Many often expensive devices tend to have a rather short lifespan.
Apart from the normal wear and tear of components and technical concerns, some brands are indeed suspected of voluntarily reducing the operating period of their products in order to encourage consumers to buy new ones as quickly as possible.
This is planned obsolescence, an illegal practice in France under the law of August 17, 2015 on energy transition for green growth.
As it is very difficult to prove the deliberate will to deceive and therefore to sanction these facts, the legislator relies more on prevention to reverse the trend.
This is the subject of the recent repairability index, implemented since January 1, 2021. Except that this label aimed at informing consumers of the more or less repairable nature of the device is currently only displayed on five types of new equipment: washing machines, televisions, smartphones, laptops and lawn mowers.
Associations at the front
Printers are not affected, although they come at the top of the least reliable machines, according to the observatory launched by UFC-Que Choisir in 2019. Not to mention the association Stop programmed obsolescence (HOP ) filed a lawsuit against Epson in 2017, accusing the brand of stating that the cartridges are empty when they could still contain 20 to 40 percent ink. To date, the procedure has not advanced much ...
Printer manufacturers are also questioned at European level by the Right to Repair coalition, bringing together associations advocating the right to repair.
In spring 2021, she called on the European Commission to act by imposing durability and repairability rules for printers and ink cartridges.
In the meantime, remember that you have to spend between 80 and 200 euros to equip yourself properly, while the cartridges cost between 9 and 20 euros per unit for an inkjet printer.
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