Google says it can’t fix Pixel Watches, please just buy a new one | With no official repair program and no parts, broken Pixel Watches are just e-waste.

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 1056 points –
Google says it can’t fix Pixel Watches, please just buy a new one
arstechnica.com

Google says it can’t fix Pixel Watches, please just buy a new one | With no official repair program and no parts, broken Pixel Watches are just e-waste.::With no official repair program and no parts, broken Pixel Watches are just e-waste.

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Same with the Google Nest Hub.

It cost me around $600 and has a known splash-screen issue which I just woke up to one morning.

No fix available when it happens. Nothing I did caused it. I just had to bin it.

It’s either planned obsolescence or just shitty design.

Probably both tbh

Let’s mint a new razor: assume both malice and incompetence

Greed and incompetence is more accurate

Companies should have fines for at least as much as the revenue they generated with those devices. Designed obsolescence is something that needs to be *abandoned, even if it hurts really bad financially.

Even simpler: If you sell it, and it breaks or becomes useless, you're expected to take it back and dispose of it responsibly. Electronics retailers can charge a deposit, just like the supermarket does for beer and Coke.

Just imagine if things worked that way —

Find the broken husk of an iPod Shuffle on the beach? Take it to an Apple Store; they give you five bucks.

Find a roadkill Dell laptop on the side of the road? (I did earlier this summer.) Take it to any big-box store that sells Dell laptops; they give you five bucks.

Pixel Watch turned into e-waste? Mail it to Google; they give you five bucks. (Probably on your Google Pay account, yeah, but that's better than nothing.)

But before that make it like a tire. Bought a pixel watch and it died in a year an a half? If the device should have lasted 3-5 years, you should be able to send it back to the manufacturer for a percentage of the cost back. Sure, google can say it's watches only last 12 months, but as a consumer would you buy such a disposable item?

Nest Hub for $600? Which one is that expensive?