The Internet of Trash: IoT Has a Looming E-Waste Problem (ieee.org) 79
As we add computing and radios to more things, we're also adding to the problem of e-waste. The United Nations found that people generated 44.7 million metric tons of e-waste globally in 2016, and expects that to grow to 52.2 million metric tons by 2021. From a report: There are two issues. We're adding semiconductors to products that previously had none, and we're also shortening the life of devices as we add more computing, turning products that might last 15 years into ones that must be replaced every five years. In fact, many small connected devices such as trackers, jewelry, or wearables are designed to fail once the battery dies. At that point, the consumer tosses it out and buys another.
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With IOT obsolescence is a Feature, not a Bug (Score:3, Insightful)
"turning products that might last 15 years into ones that must be replaced every five years."
That's the idea.
The reason IOT is being applied to otherwise mature technologies (Refrigerators, Ovens, Washing Machines, etc.) is to increase the purchasing cycle and design in 5-year obsolescence.
The whole "battery is not replaceable so I have to throw it away" is a design choice based on cost, not customer demand.
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It doesn't have to be IoT to have a short service live. I got a fridge about 18 months ago and it's already had the condenser fan go which costs $130 just for the part. I possibly could have replaced it with something generic, but trying to figure out which was going to be compatible was probably more trouble than it was worth. It used to be that a fridge would last 15 to 20 years before anything went wrong, but that time period has been going down for quite a while, and every manufacturer uses non-generi
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I'm working on IoT that needs a 20 year battery life, but it's not consumer junk sold to people who need something to tweet about. There's really zero need for 99% of consumer IoT, it only exists so that you can show off to your friends.
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APPLE to thin and to hard to repair $5000 imac pro (Score:3)
APPLE to thin and to hard to repair $5000 imac pro is really bad storage locked to the T2 chip on board as well?
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Digital controls (Score:3)
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An electronic controller that has tendrils throughout the produce is virtually impossible to repair aftermarket.
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Instead, you're left with getting brand new appliance for $1000 or buying a microcontroller for the 5
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On something like a washing machine it's just not an option any more with modern efficiency demands. It has to detect the load, correct for water temperature etc etc. Water and power consumption minimization requires microcontrollers.
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I would actually be interested to know more. I know I can use Google to try and find out more, but you seem like you're in the know. Do you have a link you consider reputable that describes the changes?
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Re:Digital controls (Score:4, Informative)
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Dude awesome. Thanks much.
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Somehow things got so twisted around that the "environmentalists" are demanding things that are horrible for the environment in the name
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The washing machine manufacturers heard the word 'environmental' and ran with it.
Plus, the infection of MBAs in many industries means that whole new disciplines like 'continuatiuon' or 'cost-cutting' engineers were hired on the staff.
The goal of a continuation engineer is to reduce the cost/quality of the material in a mechanism until it is as cheap as possible but will still last the warranty period. Products that last more than several years past the warranty period are viewed as design failures by these
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So Washer A is $499 and lasts 5 years, Washer B is $699 and lasts 20 years while both look the same on the outside. And everyone still buys Washer A. It's a lot sadder than your example.
Washer C is also around at $399, does a crappy job washing and lasts a year. It
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What we need is the open standard equivalent of a smart hub. And sure, that hub could be designed for Google Home or Alexa or Crestron or something custom.
Something that allows appliances to never need security updates and allows them to never need feature updates to remain compatible (or at least handle increasing security capability progressively and in a backward-compatible way). And not dependent on outside servers being maintained. The problem is a secure protocol for information and control
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These *could* still be connected devices. There is no viable reason for them to report back to the mothership, and yet that's how these things are designed.
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"Properly designed" being the key two words in that. The company I work for builds things that require mechanical and digital control systems for various situations(mostly high risk industry or critical infrastructure). The mechanical stuff is designed for basically any situation you can think of, from -70C to 90C temperature swings, with dust, dirt, sand, mud, rain, low humidity, high humidity and everything between because they're critical control devices. The digital stuff is pretty sturdy, but unless
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Ran across a case while out in Alberta, where a large municipal owned community pool had a SCADA system for chlorine control, measurement, temperature control the whole 9 yards. Was sitting open on the internet, someone fucked around with it and hi-shocked the pool. Luckily the old guy who was used to the mechanical system for decades, had the habit of doing checks every morning with a kit "just to make sure." Otherwise there would have been a lot of burned 4-6 year old kids and likely their moms that morning. And that's the shit that rarely makes the news, just think of the ones that don't.
Suffering Chlorine poisoning or getting burns from Chlorination *LITERALLY* requires there to be more chlorine in the pool than water. You can theoretically overchlorinate a pool, but...not really.
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Suffering Chlorine poisoning or getting burns from Chlorination *LITERALLY* requires there to be more chlorine in the pool than water. You can theoretically overchlorinate a pool, but...not really.
It literally doesn't require that. Maybe you should go read up on it a bit, and find out just how low a tolerance people have for pool chlorination. A simply chlorine shock, is enough to cause burns and blisters on people and that's roughly 2-3x the amount you normally use.
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Maybe not everything needs a net connection? (Score:2, Insightful)
Who the fuck asked for a toaster with the ability to send you a text when the toast is done?
My grandparents bought a washing machine, a fridge, a freezer and a toaster when they got married. They used all of them until they moved into the retirement home.
Meanwhile, everything but the fridge my wife owned when I moved in eighteen years ago has been replaced at least once, some of them (washing machine) more than once, and the cycle seems to be speeding up. Things are made cheaper, with features no one is a
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I moved into my apartment almost 9 years ago...
It has the (new on purchase) ...
(1) Fridge, still working and has "digital" controls
(2) Dishwasher, this is the old kind with a rotary dial
(3) Gas stove -- 24" stove, not different from most other stoves, but the ignition electronics still work fine.
My parents' house has a fancy digital stove/oven that's 15 years old and also still works well.
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A theme for appliances is to avoid the luxury models. The volumes are lower, so the the designs are not as well wrung out, repairs are much more expensive, and they are often in designer colors that look out of date sooner.
Get the low end ones with barely any controls in white. They will likely cost half as much, last twice as long, and cost half as much to repair if you need to do so.
WiFi connected anything is a large negative to me these days. It will be unsupported within a year, if not by the day it
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Your grandparents probably also paid 10 times more than you did for their stuff, once adjusted for inflation.
Things are made cheaper because they are sold cheaper. The electronics are put in here because it is cheap, and in general people want cheap. See the theme here... They still make things that are durable for the professional market, but the prices are so high that it doesn't make economic sense for consumers.
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Frakkin' Cylons!
Doesn't IoT mean trash is more valuable? (Score:3)
If you add IoT to a product, that means there's gold, copper, rare earths, etc. that should make recycling them a lot more attractive.
Maybe the separation processes and resulting waste aren't all that great for the environment but I would think there might be a silver lining here.
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Capital required on capital gained makes it just not worth it.
Maybe if at some point electrical power is defacto free and we have self-repairing robots with human like AI they can sift through our trash heaps and recycle everything. I'm afraid they won't have much use for us though.
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Not so much any more. The electronics industry has gotten very good at minimising the need for those expensive minerals. Copper, certainly. But gold? Not really. The only gold you'll find in your Internet of tat is the microscopically thin wire connecting a chip die to the package. You don't get gold circuit boards any more, and you rarely even get gold-plated contacts. The minerals aren't worth the costs of separating them out.
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+1. Most semiconductor chips (especially cheap stuff for IOT) use aluminum metallization, while higher end stuff like your CPU likely has at least partial copper metallization if high current/power density is needed. Bond wires are often gold, but aluminum and copper ones are not uncommon either. The total amount of gold in a bunch of bondwires is really really tiny too (15-20 um diameters are the norm, with usually 1mm length, about 6 ng of gold per wire, or $0.0002 of gold per wire).
Most gold plated bo
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"You don't get gold circuit boards any more, and you rarely even get gold-plated contacts."
My monster cables are 24 carat pure gold, the vendor said.
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"Maybe the separation processes and resulting waste aren't all that great for the environment but I would think there might be a silver lining here."
You obviously meant a gold, copper and rare earth lining.
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Recycling is one step above throwing shit in a landfill.
Subscription hardware. (Score:2)
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You will. I'll be the crazy guy buying used stuff off of Craigslist or picking working used hardware off the curbside....
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Recycling centers that offer a monetary reward (Score:2)
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Your going to have to separate the metals. Not worth the effort. Just put the junk on the curb and let the tweakers fight over it.
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Those are places run by scrappers (tweakers), they take the metal to the actual recycling places.
After burning off the non-metal parts, then separating the metals. Dirty as fuck, but 'poors' so they get away with it.
Nobody really cares if they poison their kids and neighbors, the neighbors should.
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Wireless handphones anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's an environmental nightmare, but will they go out and repeat the same mistake for another $300-500 or realize a wire isn't all that bad a lot of the time?
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eh, these are the people buying $500+ cell phones with same issue, they don't care
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Even bluetooth noise cancelling headphones just don't change that much in 3 years to justify spending another $500 to replace, and Bose at least says a dead battery requires a flat rate "out of warranty repair" that is more expensive than the actual street price of the headphones. At least Apple will replac
Who are these "we"? (Score:1)
"As we add computing and radios to more things"
*I* sure as fucking hell don't do any such thing. Stop saying "we".
Warranty period too short (Score:5, Insightful)
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Such as the EU. Brexit will leave the UK outside of this, and pressure for trade deals will sacrifice those kinds of protections that a large market can demand. The UK will diminish, and have to accept lower consumer protection, affecting consumer rights and leading to environmental impacts. What a ridiculous sacrifice on an altar of platitudinous "taking back control".
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Most 'IoT' devices are garbage to start with (Score:2)
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Looking at the wrong pile of shit. (Score:2)
Tax The Internet of Toys (Score:2)
Also, I'm still waiting to hear about a very useful IoT device that didn't exist 5 years ago. Whenever I hear someone rave about some new purchase, I poke a hole in it within a minute when we