The EU has given the Right to Repair movement what they want and is coming up with a new law. One that could soon save iPhone and Android users a fair amount of money.
To ensure that iPhone models or Android smartphones, televisions, washing machines and other electronic devices have a longer life, the EU is coming up with new rules. The so-called Right to Repair rules, named after the movement associated with them, should encourage consumers to have their broken products repaired rather than replaced.
The new rules focus on extending the warranty, supporting independent repair stores and thwarting big companies that make things difficult. So fixing your iPhone, Android smartphone, MacBook or Dyson vacuum cleaner should become easier and cheaper.
Right to Repair: the EU’s new rules
Anyone who chooses to have their broken iPhone or Android, television, washing machine or vacuum cleaner repaired within the warranty period will get a one-year warranty on top of it. That’s one of the new rules the EU is proposing to the Council. It should make consumers opt for repairs sooner and not immediately replace their old (broken) products.
This will only work if the European Union ensures that the same consumer is also made easy. Small independent repair stores get more support for that. The EU makes sure they can just do their job with the right parts and makes them easier to find through a new online platform.
The Right to Repair movement seeks to give consumers and independent repairers the right to repair electronic devices themselves. The movement arose in response to manufacturers limiting repairs through exclusive access to parts and information, leading to increased costs and waste.
Those repair stores then have to make sure they charge affordable prices. That way they can actually make a repair attractive. If they do that, the EU with new rules will make sure that they actually keep work.
For example, large companies may not use cumbersome hardware or software techniques to make a repair practically impossible. In the process, the use of 3D printed parts or second-hand parts may no longer be prevented.
Right to Repair coalition has concerns with EU rules
The European Right to Repair branch sees the new EU rules as a step in the right direction. However, it also expresses concerns about certain rules. For example, the legislation requires affordable prices, but does not say at all what it means by that.
The focus on consumer products is also a problem, as it gives free rein to the business and industrial markets. In a shared document, the coalition reveals that the EU’s new rules at least ensure that certain products will have to be repaired courtesy of legislation. But many of those products were already covered by the law.
The EU’s new rules are now before the Council and have yet to be accepted. If so, countries within the European Union will have two years to incorporate the new rules into law as well.
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