get new Kindle books onto a Kindle.
However, any Kindle books they have already downloaded to that Kindle will continue to work, and can be backed up and restored to a desktop computer over USB.
Also any Kindle books they bought for that Kindle when Amazon allowed downloading to desktop for later USB loading can still be loaded that way.
Finally, it still works for non-DRM books from other sources. It is essentially now like a non-Kindle ebook reader that also happens to be able to read the set of Kindle books you already have.
Oh, and you also have to avoid doing a factory reset or deregistering the Kindle. It will then lose the ability to read Kindle books, making it even more like a non-Kindle ebook reader.
You might not be totally screwed out of your Kindle books even then. We are talking about devices that were introduced in 2012 or earlier and last sold new in September 2014.
Amazon only succeeded in hardening their DRM to the point that DRM removal tools don't work for most people in the last couple of years or so. That means there is a good chance that the Kindle books of most of the affected users have reasonably breakable DRM.
There are some things that might have happened since they bought the books that updated the DRM on their copies, but if you just downloaded the books, and only later moved them off and on via USB (manually or with something like Calibre) to manage space on the device, and did not also read them in the Amazon desktop Kindle app then they are almost certainly still using the original DRM and that can easily be stripped.
> Unfortunately regulations often don't go far enough.
Eh, what are you proposing? That these new regulations should cover +10 year old devices too?
Similarly I still have an iPhone with a lightning port instead of the legally mandated USB-C port, but at no point was I expecting Apple to somehow change the ports of existing devices.
Updating old products is expensive, especially as their hardware falls further behind. Unless manufacturers adopt some kind of subscription model to justify the cost of continued updates, which would likely be very unpopular, I don’t see how they can realistically keep older devices supported indefinitely.
I live in a rich European country. This is not Shenzhen. The, very scarce, technically inclined people who know how to repair a vacuum cleaner or electronic toothbrush can get a real job with an hourly rate that makes repairs economically unfeasible.
Repair cafes are nice hobby projects for pensionados but it is not going to move the needle.
Not everything has to be a business. Our local library has "repair café Sundays", and most of the people involved in it are volunteers. There are some "pensionados" among them (and they are cherished for their institutional knowledge), but they are definitely not the majority. There is a strong community of interested tech nerds that like to help each other out and learn how to fix things themselves, and who also want to learn from the previous generation.
The manufacturer/seller already employs people who deal with this, and it's not expensive. Getting my washing machine fixed for 10€ parts + labor instead of 300€ parts + labor sounds mighty nice to me.
> Manufacturers must also provide [...] access to spare parts at a reasonable price.
This is the important part. Stupid shit like 0.3€ soldering buttons to 200€ motherboards so the repair is expensive has got to go.
I've overheard a guy last week in town saying they brought their iPhone to a repair shop and they've done the repair at fraction of the cost they expected. They were excited and told their friends.
My robot vacuum cleaner broke. The lidar sensor is broken. The manufactures asked me to send it to their repair center but the whole thing, including the dock. This is a major pain to do so. I would much rather receive a new lidar sensor with some instructions on how to repair it myself.
An official iphone screen for self repair costs more than my entire android phone. That's why people still steal them even locked and unusable. My miele washing machine will last twenty years, possibly indefinitely but every seven years it needs a repair costing £300 from Miele... Repairable is a start, economically repairable is trickier.
> People now have the right to request that manufacturers repair products that are technically repairable under EU law.
This kind of misses the point though.
Don't get me wrong, the above is nice to have as a law, but it does not
really understand the underlying problem domain. Louis Rossmann explained
it several times already; the problem was not that primarily that upstream
companies refuse to repair something, but that they deliberately make it
harder for downstream folks to repair something, for many reasons. Planned
obsolescence, trade secrets and other shenanigans, unable to purchase
replacements parts and so forth. Having a law that forces easy repairs onto
the upstream company, DOES NOT FIX THE DOWNSTREAM PROBLEM; and in some cases
it will make it worse. If the EU were serious about fighting for consumers,
they would require of all companies operating in the EU, WITHOUT EXCEPTION,
to not deliberately make it harder for downstream people to repair things.
We now live in the age of 3D printing, so really repairing anything should be
much much easier (at the least for simple materials; I understand that 3D printing
isn't that great yet with regards to tiny electronics parts). To me it seems as
if lobbyists always sneak in and worsen the legislation here. Both in the EU and in the USA.
They have already begun. It’s called the Product Liability Directive (2024/2853) and forces software providers to guarantee fitness for purposes and safety.
I'm not disagreeing, but also I don't understand what you mean. It's already legal for you to repair your own software, AFAIK? Or are you proposing they force only "source available" software or something?
Yet another baffling comment section, but in this case the excuse doesn't work [0].
In a forum full of "tech guys" that like "tech solutions" the number of comments that are against being allowed to thinker and repair their own devices is above zero.... we really need to drown out those voices, they represent a very shameful set of individuals that taint what (I would like to think) we like and prefer
Good luck to hardware startups in Europe! For every developer now a company needs one technical writer or compliance specialist. That basically means that all small everyday electronics products will come from overseas. Either because it’s cheaper or it’s cheaper and nobody cares about certification.
"The 'right to repair' regulations introduce new rights and supports aimed at encouraging repair over disposal, including a repair obligation for manufacturers of certain products and the establishment of a national repair platform to help consumers locate repair services."
If your hardware start-up was going to tell me to buy a new product if it broke after a year, then I've no problem if it doesn't get going in the EU.
We don't need more cheap tat, we need things that can have a reasonable shelf life. We used to expect that from products as standard. Then when more things became electronic, it started to drift into obsolence after X years.
But there's so many products that don't need to be replaced. I don't need a state-of-the-art pedometer or weighing scales, I just need one that does the job it did when I bought it.
Always the same weak anti-regulation argument: "if companies can't screw over their consumers, how can they ever turn a profit??". And guess what, this law also applies to foreign companies selling in the EU.
Actually they've just handed the entire market to the few companies that will put in the effort.
If Apple, Samsung and the Chinese manufacturer isn't compliant, then Fairphone just got handed a market of 500 million people with no real competition. Some US electronics manufacturer who doesn't want to deal with EU regulation, is handing over the entire market to someone who will, and that company can still sell everywhere else.
This is so disingenuous. I've been part of two Norwegian hard tech startups in the past few years (one as a founder, one currently as an embedded lead) and all it took was our mech engineer (which you will always need) making an accessible case design and publishing a short two page PDF on disassembly.
Down the road, if we make it, we will have access to funds for a few roles that maintain spare parts and a repair (more likely replace/refurb) department, that will coordinate with our manufacturing houses.
None of this blocks innovation or velocity for early stage startups. Unless you have more concrete examples I'm somehow missing?
> According to the European Commission, the new rules are expected to bring €4.8 billion in growth and investment within the EU.
The source of this number seems to come from here, on page 73:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...
Interestingly, the number is over a span of 15 years, and is only the calculated "Growth and investment".
Other numbers are "Savings in production costs" at €15.6 billion, and "Consumer savings" at 25€ per consumer per year for an impressive total of €176.5 billion.
It also lists "Business adjustment costs" at €8.1 billion, "Business administrative costs" at just €69.8 million and "Implementation and enforcement" at €105.5 million.
I wonder why "Growth and investment" was chosed as the number to use. Maybe to keep emphasising their gist of "the EU is the future for sustainable growth"?
Also, here are the announcements by the Commission:
https://commission.europa.eu/news-and-media/news/right-repai...
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/right-to-repair-...
I would like this to be extended to software.
If I buy an Android phone, I should be able to maintain/update the operating system.
If I buy a MacBook, I should be able to maintain or change the operating system.
If I buy a TV, smart watch, microwave - I should be able to maintain their software.
The only thing prohibiting this is the fact that drivers are obfuscated and/or hardware schematics sufficient to produce drivers are not provided.
IMO, if the EU wants any technical sovereignty, they'd address this as I don't see European companies producing a competitor to the MacBook - I do however see European companies being capable of creating a competing operating system (or Linux) to install on a MacBook, but only if Apple is compelled to allow them.
The same goes for smartphones, cars, and any digital device
It really should be required for manufacturers to publish full details about how the hardware works so that alternative software can be developed. I'd wholly support that.
Of course you should, pal! You should not buy any proprietary shite to stop investing into even more invasive proprietary antiuseful technologies. But you use to not do that, so we both are going to experience suffering. Thank you for being the bad actor for me.
It's pretty likely that manufacturers would charge handsomely for these requirements. At least at first.
You'd probably also get things like TVs with very basic software at import, with much better software available for people willing to obtain it outside the EU.
You forgot iPhone.
You are able to do that, just like you are able to drill out the cylinders of your brand new car. If you are skilled enough. But the manufacturer doesn't have any obligation to teach you how.
I would like to see small appliances inbuilt batteries (mostly Li-Ion based) be prohibted. It contributes to device obsolescence and is a security risk --> burning waste dumps.
I think this regulation that comes into effect February of next year concerns all kinds of batteries, not only those of smartphones https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... . I think, because I didn't doublecheck right now further than reading the first matching "appliances" paragraph (ctrl-f).
What I know off the top of my head, from reading the legislation a while ago. Is that technical reasons, such as waterproof devices, will still be able to retain non user replaceable batteries if it is needed to keep the device waterproof.
Especially vaping devices. Cigarette butts were at least easier to dispose of than these plastic encased tips and single use vapes.
> including a repair obligation for manufacturers of certain products
Unfortunately regulations often don't go far enough.
I have a ~10 year old iPad Pro in perfect working condition. I can basically do nothing with it, and increasingly it can no longer even browse the internet because Safari is so outdated on it.
So it will be waste.
See similar story about Amazon bricking old Kindles: https://www.techradar.com/tablets/ereaders/amazon-bricking-c...
But, this regulation is still a tiny step in the right direction.
The iPad is easily Apple worst product in terms of consumer friendliness. A lot of iPads shipped with way to little storage and I'd be surprised if Apple didn't know this.
The 10 year old iPad is still a perfectly capable device, but it suffers from the lack of an updated operating system and enough storage to apply a would be update. There are millions of people for whom an iPad is all the computing they'd ever need (many just use their phone as well), but the larger screen makes it a good option of online shopping, banking, emails, government documents, calendar and appointment booking. The price is reasonable, but it doesn't need to replace every three to five years to serve that purpose. Arguably I don't know how Apple would make money on it long term, but the lack of update should count against them in terms of their environmental image.
Apple is far from the worst, their phones updates for a long time, longer than most. Their laptops equally so. The iPad is very disappointing, because even if they issue an OS update, not all the devices can apply it, because of the lack of storage. Still better than my wife's old Samsung phone that was unable to apply any operating system update ever, because the storage was to limited.
I think for these kind of scenarios what Apple should do is unlock the device when it officially stop supporting with new iOS updates. You bought the device and you own it, so you should be able to use it as long as you want.
Divorcing the OS from the hardware means stuff just lasts far, far longer.
Like just a few years ago it became impossible to run 32bit windows which effectively killed all OS software updates for hardware older than ~2005. Most application software followed.
On the Linux they just dropped support for the 486 and older versions of the kernel will likely still get security updates for a while.
I recently had to throw out a first gen iPad that was physically still in mint condition (even including the battery, somehow), simply for the lack of support essentially turning it into a useless brick.
the main issue is that's an ipad and it's locked. In contrast - a 15y+ laptop can be used (after few upgrades - i5-560M, 8GB RAM, 500GB SSD, AC-8260) to do office work: it runs the latest Firefox and Open Office + googledocs and friends without too much trouble.
Is bricking accurate there? From what I've read the old Kindles can no longer download from the Amazon store, which is the only reasonable way to get new Kindle books onto a Kindle.
However, any Kindle books they have already downloaded to that Kindle will continue to work, and can be backed up and restored to a desktop computer over USB.
Also any Kindle books they bought for that Kindle when Amazon allowed downloading to desktop for later USB loading can still be loaded that way.
Finally, it still works for non-DRM books from other sources. It is essentially now like a non-Kindle ebook reader that also happens to be able to read the set of Kindle books you already have.
Oh, and you also have to avoid doing a factory reset or deregistering the Kindle. It will then lose the ability to read Kindle books, making it even more like a non-Kindle ebook reader.
You might not be totally screwed out of your Kindle books even then. We are talking about devices that were introduced in 2012 or earlier and last sold new in September 2014.
Amazon only succeeded in hardening their DRM to the point that DRM removal tools don't work for most people in the last couple of years or so. That means there is a good chance that the Kindle books of most of the affected users have reasonably breakable DRM.
There are some things that might have happened since they bought the books that updated the DRM on their copies, but if you just downloaded the books, and only later moved them off and on via USB (manually or with something like Calibre) to manage space on the device, and did not also read them in the Amazon desktop Kindle app then they are almost certainly still using the original DRM and that can easily be stripped.
Try out Reynard, which ships up-to-date Gecko instead of relying on outdated system WebKit! https://github.com/minh-ton/reynard-browser
Might help you get some more use out of it, thanks to the DMA :-)
> Unfortunately regulations often don't go far enough.
Eh, what are you proposing? That these new regulations should cover +10 year old devices too?
Similarly I still have an iPhone with a lightning port instead of the legally mandated USB-C port, but at no point was I expecting Apple to somehow change the ports of existing devices.
Updating old products is expensive, especially as their hardware falls further behind. Unless manufacturers adopt some kind of subscription model to justify the cost of continued updates, which would likely be very unpopular, I don’t see how they can realistically keep older devices supported indefinitely.
This is more like a "right to have repaired" than a "right to repair", unfortunately.
I live in a rich European country. This is not Shenzhen. The, very scarce, technically inclined people who know how to repair a vacuum cleaner or electronic toothbrush can get a real job with an hourly rate that makes repairs economically unfeasible.
Repair cafes are nice hobby projects for pensionados but it is not going to move the needle.
Not everything has to be a business. Our local library has "repair café Sundays", and most of the people involved in it are volunteers. There are some "pensionados" among them (and they are cherished for their institutional knowledge), but they are definitely not the majority. There is a strong community of interested tech nerds that like to help each other out and learn how to fix things themselves, and who also want to learn from the previous generation.
The manufacturer/seller already employs people who deal with this, and it's not expensive. Getting my washing machine fixed for 10€ parts + labor instead of 300€ parts + labor sounds mighty nice to me.
> Manufacturers must also provide [...] access to spare parts at a reasonable price.
This is the important part. Stupid shit like 0.3€ soldering buttons to 200€ motherboards so the repair is expensive has got to go.
EU is huge and hourly rates are different in many countries.
Nevertheless, the point is not the electronic toothbrush, but rather the "BIG" stuff that costs much and it's creating a lot of garbage.
A 1200 euro TV that breaks after 5 years - are you willing to buy a new one just because?
Once you have that infrastructure in place, eventually also the "smaller" things will be cheaper to replace.
You underestimate my willingness to 'under sell' my free time by spending it to fix something I own.
I've overheard a guy last week in town saying they brought their iPhone to a repair shop and they've done the repair at fraction of the cost they expected. They were excited and told their friends.
Washing machine repairmen never ceased to exist.
My robot vacuum cleaner broke. The lidar sensor is broken. The manufactures asked me to send it to their repair center but the whole thing, including the dock. This is a major pain to do so. I would much rather receive a new lidar sensor with some instructions on how to repair it myself.
When did it become socially acceptable to throw things out rather than repair them ? When did it become economically rational ?
Helsinki (for one) needs some real repair cafés.
An official iphone screen for self repair costs more than my entire android phone. That's why people still steal them even locked and unusable. My miele washing machine will last twenty years, possibly indefinitely but every seven years it needs a repair costing £300 from Miele... Repairable is a start, economically repairable is trickier.
> People now have the right to request that manufacturers repair products that are technically repairable under EU law.
This kind of misses the point though.
Don't get me wrong, the above is nice to have as a law, but it does not really understand the underlying problem domain. Louis Rossmann explained it several times already; the problem was not that primarily that upstream companies refuse to repair something, but that they deliberately make it harder for downstream folks to repair something, for many reasons. Planned obsolescence, trade secrets and other shenanigans, unable to purchase replacements parts and so forth. Having a law that forces easy repairs onto the upstream company, DOES NOT FIX THE DOWNSTREAM PROBLEM; and in some cases it will make it worse. If the EU were serious about fighting for consumers, they would require of all companies operating in the EU, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, to not deliberately make it harder for downstream people to repair things. We now live in the age of 3D printing, so really repairing anything should be much much easier (at the least for simple materials; I understand that 3D printing isn't that great yet with regards to tiny electronics parts). To me it seems as if lobbyists always sneak in and worsen the legislation here. Both in the EU and in the USA.
No one is claiming that what the EU has done is perfect but you have to start somewhere. After that you move on and improve.
>"By day we consist of fixing generally washing machines and dryers and dishwashers"
But what does he do by night???
Great, now require it for software.
They have already begun. It’s called the Product Liability Directive (2024/2853) and forces software providers to guarantee fitness for purposes and safety.
I'm not disagreeing, but also I don't understand what you mean. It's already legal for you to repair your own software, AFAIK? Or are you proposing they force only "source available" software or something?
And how much of it will be ineffective because the worst offenders have bought their ways out?
It’s a step in the right direction; the alternative would be to do nothing whilst waiting for a perfect text that will never materialise.
Yet another baffling comment section, but in this case the excuse doesn't work [0].
In a forum full of "tech guys" that like "tech solutions" the number of comments that are against being allowed to thinker and repair their own devices is above zero.... we really need to drown out those voices, they represent a very shameful set of individuals that taint what (I would like to think) we like and prefer
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49395714
[dead]
Good luck to hardware startups in Europe! For every developer now a company needs one technical writer or compliance specialist. That basically means that all small everyday electronics products will come from overseas. Either because it’s cheaper or it’s cheaper and nobody cares about certification.
"The 'right to repair' regulations introduce new rights and supports aimed at encouraging repair over disposal, including a repair obligation for manufacturers of certain products and the establishment of a national repair platform to help consumers locate repair services."
If your hardware start-up was going to tell me to buy a new product if it broke after a year, then I've no problem if it doesn't get going in the EU.
We don't need more cheap tat, we need things that can have a reasonable shelf life. We used to expect that from products as standard. Then when more things became electronic, it started to drift into obsolence after X years.
But there's so many products that don't need to be replaced. I don't need a state-of-the-art pedometer or weighing scales, I just need one that does the job it did when I bought it.
Always the same weak anti-regulation argument: "if companies can't screw over their consumers, how can they ever turn a profit??". And guess what, this law also applies to foreign companies selling in the EU.
Actually they've just handed the entire market to the few companies that will put in the effort.
If Apple, Samsung and the Chinese manufacturer isn't compliant, then Fairphone just got handed a market of 500 million people with no real competition. Some US electronics manufacturer who doesn't want to deal with EU regulation, is handing over the entire market to someone who will, and that company can still sell everywhere else.
The rule applies to imported goods too. So not sure why would overseas electronics get a free pass.
This is so disingenuous. I've been part of two Norwegian hard tech startups in the past few years (one as a founder, one currently as an embedded lead) and all it took was our mech engineer (which you will always need) making an accessible case design and publishing a short two page PDF on disassembly.
Down the road, if we make it, we will have access to funds for a few roles that maintain spare parts and a repair (more likely replace/refurb) department, that will coordinate with our manufacturing houses.
None of this blocks innovation or velocity for early stage startups. Unless you have more concrete examples I'm somehow missing?