The Case for Repair

For the past week, I had been reading Thinking Design by S Balaram (the former dean at the college where I had learnt Design). The first segment of the book touched upon product semantics - the communicative qualities of products that we use. Objects have an inherent meaning that influences the user's emotions and in return, is influenced in its form and function by its users. One of the greatest symbols of the Independence Movement in India was the Charkha. The Charkha is a spinning wheel that lets one obtain yarn from fibres, in the age of industrialization and dependency on the colonialists for production of cloth. Its true meaning was to instill a sense of self-efficiency and independence that seeps into daily life too.

This device was revered for its simplicity, honesty and transparency that was an ideal metaphor for the values that Gandhiji believed in. He had even rejected a better functioning spinning wheel as it looked too complex and would tarnish the reputation and meaning of this symbol.

With the advent of technology only rising exponentially, the charkha had lost its symbolic reverence long ago. Products now are made with complex assemblies, hard-to-understand functioning and, quite often, encased in opaque shells. The responsibility of communicating semantic aspects of simplicity and ease of access has been taken up by software, or in some cases, is ignored completely. Quite often, users are left clueless and dependent on "service professionals" to deal with any trouble on their devices. I would quite admit that I was one of them too. On the other hand, new functions and features sometimes require incredibly complex engineering that makes it challenging to showcase simplicity in how a product functions.

I had spent four years studying in a design college and learning industrial design. In these four years, I had been introduced to various concepts with regards to product detailing - manufacturing methods, assembly techniques, mechansims and a basic how-it-works in a wide family of products. This knowledge allowed me to look at products like a block of Legos - something that was built brick-by-brick, part-by-part.

A product is like the mind - underneath each unique outer shell, lies an interesting world that is built inside it. One of my learnings from Industrial Design was to embrace the inner world inside each of these products. This gave me the confidence to go to any lenghts and understand how things work. But this knowledge was technically useless in the face of the world, filled with increasingly confusing and complex products. But now, it got me more determined to dig into the complexity and decode the underlying workings of the product.

Armed with this curiousity, I was ready to face the next problem that plagued consumers - repairs. The greed for increased sales numbers and value for shareholders had pushed manufacturers to start making products less durable and increasingly difficult to repair (I'm looking at you, Apple). Companies often restrict repairs of their products by disabling devices with third-party repairs, complex disassembly process and difficult-to-source and replace parts. To compound that problem, we have the majority of the Indian population who tend to handle their products roughly. So instead of making products more durable, manufacturers have resorted to milking consumers using it.

That is a problem that is not in my control nor scope of action. What I can do instead, is put in effort and repair devices myself rather than relying on overpriced repairs from the manufacturer. So I decided to challenge myself into repairing malfunctioning or failing products by myself, at home.

My first repair at home was a mosquito bat that had a retractable plug point. The release button had broken and the plug was stuck inside, with no way to pull it out. Mom insisted on getting a new bat, but I decided to investigate and fix it. Three screws later, the bat opened up and all I had to do was to pull the plug out. I put a few drops of permanent adhesive to secure it and voila, I saved my mom ₹300.

This has now motivated me to try my next repair - my mouse. It has an unfortunate glitch of clicking twice when I press the left button only once. The only solution is to replace an internal component, which can be done by the user also. Before I knew it was possible, I had contacted Logitech (the mouse manufacturer) regarding the issue and they had advised to replace the entire mouse.

My next attempted repair is going to a 13 year old remote of a stereo system. We still have the old stereo system hooked up to the TV and it works like an absolute charm. But years of use have rendered the remote barely functioning. I would need to open it up, clean the inside and put it back together to make all the buttons work again. Although laborious, it'd prevent an almost functioning device from ending up in a landfill.

The second part in the stereo system that needs repair is the volume knob. This would require me to open up the unit and replace the faulty component inside.

Fixing the mosquito bat made me really happy. And not to mention the satisfaction of seeing one's own achievement - of bringing something back to life. Humanity has progressed this far only because of their motivation and reward that they sense when they progress. And to accomplish a feat like a device repair is something one must be proud of. Once the device starts working, you feel it inhabits a part of you and it becomes an extension of you.

I hope to be able to document these repairs when I do them and share it here. It is absolutely vital for everyone to understand that product and device hardware is not an alien subject and requires very basic knowledge, along with relevant safety precautions. This might not be for everyone, but even one more person who possibly switches to repairing their gadgets would result in kilos of waste being reduced in landfills.

In this age of content consumption and a sense of impending doom, one needs solace in their own room, with their tools and subject, and work in peace to their heart's content. I firmly believe in any creation becoming an extension of the person. One needs to spend more time giving their souls to their creations, so they can be filled with the eternal sense of bliss and being.

Skandha