Electronics Repair Right Is Now the Law in 3 States. Is Big Tech Complying?

If you’re considering buying a new gadget—whether a laptop, a video game console, or a digital camera—you might expect to have access to repair manuals or replacement parts that the manufacturer produces. But until recently, companies selling electronics in the U.S. were not required to provide their customers with the parts or information they need to perform even simple repairs, such as replacing a battery.

Last December, New York became the first state in the country to require electronics manufacturers to make repair materials publicly available when the state’s digital “right to repair” law went into effect—the first of its kind in the nation. In July, similar laws became enforceable in Minnesota and California. Over the next two years, consumers in Oregon and Colorado will also have the legal right to repair a wide range of digital electronics.

Repair advocates say these laws are a key step toward ending our throwaway digital culture, in which electronic devices are simply replaced when they break. Discarded gadgets are typically destined to become toxic e-waste, and producing new ones fuels environmentally destructive mining and generates carbon emissions and other pollutants.

But these right-to-repair laws are brand new, and whether manufacturers across the broad range of industries affected will change their repair practices overnight is an open question. Repair advocates are closely watching the tech companies in those states, as are the state attorneys general tasked with enforcing the laws.

Many manufacturers still “bury their heads in the sand” when it comes to repair rights, said Kyle Wiens, CEO of repair tutorial site iFixit. “There are a lot of companies that haven’t thought about this,” Wiens added.

A recent report by the U.S. Public Research Interest Group (PIRG), a leading advocate of the right to repair, highlights how attitudes toward repairs vary greatly across industries.

The report identified 21 devices covered by New York’s new Right to Repair law, which requires electronics manufacturers to publicly make available any proprietary parts, tools, and instructions needed to repair devices first sold in the state on or after July 1, 2023. After the law took effect, PIRG evaluated each of these devices based on the availability and quality of repair manuals, the number of replacement parts offered by the manufacturer, and the availability of commonly replaced parts, such as batteries.

Overall, the report found that smartphone makers provided the most comprehensive repair materials. Laptops, tablets, and gaming consoles were a mixed bag, while the digital cameras and VR headsets tested fared poorly. The authors were unable to access repair manuals for recent Sony, Nikon, Fujifilm, or Canon digital cameras, while Apple offered no manuals or replacement parts for its new VR headset, the Apple Vision Pro. Meta’s new Meta Quest 3 VR headset also lacks a repair manual, and the range of replacement parts is very limited, the report found.

Grist was unable to locate a press contact at Canon, and an email to the company’s investor relations department went unanswered. A representative from Fujifilm North America told Grist in an email that the company’s technical support team “will provide diagnostic verification and do-it-yourself repair support in accordance with applicable Right to Repair requirements.” Media representatives for Nikon, Apple and Meta did not respond to Grist’s request for comment on the report’s findings.

A Sony Electronics representative told Grist that the company has published about 300 service manuals “and we’re in the process of releasing more.” The representative provided a link to a service manual for the Alpha 6700 camera, which PIRG researchers were unable to find in an Internet search when they evaluated the camera several months ago. Report co-author Nathan Proctor told Grist that Sony’s customer service department suggested the researchers check YouTube or iFixit for repair information. That’s indicative of a broader problem, he said.

“Even companies that are adapting, their customer service people… haven’t gotten the message,” Proctor told Grist. “To me, it’s a very frustrating state of affairs.”

Proctor stressed that the results are not a definitive analysis of whether a product complies with the law, which has “a ton of loopholes,” he said. (The main one: If a company doesn’t offer any repair support, it has no legal obligation to do so — in New York or any other state.) Instead, Proctor said, the intent was to show whether manufacturers are following the spirit of the law by taking steps to ensure that anyone can repair what they own.

“The purpose of this is to signal to manufacturers that someone is paying attention,” Proctor said. “And that they should organize their compliance plans.”

Preparing for a repairable future will become even more important as newer and stronger state laws take effect. Minnesota and California’s right-to-repair laws, which went into effect July 1, cover devices that date back to 2021. They also include some electronics that New York exempted, such as electric bikes and, in Minnesota’s case, business computers. (However, both states’ laws exclude gaming consoles, which New York’s law covers.)

Meanwhile, right-to-repair laws passed in Oregon and Colorado earlier this year go into effect in January 2025 and 2026, respectively. Those laws close one big loophole: Both ban part pairing, the practice of serializing parts and using software to sync them with specific devices during repairs. While some companies, like Apple, argue that the practice is necessary to ensure safety and optimal performance after a device is repaired, critics say part pairing allows manufacturers to unfairly limit which replacement parts can be used to complete a repair. For example, in order for a replacement iPhone screen to work properly, the screen must be purchased from Apple and paired using the company’s proprietary software tools.

Apple lobbied against parts pairing bans in Oregon and Colorado. After losing the battle, the company is now taking steps to open up its parts pairing system, including allowing customers to pair used Apple parts with some iPhone models. An Apple representative declined to say which iPhone models would be affected by the change or whether the company plans to extend this less restrictive pairing process to other devices, such as MacBook laptops.

In addition to banning pairing parts, the Oregon law will apply retroactively to most electronic devices dating back to 2015, the longest period of protection yet.

Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of The Repair Association, a trade association representing repair companies, said it’s too early to tell which devices or companies might not comply with the new rules. To answer that question, The Repair Association is in the process of collecting data from its members about the many products they’re trying to repair and the challenges they’re facing. “We expect there will be a lot of holes, we just don’t have any information yet about where the holes are,” she said.

As these holes become visible, advocates, repair workers, and the public can start pointing them out to state attorneys general, who can file lawsuits against companies that don’t comply with the law. No state with an active digital repair law has yet brought a public lawsuit against a company, but the attorneys general’s offices in California and Minnesota told Grist they are committed to enforcing the law. (The New York attorney general’s office declined to comment for the record.)

If the state finds a business is violating the right to repair law, that business could be subject to fines ranging from $500 for a violation in New York to $20,000 for a violation in Minnesota.

Whether those fines are high enough to convince trillion-dollar tech companies to change course on repairs remains to be seen. But both Gordon-Byrne and iFixit’s Wiens see an even stronger incentive for companies to comply: the shame of having to pay society for selling things that can’t be repaired.

“I think the risk to public reputation is as serious as the fines,” Wiens said.

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