Written by Thomas Opsomer, iFixit’s EU policy spokesperson. Mandatory repair information for smartphones Since June 20th, 2025, smartphones and tablets sold in the EU are subject to repairability requirements. These also include a mandatory repairability score and an obligation to publish repair information. The repairability score is self-reported by manufacturers and rates the ease of … Continue reading "One Year Into EU Ecodesign Rules, 80% of Smartphones Still Lack Required Repair Information"
They way I see it this is the less important part of the regulation so saying that manufactures are just ignoring the rules set by EU is alarmist and clibaity. Same thing happened with GDPR: there was a mess with consent popups, some companies ignored the requirements, EU started giving out fines and things improved. I wouldn’t expect anything different here. So far we’re talking about sticker requirements. Now that the law requires manufacturers to actually provide replacement parts we have to let EU enforce them and things should improve.
I don’t think politicians set this law to fail on purpose. The alternative would be to create some certification authority which would add a lot of red tape. This could turn out to be a good compromise. We’ll see.
They way I see it this is the less important part of the regulation so saying that manufactures are just ignoring the rules set by EU is alarmist and clibaity. Same thing happened with GDPR: there was a mess with consent popups, some companies ignored the requirements, EU started giving out fines and things improved. I wouldn’t expect anything different here. So far we’re talking about sticker requirements. Now that the law requires manufacturers to actually provide replacement parts we have to let EU enforce them and things should improve.
I don’t think politicians set this law to fail on purpose. The alternative would be to create some certification authority which would add a lot of red tape. This could turn out to be a good compromise. We’ll see.