Google Partners with iFixit, and the day when you can Fix Your Own Smartphone is Almost Here

Google has just announced it is the latest manufacturer to partner with DIY repair specialists iFixit to offer spare parts for its devices. It’s a deal that should make it far easier for the average customer to get parts to repair their own Pixel smartphone if it breaks. Parts like batteries, displays, and cameras will be available to purchase in the US, Canada, Australia, the UK, and other European countries where the phones are sold. Parts will be available to purchase “later this year,” Google says.

Spare parts will be available for an impressive range of Pixel phones, including the latest Pixel 6 devices and going all the way back to 2017’s Pixel 2. That means parts should be available for the kinds of aging phones people might actually want to repair this year. As The Verge reports, in contrast, Samsung’s equivalent partnership with iFixit will, at launch, only cover select devices dating back to the 2020 Galaxy S20 (though it says it plans to expand the program over time).

Easy repairs are essential if Google wants customers to use its devices for as long as it’s planning to support them with software. As of the Pixel 6, Google is promising three years of Android updates and five years of security updates, which could see the phones being used into late 2026. At that point, it’s all-but-guaranteed that a phone will need a battery replacement or some kind of repair at least once over its lifetime, which makes easy access to spare parts vital.

Pixel spare parts will be sold both individually as well as in “Fix Kits,” which come with tools to carry out the repairs. If you’d rather not do the repairs yourself, Google already has partnerships with a number of professional repair shops. There are also trade-in and recycling programs available when you no longer want to keep using a device.

The consumer tech industry as a whole has gotten more serious about self-repairs in recent years.  Motorola was actually the first to sign on nearly four years ago.  According to The Verge, in addition to Samsung and Google, Microsoft and Valve are also working with iFixit to offer spare parts for their Surface devices and Steam Deck, respectively. And if Apple meaningfully joins them in offering spare parts to consumers — like it promised to do by early 2022 — the era of fixing your own phone may have well and truly come.

What changed? Weren’t these companies fighting tooth and nail to keep right-for-repair off the table, sometimes sneakily stopping bills at the last minute? Sure. But some legislation is getting through anyhow… Last October, the United States effectively made it legal to open up many devices for the purpose of repair with an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).  But it’s one French law in particular might have been the tipping point.

“The thing that’s changing the game more than anything else is the French repairability scorecard,” says iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens, referring to a 2021 law that requires tech companies to reveal how repairable their phones are — on a scale of 0.0 to 10.0 — right next to their pricetag. Even Apple was forced to add repairability scores. And according to a Samsung press release, when Samsung commissioned a study to check whether the French repairability scores were meaningful, it didn’t just find the scorecards were handy — it found a staggering 80 percent of respondents would be willing to give up their favorite brand for a product that scored higher.

“There have been extensive studies done on the scorecard and it’s working,” says Wiens. “It’s driving behavior, it’s shifting consumer buying patterns.” Stick, meet carrot. Seeing an opportunity, Wiens suggests, pushed these companies to take up iFixit on the deal. Nathan Proctor, director of the Campaign for the Right to Repair at the US Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG), still thinks the stick is primarily to thank. “It feels cheeky to say 100 percent… but none of this happens unless there’s a threat of legislation.”

“These companies have known these were issues for a long time, and until we organized enough clout for it to start seeming inevitable, none of the big ones had particularly good repair programs and now they’re all announcing them,” Proctor notes. He draws my attention to the fact the European Parliament just voted 509-3 in favor of asking the EU to force manufacturers to make devices more repairable.

“I think there’s a growing realization and resignation that phones are going to last longer and there’s nothing they can do about it,” says Wiens.

—
Photo Credit: Tada Images / Shutterstock.com