ORLANDO, Fla. – If you break your phone, most likely you can only take it to one place —the manufacturer, like Apple or Google to repair, which can be pricey to fix.
Now, a bill making its way through the state legislature could make it easier for you to find cheaper ways to repair your mobile devices.
The Portable Wireless Device Repair Act would make it mandatory for manufacturers to share spare parts, repair instructions, and tools with owners of the device and independent repair shops. This means you have more options to choose from to fix and maintain your products.
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CEO Devyn Clark with Quality Computers and Repairs says dozens of his customers come to him because his prices for repairs are $100 or more cheaper than the manufacturer. He says those manufacturers have made it harder and harder to get the parts and instructions to fix devices. He believes the legislation would help even the playing field.
“It’s proprietary,” Clark said. “They want everyone to come to them. Just the way they took out the cube for the charging blocks and the cables for the phones, they want you to come in and purchase everything separately. So they can continue to capitalize on the market. I think it would make it much easier for us to repair phones to Apple’s quality or Samsung’s quality.”
There are four “Right to Repair” bills making their way through the session right now. The Portable Wireless Device Repair Act is one of them and will be heard in committee on Monday.