this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2025
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Right to Repair

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Whether it be electronics, automobiles or medical equipment, the manufacturers should not be able to horde “oem” parts, render your stuff useless if you repair it with aftermarket parts, or hide schematics of their products.

I Fix It Repair Manifesto

Summary article from I Fix It

Summary video by Marques Brownlee

Great channel covering and advocating right to repair, Lewis Rossman

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/29515358

A subscription anti-theft feature that should be free.

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[–] cy_narrator@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

I think they should have a system that will make these things explode if stolen. Would be nice karma

[–] n3m37h@sh.itjust.works 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This crap goes against right to repair. Serialization of parts is bullshit.

[–] HK65@sopuli.xyz 13 points 1 day ago

Yeah, this feels more like preventing third party batteries from working. An average shady shop can definitely hotwire this.

[–] unmagical@lemmy.ml 25 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This doesn't seem like it would make them worthless. It would just make it that you can't power a bike off a stolen battery.

It doesn't destroy the actual cells and there's definitely a market for used EV cells for DIY or refurbished power storage solutions.

[–] SoftTeeth@lemmy.world 8 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

So after the battery is no longer attached to the orginial bike it no longer works. The government isn't going to properly regulate this practice if it starts and battery waste will increase.

[–] unmagical@lemmy.ml 4 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Cut it open, remove the cells, sell on ebay as "reclaimed, good" cells.

This DRM just moves the goal post like 5 feet. It does not actually remove the value of the battery.

[–] SoftTeeth@lemmy.world 4 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Because everyone knows how to and wants to modify batteries.

Maybe we shouldn't allow it to be legal to put DRM on fuel?

[–] unmagical@lemmy.ml 2 points 12 hours ago

Not everyone needs to know how. Yeah the DRM hurts repairability, hence why the post in this c/. But the article is positing it as a move that will make them pointless to steal because they will lose all their worth from being locked down--my point is that that is wrong. The battery has value because the thing that makes it an actual battery isn't disabled or destroyed. They just put a simple lock on the regulator.

The actually thing that is holding power still holds it, and that power can still be accessed. This is already happening with things like DIY power-backups for houses, but the uses for those cells exists far beyond that--refurbs for other bikes, scooters, or other personal transport options; vapes; off grid packs like the jackery; flashlights; cameras; etc. If something runs on a battery it can be made to use the easily accessible parts from a stolen pack, and there's nothing that a manufacturer can do to stop that.

Tldr, there's still worth so they aren't "worthless," and they remain worthwhile to steal.