Is grinding out math problems just busy work? Is the current state of Math class curriculum hampering the real life deployment of engineering skills?
Right to Repair is going global and Stephen might have solved his injection molded component's void by tweaking the mold design.
Hyron and Zapp from the AND!XOR group joins the podcast this week to continue the discussion on the Right to Repair and Non Fungible Tokens.
The debate around repair restrictions illustrates the limitations of MMWA’s anti-tying provision in repair markets. While the anti-tying provision gives consumers the right to make repairs on their own or through an independent repair shop without voiding a product’s warranty, repair restrictions have made it difficult for consumers to exercise this right. Although manufacturers have offered numerous explanations for their repair restrictions, the majority are not supported by the record.
Parker is an Electrical Engineer with backgrounds in Embedded System Design and Digital Signal Processing. He got his start in 2005 by hacking Nintendo consoles into portable gaming units. The following year he designed and produced an Atari 2600 video mod to allow the Atari to display a crisp, RF fuzz free picture on newer TVs. Over a thousand Atari video mods where produced by Parker from 2006 to 2011 and the mod is still made by other enthusiasts in the Atari community.
In 2006, Parker enrolled at The University of Texas at Austin as a Petroleum Engineer. After realizing electronics was his passion he switched majors in 2007 to Electrical and Computer Engineering. Following his previous background in making the Atari 2600 video mod, Parker decided to take more board layout classes and circuit design classes. Other areas of study include robotics, microcontroller theory and design, FPGA development with VHDL and Verilog, and image and signal processing with DSPs. In 2010, Parker won a Ti sponsored Launchpad programming and design contest that was held by the IEEE CS chapter at the University. Parker graduated with a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Spring of 2012.
In the Summer of 2012, Parker was hired on as an Electrical Engineer at Dynamic Perception to design and prototype new electronic products. Here, Parker learned about full product development cycles and honed his board layout skills. Seeing the difficulties in managing operations and FCC/CE compliance testing, Parker thought there had to be a better way for small electronic companies to get their product out in customer's hands.
Parker also runs the blog, longhornengineer.com, where he posts his personal projects, technical guides, and appnotes about board layout design and components.
Stephen Kraig began his electronics career by building musical oriented circuits in 2003. Stephen is an avid guitar player and, in his down time, manufactures audio electronics including guitar amplifiers, pedals, and pro audio gear. Stephen graduated with a BS in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University.
Special thanks to whixr over at Tymkrs for the intro and outro!
Hello and welcome to the Mac fab engineering podcast. We're your hosts, Parker, Dolman.
And Steven Craig.
This is episode 286. Oh x I'm starting this time. Okay. So last week at the end. Last week, at the end of the podcast we or Steven brought up the FTC, nixing the fix report that came out I think it would came out earlier this year. But it was in the news recently about Congress and Joe Biden going over. And looking at legislative actions for right to repair,
it was actually a, an executive order that included some wording that just touches on right to repair,
correct. And so over, basically, we gave everyone homework of reading the report all like 56 pages, it's actually, the thing about this report, is if more people read stuff like this, the world would be a better place. It's such a great report to read, because it covers both sides of the argument. And it's just presenting the arguments, and it's pretty comprehensive at the same time. It presents, it doesn't have any, it has opinions from both sides, for manufacturers, and from right to repair advocates, it has my favorite section is at the very end of it, which is not the conclusion. But the second last part, which is identification of issues to be considered and any action taken. Which is basically like, if we if you do X, this could be y, that kind of stuff. And it's all cited, it's all it's it's a really good piece of of
I will say it is it is written from, like the voice that it is written in is from the right to repair side of things. That's not saying that they're necessarily advocating for it, or saying that something must be done. It's just written from that side. And that makes sense, because the status quo is not right to repair.
Correct, correct. You're correct there. But I would say if if more people read the documentation and reports like this, or if news outlets would actually report on news like this, the world would be a much better place. So anyways, let's get right into it. Yeah. And so we're going to start by who's going to read this basically, this is like the first paragraph of the conclusion, which I know we're jumping to the end. But it's actually a really good statement of why this matters.
Yeah, I can, I can go ahead and read this. So yeah, like we read through the document. And then this first paragraph, and the conclusion is like, let's just start with this because this just gives you a flavor for everything else that's to come here. So the conclusion states, the debate around repair restrictions, illustrates the limitations of MMM WA, which is the Magnuson moss warranty act. We'll get into that in a second. So the mm wha is anti tying provisions in repair markets. While the anti tank provision gives consumers the right to make repairs on their own, or through an independent repair shop. without voiding a product's warranty repair restrictions have made it difficult for consumers to exercise this right. Although manufacturers have have offered numerous explanations for the repair restrictions, the majority are not supported by the record.
Yeah, so that's a very good, basically, like 56 pages condensed into a paragraph, which is, you know, that t what too long didn't read?
Yeah, this is super TLDR. Yeah, yeah.
So basically go into that with Magnuson moss warranty Act, which I've actually never heard about before. So I read it a little bit. And And basically, what that warranty act or that piece of legislation does is a statute that's intended to protect consumer rights from deceptive warranty practices. That's all. I won't say all it does, but that's what majority of it does. Basically, consumer products are not required to have warranties, but if they do, you have to follow this as a standard.
Yeah, it was enacted in 1975. And a huge portion of it is based around the language you use. So you can't purposefully obfuscate information in a warranty, you must use clear language that is not legal gobbledygook, basically.
Correct. And it defines definitions and discloses standards around how you should All right, a warranty. The the big thing is that also bars this, we got into this with the with that conclusion we read earlier is it also bars manufacturers from using access to warranty coverage as a way to obstruct consumers ability to have consumer products maintained and repaired by third parties. Basically, it's also say it says you have to write your warranties this way. And you can't prevent, you can't void a warranty because it got repaired at a third party place. And I should put a little asterix on that it was repaired correctly. That third party place. Yeah, it third party place messed it up. The warranty doesn't cover it, of course,
and you know, okay, so So wording like that is peppered throughout this entire report of it's not just enough that the functionality was returned to a thing that needed a repair, it's that it needs it, the functionality had to be done correctly for it to be even considered a true repair effect.
So I was basically I was reading through this entire documents, the nixing the fix, and I picked out some points of interest that I thought was interesting. What that's redundant, I guess. But that at least I didn't think about before and wanted to bring up. There's a statement in here about a manufacturer with market power that has refused to provide customer consumers or aftermarket service providers with key inputs, which is parts, manuals, software tools, may be subject to antitrust liability. So this is kind of like getting around. I say getting around. But if a manufacturer has like, how do you go after with the current legislation? How do you go after a a company or manufacturer for withholding documentation stuff? Like that's the repair, like, if they don't want you to repair stuff? How do you gain access to it?
And basically, legally, there's
you don't have an option right now? Well, there there is actually, and it's actually going through antitrust laws, and going through monopolies, if they have significant market power. The big one was Kodak. Well, okay,
so But But But what I'm getting at is you don't have options as in, that's an enormous amount of work, like you as just a Joe Schmo consumer do not have an option.
Correct? Correct. But, but this is, this is like other companies that are third party repair companies going after the bigger company, because basically, like Kodak was basically not selling the components required to fix their copy machines, and basically anything they made, they didn't sell any of their parts. And so how all these third party manufacturers or repair shops got around that is they went after Kodak for a monopoly of monopoly on those parts. And so that key word, there's manufacturer with market power. And going after a company that way, I thought was very interesting. I guess method to go through it. You could you could say that is like Steven Craig or Parker Dolman in the basement building pinball control pinball boards. We don't have market power.
Yeah. Okay, so So Parker has that in bold in our notes. And so my mind has been kind of reeling over that. What does it mean, to have market power or enough market power to be considered a threat in this sense? Like, what's the threshold? That I mean? Okay, so it's, it's like, it's easy to pull the big fish out. Like you could say, Apple has market power. That's really easy. But what about a smaller fish? Like when do you get to that point where people can start taking you to court for antitrust laws?
Yeah. Oh, antitrust. In regards to basically providing customers for aftermarket services. That's what they're going after here. Well,
and if you're going after the monopoly thing, Apple doesn't have a monopoly. So you couldn't get them in that way?
Correct. Correct. Well, if they have a monopoly in providing the parts, that's that was the key that they're going after. Yeah,
but what how does that work? If like, because you could you could claim that Parker Dolman has a monopoly on the parts for your product, because of course you do.
Well, right now I do because the supply chain is so messed up here, that I know
it'll always be that way because the supply chain will always be just you.
Oh, well, no, because, you know, Microchip makes the microcontrollers and know what
I'm getting at it. No one else is ever going to Make your boards only you are going to make your own words, that's
different. Okay? The repair my board requires other components that other manufacturers make. And so the next part of this is they defined market power as a manufacturer that has succeeded in limiting the availability of parts through explicit exclusive dealing contracts with preferred service providers. So, remember, we were talking about that I see the battery charging IC that Apple, we're gonna be picking on Apple, by the way, so Well, this whole document basically picks on Apple, well, most right to repair to pick on them, because they're the, they're the biggest single entity player, that is against right to repair. So it makes them an easy target. Anyways, this is a really good example, though, is that there's a, there's a custom I see I say custom in quotes. Because it's not actually custom. It's got probably custom firmware, maybe on it. But regardless, the port number on it is only provided from the OEM manufacturer that ship to Apple. And there's an agreement saying that they can't sell elsewhere. That would be market power in this regard. It would be. So that's a really good example. So you could go after Apple to provide that part with that method, because they have a contract saying, you know, we have a monopoly on that part. And also really, this is this is also another interesting thing is Raspberry Pi and Broadcom would be in trouble because of the processor, because of the processor at this one because you could go after the Raspberry Pi foundation over that processor, because no one can get that part because you had to had an exclusive deal because they have an exclusive deal with Broadcom. I don't know if that's still the case. But that was the case back in the day.
I mean, if you take that to its logical extreme that Arduino has that one, like super special fuse, that's their fuse that like distinguishes it being like, like visual colors, because it's golden color, because you could tag them for that.
Um, I think they just have that part. Good. No, you can actually just buy that part. That's actually not a big deal. Because you've
got that specifically manufactured for them. Why single source it?
No, I think it's, it's just a very specific one. And fakes. Don't use that one because it's more expensive. I think that's the only reason I say fakes clones, I should say they're not fakes. They're clones. I guess they could technically be fakes. If they say they are a come. Was it? Do we know? Are the things we know? Well, no, because we know is like a trademark thing I'm talking about. If they say it's made by Arduino, and it's not that's a fake or counterfeit, but if it's just Arduino equivalent, I mean, that's fine. She's a clone at that point. There's a difference there. An
Arduino Uno cost $20. If you see anything that claimed to be an Arduino Uno, and it's like $3, then there's your indicator.
So the trick is to sell your Fix for $20. Yeah.
Okay, back to
ya back. No, that's those good, good tangent. Um, so where were we at? Oh, yeah. So basically, the first like 10 pages of this document is about stuff like that main market power court cases that have gone on that are setting the stage of like, what is the current gobbly gook of laws and legislation and court cases and the current state of the industry, I guess is a good way to put it. Then it goes into things that manufacturers currently do that. Potentially it says potentially limits repair restrictions. Actually, it just says repair restrictions on it. So there's physical, the physical device design, basically, parts repair manual software tools, designs that make repairs on safe. telematics, which I've never heard that word before. Quality of Service repair, application of patent rights and trademarks. This pair disparagement of non OEM parts, software locks, eu delays, and liability and reputational harm, which is that's a big list. Yeah,
it's pretty comprehensive.
So I went through that whole list. And this was a really good section because actually a lot of the things that Stephen and I have brought up on the previous podcasts episodes about right to repair are kind of actually like in here. And it's like, did they listen to our podcast? And kind of just like, transcribe it?
No, I will. Okay. So like, anytime you you dig into right to repair, you start it. Right, right to repair should make you ask questions, as opposed to you just going oh, yeah, that sounds great. Like they didn't like it, you start asking questions. And when when you start really digging into it and asking all those questions, you end up touching on all of these points. And that's basically I think, where we landed.
Yeah. And so so we'll the first one, I'm gonna pick a couple of these that are good things to talk about for this podcast, some of them don't be don't really care too much about at least for US manufacturing, and designing and building things. But the physical one is the big one is a big one, which is the design itself makes it hard to repair, like modern cell phones, because they're glued together. Basically, manufacturers are, what manufacturers say is, we design it that way, because the customer wants it that way. That's That's what they say. Now, what's interesting about that is when you go into, into all these reports that basically say no, that's not actually what customers want. The one of the customers buy electronic devices, one of the things they care about the most is actually longevity, and repairability, about the design of the device, except that those come much later. And after they own the product. It's interesting, when they are looking at the product, all they care about is how it looks and how statics first and then repairability later, but then after they've owned it for a while they care about repairability. Right? So it swings, it's it changes. Basically, I think is what it is, is customer, a customer already owns it now and so that you want to just keep owning it.
Well, like the the shiny new object wears off. And now that like, oh, I spent $1,000 on this. I want it to last me $1,000 worth a time.
Yes, yeah. Now, it's basically what the right repair advocates are saying is, at the time of sale, customers do not have the knowledge to make that decision on. Like, if you look at two cell phones, and you go well, I don't know which one's easy to repair. That's the problem that leads that's what they're saying the big problem is that customers don't know which ones are easier to repair and which ones are not easy to repair.
Well, and that sales guy who's on the floor trying to get you to buy,
they're just, they're just trying to sell the which one has the highest margin? Because what I'm
saying is like, even if you're trying to get that information, it would be very difficult to find if you're in those stores,
yes. Now, I know I Fix It has a repair index for devices, which is very good. It's like a consumer. What was the magazine you use to get? This is like Consumer Reports. Consumer Reports. Yes, it sounds like a consumer report for modern electronic devices in terms of how easy it is to repair devices. So that's if you sell cell phones, that could be something that you could do, I guess is have a a repair index, I guess a manufacturer could have a repair index for their phones, which would immediately solve that problem, at least in terms of, for me, at least in terms of providing the proper information to consumers. And may manufacturers and designers of these devices would would actually get the proper feedback. And they start seeing Oh, the devices that actually are easy to repair sell more. Because right now they don't do that at all. So they can't get that kind of feedback.
You know, actually, so I'm on the the I fix the.com/smartphone-repairability Is their smartphone index, and they basically just give a score of a number, but they also give pluses and minuses like pros and cons as to how you actually get into it or, or things like I'm just looking at the iPhone 11 Pro Max and their negative is glass on the front and back doubles the likelihood of drop damage, which I guess doubles the likelihood of cracks. And then you'll likely be removing every component and replacing the entire chassis. So if you break that, they go and they go into it's pretty simple but they go into a bit of depth. So if you were to purchase to phone, you could go to this webpage and just see like, hey, does this thing have a rating of nine? Or does it have a rating of one? Nine being better?
Yeah. So I could see that being a, a, it could be something that a point of sale, they could offer that information. Now that's provided by a third party, I fix it. Would you trust a manufacturer to provide that information for you? I don't know.
That's like, okay, that's like when you go. I was laughing about this just the other day with my boss, you go to harbor freight? And you look at the ratings that they have for their stuff. Everything you'd like for to have? Yeah. Yeah, if they're gonna write their own repairability rating,
yeah, reviews on the company's websites are kind of hard to trust. Yeah. Because, you know, they're corrected,
you know, okay. Total side note, but this is, this is in relation to Consumer Reports, I thought this was a great idea. Cuz I've recently replaced my entire AC Heating System in my house. And we got some information from Consumer Reports about manufacturers of systems. And the way that they did it instead of they went outside their normal method. And they actually just reached out to everyone in Consumer Reports company and just said, what system do you have? What do you like, and their own company wrote their own reviews on it, which I thought that was a cool idea. Because it's so hard to write reviews on things that are supposed to last 15 to 20 years.
That and also, you as a consumer of those, those kinds of products, you don't use a lot of them. But like over your lifespan, you have three of those maybe four?
Yeah, you would hope not for?
Yeah, yeah. Well, it's also it depends also, like, if you rent like you have no opinion, because you can't change it. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. So it's very interesting about that. I wonder if a good is people who rent a lot of houses out that that would be a good pool to talk to about for like air conditioner units. Or, or, Oh, homeowner insurance companies to probably
I find there's certain appliances are the worst at this, and especially the more expensive appliances. If you go to Google and you try to get information about some of your more expensive appliances, you're gonna get so much clickbait, so much curated marketing stuff. And if you go to any website of any air conditioner, manufacturer or whatever, they're just going to tell you they have the best stuff that you've ever seen ever. No one has ever made anything that is good ever. It's kind of I don't know, it's rough. So having something like Consumer Reports is is very helpful. And especially when it comes from just I guess, Joe Schmo for lack of better words. Yep.
So yeah, I would say, on on devices of having a repairability report that you can easily easily access would be a benefit. And it would not. Manufacturers would not have to change a thing. Now, again, who may? You have to mandate that? I don't know. That's, that's a different discussion.
Well, yeah, we start getting into that, we start getting into some really sticky stuff. When when you start using the word mandate.
Yeah, I would I'll put this way if I would buy my devices from a company that provided that stuff easily. Yeah, I'd rather be done that way. I will, I will buy my phone from a from my place that provided that information to me. There's something more
pure about that in a way.
Okay, so next thing is designs making repair unsafe. And this goes into a lot of different things like mainly batteries, actually lithium batteries. The interesting thing about this is basically manufacturers are saying, if you don't use an authorized dealer or authorized repair shop, it won't be repaired correctly, and it will cause harm to someone, which is true. That is kind of stupid. We had those cases of it. What's interesting is at the at the end of that section, it says manufacturers could not provide data to support their argument that injuries are tied to repairs performed by customers, or independent repair shops, but then we You found evidence of that elsewhere in the documents, which I thought was very interesting in why it wasn't in this section as well.
Well, okay, so it's interesting because, okay, so the title of this section is designed making repairs, unsafe, like specifically saying unsafe. Yeah. And we saw we found information in a future section about the quality of service, where they do say things of this sort can happen. But they, but they didn't explicitly say anyone was harmed. It's more like the device was hard.
True. That is true. Yeah. But I thought was interesting is a lot of these things that manufacturers are saying. And then at the end of the sub section is, we asked the manufacturers to provide empirical evidence, and they couldn't be bothered to provide any. Which is kind of annoying. I was hoping to actually get more data on that from actual manufacturers that say this kind of stuff, because this is stuff that we were talking about, too. And it just that we thought was a good idea. But we are too small manufacturers, our OEMs are of our products like pinball boards and amplifiers. And like, our set, our consumer base is so small, you know, but we're not making millions of things well, okay.
And of course, we were thinking about the things that affect us, specifically as designers. So we're thinking, Oh, is this going to violate FCC? Is this gonna violate UL? Is this gonna violate these other things? Whereas if you, you know, perhaps the listeners of this podcast would know about that. But if you walk down the street and be like, Hey, is your device you will certified, they'd be like, Go away, you weirdo. Like, they wouldn't even know like, what that means. And so, I mean, yes, of course, we're like getting into the weeds on these kinds of things. But it's probably hard to pinpoint a situation where somebody violated FCC rules by doing a repair. But it would not surprise me if that did happen, and actually does happen regularly. It's just how would you track that that would be so hard to find.
But yeah, these are going back this is these are designed manufactured designs, that making the repairs unsafe, and which is the reason why you should use a authorized dealer. Now, you can also say, Well, you shouldn't design your product to make it, you should design your product. So it's easier to to safely repair as well. So there's different arguments to that one. Like, don't glue batteries down. But then Microsoft, Microsoft said basically gluing batteries down was the preferred method because they don't rattle around
as much. That's the way to make them more safe. Oh, inside
the product, for sure. Yeah. It just does making repairing those batteries a lot less unsafe. So there's trade offs there. For sure. I think it's, again, people need to read this document. And then they they see, okay, why did Microsoft glue the men, it made it more safe for the actual product use sure it made it less safe for repair or a to impossible to repair safely. But it was safer, when it doesn't need to be repaired, basically, during the lifespan of the product, which is until the batteries die. At least from Microsoft. That's actually another thing it would be nice is we'll get to that later in in in the podcast, but I'm gonna bring it up now cuz it's kind of there is if if devices had a repairability score or index that like a third party did kind of like you well, maybe something like that. But also underneath it was was the man I just had it had such a great idea and I forgot.
Glue ability index.
excludability index. No. It was oh man tied to repairs performed by customers. No. Man it was on in my brain. Okay.
Well, it keeps thinking about that. What's coming to mind right now is let's say on that, I don't know. I'm going to pick a store Best Buy and I've got I've got two products. One in left hand run the right handed. I'm not sure which one. Oh,
no, I got I got the manufacturers expected lifespan. Oh,
that's a that's a tough one. Because what are they gonna put on there? Forever? Yeah, right. But that's the thing is they expect it to but they just it's not going to so that's
the thing is it doesn't have to be warrantied towards it, but it could be you know, it could be also a third party. Doing that too is Hey, Microsoft glues these batteries in, which means the batteries are not serviceable. Basically, they're glued into the vise. So basically, how long does the vise last is based on how long those batteries lasts, and that's the expected lifespan of the device. I never think about that when I buy electronic devices
on my phone. Okay, so back to my little thing, if there was a repairability index on a box, and I was I was comparing two products. And one had that and one didn't, I would be much more inclined to go with the one that printed the repairability index on the box.
Oh, I do that with tools I buy. When if I buy a tool, I make sure that like, Can I get an exploded part diagram of the tool? Can I get parts for the tool? Stuff like that? Yeah. Probably why buy a lot of Milwaukee Tools. So power tools, because you can just Google the part number and explode diagram, it's like, these are the part numbers you can order. Which is nice, because then you can just get apart.
And okay, so I think that's one of the Okay, so that is a, an argument against right to repair, if a company is already willing to provide that to the end user, like exploded diagrams, part numbers, access, things of that sort, then the end user is more inclined to purchase from them. Right. So sort of the free hand of the market kind of guides towards companies that do that.
Alright, the thing is, those will get that's the bottom and like the conclusion section of this is like allowing the free market to do it. And it's just one of those the free market hasn't even gotten near there yet. Except for like the automotive industry,
automotive, automotive and and men. Working on motorcycles is great. Because you can just go online, pick your gear, pick your make your model, you get an exploded diagram, you get a part number and you buy it, it's awesome. I love that.
Yeah, it's it's interesting that well, the automotive industry was also kind of forced in it with the, with the right to repair act for for motor vehicles. But the reason why automotive industry is so interesting is because there's only least in the United States, there's only three big manufacturers and how many different manufacturers or in the world, like 20, like actually how many actually different real different ones, maybe like six or seven that are actually different, not owned, like by VW or Fiat or etc, etc. FIA owns Viet owns Jeep, so technically, Jeep and Fiat are the same company. So it's like, yet anyways, this is not a lot of different a lot, not a lot like for oh, like electronics manufacturers, or OEMs. There's 1000s. Probably, that's not even probably, that's probably too low. There's probably 10s of 1000s or hundreds of 1000s different electronic OEMs out there in the world. So you have you have 100,000 companies trying to figure out how to standardize something never going to happen. But it could be like, Milwaukee, like I picked Milwaukee Tools, because I can I can do that. Now, I haven't really looked in other if other tool manufacturers do that, too. But, you know,
I see I think you're performing the action of the invisible hand of the market like you, that matters to you. So you went and did that you're not going to your local government and saying, Hey, do this for me.
Yeah, I think it's, it's the differences. I'm a I'm a super informed customer, or consumer or things like I will research for hours on stuff. Yeah, you fit more of the prosumer grade. Yeah, so it's it's so it's different those most Cust most consumers are not like that. Right. And so allowing those customers easier access to that information is probably a good thing.
Well, allowing is different than forcing.
Yeah, I don't know. I'm just saying allow make that information easier. Like can I fix it? Repair index is a good thing. Yeah. So let's go on down list. Yeah, quality of service of the repair process, which is something that basically manufacturers say, hey, if we don't own the repair process, it's not going to be a quality repair experience to our standard. Yeah, which is the whole thing with Apple's genius desk and all that stuff. So the first thing I have to say to that is I'm sorry if you work at a dealership but dealerships suck. Get your stuff fixed that Yeah. There's a reason why if First party repair shops were the best. And the best meaning best in quality, price and turnaround time and turnaround time, then everyone would use you, but you're not. So that's why third parties exists. Yep. Now, this section mainly covers like safety of proper repairs. And so there's some examples that you found interesting, Steven, yeah.
Okay. Well, okay. So this is this is what we were talking about earlier, when we in the section of designs making repair unsafe, where it kind of ends being like, well, we don't have examples of that. But in the, in this next section, they give some examples of specifically
Microsoft, there's a Microsoft battery screw thermal event, which was on a Microsoft product, there's, there's a battery that potentially will Okay, in this one situation. A improperly screwed in screw caught, punctured a battery. And there was some some thermal issues with that.
They did my while they started gluing them in now what? Maybe, maybe, but they
said that that was completed by a third party repairman. Now, it didn't necessarily say that anyone was harmed in it, but the device obviously, was was damaged. And, and then they also noted a separate situation of over specification of power supply units, which do not meet Microsoft quality standards, which caused at least 12, serious overheating incidents, resulting in damage. Once again, they didn't mention any kind of harm to human beings. But if, okay, so that brings up a different situation. And this is specifically related to the qualities section. If if there's over specified parts going in, that's more of a modification than a repair, a repair would be replacement with either an authorized part or an exact replacement.
Correct? Yeah, I agree with the battery screw thermal event, basically, a screw it into the wrong spot, and punctured the battery. That's just not that actually, the interesting thing is the right to repair. response to this actually covers that one. But on the second one is, yeah, it's like modifying your device at that point. Yeah. It nothing Microsoft could have done. Like, if you're hot rotting your device, then then that this whole document doesn't apply. Exactly. Yeah, this this, this is all about repairing your device, back to factory specifications, how it came from the factory. Not about because this actually there was another section way down the list to about cars coming back to dealerships being modified. It's like, Yeah, that should never be covered under warranty because it's been modified, right? Modification modifying something and the you break it. You that's on you, your warranty debit card doesn't cover it,
Parker's Jeep has been out of warranty. From the second it left a lot.
The second that got in my head.
There's nothing original on Parker's CI,
I always keep track, you know, when you get those spam calls, that is, you know, your vehicle warranty is about to expire, or whatever. I've been trying to get them to warranty my jeep.
Yeah, good luck. Because I would
I would save so much money if I can get all my aftermarket parts warrantied. Basically, the right on these quality of service, the right repair process. The right repair advocates are saying basically OEMs do this to themselves by not providing proper documentation or on repair practices, which is true. An interesting thing about this whole thing is, if there was an on off or a improper repair, there has never been a documented case where the OEM is on the hook for it. So if if someone got a Stephen Craig amp and then put it in, put in a wrong tube in it, and it killed their cat, right? Oh, what a horrible situation there. It hasn't been a situation where they were able to successfully take you to court and sue you in that kind of stuff. Correct? So I think we were talking we touched about this topic a lot. Last couple episodes about right to repair. Because this is one of the big or big concerns and actually reading this document like okay, there hasn't been any basically there's there is protection for the manufacturer for this kind of stuff.
It's like but but manufacturers still tend to call this out as a problem. Yes, or a potential problem.
Yeah, they I think He gets one of those. We say this, because we don't want people to repair our devices, which is what I get when I read this section. It's like me putting, you know, 35 inch tires on my jeep, drive down the road, the axle falls apart and me calling up Jeep and saying I'm gonna sue you. Yeah, so they'd say pound sand. Yeah, pound sand. Yeah. So the next section is patent rights and trademarks. Which, which is interesting is there's, like, out of like, the whole group of people they were interviewing for all this this report. Like, there was only been like two instances where a manufacturer used patent rights and trademarks as an excuse against right to repair. So it's not a really widely used reason, which I thought was very interesting. I thought it'd be like number one, but it's not honestly.
Okay. But but here's the thing. Okay, so the argument. Okay. So if you were trying to argument that it was a problem, what you'd have to prove is in court. And obviously, I'm not I don't have any legal experience here. But I saw I'm shooting from the hip here. But you would have to prove that somebody opening your phone would then gain the knowledge of that patent and be able to infringe upon it and be able to, like, just just by looking and opening up your thing, they now have all your secrets. Well, it's not just
that it's it's if you are using patented technology, and your device, which most devices, electronic devices do, that providing repair documentation violates that patent,
what I'm saying I'm saying above and beyond that, not even providing the documentation, just allowing someone to open it up and look
at it with a that's the whole thing about patent. So is the whole reason the patent is so that you can have it unlock for 15 years. And then it's public knowledge. It's different from a trade secret, right. So that's probably why it's not used a lot because the whole point of a patent is it's becomes open knowledge. So you don't have to trade secret and be secretive about it. Though, I thought that was interesting, I thought it would be number one that manufacturers would care about. It's not disparagement of non OEM parts, which is something you see a lot and actually, craft lab from our Twitch chat actually has a really good example which is a Owner's Manual of a 3d printer. That set was very interesting. It's a 3d printer that says do not use replaces parts that had not been recommended by the manufacturer. Example parts made at home using this 3d printer. Don't repair it with the printer by our OEM parts though that was good.
I wonder if a lot of that freezing is just cya stuff.
I think it is partially because there are the one of the biggest problems about not being a buy an authorized part is now you had to buy if you can't buy an authorized part is you had to buy a clone or a counterfeit part. And your quality is you don't know until it breaks again. Right? You put the part in it might break later. Oh,
crap, Lex was saying that statement was in a Maytag washers.
Oh, it's a washroom I thought was a 3d printer.
I mean, that would be really funny if a 3d printer said don't fix with a 3d printer.
So it was in a washing machine my bed? A Maytag washing owner's manual?
That's interesting. Why would they write that? I wonder if they wrote that in there because somebody has done that.
Oh for sure. I've repaired my own appliances with 3d printed parts
I wonder I wonder if there's some kind of liability reason why they would do that or if they just want you to buy parts
I think it's too I think it's I just want you to buy parts is no rather because it all we've gone back here is you if you if you make a repair using an improper method of repair which is not using a part that's you basically designed your own part right. And bad things happen. You can't sue the manufacturer for it. So that's already protected. So why would they have that warning there? Was someone who was less the technical writers being a little cheeky
Yeah, why did why do mattresses say you can't cut the tab off of them?
Because that's that's actually not true. The seller of the mattresses can't cut tag off yeah. But if you take that mattress home rip that tag right off
so, yeah, we're still in repair restrictions.
Yeah, yeah, still still in repair restrictions. Yeah disparagement of non OEM parts I see that all the time you know you're looking at the Jeep manual it says only use Mopar parts and I'm like, well I guess I can get Mopar you know Mopar wire MIG wire from and nitrogen gas from our welder right. Our brand my welds are certified by Mopar, Mopar, Mopar. Well, that that'd be really funny that actually exists. So software locks is another one basically, like components that are software locked together. Apple has started to do that apparently, from this document, basically, like if you replace a part, it won't function because there's a key binding everything together software key. Now, auto manufacturers, especially GM has started doing this and actually I ran into this issue two weeks ago, with my dad's my dad just bought a, a brand new Chevy Tahoe 2021 and the has a, the infotainment map system right. To use it, you have to click OK, I accept the terms and conditions right? Well, for that to work, it has to talk to an SD card. And the SD card contains all the maps for the system. And basically what it does is on boots on the first time it boots up it's supposed to light it's supposed to Vin lock your your vehicle identification number, that SD card to your car, so that you can't trade SD cards with other chevy tahoe owners. Regardless, I don't know why. They would Vin lock that. But my dad's SD card was corrupted. So none of that infotainment system worked. None of the maps and he couldn't just put a new SD card in. It couldn't couldn't do that. That had take it to a dealer now was fixed for free goes under warranty, but it's one of those. Wow, I know how long SD cards last not long. That's going to be fun to fix in six years.
Right. Right. That's garbage. Yeah. No, it's garbage.
So that yeah, software locks is a don't see it a lot yet. It's going to be a big thing coming up soon, I think. Because now it's getting the cars, right. There's EU relays, which is End User License Agreements. Pretty sure. Eu relays are just not binding at all now, like, there's legislation that says basically, they're bogus. I might be wrong about that. But that's what I'm coming up with in my brain right now. Basically, like, if EU MLAs are I think it's basically I think the argument was, Ela is so wordy no one reads them, thus, they can't be binding. could be completely wrong about that though. Basically, when you click okay, not really it doesn't really matter.
Well, okay, so legally binding. Yes. enforceable, maybe not.
Okay, that's it. Yeah, you're right. enforceable is the part. Now, the big section, we're 50 minutes into this, and this is the big section about repair restrictions.
Maybe we should break this up into two podcasts.
Now we'll get through this. We're near the end, we're cruising, why build liability and reputational harm?
Okay, so yeah, this one. This one was interesting, because Parker and I've talked about this quite a bit in the past, basically saying that if somebody does a repair, does it poorly, does it reflect poorly upon the manufacturer OEM? The OEM? Yeah.
So this is what manufacturers say. Initial press coverage of failures of consumer devices seldom if ever, attempts to determine whether device has been repaired by an independent service provider, or refurbished with parts that did not meet OEM standards. Basically, if a Samsung it was with the Samsung phone that exploded. Oh, the note? Yeah, I think it was a brand new one. So it was doesn't fall into this but I'm just saying is when you read one of those articles, it doesn't say it was a brand new phone or it came from BestBuy. or whatever like that it doesn't it doesn't have the history of the device, right? Yeah. In the article, so and then follow up coverage may ultimately identify inferior third party repairs and parts as the culprit. But it's, but is this is likely to do little to overcome initial impression impressions made on customers, which is, this is exactly what Steve and I were talking about. A big section of if, if Craig sells an amp, some dude uses it with with crazy tubes in it, and it blows up and burns down the stage. And people go, Stephen Cray examplar burned down stages, when it seems like people would die. spontaneously combusting on stage? Yeah. But it's one of those. What's interesting about this, though, is when again, when manufacturers were asked to provide empirical evidence about this, they couldn't. Yeah, so it's, it's basically all they would have to do is, in this case, would be if a if a third party repair caused, let's say, a Tesla to rear end a fire truck, because that's happened, that that third party repair did that but Tesla's have rear ended fire trucks before. And it lets a third party repair on when the sensors cause it to malfunction, Tesla, all Tesla would have to do is Sue that third party repair shop. And when and then it could use that as an example. So no manufacturer has spacey no manufacturer is sued for liability, based on repairs based on repair ever.
I wouldn't say every
state this document doesn't count the manufacturers that this document, or the FTC talked to none of them were able to provide this information. Yeah. So but that doesn't exclude settlements out of court that have gag orders on them. Where like a manufacturer or a third party settled out of court and they said, you know, don't talk about this ever. Which I'm gonna this that hasn't happened. I can't think of it. I noticed that ever. I can never ever think about that actually happening. Like it's never happened. It has to have happened.
Or, you know, I think I think okay, so manufacturers, they do their own reputational harm, in a way like they do. Okay, three examples that come to mind. You just said the note the note catching on fire due to swelling batteries. That was a design flaw, right? You remember the floor of the Ford Explorer? And remember what nickname it got the exploded exploiter? Yeah, yeah,
that's actually I was about to talk next. So keep going.
Yeah, well, okay. And then here's the third one that sort of kind of in line with things. A Trane air conditioner. They say you can't stop a train. But also it's as loud as a train. Like all of those are designed things those are like if a if a repair guy came and did a bad job on a repair on your AC, you wouldn't blame train or carrier or whoever else. You blame the repair guy, right?
You blame the repair guy like well, I was getting that with the the Ford exploder and more recently Takata airbags. I actually bet you half our listeners don't know what we're talking about with the Ford exploder but Takata airbags is a more recent one because that's happened. It was only like five years ago. Feels like longer go to that but COVID Right. Basically yeah, manufacturers are already like throwing the blame around like basically the whole point with this is like third party who made third party repair will damage our reputation. They're already trying to do that with their their suppliers. Right? When when Takata airbags is like one of the biggest suppliers of airbags for cars in the entire world. Well, there was a design defect basically in manufacture defect that basically has like it's like I wouldn't say a billion recalls happened because I know it's definitely in the hundreds of millions. It might not be a billion but it's the there's basically to cut this gotta make airbags for like the next like 15 years like catch up on like how many airbags they had to replace. But basically the OEM just threw Takata under the bus It's like no, for like, I don't know, for us Ford or the manufacturer that used to cut that it's their fault that they chose Takata airbags and put them in their cars.
Right. But but they were not aware.
I don't know if that's true or not. So that's the thing is, is the manufacturer aware of the defects or not? Or is the cost of covering up? I don't know, it's
a lot worse if they were aware and they went for it, especially given that that is a safety device.
Yes. That goes back to the Ford Explorer slot. So the Ford Explorer and early 2000s, I think 2000 to 2003 was one of the most popular cars manufactured at the time. Firestone had an agreement with Ford to put Firestone tires on Ford's, and unknown to Ford. Firestone had a whole bunch of tires that were marginally, I think it was marginally acceptable for basically the load the weight limit of the car, and they put those on the spec those a Firestone spec these tires for the Forex floor which caused blowouts. And the Ford Explorer at the time, was a really it was skinny, really tall up and had high strut towers. It's a very upright car. When you look at it, it's like vertical on both sides. And and it's suspension is also very upright. It's not, doesn't have a wide stance, not big and stocky. No, it's tall and skinny. So that's, it's one of those.
They had a tendency to roll.
Yes, well, you have a blowout from a Firestone Tire exploding because it was undersized and then your car would roll. So they're called Ford exploiters. Nowadays, or has been since then. I think that was one of the first like automotive memes I remember, like new ones, at least.
I mean, everyone knows they'll cost
Yeah, I mean, if they I think a lot of people call them that. And they don't even know they are called like, why? Yeah, right. Yeah, this thing is cool name. Which by the way, the Ford Explorer is a perfectly fine car or SUV if you just put proper tires on Yeah, it's nothing wrong with the car itself. It's just Firestone undersized tires for it. But yeah, Ford through. Actually, I think in that case, no one everyone through Ford under the bus for that. And it was actually Firestones was it was actually Firestone. And that didn't come out too much later. Or it did come out at back then. And no one cared. Everyone just was dog on Ford. So that's 20 years ago, man. Wow. Okay, anyways, um, yeah, so for liability and reputational harm their manufacturers? That seems to be the case is the manufacturers were saying all this stuff. And is basically Microsoft was really the only one that was saying, like, we actually have some evidence of this stuff.
Or at least Microsoft was the only one who made it into this report. But But yet, you would think that if there was more, this report would have called it all out.
Yes. So now let's go over this is some stuff that I we haven't been able to cover on the on the podcast for right to repair stuff, because we haven't had that this viewpoint, which is the right three advocates. We haven't been able to get one on the podcast, but this article report actually has some stuff in here about that. Yeah,
kind of boiled it down to and do a handful of points of what are our two are advocating for.
So the first one is like timing of repairs. And this is the the main driver, I want to say for like this a John Deere tractors. Basically, if timing of repairs are or getting your device repaired quick enough
to it's so usable again, right? Yeah. So you don't have to ship a tractor off and then be out of a tractor if that's your main implement that you're using. Yeah, and you got to harvest right or one of the examples they give in the document is somebody who owns a business and they need their phone. Their phone is their main source of communication. And that particular variant of phone would need to be sent off somewhere for repair and they just opted to not do the repair because they just couldn't go without it. And it's it would be generally unreasonable to expect somebody to have duplicates of these things.
Yes. Next is price of repairs, which makes sense. If basically this thing if first party repair shops were the cheapest, there would be no third parties basically. Or there'd be very little, there's a reason why there's a lot of third parties because they're generally less expensive. Well,
and third parties are generally more adventurous in their repairs, they'll do something that doesn't mean just, oh, $1,500 I replace the screen on your laptop and you're ready to go. They might go down to chip level and replace a $3. Chip and charge you $100 for that.
Yeah, or replace the cable or something like that. Right? Yeah. environmental harm is another big and this is one that I care. I think I care the most about out of this list is environmental harm. Repairing the device, keeps that device out of the landfill and prevents another device being made to replace that device. Given that don't own a vehicle over that's younger than 20 years, you know,
okay, so I'm gonna I'm gonna call out one particular thing that I heard that I think is a tad bit ridiculous about the environmental harm side of things. So when so at one point in time, Apple, restricted, a particular IC, I don't remember exactly which one it was not, I shouldn't say restricted. It's just wasn't a readily available. However, there's there was this other product that people knew that that IC was in and that product was really cheap. So to do a repair, people were buying that part on soldering the ice and then fixing the Apple product with it. They would do this and then blame Apple for all the environmental harm that Apple was causing them because they were buying this part throwing away 99% of it and replacing that and it was somehow Apple's fault. Now, that's potentially my opinion, Apple could have provided that part. They could have provided that part, but Apple was not forcing you to buy that thing. Throw it away. wastefully. So like those kinds of arguments in terms of environmental harm if if the environment does matter to you, you wouldn't do that repair in that way. So I think that's a little goofy. If the
environment matters you don't buy stuff made in China. Oh, well.
I guess it doesn't matter most.
This is actually crap lab and chat brings up a good topic or good thing on this is fixing coworkers iPhones and one apple store said one of these coworkers device wasn't working and was shut out of luck. And she had a lot of pictures of her kids on the phone GraphLab was able to repair the device and recover well not repaired the whole device was able to go in there and in fix it enough to recover the photos. Which which is a really good reason for me to prepare for right to repair. Now didn't complete the repair device but got it enough to work got sensitive data.
Well, I'm curious what would right to repair do for this situation? Like that it sounds like the I mean, it sounds like the the device was unrepairable. If the goal was to just extract the photos like what would right to repair solve in this situation?
Yeah, I wonder if you went to Apple and said I just want to recover the data. Yeah. Versus fixing it. I've actually had my phone recently, I had to get my screen on my phone repaired recently to so I could use my my Google Authenticator app. So similar boat similar boat where I needed my my device repaired to, to FA into things.
Okay, so I see at Kraft labs wrote that he could have not bought the parts instead of using another phone as sacrificial parts. So two phones gave their life to get this the photos
and granted though both my example and her example could be solved by just backing up our data.
Well, okay, true. Yeah.
So the see and then oh, small business and employment which I also agree with is basically allowing small businesses and employment for more companies to prosper by allowing this information to exist basically like how to repair your device. It's that's hard to argue against you can't really argue against that one. Yeah. So unless your app unless you're an Apple employee so we just said all an app Hour and five minutes of about this one report, which might actually take you about an hour and five minutes to read it
as well. It's a bit dense. Yeah.
But what can this was written by the FTC? What can FTC actually do about this? With that say, we're not going to rewrite any laws, say, so nothing new legislation gets passed to Congress. Remember, Congress writes laws, not the President's and not bureaucracies, like the FTC. And not proxies, which are enforcement agencies for legislation? Well,
and and let's, let's actually back up just a quick second, the whole purpose of this report was to give this information to Congress to inform laws.
Correct. So what can the FTC actually this this section is also in the in this report is basically like this is what we can currently do? Yeah, our agency. Basically, they can revise interpretations of the ORS mm W A, which was and was scroll up the Magnuson moss warranty Act basically reinterpret that law.
Yeah. So since that was written in in 75, they basically said that, due to modernization of everything, it might be a little outdated, and people.
People are following it properly. Anyway. Yeah. Basically, their interpretation of it have that law right. Now, basically, what they would do here is make it clear that certain repair restrictions that we were talking about earlier, would would violate this act. Now, the problem with that is this is gets into that territory with the like the ATF, the alcohol, tobacco firearms agency, and they reinterpret the laws all the time. And it's one of those, is that a good thing to do you have at this point, was it 75 would be 50, almost 50 years? 45 years, right? And 45 years? Or is it 55 years anyways, of time? Have we've interpreted this way? Now? We're just going to suddenly change how we read the law. Yeah. Is that a really good thing? Maybe Maybe naughty.
It's confusing.
It's confusing for sure. And the thing reason why bring the ATF up for that is the ATF reinterprets the laws all the time whenever an executive order goes out, and it ends up making lots of people felons overnight. Yeah. Now, I won't say the right to repair is going to make a lot of people felons overnight. But it's one of those things to think about when you're talking about the right three pairs to increase liberty, and that kind of stuff. It's like, well, reinterpreting laws is not increasing liberty, usually. So
well. Yeah. And with regulations, maybe we won't get too deep into this. If you're expanding somebody's liberties, you have to ask the question, Are you restricting someone else's because of that? And the next
thing is they can just say, well, just let the industry keep going. Let's self regulate. And they bring up basically the only industry that has been able to do that, which was the auto industry, which is regulated, which is regulated, actually, they bring it up as self regulatory. I'm like, no, they had a right to repair automotive act that forced them to do all this stuff. Now, I granted though, that was done through through Massachusetts with that it's the same thing with the right to repair that there's legislation different pressure, it's by ballot. So technically, that is by self-regulation is the people are pushing the legislation through not lawmakers.
The people are basically asking lawmakers to do it though, right? Well, I guess they're backdooring it in a way? Yeah. Well,
you say that that's there's a way for it. Now. Shoes, what is it called? It's it's ballot measure?
Maybe? I don't remember. introducing a bill that's not done through Congress directly, just through citizens.
Yeah, it's, it's Yeah, because the 2020 Massachusetts right to repair initiative is I think it's called a ballot measure. Maybe
it's been a while since I've had civics.
Yes. About measure. It's called a ballot measure. Sorry that this party some some lawyer that's just scream. Yes. Yes. Is that Robert? No. It's like that. Anyways, So that's technically I guess, market pressure. And so it's not it's not regulatory bodies doing that, or,
but they're asking limiting that. They're asking for regulation.
Well, but the people themselves are pushing it forward. Not not representative sensitives. And then the representatives drafting something, and then putting that into place.
Yeah. I guess. Is it just a backdoor towards the same outcome, though? Sure. Yeah.
It's a different in practice, though. Which, so we've been letting that play out. I don't think that's ever going to happen for the electronics OEMs. Because there's just so many, it worked for automotive, because I think there's enough. There third party repair shops for automotive and has enough money there. And the there's not a lot of different automotive companies. There's only what I said, there's probably less than 20, I would assume actual different manufacturers. There's hundreds or 1000s of electronic OEMs in the world. So I don't think that's a viable method. So but it's also interesting about this section at the end here is I remember I said, I said, if right repair Act goes through with all this, the I fix it manifesto, basically, go read that too. If all that stuff got implemented, what would happen is a lot of these manufacturers would say page one, replace the device. And that's actually one of the concerns that the FTC has with some of these regulations. Right, do you repair African seas are bringing up is? Hey, you know, this could be like, the worst thing ever for the environment. I was about to
say like that, that goes entirely just destroys the the section on environmental harm. Yeah, you know, okay, so with the I fix that thing, what I think is funny is what they're asking for is basically fairly moderate to heavy regulation. And they sort of give examples of like, oh, well, this is a repair index, you're doing the thing. That the you're you're generating and creating the free market aspect, and then saying, I just want you to, I want this to be regulated. You have it like what you have is great. Right there like that repair index that you created, could be something that, you know, consumers could use when buying a phone, it doesn't necessarily need to be regulated, in my opinion. Like, it already exists. You made it for one product that is,
yes. So it'd be very, is I think we go into this, this is my last point here is having transparent transparency and repairability from OEM slash the industry. I think that's if we had that a lot of these issues go away, because I fix its repair index. Having
I think it's a great example of what we could have on a larger scale. Yeah.
Knowing what when this device was designed, how long was it designed for like, three years, four years, that kind of stuff? Or actually, if your batteries glued in, let us know how many times we should be able to recharge that without degrading the battery? That would influence the big one that would that would influence people's they look a device and said, Oh, I can only recharges 300 times before the battery degrades? Because that's about the average for lithium batteries is 300 full cycles. Yeah. And if you think you're doing that once a day. Yeah, if you drain your battery once a day, you get in less than a year out of your lithium battery. I know there's been more improved that I think that's a couple years old now. It's probably up to I think about 500. Now, the modern lithium Tax Act, but okay, still, regardless, that's less than a year in less than a year and a half.
Well, okay, so let's speak directly to the manufacturers here and not to right to repair advocates to the manufacturers. This seems to me like this is a really juicy territory that your marketing team could get into and say, Hey, we want you to know that our product is repairable and, you know, instead of show me ads on how cool your whiz bang product is, tell me that it's repairable and I have a high likelihood I'm Gonna buy from you? Or, you know, just give me some comfort that if I buy it, it'll last a while, like, I don't see manufacturers really hammer in my inbox with that kind of stuff. Like, that seems like something that marketing could really put pressure on. Yeah, and I only know that stuff are the stuff I buy. It's because I researched the snot out of it. Right. Milwaukee doesn't say, we provide exploded diagrams for our tools. I'm like, I had to go look for it. Or, you know, in their little like, promo videos for Milwaukee drills, instead of just showing a guy drilling a screw into wood, like we know it does that, say, like, Milwaukee drills are great, because XYZ and they're repairable and you can get parts for that, like, tell me that? Like that's like, awesome. Yeah, hell yeah. Or like, if you go to one of your big the orange or the blue big box store, and they have the Milwaukee thing up, like, have a little section about repairability on there. Like, I don't see that a lot. And like I said, I think that's a juicy territory for I don't, I've never seen that. Right. Yeah, well, maybe here's the thing, maybe until now, the general market, general consumer market didn't make it clear to manufacturers, that that's what we want. But we clearly we do.
Yeah, and act in looking at some of the reports that this I'll pose, right? If you're, if you are stuck around for an hour and 16 minutes, listen to us talk about this, please read this report. If you're a designer, if you're a manufacturer, if you're a consumer, this report is some one of the best things I've read in a long time. And, and that's the thing is it is it covers, I can't think of anything it doesn't cover. Yeah, I covered everything that we've ever talked about, about this topic.
You know, actually what comes to mind, you know, you know, when Apple once a year they do their big like, hoo rah thing where they go out on stage and show the new Apple products. What if What if the next iPhone bazillion or whatever number they're on? What if they came out and they said, our most repairable phone yet, and they gave demonstrations about that, as opposed to like, we now have 16 cameras on the back and three on the front. Like if they literally came out and said like, here's the materials we chose, and here's how it's repairable and here's how. I mean yeah, that's that can break, which, you know, there's some issues with that, but that would be awesome, right?
This this the thing about that, though? I mean that everyone just dropped the phone. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, they usually say something about like, super ultra ceramic, glass, blah, blah, blah, like, sure. That's great. Like you're telling me that it's a cool material, but you're not telling me that far. Yeah, right.
That was one of the reasons why my dad chose a Chevy Tahoe for this. He's buying his last cargo ever own basically, because he's retiring. And because it's a it's an American SUV, and it's very easy to work on. Granted, the SD card issue horribly sucks.
Like, I wish that engineers being dumb, you know,
I knew that beforehand, I might have advised him not to buy that thing. But the reason why I was thinking about the mechanics side of it, it's like okay, it's using the LS VA motor, which has been around for a decade and a half at this point. And it's super easy, the engine super easy to work on transmissions easy to work on everything about mechanically easy to work on. Of course, it's electronics that bite you in the butt
though 100%
I just can't wait till in six years where SD card failure to read
is the error message that pops up on this and then it puts you put your car in limp mode and you can only go five miles an hour.
Thankfully, it doesn't do that it just makes it so you can't use any navigation stuff. Which in six years is gonna be useless anyways, but it is nice so our 20 minutes but the cool thing about it though is it has it will tell you the speed limit the area in because it uses the GPS to figure out where you're at on the map and it has the speed zone. That's actually a really cool concept. I like that a lot.
Okay, that's a cool concept. But what would not be a cool concept if if it knew what it was and then it restricted your car to go only that speed. Yeah, that was that would not be cool. Yeah. I
think we're I think I unless something crazy with rights repair comes up or we get an actual right to repair advocate on the podcast. I think we pretty much said enough about
this. We've hammered this topic a lot. Yeah, we've probably had like a grand total of like four or five hours talk Thinking about it.
I mean, it's an important topic for both of us because we both of us build and design stuff. And we also manufacture things and we repair our own and consumer own electronics.
I'm Yeah, I'm just super interested to see how it pans out in terms of does it go to a federal level? And does it start to become the law of the land as opposed to a local thing?
So, given that, what if you sell an app? What information do you provide into customers? You provide a schematic?
Ah, no, it's just gonna be a big piece of paper. That's like, Thanks for buying this. It's awesome.
It's awesome. It catches stages on fire.
If you want more go to this website.
Okay, let's wrap this thing up.
Yeah. So that was the macro fab engineering podcast. We were your host, Stephen Craig and Parker Dolman. Take it easy. Later, everyone.
Is grinding out math problems just busy work? Is the current state of Math class curriculum hampering the real life deployment of engineering skills?
Right to Repair is going global and Stephen might have solved his injection molded component's void by tweaking the mold design.
Hyron and Zapp from the AND!XOR group joins the podcast this week to continue the discussion on the Right to Repair and Non Fungible Tokens.