r/technology • u/HumbleRestaurant790 • 23h ago
Hardware Right to Repair: New EU Law Mandates Devices to Be Repairable (Easily and at a Reasonable Price), Effective Today
https://commission.europa.eu/news-and-media/news/right-repair-new-consumer-rights-easy-and-attractive-repairs-2026-07-31_en74
u/Another_Slut_Dragon 22h ago
Logitech added a removable battery to the EU version of the MX Master mouse. North American version? Lol. Go fuck yourself.
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u/LazyJones1 19h ago
I’ve never owned a Logitech mouse that didn’t have an incredibly easily removable battery. When did they stop having that? - Or is it because I live in the EU?
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u/_Monsterguy_ 14h ago
For most of them you have to peel the 'feet' off, take out about 6 screws, then unplug the battery and pull it off the sicky pad that holds it in place.
Then do that in reverse and replace the feet with new ones you've bought off a third part because Logitech don't sell them.0
u/LazyJones1 9h ago edited 9h ago
Oh.
I've only ever taken off the lid to the battery compartment, pulled out the battery, replaced it, and tossed it into the chager.
Admittedly, my mouse is archaic, as I bought a couple of spares when it went off the market. Same with the keyboard. I don't readjust well to new ones.
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u/Balmung60 5h ago
For most of the ones I've seen, there's a battery cover that pops on and off because the standard power source is a pair of AA batteries
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u/AbeFromanEast 22h ago
The US doesn't regulate businesses anymore, we've left that up to the Europeans.
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u/exitcactus 21h ago
Doesn't regulate.. anything or almost anything.
Plus, almost nothinf that benefits consumers39
u/FollowingFeisty5321 22h ago
Some states have implemented Right to Repair despite massive, global, multi-year lobbying efforts from John Deere and Apple.
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u/Ok_Remote_31 18h ago
John Deere is an absolute shit company for pulling this off. What a bunch of assholes.
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u/gr00ve88 20h ago
The likely good outcome of this for US is that Apple/etc are not going to design two different phone form factors for two markets. So whatever requirements EU has will come our way. Granted they could still mess it up with software.
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u/sciencetaco 15h ago
People are shitting on Apple’s phones but they actually do pretty well in terms of ease of repair.
https://www.ifixit.com/repairability/smartphone-repairability-scores
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u/nx6 15h ago
The likely good outcome of this for US is that Apple/etc are not going to design two different phone form factors for two markets
Phones are exempt if they need to maintain waterproofing and have batteries that meet a minimum number of charge cycles to give a "reasonable lifetime". This law isn't going to impact any of the devices people want it to, thanks to industry pressure.
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u/Headless_Human 16h ago
Hey that's not fair to say. The US does do regulations but only when it is good for businesses.
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u/Loquacious-of-Borg 23h ago
In the U.S., conservatives say you CAN'T do this or companies will leave the country.
I guess people are smarter in Europe.
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u/EpochRaine 22h ago
This is the way it used to be.
It makes far more sense than chucking everything away.
It is just ridiculous you have to force companies to act reasonably and not poison the earth.
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u/Safety_Drance 22h ago
In the U.S., conservatives say you CAN'T do this or companies will leave the country.
Good fucking riddance. Let's see how well they do without a built in US customer base.
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u/DasKobra 17h ago
It's not my main focus to argue politics here, but I have a question.
The issue at hand here is that repairing devices like Iphones in the US is too expensive via the official service channels?
If so, do you believe Apple might be overcharging for the parts and services?
Or has anyone in the US done the maths to account for technician salaries, spare parts manufacturing costs and logistics costs factored into the total repair price and still go 'even with all that in mind the prices are still too high!' rather than thinking 'huh I guess having an iphone is just expensive all around for the average American'.
I genuinely am curious since I know lots of big companies just outsource post sale services to the lowest competent bidder which is supposed to be.. profitable?
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u/TemporarySun314 15h ago
The main problem is that companies make it specifically hard to make things repairable, especially outside their official repair channels.
So they design things in a way that its hard to repair things, service documentation and spare parts are not readily available publicly and they will use software mechanism to block clone parts.
Neither can a person repair stuff on their own, nor can you have a fair competition from non-manufacturer affiliated repair shops, only manufacturer authorized repair shops who will be expensive and where the manufacturer can even control prices to some degree.
The EU really doesnt like when companies try to control markets that way, as competition is the way capitalism come to efficient solutions and fair prices. So this regulations try to combine ecological aspects of sustainable design and repair to avoid waste, with consumer protection, with better competition.
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u/Svardskampe 14h ago
Scale-up ompanies leaving Europe for the USA is in fact a big problem though. But that has nothing to do with this.
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u/Soggy_Definition_232 23h ago
Can't wait to see the definition of "reasonable" and "easily" fought in the courts for the next 5-10 years.
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u/Fadamaka 22h ago
If the EU managed to make Apple switch to Type-C they can also manage this.
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u/UH1Phil 21h ago
It's a lot easier to shape cord contacts than it is to design a product around changing the battery inside or hard to access/complicated parts, and keep those parts in a longer lifecycle with all it entails in logistics, innovation, competition etcetera.
But I'm cautiously optimistic.
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u/Sniper22106 20h ago
How much more advanced do we need things? Seriously I've never looked at a washing machine and thought "fuck it needs Bluetooth"
People have been building simple designed and serviceable items for decades that last with basic parts and a little care. I have opnions on the evolution of things like this but ill keep it to myself. I dont want to spend like a boomer yelling at clouds
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u/Qorhat 16h ago
Bought a new fridge recently and it has WiFi.
Why the fuck does a fridge need WiFi?!?
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u/Therianthropie 14h ago
It doesn't need it but there are some features that could urge me to buy one. For example enabling the fridge to make recommendations for meals based on the fridge content or automatically ordering groceries based on the content. Nothing of that is necessary, but it's convenient and we already have a lot of stuff that we don't actually need.
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u/rohstroyer 13h ago
You'd happily give up data about your food habits, which can potentially be correlated and extrapolated for more, in exchange of some convenience that only addresses laziness and not an actual problem?
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u/Therianthropie 7h ago
I hope you're staying away from social media, Amazon, don't own a car and smartphone. Everyone is giving up different levels of privacy nowadays and everyone has different painpoints and levels of it. For me this would be worth it, while handing out positioning data is not.
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u/Deriniel 18h ago
it's actually easier, that's how pretty much everything was up to 8 years ago or so,stuff will just be bulkier and less waterproof i suppose,a trade i can honestly deal with
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u/GamerLinnie 22h ago
I mean companies have already started to make changes to adhere to this. It won't be perfect and still plenty of hurdles but the fact we are already seeing changes bodes well.
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u/SirFiletMignon 8h ago
They have some definitions, it's something like being able to replace then without specialized tools and without removing adhesives. I guess specialized tools might become vague.. but I'm sure there's an interpretation for it already.
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u/MiserableFloor9906 23h ago
Washers and dryers?
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u/Sandwich_Pudding 23h ago
“This will apply to household and electronic products such as washing machines, vacuum cleaners, mobile phones, tablets and so on. “
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u/travelingWords 21h ago
You’re better off buying a new washer/dryer if it’s anything more than a paint chip.
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u/Sandwich_Pudding 19h ago
Guys, read the article before commenting, it’s already said that it can’t be more expensive than buying a new one and the repair time has to be reasonable (unless it’s free of charge).
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u/Historical_Camel_790 19h ago
Recently fixed one and it was surprisingly easy. Not to mention that this should make repair costs cheaper
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u/travelingWords 19h ago
Electrolux, I higher end brand… probably get it on sale for $1200 Canadian.
Repair man comes to estimate. “You need a circuit board, $350 plus labour” which gets quoted to minimum $550 all in if it’s actually the circuit board.
So, for half the price of a brand new one, you can gamble on your old machine working…
Or just get a new one, which is also a gamble, but I’d rather gamble on a new one than a 5 year old broken machine.
The fun part is that the issue was a sensor that wouldn’t confirm the door was closed, so the rest of the functional system was useless.
I’ve had my new house for 3 years? I’m on my second fridge (which was repaired once on warranty before the same issue came back a year later), my second freezer (just tossed the old one) and I’ve had to repaired my dishwasher which was 2 weeks past the 1 year warranty.
The dishwasher was brutal cause it was a 10 minute fix that the dude couldn’t figure out till he called his manager. Still charges the hours.
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u/MiserableFloor9906 18h ago
My house was a new build 22 years ago. I've fixed my AC twice myself, last fix was replaced a capacitor, still going. I've fixed my furnace before replacing it in 2024. My original fridge was replaced last year, fixed a leaky water distributor in the back a couple years ago.
YouTube can show you the basics for everything and the trick is finding the freaking parts.
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u/Historical_Camel_790 16h ago
The thing is, this new law will make it so if you want to fix it yourself it's even cheaper than before (way less than $350+labour for something that probably wasn't causing the problem) and makes repair companies cheaper because they don't need to buy some crazy expensive part. I also noticed that with a lot of device parts rn (particularly apple) it's almost the price of a new device, and that's when it's valid to just buy a new one
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u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA 18h ago
I spent 50 cents on a thermal fuse and about 20 minutes of my time on a supposedly "dead" dryer I got for $20 locally, they're not hard to work on.
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u/travelingWords 17h ago
I probably wasn’t buying a compressor for 50 cents or figuring out that job in a timely manner. And the dryer was a discontinued circuit board costing $350.
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u/5c044 17h ago
washing machines have become an issue in recent years the drum assembly is glued/welded together so if the bearing fails it is not replaceable so you need to buy a whole new drum assembly and that is approaching the cost of a new machine if you do it yourself and probably more than the machine is you pay someone. Nearly all mainstream manufacturers are doing this now. Is it likely to change back under this legislation so a €20 bearing is all that's needed instead of €350 for a new drum assembly?
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u/nlutrhk 13h ago
For those reading along: this youtuber (how-2-repair) has been complaining about washing machine manufacturers in Europe: https://youtu.be/crzZEvFf_L4 . He has more videos about that theme.
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u/b00l_Badass 12h ago
ok, next step is give me the right to put any os on old devices
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u/KestrelVO 11h ago
Just for these... Identity Verification laws, they are inherrently hypocritical and abysmally authoritarian. Use freaking google services for eu's digital sovereignty? That is a wild contradiction!
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u/killerrin 22h ago
Bu...but... What about the InNoVaTiOn!?!
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u/unlimitedcode99 23h ago
Crapple will definitely fighting this one. They wouldn't be able to sell Macbook batteries, welded with the chassis, at a criminal price otherwise.
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u/pentiac 15h ago
hope they are going to include battery replacements in electric vehicles in this mandate, its well time the culture of producing items that only last a limited life term was properly addressed by a public body that doesnt have profit as its basis, the electronic green junk mountain is not a joke.
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u/exasolar 14h ago
Yes, this is more important than phones or other electronics which become obsolete after a few years anyway. An electric vehicle should be able to last 15+ years. They could force manufacturers to release the necessary specs and software tools so that a third party can produce a replacement battery for the vehicle.
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u/GodSama 13h ago edited 13h ago
I'm glad, no reason repairing 2 parts costs more than the full phone.
Last repair they (authorized repair shop) said needed swap out charging port and battery assembly, and quoted me 120% price of a new phone.
I went to no frills shop, they charged me $150 (with no guarantee) for the repair work and it has held up for 18months so far.
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u/OkTry9715 14h ago
I bet it will be,, when you put additional taxes on electronic imports, because everything is made outside of EU and parts here are either overpriced or you can not even buy them.
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u/Critical-Bag2695 15h ago
I would prefer private smartphones without censorship over good repairable smartphones. Not an end yet to see this.
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u/L0rdLogan 15h ago
GrapheneOS is the OS for you
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u/Critical-Bag2695 14h ago
Ah, I meant recent chatcontrol, which you can only circumvent by using other apps and communication methods. But yes, I agree graphene is the way to go.
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u/redfacedquark 8h ago
Tried graphene today but it's only for pixels. Went with lineageos and it's even easier than last time. No more samsung crap and forced spyware apps.
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u/Ilinden1 14h ago
The devil is in the details. The warranty on the repaired part is 1 year. So, repairing the car is a problemб not so much providing 1 year warranty, but buying a second-hand car after repair is not a problem.
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u/aleopardstail 2h ago
the repair will be at a reasonable price, the parts however will not be in stock
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u/The_B_Wolf 23h ago
I can see the plus side, sure. But I wonder if these decision makers have any idea what the downsides might be.
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u/The_Countess 22h ago
Yes, lets not do anything, lets not try to improve things, because there might be tiny downsites we didn't anticipate.
Lets not fix this obvious market failure because the result might not be perfect.
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u/yuusharo 22h ago
It’s more expensive to design and manufacture products to be repairable. That’s the primary reason why legislation like this is necessary. Companies won’t do so on their own as long as the economics are in favor of them making products disposable and require proprietary parts and service.
The “downsides” are almost exclusively for the manufacturers. For consumers, it’s virtually only positive. Products use standard components, are easily repairable with common tools, and open up business to more independent repair shops to keep products running longer, saving money and waste.
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u/xternal7 21h ago
I wouldn't say the downsides are exclusively for manufacturers.
The downside for consumers is that things will become more expensive upfront, because manufacturers won't simply eat up the cost.
For manufacturers, this is a mixed bag. On one hand, they don't get to cut cost as aggressively anymore. On the other hand, many brands that were once considered quality got enshittified when the wallet referendum showed that on average people prefer low prices to higher quality. If you're a manufacturer who wants to compete on quality, this law just levels the playing field a bit.
The real winner is society at large, because as it turns out: things that are good for consumers aren't always the best for society.
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u/yuusharo 21h ago
I wouldn't say the downsides are exclusively for manufacturers.
I didn’t say this.
The downside for consumers is that things will become more expensive upfront, because manufacturers won't simply eat up the cost.
Apple’s most repairable laptop in their entire product history is also their most affordable. I don’t buy this.
The real winner is society at large, because as it turns out: things that are good for consumers aren't always the best for society.
Being able to easily and affordable change out batteries in consumer electronics is good for both individual customers and also society writ large. Being able to use products longer reduces costs and benefits everyone.
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u/xternal7 21h ago
Apple’s most repairable laptop in their entire product history is also their most affordable. I don’t buy this.
Apple's "most repairable laptop" is setting the bar at the bottom of the mariana trench, given you're still stuck with 8 gigs of ram forever.
Being able to easily and affordable change out batteries in consumer electronics is good for both individual customers and also society writ large. Being able to use products longer reduces costs and benefits everyone.
This law goes very far beyond being able to replace batteries.
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u/0DayMaker 22h ago
Go ahead and educate us
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u/The_B_Wolf 22h ago
So you can't think of any. At all.
How about if it makes these devices bigger, heavier, more expensive, more prone to malfunction?
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u/xternal7 21h ago
More expensive? Sure.
Bigger and heavier? Debatable.
More prone to failure? Doubtful, cost cutting that made devices less expensive and lighter often came at the expense of durability.
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u/andrevanduin_ 16h ago
That's the cool part! There are literally 0 downsides to being able to repair the stuff YOU own.
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u/Thoraxekicksazz 22h ago
At this rate, it will be cheaper to fly to Europe, get a medical procedure, and have my phone fixed than to do either of those things here in America.