There’s been significant progress, but many popular consumer electronics brands are still building hardware that’s often impossible to repair despite a flood in new state “right to repair” laws around the country. That’s at least the conclusion of this new report by the US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG).

PIRG examined 21 different mainstream tech devices subject to New York’s recently passed electronics Right to Repair law, then graded them “based on the quality and accessibility of repair manuals, spare parts, and other critical repair materials.”

They found decidedly mixed results, with nine of the devices earning As or Bs (including all of the smart phones), three products receiving Ds, and six popular mainstream devices earning Fs. The devices that fared poorly, like the HP Spectre Fold foldable laptop, the Canon EOS r100 camera, or the Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest 3 VR headsets, usually did so because of a lack of spare parts or useful repair manuals.

New York’s Digital Fair Repair Act, passed in 2022, requires that tech manufacturers provide tools, manuals, and parts to ensure affordable, easy repair of consumer electronics. But as we noted at the time, tech industry lobbyists managed to convince NY Governor Kathy Hochul to water the bill down to the point of near-uselessness by including ample loopholes. PIRG says they’d like this addressed:

“The New York Right to Repair Bill has had mixed success. It has gone a long way in pushing companies towards greater repair standards, but it has been surpassed by newer repair bills in other states like the recent passage in Oregon. In order for this bill to remain useful for the people of New York, it should be updated to bring it in line with newer repair standards, as well as provide greater enforcement to move companies towards full compliance in the future.”

PIRG Senior Director Nathan Proctor told me there’s been no enforcement action taken by NY on the law despite numerous companies failing to comply. All told, the report notes that the cellphone sector has made significant strides in terms of repairability and providing easy access to repair manuals and replacement parts. That’s offset greatly by sectors like VR headsets and cameras, where repairability remains mostly a mess.

Oregon recently became the seventh state to pass “right to repair” legislation making it easier, cheaper, and more convenient to repair technology you own. The bill’s passage came on the heels of legislation passed in Massachusetts (in 2012 and 2020), Colorado (in 2022 and 2023), New York, Minnesota, Maine and California. All told, 30 states are considering such bills in 2024.

But such bills are routinely at risk of being watered down by lobbyists keen to exclude the most problematic sectors (like medical equipment, game consoles, or agricultural gear). And the bills are only useful if they’re actually enforced, which isn’t likely to be a top priority in many well-lobbied states.

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Last month Oregon state lawmakers passed a new “right to repair” law making it easier and cheaper to repair your electronics. The law requires that manufacturers that do business in the state provide users with easy and affordable access to tools, manuals, and parts. It also cracks down on practices like “parts pairing,” which often uses software locks to block use of third-party parts and assemblages.

It’s arguably the toughest state right to repair law yet. And it almost didn’t pass thanks to Apple, which (as it has in other states) lobbied to kill the bill, falsely claiming it was a threat to user safety and security.

Last week, The Washington Post proudly declared that Apple was slightly reversing some long-standing restrictions on repair and accessibility:

“Apple told The Washington Post it is easing a key restriction on iPhone repairs. Starting this fall, owners of an iPhone 15 or newer will be able to get their broken devices fixed with used parts — including screens, batteries and cameras — without any change in functionality.”

Notice this isn’t a full reversal of Apple’s restrictions, which (despite what it often claims) are designed to monopolize repair and accelerate the sales of new phones. And it takes the Washington Post until the seventeenth paragraph to inform readers that the changes are thanks in large part to Oregon’s new law.

And again, the Post never really informs the reader clearly that Apple lobbied to have the law killed. Or really properly frames the impact Apple’s restrictions have long had on the environment, consumer rights and costs, or the small independent repair shops Apple has a history of bullying. But it does let Apple falsely claim, without correction, that the law is a threat to consumer privacy:

“Neither Ternus nor Apple spokespeople commented on what changes may have to be made to abide by Oregon law, but the company said in an earlier statement that the bill’s language “introduces the possibility that Apple would be required to allow unknown, non-secure third-party Face ID or Touch ID modules to unlock” a user’s personal information.”

That’s just scare mongering. You can read in detail over at iFixit how “parts pairing” actually works and how it’s harmful. Apple (like John Deere and every other company angry that their repair monopolies are being dismantled) loves to pretend their interest here is solely in user safety. Their interest is in new phone sales and maintaining a profitable monopoly over repair.

Apple’s whole pivot is framed by the Post, which seems simply thrilled to even have access to an Apple engineering VP, as something Apple just came up with one day because it’s just that forward-thinking and courteous. It’s another example of how Apple’s widely proclaimed “180 on right to repair” is more of a drunken 45 degree begrudging and overdue waddle, propped up by a lazy press.

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There are still plenty of great laptops on the market that offer some degree of upgradeability, and on the desktop side, DIY tinkering is a main selling feature. You might want to add some RAM or extra solid-state drive (SSD) capacity to your laptop, or you might want to perform a full rebuild of your beloved gaming PC.