I’m old enough to remember the “Maytag Repair Man” commercial that ran from 1967 to 1989, in which the repair man was “the loneliest man in town” because, the commercial said, Maytag appliances rarely broke.
In fact, this wasn’t unique to Maytag, but from numerous reports and my own experience, appliances in general seemed to last much longer than they do today. But as lonely as that fictional Maytag repairman may have been, at least those appliances – and pretty much everything else we owned – were repairable. That’s not always the case today.
These days, it’s often not cost-effective to repair appliances for a variety of reasons. Often times, the cost of repairs is close to the cost of the item or even more. This can even be the case with shoes. I took a pair to a local cobbler and found that I could buy a new pair of the same shoes for less than the cost of repairs. He said he had to charge that much to cover his high rent. Even clothing is often cheaper to replace than to repair, unless you patch your clothes yourself or have a friend or family member willing to do it for you.
Major home appliances can still be repaired, but that’s not always the case with electronics. I’ll be testing the soon-to-be-released Google Pixel Watch 3 in September, but Google has confirmed that the new watch, like the first two versions, will not be repaired under warranty if it’s damaged, broken, or even has a broken screen. As Android Central reported, “users will need to contact support to get a replacement unit and are also encouraged to purchase the Preferred Care insurance plan to cover damage.” Based on some teardown videos of the Google Watches 1 and 2, the watch is very difficult for third-party technicians to repair.
When you order a Pixel Watch, the company recommends users purchase a “Preferred Care” plan for $4 per month or $89 for two years, which covers “replacement for accidental damage (including drops, spills, and cracks) up to twice in a rolling 12-month period.” I’ve never broken a smartwatch, but I could easily imagine that happening, so for a device that starts at around $350, it’s probably a good idea to get insurance from either Google or a third-party provider. I think I’d go with Google’s monthly plan, which costs just 30 cents more per month than the two-year plan.
Disappearing repair shops
There used to be many shops that would repair TVs and even technicians that would come to your home with tubes and other parts needed to repair them. There are still some shops that repair TVs, but they are much less common than they used to be. When electronic devices break, it is usually a matter of replacing components rather than taking a soldering iron and trying to fix them. In the early days of TVs, sometimes all that needed to be replaced was a tube.
Even if the cost of repair is slightly less than the cost of a replacement, chances are that with electronic devices you can buy a newer and better model that won’t cost much more than repairing what might be considered an “obsolete” device.
I once got a quote to replace the broken screen on a two-year-old iPhone, but I decided to get a new phone because, as is often the case after a few years, the battery died sooner than it did when it was new, and the total cost of replacing the screen and battery was almost as much as the cost of a new phone.
In the early days of mobile phones, the owner could easily replace the battery, but today it takes someone with the appropriate skills and tools to take the phone apart.
Repair clinics
Not everyone has given up on repairing things. There are so-called “repair cafes” or “fix-it clinics,” community-based workshops where volunteers with repair skills help people fix their broken items.
Repair Café Silicon Valley is a volunteer-run nonprofit that is “committed to encouraging the repair and reuse of goods instead of sending them to a landfill.” Their website says they have “electronics experts who love to solder, carpenters who love to glue, sewing experts who love to sew, and bike mechanics who love to grease things.” If you live in or near Silicon Valley, head to their website and scroll down to find local repair events.
Sometimes the software is “broken”
When it comes to “fixing” electronics like phones and computers, often the problem isn’t with the hardware, but with the operating system or software. A few friends have told me they were in the process of replacing a slow or non-functioning phone or PC, but I instead showed them how to “fix” the device by removing apps, updating the operating system, or in some cases, performing a factory reset, which usually gets the device working as well as it did the day they bought it.
I usually only do a reset as a last resort before replacing a device or taking it in for repairs, but when my Pixel 8 phone wouldn’t charge, I assumed it was the charging port, which sometimes gets clogged with lint. I cleaned it, but that didn’t fix the problem, so I called Google support to ask about a warranty repair. They too thought it was a faulty port and told me to take it to uBreakiFix. When I went to pick it up after the repair, I was told they just did a factory reset, which I could have done myself, saving me two 25-mile round-trip trips to drop off and pick it up. Had it been out of warranty, I would have had to pay uBreakiFix for something I could have easily done myself.
Save your money and protect the earth
While I’ve been guilty of throwing away things that could be repaired, I agree with the fine folks at the Repair Café that it’s in all of our best interests to keep devices working for as long as possible. I’m not suggesting you keep using your 2007 iPhone, but it’s almost always unnecessary to replace a device every year, especially if it ends up in a landfill. If it can be repaired or factory reset, at least try to find a new home for it by passing it on or donating it to an organization that will find a new home for it.
Larry Magid is a technology journalist and cybersecurity activist. You can reach him at [email protected].
