@EU_Commission It would be awesome if this initiative could include an obligation for manufacturers to provide electronic schematics of their products. These are extremely useful for repair purposes but are rarely available these days. Manufacturers claim schematics are trade secrets, but this is nonsense. If you have the physical product you can recreate the schematic. It’s just a lot of work. Their unavailability is partly why devices get thrown out instead of repaired

@EU_Commission
I am currently in the exact situation where my Fairphone is no longer charging correctly. I will therefore replace the corresponding module in the next few days. If I can't do it on my own, I'll get help from the community.

@EU_Commission while "we" do indeed prefer to repair it, let's see what the end form of the initiative will be. Given many other initiatives that have fizzled so far, I at least won't be holding my breath.

@EU_Commission

YES, PLEASE ENABLE REPAIRS!

Here are some of the most pressing issues:

1) With my two last smartphones, I didn't get a single Android update - and we're not talking about a short time. Over the last 9 years, I had 2 smartphones. Enough time for vendors to patch. (They didn't)

2) The part that breaks first, was with both of them the battery. However, most batteries nowadays are built in and cannot be easily replaced.

3) Lastly, storage is always full. While most phones offer additional sd-card slots, it's the exception that an app or system files can be moved to the sd-card.

I doubt companies will fix these issues themselves. They make much more money with people buying new smartphones every 2 years. Until repairs&updates are enforced, repairs don't make sense.

PS: great work on standardizing USB-C.

@EU_Commission hopefully my Fairphone 4 by @Fairphone will last many more years!

@EU_Commission If you are really for right-to-repair, you should force vendors to make it possible to have your own OS on your devices and after end of support everything should be opensourced to make it possible for people to repair software themselves.

Sure right to repair for hardware is good, right to repair for hardware and software would be better.

@EU_Commission
I buy a new one, though It's not out of choice, I can't even change my current phone's OS let alone get into it to repair it

For my next phone I'm going to try to make sure I can though, and I'm also going to try to make it a linux phone if it's in a usable state (by me) by then

@EU_Commission I suspect the answer would be "no spare parts for this one any more, you have to buy a new one".

@EU_Commission
Tough question, for 15 years I have never broken none of my phones. 😅 When it gets old, I usually sell it or hand it over to a workshop.

@EU_Commission it depends. If it's 8 years old, a dead battery, USB port and screen I will buy a new phone, otherwise Ill repair it.

My current phone is almost checking all those marks, and am looking to get a #fairphone 4, although I might just wait it out with a powerbank until September in the hope a Fairphone 5 is announced.

@EU_Commission Please force phone producers to (at least)
+ enable installing other OS-es after a certain period of time. This would drastically prolong the usability of old devices
+ easy battery replacement
+ easy screen replacement

@EU_Commission but what about planned obsolescence? All the updates these phones get do absolutely nothing apart from make the phone slower and more worthless every year.

@EU_Commission i have one old af phone which just werks. yes its smartphone although i think its specs arent already fitting in UE tho... this old... ofc everything customized from additional glass and case up to unlocked bootloader and custom rom... i like this one tbh :)

@EU_Commission
Last time my phone broke, i was because I accidentally put it through a lawn mower. Not much to repair there 😅

@EU_Commission i can repair my new phone, but my old has no cheap repair parts

@EU_Commission this is a first important step, but it's still not enough to guarantee long term usability. We also need security updates granted for at least 3 years on whatever device.

@EU_Commission
I have a #Fairphone4 any my goal is to use it for the next 7 years at least and just repair it myself if something brake's or if I can't repair it myself send it to #fairphone

@EU_Commission When my phone breaks to the point it is not usable, I just buy a new one since at that point it already pretty old.

@EU_Commission 'what do you do when your phone breaks? '. Many times have been self repairing it, and moving to LineageOS as the manufacturer doesn't provide updates anymore. And self repair is sometimes a nightmare with components glued.

This sounds really cool. It would be great to see in action.

The only remaining question is: how and in which situations would it even better to "not consume"?