California Just Became the Third State to Pass Electronics Right to Repair::Right to Repair just won in Big Tech’s backyard: California’s Right to Repair Act, Senate Bill 244, has passed the state legislature on a 50–0 vote.
For those wondering, the other two are Minnesota & New York.
And NY passed it in name only. The government only passed it after letting the industry rewrite it to be mostly useless.
Thank you
Headline is a bit misleading. It’s not part of California state law yet. The bill needs to go back to the senate for a procedural vote, then needs to be signed into law by the Governor. It’s probably a foregone conclusion that both those things will happen given the unanimous support for the bill, but I just wanted to point out that it’s technically not a done-deal yet.
iFixit obviously has some vested interest in seeing this pass, but at the end of the day they’ve accomplished something great for the country. I can’t wait to see how this actually impacts consumer products going forward.
Doesn’t this mean the whole country will basically have right to repair since New York and California are such large markets and you’ll be able to order parts from there?
It is effectively the case. Given the influence that California and New York hold, and the size of their markets, they can effectively create state policy that makes national compliance a foregone conclusion. If you look at the example of “known to the state of California to cause cancer“ Labels, you can see how this works in action. 
They’ll likely try to geo-lock stuff, but it opens up the floodgates for real possibilities
Sad thing is that wouldn’t even be surprising. Could totally imagine an error message like: “This device is using unauthorized components not licensed for your region. Please call AppleCare for service options.”
I thought the new york one only passed with some loopholes because of the governor.
I haven’t followed this as closely as I should have, but I remember seeing a Louis
GrossmanRossmann* vid (huge right to repair advocate) essentially throwing his hands up at the New York version of this, as it basically took all teeth out of the bill by providing loopholes for companies to bypass the requirements for “safety concerns.” Is it the same situation in the other states?*I have no excuse I’m just an idiot
From what I’ve heard, and what iFixIt mentions, the only real downsides to Cali’s bill is that it doesn’t outlaw Part Pairing DRM(so Apple devices can still complain about your unofficial screen), or parts only being available as part of an assembly. And it only covers consumer electronics and appliances(so farming and medical equipment are still out).
But it’s still way better than the neutered bill in New York.
Thank you ‐ I promise I’ll follow up myself like I should lol. Really hoping more impactful legislstion like this becomes a trend.
Now make bandwidth caps illegal
