Looking across all product categories, right-to-repair legislation has been introduced in 49 out of 50 states in the past few years. | maxfrost/Shutterstock
The momentum behind consumer electronics right-to-repair bills that has been building since 2021 doesn’t seem to be ebbing, with 10 bills introduced so far this year and supporters anticipating far more to come.
Over the past several years, California, Colorado, Minnesota, New York and Oregon all have enacted consumer electronics right-to-repair laws, which generally require OEMs to make available to independent repair shops and consumers the parts, tools and documentation needed to fix covered devices.
Oregon and Colorado’s laws also ban the use of software to ensure a device will only operate with specific individual parts, called parts pairing.
Liz Chamberlain, director of sustainability and head of the right to repair advocacy team at iFixit, said the right to repair is “continuing to take off,” and not just in consumer electronics – among wheelchairs, farm equipment and digital items, 49 out of 50 states have filed some kind of right-to-repair bill over the past several years. Wisconsin is the only state that hasn’t.
“The train is rolling, the balls are rolling, everything is rolling,” Chamberlain said. “We wondered if, given that we have passed it in five states, we would start to see things kind of ramp down, and instead we’re seeing the opposite.”
Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of The Repair Association, said she’s tracking 25 states introducing bills for a variety of products.
“It’s crazy right now,” she said. “Bills are being filed all over the place.”
And “each state that passes a bill makes it easier for the next state to pass a bill,” she added.
Lawmaking approach varies by state
In terms of legislation, 10 bills touching specifically on the right to repair consumer electronics have been introduced so far this year.
Legislators in Connecticut introduced HB 6053, which at this stage is a single-page bill stating that the “general statutes be amended to provide consumers and independent repair providers with the ability to repair consumer electronics.”
SB 122 in Illinois would cover electronic or appliance products worth at least $50 and less than $100 for three years after the last date a product model or type was manufactured, with the time frame rising to seven years for items worth $100 or more. It doesn’t include a section on parts pairing.
Lawmakers in New Mexico introduced SB 69, which includes a ban on parts pairing for devices sold after Jan. 1, 2026. It doesn’t require OEMs to share ways to override security measures. If passed, it would cover cell phones sold in the state after July 1, 2021, and all other consumer electronic equipment sold in the state after July 1, 2015.
“We wondered if, given that we have passed it in five states, we would start to see things kind of ramp down, and instead we’re seeing the opposite.” –Liz Chamberlain, director of sustainability and head of the right-to-repair advocacy team at iFixit
AB 3058 in New York seeks to “promote consumer choice by requiring manufacturers of digital electronic equipment to provide retail sellers with a one through ten repair score that will be displayed to consumers at point of sale.”
In Oregon, Senate Joint Memorial 8 requests that the Federal Trade Commission and the National Institute of Standards and Technology create a repair score system for electronics that can be shown at the point of sale. The system would be voluntary for OEMs, the text notes, and should consider the availability of technical documents, the ease of disassembly, the availability and price of spare parts, and the length of time software is supported by the OEM.
HB 386 in Pennsylvania would create an index “relating to diagnosis, maintenance and repair of digital electronic equipment,” and manufacturers would be required to display the score on product packaging.
In Rhode Island, SB 60 would cover digital electronic equipment and parts sold in the state starting Jan. 1, 2026.
HB 2483 in Virginia, the Digital Right to Repair Act, would provide consumers access to diagnostics, tools, service documentation and firmware. It would require OEMs to provide tools to disable and reset electronic security locks or other security-related functions and would cover products sold or in use on or after Jan. 1, 2026.
In Washington, HB 1483 would apply to covered products first sold or used in the state on or after July 1, 2021. It would ban parts pairing for devices sold after Jan. 1, 2025.
In addition, HB 582 in Missouri would provide an extremely broad right to repair “consumer products,” excluding motor vehicles, but the law doesn’t specifically mention electronic devices.
Experts weigh in
Walter Alcorn, who served as vice president of environmental affairs and industry sustainability at the Consumer Technology Association until his retirement in January, noted that TechNet and CTA have a joint model bill available and that CTA has been working collaboratively with some states who are interested.
“At this point, we’ve had five states enact laws, so the patchwork is here and it’s expanding,” he said.
Chamberlain said iFixit also has a model bill, and that having Google’s support has been a game-changer: “If a state senator or rep said that they were concerned about business impact, having Google come up and say, ‘Actually, we’re doing just fine,’ is very helpful.”
Beyond that, she added that manufacturers seem ready to join in, and “start to make things available they haven’t ever before.”
For example, iFixit recently announced an Xbox parts partnership – a big shift for game consoles, which are typically exempted from right-to-repair laws.
Chamberlain said iFixit has worked with Microsoft before on other repair projects for different items, and it seems that the stalemate on video game consoles might be shifting as technology advances and removes the concern about disk drive parts pairing.
CTA supports the concept of right to repair, Alcorn said: “Now we’re just into the technical details.” He expects new bills to also touch on parts pairing and possibly the business-to-business sector.
“When I talked to the advocates over a year ago about doing some kind of national (memorandum of agreement), there were really two things they thought they could get from legislation they thought they could not get from us,” Alcorn said. “One was parts pairing, the other was B2B, so I expect we’ll continue to see fights on those issues.”
The model legislation from iFixit is refined in response to feedback from repair shops, Chamberlain said, which is why parts-pairing bans were added into later versions.
“After we passed a bill in New York, for instance, we heard loud and clear from repair shops around the country that, ‘OK, this is OK,'” she said. From their perspective, “this is not terrible, it won’t make things worse, but it won’t actually make it possible to fix things.”
Chamberlain said this round of model legislation has a more specific definition of “schematic,” as some repair shops have reported issues getting the specific documentation they need from manufacturers. Getting parts is still a problem, too, she added, so “we need to keep pushing manufacturers in that direction.”
Gordon-Byrne of The Repair Association is working to make sure California’s definition of an authorized repair provider doesn’t get copied into other bills, as it’s “a little wiggly on what an authorized repair provider is.”
“It’s not necessarily bad,” Gordon-Byrne said, but could be used as a loophole by manufacturers to create a false “authorized repair provider” and then use it as a baseline to limit what they have to make available.
“We’ll see how these laws are implemented. I think it’s still too soon to tell.” –Walter Alcorn, Consumer Technology Association
Another roadblock is that legislators “seem to like to make a differentiation between a consumer product and a business product, even though there’s no technological difference,” Gordon-Byrne said. They also sometimes want repair businesses to be certified in some way, even though the sector does not have a standardized certification available.
Many of the bills passed, except Oregon’s, only cover equipment made since 2021, she added. “And that’s not even close to the tip of the iceberg. It’s almost not applicable yet.”
Oregon requires manufacturers to provide repair information but not necessarily parts, going back to 2015, with an exemption for cell phones. For the rest of the bills, “the dates are kind of a problem,” Gordon-Byrne said.
Right-to-repair legislation is not easy to pass, Alcorn said, especially as the movement enters the stage where different companies back different bill versions. He encouraged anyone interested in digital repair to also keep up on the right to repair in other industries, such as agriculture equipment.
As is the norm with recycling and reuse legislation, Alcorn didn’t see any kind of federal action on the horizon. The international Basel Convention, however, may have an impact on the right to repair and should be watched, he added.
Chamberlain is more hopeful about the possibility of federal action, because the topic is so bipartisan, she said.
“It’s a rare issue where everyone pretty much agrees that we should be able to fix our stuff,” she added.
She’s watching for a fix to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act – the Freedom to Repair Act – that was introduced the year before last and could be reintroduced. In addition, Chamberlain is watching the FTC’s lawsuit against John Deere.
“We’re hopeful that the broad bipartisan interest will mean that the FTC will ultimately be supportive of our efforts,” she said.
Even so, sometimes legislative movements plateau. Deposit return systems and extended producer responsibility for electronics, for example, both saw a spate of state passing laws for six or seven years, then stagnated with no new movement in decades aside from modernizations.
“Some of these outcomes, it’s hard to tell in advance how different players will implement and respond,” Alcorn said, adding that “we’ll see how these laws are implemented. I think it’s still too soon to tell.”
Another question mark is how the laws will be enforced. Gordon-Byrne is encouraging people to complain when they run into non-complaint manufacturers: “People don’t know there is a way to complain, and the more they tell us, the better we can do,” she said.
The Repair Association has a complaint form on its website, she noted, and consumers can also go right to the attorney general in their state to report if a manufacturer is not complying.
OEMs increasingly shift attitudes toward repair
When it comes to both compliance and voluntary actions by manufacturers, Gordon-Byrne said there’s been good progress in cell phones and personal computers, but other devices haven’t seen the same willingness to cooperate. For example, Gordon-Byrne said she’s working with a woman in California who has a sewing machine she can’t get fixed.
“It really extends into whole areas of electronics that the manufacturers don’t even seem to be aware that they’re covered by these laws,” she said. “You call customer service and they say, ‘We don’t do that,’ and the customer says, ‘Yes, you need to.'”
In July 2024, the U.S. PIRG released a report card scoring 21 products on the availability of repair materials, based on New York’s law. Chamberlain said after receiving a low score, Sony released 200 manuals, mostly on digital cameras, that had previously not been available.
Recently, Apple also released a new way to replace glass screens, as it stopped using difficult-to-remove adhesive in some iPhone 16 models. In addition, Gordon-Byrne said, Apple is now offering a “reasonably functional” way to help customers know if non-OEM batteries are working correctly.
“If a state senator or rep said that they were concerned about business impact, having Google come up and say, ‘Actually, we’re doing just fine,’ is very helpful.” –Liz Chamberlain
Apple’s iOS 18 software update included a “repair assistant,” a software tool designed to calibrate replacement parts, such as back glass, batteries, displays and cameras, on iPhone 12 models and later; displays and cameras on iPad Pro models; and displays on iPad Air models.
However, Apple’s iOS 18 also expanded its “activation lock” software to individual parts, not just the phone as a whole, a move that was unpopular with repair and reuse advocates.
Logitech partnered with iFixit to offer OEM replacement parts globally for more than 20 Logitech devices via the Logitech Repair Hub. Initially, it worked with iFixit on U.S. availability.
“Our products are designed for exceptional quality and longevity. Repairability extends their lifespan further – enhancing value and customer satisfaction,” Prakash Arunkundrum, chief operating officer at Logitech, said in a press release.
Alcorn said that he started seeing OEMs provide more repair transparency a decade ago, “when this was first flagged as an issue.”
“It’s been a decade, but I’ve seen really a steady progression of manufacturers doing things voluntarily,” he said. “I’m not sure what all their motivations are, but I think the result has been good.”
Chamberlain said the five right-to-repair consumer electronics laws that have passed so far have had the effect advocates hoped for: Manufacturers have decided to provide parts and repair information to everyone.
“The logistical headache of figuring out how to gate your manuals so only people in California, Colorado, Minnesota, New York and Oregon can see them is a lot,” she said.
That’s unlike what happened with wheelchairs, she noted. Wheelchair manufacturers have in many cases refused to provide repair services to people in states without right-to-repair laws.
Alcorn said today’s consumers have more options for repairing devices now than they did a decade ago: “There’s no doubt about that.”
He’s interested to see how the rise of independent repair might change the secondary market. If independent repair takes over a larger market share, then a device’s repair history might start factoring into resale prices, similar to used cars, he added.
“I don’t know if it will be good or bad, but it has the potential to be very different,” he said.