The era of fixing your own phone has nearly arrived

After years of fighting for right-to-repair, big name companies like Google and SAMSUNG have suddenly agreed to provide spare parts for their phones, I figured iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens would be happy. They signed deals with him to sell those parts through iFixit, along with the company's repair guides and tools. So did Valve.

He says there are more to come, one as soon as a couple of months from now. It's not Apple. The first one to sign on was Motorola. The era of fixing your own phone may be underway if Apple meaningfully joins them in offering spare parts. The United States made it legal to open up many devices for the purpose of repair with an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The necessary parts are on their way.

What has changed? These companies fight tooth and nail to keep right-for-repair off the table, sometimes sneakily stopping bills at the last minute. Yes. One French law might have been the tipping point as some legislation is getting through anyways.

The French law that requires tech companies to reveal how repairable their phones are is changing the game more than anything else. Even Apple was forced to add repairability scores, but Wiens points me to this press release by SAMSUNG. A study commissioned by the company found that 80 percent of respondents would be willing to give up their favorite brand for a product that scored higher.

Screenshot: Apple.com

There have been extensive studies done on the scorecard.

Stick to the carrot. Seeing an opportunity, Wiens suggests, pushed these companies to take up iFixit.

The Campaign for the Right to Repair at the US Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG) still believes that the stick is primarily to thank.

None of the big companies had good repair programs until we organized enough clout for it to start seeming inevitable, and now they are all announcing them. The European Parliament voted 509-3 in favor of asking the EU to force manufacturers to make devices more repairable.

There is a growing realization that phones are going to last longer and there is nothing they can do about it.

The financial incentive may be related to the fact that thePixel phone sales are not a big part of the market. They can do something about a popular anti-trust issue in an area where they are not the dominant player.

Tech companies have stonewalled right to repair in the past because of practical reasons such as consumers accidentally puncturing their batteries or having to handle more support calls. They are a bit overblown, says Wiens. iFixit provides repair guides and specially designed tools that make people less likely to screw up, which is why these companies chose it, he1-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-6556

It isn't necessarily opening up the floodgates to every kind of repair, mind you. iFixit won't be selling boards with chips, so if you have a bootloop issue in your phone, you'll need to get it fixed by Google.

Image: iFixit

The most common parts should be included in iFixit's new parts, like official screens and batteries, and iFixit says it's committed to supporting phones even if it has to stockpile. The manufacturers are sharing data with iFixit, like how many phones they have sold, because it is difficult to forecast how many components they will need.

iFixit already has hundreds of thousands of parts in an offsite warehouse, and is currently expanding as a result of these deals. IFixit says it has to buy the parts and sell them at a higher price than the tech companies will pay.

iFixit's repair kits will come with the same kind of pre-cut waterproof gasket that you can use on your phone.

He says it's something more people should probably do once a year or two, since the glue that waterproofs gadgets tends to wear out over time.

Regardless of whether these companies are being pushed or led, the result might be the same: an era where your aging phone can stay good-enough for far longer than it otherwise might. The pressure is being put on by politicians, governments, regulators, shareholders, and advocacy groups.

The companies would find a way to make more money if the market were to change.

I expect tech companies to resist right-to-repair in some way, even while pretending to embrace it. Apple seems to be backing off on throwing up scary warnings, one of the ways that companies can screw around.

They will continue to encourage you to quickly upgrade to new phones, like how carriers brought back the subsidy model last year to spur sales, and how Apple is reportedly looking to sell the iPhone as a subscription service now.

I will be able to swap the battery of my mini for a new one when it expires. And if not? I might switch to a repairable device.