Repairability is a measure of the degree to and ease with which a product can be repaired and maintained, usually by end consumers. Repairable products are put in contrast to

obsolescence Obsolescence is the process of becoming antiquated, out of date, old-fashioned, no longer in general use, or no longer useful, or the condition of being in such a state. When used in a biological sense, it means imperfect or rudimentary when comp ...

or products designed with

planned obsolescence In economics and industrial design, planned obsolescence (also called built-in obsolescence or premature obsolescence) is the concept of policies planning or designing a good (economics), product with an artificially limited Product lifetime, u ...

. Some private organizations and companies, mostly affiliated with the right to repair movement, assign repairability scores to products as a way of communicating to consumers how easily repairable the product is.

French repairability index

Since 2021, some smartphones, laptops, televisions, washing machines, lawnmowers and other electronic devices sold in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

have been required to report a ''repairability index'' () which rates how repairable a product is on a scale from 0 to 10, primarily to prevent corporate

greenwashing Greenwashing (a compound word modeled on "whitewash"), also called green sheen, is a form of advertising or marketing spin that deceptively uses green PR and green marketing to persuade the public that an organization's products, goals, or ...

and encourage environmental transparency. Products are evaluated on 5 key areas: documentation, disassembly, spare parts availability, spare part pricing, and product specifics. The French scorecard took inspiration from iFixit's scorecards and intends to expand its efforts to rate overall

durability Durability is the ability of a physical product to remain functional, without requiring excessive maintenance or repair, when faced with the challenges of normal operation over its design lifetime. There are several measures of durability in us ...

in addition to repairability.

Limitations

The repairability index scoring process is not bulletproof, though—manufacturers currently self-report their indices to regulatory bodies with little to no government oversight ensuring the index was properly calculated. For example, smartphone and laptop manufacturers can obtain an extra point on the index just by providing consumers with information regarding security or

software updates A patch is data that is intended to be used to modify an existing software resource such as a program or a file, often to fix bugs and security vulnerabilities. A patch may be created to improve functionality, usability, or performance. A pa ...

Effects

Since France's recently enacted legislation requiring repairability indices, some positive effects have materialized. For instance,

Samsung Samsung Group (; stylised as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational manufacturing Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in the Samsung Town office complex in Seoul. The group consists of numerous a ...

now offers consumers a free online repair manual for its Galaxy S21+ in an attempt to boost its repairability index. The enforcement of French repairability index laws pushed Samsung to release this manual, something consumers had been requesting for a long time; in contrast, there is no English repair manual for American consumers, as U.S. legislation doesn't incentivize Samsung to release such a manual. This French legislation has applied pressure to tech corporations to increase the repairability of their products and transition to a far more

circular economy A circular economy (also referred to as circularity or CE) is a model of resource Production (economics), production and Resource consumption, consumption in any economy that involves sharing, leasing, Reuse, reusing, repairing, refurbishing, and ...

Notable Score

At launch, the average repairability score has hovered around 5.4 out of 10. Apple's

iPhone 12 The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Mini (stylized and marketed as iPhone 12 mini) are smartphones developed and marketed by Apple Inc. They are the fourteenth-generation iPhones, succeeding the iPhone 11. They were unveiled at a virtually held Ap ...

models scored a 6.0 and its iPhone 11 models scored a 4.5 out of 10 on the repairability index scale; the 2021

MacBook Air The MacBook Air is a line of Mac (computer), Mac laptop computers developed and manufactured by Apple Inc., Apple since 2008. It features a thin, light structure in a machining, machined aluminum case and currently either a 13-inch or 15-inch ...

scored a 6.5 and the 2021

MacBook Pro The MacBook Pro is a line of Mac laptop computers developed and manufactured by Apple. Introduced in 2006, it is the high-end sibling of the MacBook family, sitting above the ultra-portable MacBook Air and previously the low-end MacBook li ...

scored a 5.6 on the scale. Google's Pixel 4a scored a 6.3.

References

External links

Repairability index page
for

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...