Byte Repair | Macintosh & Electronics Repair in Toronto, Canada

On Sunday, I set up my card table in my living room, set the needle down on Blondie's Parallel Lines, went live on Instagram, and spent the next half hour replacing the aging battery in my 2016 model iPhone SE, using my handy iFixit Pro Repair Kit, and one of their batteries. Not only does Apple not really want their consumers doing this from the comfort of their own homes, they have a sordid history with aging batteries and device performance.

Once I finished the repair and had my trusty phone booting up once again, I started in on a few other outstanding repairs: swapping parts between two iPods in order to get one fully functional with a working screen, new battery, and upgraded storage, from its original 15 GB hard drive to a 64 GB SD card; and a Kingston brand MobileLite Wireless G2 that I've had for years and that's had a persistent rattle inside that I've been wanting to fix. Schematics and teardown photos, found surprisingly easily online, made short work of the job, with the help of an iFixit pry tool.

While fixing one's electronics, or other devices, is perhaps not an activity that most spend their weekend afternoons on, maybe it should be-indeed, it may soon be more commonplace. In the fall, "Massachusetts voters approved a measure requiring car manufacturers to let people access vehicle data for repairs" (from The Verge). The European Union aims to "embed a “right to repair” in the EU consumer and product policies by 2021.". Starting this year, France has required manufacturers of smartphones, electronics, and household appliances to include a "“repairability rating” between one and ten [that] is to be displayed on packaging and advertising ... so consumers can see whether they can expect to mend it when it breaks down.".

All this is to say that both voters and policy makers in many parts of the world have an interest in repairing the products they own on their own, preferably with parts, tools, and documentation readily available from the original manufacturer. With repair cafe in-person meetings on pause, there have never been more resources, like virtual fix-it clinics and chat groups, available to interested home fixers.

Grab a screwdriver and get fixing, or drop me a line if you need help!

❝All this is to say that both voters and policy makers in many parts of the world have an interest in repairing the products they own on their own...❞