This is the short story about how we will learn to value electronic devices, repair, and recycle them.
Buying gadgets used to be a necessity and turned into a drug. It seems that the idea of owning and the chase for new tech products drive the society crazy: people believe that their smartphones and laptops become obsolete ten minutes after they open the box.
Along with significant changes in the tech sector, there are great shifts in related areas as well. It seems illogical, but while the market of smartphones in the United States has grown to thirteen times for last ten years, customer’s spending habits are changing. People tend to use their gadgets for longer. According to Recon Analytics, the average upgrade cycle for all phones has stretched from 19 months in 2007 to almost 23 months last year.
An endless changing and buying new gadgets become not such an attractive for average customers. And too expensive as well.
Probably, almost each of us faced the situation when cracking the screen on your smartphone or laptop may not leave us much choice about when to replace it or when the developer ceased supporting the software of the mp3-player. The last year’s model of iPhone has been getting slower and not such cool as before. You may think that it is time to replace it, but it is not!
Electronic Industry Does Not Want Us To Know We Can Fix Our Gadgets
Are you surprised? In fact, manufacturers obstruct us to know that can fix more technology than we realize. Some giant tech companies even employ digital software locks to keep owners of gadgets from making repairs or changes. For example, thousands of iPhone 6 users claim that they have been hit with “error 53” after the newest iOS update was released, which checks if a repair has been carried out by a non-Apple technician. The most horrible thing is that the error kills the iPhone and no one knows what it is.
Some companies even treat repair guides and schematics as intellectual property. So, when you will try to contact Samsung support representative in order to fix your Samsung TV, he will likely to pass you to an authorized repair shop in your area where you should pay at least half the initial price of the device.
Self-Repair Manifesto
The Do-It-Yourself culture takes us back control of technology: it helps fix and modify our devices by ourselves. People are becoming confident of that as more electronics get complicated, as more laypersons should know a minimum about how to fix or upgrade them.
An impossibility of repair that is a very common reason for replacing old gadgets with new ones is actually not so impossible. For the lat couple of years, the DIY culture has significantly blossomed on the Internet: people take their phones apart, fix, build them, and explain others how to do it. There are at least three sources that help everyone repair everything: YouTube, Arduino, and 3D printers.
If you do a quick search, you can find several videos showing exactly how to fix your broken dishwasher, as well as tens of DIY appliance forums. This is what makes the Internet so great.
Anyway, if there is no mention of your problem, you could print out any part you need for a repair. 3D printers are becoming both more accessible and cheaper, so why have not you still tried it?
Time of Modular Gadgets Is Coming
While self-regulated online communities are actively discussing advantages of interchangeable details and open-source software, a number of large tech companies have already applied to the idea of modular devices. A phone does not have to be an indivisible appliance that needs to be replaced entirely in the case of breaking some particular detail. That is how PCs work: most of the elements can be taken out and changed.
If you are new to the topic and have not heard about Project Ara, it is time to know about this Google’s long-running future smartphone concept. The company is working on the concept of modular smartphone from 2011 and the device already has first successful prototypes. Project Ara phone is scheduled to begin pilot testing in the United States this year and would start at just $50.
So, you will not need to be that person who buys a new iPhone every year (in case if you are not already this person). Modularity will allow people to change parts of their gadgets to new, better ones.
New Versions Are Not As More Powerful As We Tend To Think
Let us be honest: we replace our phones not just when they break down but when they get us bored. The purchase of new iPhone seems so logical and obvious for most of Apple addicted and sometimes it is hard enough to explain to them why they do not need to spend an oodles of money every time Apple released its new product.
Every Apple addict knows that the company’s gadgets are “just better”: more powerful, more convenience, more gold, more, more, more.
In fact, most of the devices launched in the last couple of years are not as better as the companies try to persuade us they are. The iPhone 3GS represented a huge advance over the original iPhone, but the 5S version did not surpass so much over the fifth generation. The Nexus 5 was not enough of a boot over the Nexus 4 in order to push people to replace their “obsolete” devices. Moreover, only a few of us use all features of our electronics: for most is enough to have a good camera, Internet access, and some other basic features.
Permanent Replacement Harms Environment
Do you hear about smart consumption? That is it.
If you still tend to think that smart consumption is not for you, here are two reasons that could overpersuade you.
First of all, it is not cool anymore. The deliberate fragility of the products when manufacturers shortened the service life of their devices is a relic of XX century and today, there is no longer the place to it.
Second and actually the most important (and obvious) reason is that tech world is overflowing garbage, which is difficult to recycle and often poisonous for the environment.
