BENGALURU: We buy stuff -- smartphones, laptops, fridges, watches, cars. When these break down, we could throw them away, but choose to repair them instead. In the US and Europe, it is illegal for anyone other than their authorised service centres to repair their items. But, in India, we have a range of friendly neighbourhood repair shops and garages that need no authorisation to repair your defunct gadgets.Earlier this month, POTUS Joe Biden passed an executive order to promote economic competition in the country and called on the Federal Trade Commission to institute rules to curb anti-competitive restrictions that limit consumers’ ability to repair gadgets on their terms. This order was a result of years of fighting by the right to repair movement in the West, which aims to provide buyers the autonomy to repair gadgets on their own terms.
The right to repair movement was a reaction to an age-old strategy employed by manufacturers called ‘planned obsolescence’. From as late as the 1920s, due to planned obsolescence, electronic goods are being purposefully manufactured in such a way that they are rendered obsolete after a predetermined period, so that consumers are forced to either get their machines fixed at the companies’ exclusive service centres or discard them and keep buying new ones.
The movement advocates for electronic companies to supply maintenance manuals and spare parts along with their machines. “India not only has jugaad repair shops but also such policies. We should definitely have the right to repair in our country too. Maintenance manuals, spare parts and diagnostic software should be available by law,” says Parminder Jeet Singh, a Senior Fellow at the IT for Change.
Apart from having a monopoly over repairs, big companies also give rise to more e-waste as electronic items become obsolete sooner. The process also fuels more pollution. According to a New York Times report, mining and manufacturing materials used to make an iPhone ‘represent roughly 83 per cent of its contribution to the heat-trapping emissions in the atmosphere throughout its life cycle’, as per data released by Apple.
“If part of my laptop’s motherboard cannot be changed, the entire motherboard has to be replaced. Firstly, this is costly and secondly, this adds to more e-waste,” says Praveen Chandrahas of the Forum for IT Employees (ForIT).As we wait for the right to repair movement to come to India, people at mobile repair shops tell us of the desi hacks that people adopt before they seek their help. (Refer box)
Not all hacks work!
Dry rice to treat wet mobiles
Probably the oldest trick in the book is storing your wet mobile phone in a bag or container of uncooked rice so that it extracts the water from the phone. “Though rice is an absorbent, it will not drain out all the water from the phone, maybe just 13 per cent,” says a repairman. Rice may absorb some of the water, but it cannot prevent the corrosion of the motherboard. In fact, rice will further damage the phone since its remnants can speed up the corrosion.
Using a blow-dryer
Great for drying your hair but do not use a blow-dryer to dry your wet phone, says another mechanic. The heat from the blow-dryer will damage your phone. However, if you still manage to control the heat, the salts from the water that will remain on your phone will further damage your phone. Additionally, using a blow-dryer will push the moisture inside the parts of the phone that were not wet to begin with.
Toothpaste to fix cracks on screen
Using toothpaste (the one’s without the gel) to fix a cracked screen is a common fix that has been floating around the Internet. Apart from making a few small scratches disappear, toothpaste doesn’t really fix a cracked phone screen. Toothpaste does not make scratches or cracks invisible. The reason why this ‘hack’ was popularised as toothpaste fills in small scratches on your phone screen.