According to the United Nations, the average consumer generated 16.1 pounds of electronic waste in 2019, only one-fourth of which was recycled. Meanwhile, consumers are finding it difficult, if not impossible, to repair or upgrade their gadgets, forcing them to purchase new devices and produce even more e-waste.
In order to reduce e-waste and to protect consumers, dozens of states have passed or are considering laws that require manufacturers to allow end users and third-party repair shops to maintain their devices, and to make the necessary tools, replacement parts and service guides available. This leaves engineers facing another design constraint: repairability. Fortunately, you don’t need to re-engineer the wheel—instead, you can learn from other companies that have already created road maps for repairable design.
Technological evolution vs planned obsolescence
To a certain extent, the fact that electronic products are considered disposable rather than repairable is a natural consequence of technological improvements. Moore’s Law effectively says that by the time a product needs repair, another one that’s twice as powerful will be available, often at a lower cost than the previous model. And as products become more complex, the equipment and knowledge needed to repair them get prohibitively expensive.
Manufacturers have greatly benefited from this fact, as it increases demand for newer products. However, it appears that they’ve gone beyond these natural consequences by making even the most trivial repairs—like replacing a laptop power connector or cell phone battery—nearly impossible for the average person.
I own it; I’ll fix it
Nearly two decades ago, Kyle Wiens was studying computer science in college. He was adept with a soldering iron and knew the basics of electronics and computer hardware, having worked as an Apple technician while in high school. So when his Apple laptop fell off his bed and the power plug snapped off, he assumed it would be an easy fix.
Au contraire.
When he attempted to open the case, Wiens saw that it wasn’t as simple as removing a handful of screws. He went online and found no material—no official instruction manuals, no YouTube videos, no third-party hints—that would help. Apple itself didn’t make the manuals available to the general public, instead requiring its customers to bring the laptop into an Apple shop for servicing. Wiens later discovered that Apple had sent cease and desist orders to third-party websites that had previously shared Apple repair manuals, forcing them to take the information offline.
Wiens muddled his way through the repair, breaking several plastic latches in the process, but the experience left him reeling. That’s when he and a friend created iFixit, a website that offers repair instructions for amateurs and third-party repair shops. The site avoids copyright issues by writing its own service manuals based on trial and error. iFixit is now a community-driven wiki where users can share their own experiences and ask questions of others in an open forum.
Right to repair
More than just a self-help website, iFixit helped to bring the "Right to Repair" movement— already a legal requirement in the automotive industry—into the world of consumer electronics. According to Wiens, “The environmental impact of manufacturing the things that we have is significant. The phone that’s in your pocket, which weighs like eight ounces, took over 250 pounds of raw material dug out of the ground to make. If every American were to use their phone just a year longer, it would be the equivalent of taking 700,000 cars off the road.”
In 2021, President Biden signed an executive order to promote economic competition, in part by making it easier for consumers and independent shops to perform repairs. While the order doesn’t demand that manufacturers provide repair guides, it does prevent them from prohibiting the distribution of diagnostic and repair tools, as well as replacement parts. As a result, Apple and Samsung have begun designing products that are repairable, and John Deere is now allowing farmers to maintain their own Deere equipment instead of being forced into an authorized repair shop.
In 2022, New York State passed the Digital Fair Repair Act, which goes beyond the federal mandate by requiring manufacturers to provide the same repair guides to consumers and third-party shops as they provide to their own OEM repair technicians. The U.S. Public Interest Research Group cited at least 14 other states that are considering their own right to repair bills. Some manufacturers have opposed these bills on various grounds, but the Federal Trade Commission released a 2021 report that found “scant evidence to support manufacturers’ justifications for repair restrictions.”
A consumer-friendly modular phone
Cell phones are high-turnover devices, with the average consumer replacing theirs every two to three years. Occasionally, an advancement in core technology, like the move to 5G, justifies replacing the entire phone, but the main reasons for upgrading a phone are to get better accessories (e.g., a higher quality camera), additional storage and a new battery.
A new battery? One would expect battery replacement to be a simple procedure, but if you haven’t done it, try Googling the instructions for replacing your phone’s battery. It’s not exactly removing a cover, swapping the battery, and replacing the cover, a task that should take less than a minute using no tools except perhaps a screwdriver. Instead, you’re likely to find a complex 45-minute procedure that requires tools that you most likely don’t own. One wrong move, and you could render your phone unusable.
Think that’s unfair? So did Bas van Abel, an entrepreneur, designer and technician. A decade ago he founded Fairphone, a manufacturer of repairable smartphones. Fairphones are easy to repair and upgrade, thanks to their modular design, readily available OEM replacement parts, and detailed service guides.
The Fairphone 4 is the company’s most modular design yet. With nothing more than a screwdriver, a user can swap out the battery, display, rear cameras, selfie camera, back cover, USB port and speaker. Its microSD slot allows consumers to add up to 2TB of additional storage. Components are labeled and, for the most part, snap into place without glue. Standard parts with multiple sources are used whenever possible, to ensure long-term component availability. Fairphone offers a five-year warranty, so its goal is to have parts and software upgrades available for at least the next six years. It also provides video tutorials and detailed instructions for performing repairs and upgrades.
Customers who send their old phones for reuse or recycling can receive a gift card to Fairphone’s website. The Fairphone 4 is also an e-waste-neutral device, which means they recycle an old smartphone (or an equivalent amount of other e-waste) for every new phone they sell.
Fairphones use recycled and ethically sourced minerals such as aluminum, cobalt, copper, gold, indium, lithium, magnesium, nickel, plastics, rare earth metals, silver, tin, tungsten and zinc. The company’s Fair Materials Sourcing Roadmap outlines the rationale for these materials and discusses how they are procured. Although they outsource the assembly of their phones, Fairphone works with its manufacturing partner to ensure that workers receive a living wage, adequate representation, health benefits and a safe working environment.
While Fairphones are not available outside of Europe, some global manufacturers are following the company’s lead, or at least trying to make it appear that way. Apple, Samsung, Nokia and Google have launched programs that allow consumers to repair and upgrade certain models of each brand. Apple’s online store includes more than 200 components and tools that allow users to repair the latest iPhones and iMacs. The company also offers credits for certain parts that are returned for recycling. Nokia, Samsung and Google are offering repair kits and tools for select products through partnerships with iFixit. Unfortunately, none of those are as simple to repair as the Fairphone, with most requiring special tools and complicated processes.
What this means for engineers
You may be familiar with the old engineering adage about conflicting requirements: fast, cheap, good: pick any two. Right to repair laws add a fourth dimension: repairability. Repairable designs may raise the price of the device, but many consumers have reported that they’re willing to spend more money on products that are sustainably made. So how can you design products that are repairable?
Although densely integrated ICs and PCBs are small and inexpensive, they make disassembly and repair difficult. The same is true for plastic clips and glue. Whenever possible, use off-the-shelf components, modular designs and removable fasteners like metal screws or snap-in sockets. Consider materials that can be reused and/or recycled, and minimize material costs to reduce waste. See Fairphone’s Fair Materials Sourcing Roadmap for details.
Engineers facing the recent chip shortage have developed new relationships with procurement specialists and market analysts in order to find readily available components. Competing priorities are among the barriers to companies implementing sustainability measures, so it’s important that everyone be on the same page, including C-suite executives, marketing, sales, accounting, procurement and engineering. It’s time for engineers to sharpen those people skills!
Product-as-a-Service
How could the Product-as-a-Service model become a factor in repairable product design? Under PaaS, the customer essentially leases the equipment, making the manufacturer responsible for maintaining the product throughout its entire life cycle. PaaS encourages manufacturers to design products that are modular, longer lasting and easier to repair. Adopting a PaaS model can also help manufacturers provide services through remote monitoring and advanced data analytics using a digital twin. This allows the company to model a product’s entire lifecycle to identify opportunities for repair, reuse and recycling, and to increase the repairability of future product designs. Rather than fighting against the right to repair movement, manufacturers may find the PaaS model more profitable.