Over the past 12 months the Nottingham Fixing the Future team have been engaging with local repair cafes to unpack the challenges of repairing IoT products within this context. We have worked with 5 different repair cafes and have spent time talking to repairers and item bringers to gain a better understanding of their repair experiences.
Through this process we have been able to engage with the repair community communicating our research and gaining insights from volunteers who dedicate their time to helping others within their community to repair broken items. The wonderful work performed at these cafes is humbling, such hard work and dedication from these volunteers makes a real difference to some people’s lives, both saving them money and assisting them with care and maintenance of their technology when it is outside of their own comfort zones.
Of course, it is not always possible to fix the items that citizens bring in to these events. The events themselves are time limited and as a result a fail-fast approach is often applied to ensure the maximum number of items are fixed within the limited time window available (usually 3 hours). Practically this means that any items deemed to be complex or time consuming to repair may be turned away. This can happen at any point in the engagement process but is very common at point of check in or diagnosis. This poses challenges for bringers, repair cafe volunteers and product designers aiming for repairability. Successfully navigating this triage process is particularly difficult for IoT products due to their multifaceted complexities.
Further challenges exist in relation to the hardware elements of IoT devices being so small. Micro-electronics are almost impossible to work with in these settings due to the tooling and skills required to work with them. In addition modularised devices raise questions for repairers around how to identify which module is at fault and if that is possible, where to cost effectively obtain the correct spare part. Replication of faults and testing of repairs can also be a challenge for connected products as different devices and systems may be required to successfully achieve this.
Another key challenge is that software diagnosis and repair times are unpredictable and are often lengthy processes. Repairers are cautious of this type of repair and may turn it down. The events are usually held in hired venues such as church halls so there is little to no flexibility for repairs of this nature to run over time.
Due to the challenges that connected products present in these settings, older more classic technology from the 80’s and 90’s is often favoured by repairers.
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