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Good luck to hardware startups in Europe! For every developer now a company needs one technical writer or compliance specialist. That basically means that all s

by lnsru 24d ago

Good luck to hardware startups in Europe! For every developer now a company needs one technical writer or compliance specialist. That basically means that all small everyday electronics products will come from overseas. Either because it’s cheaper or it’s cheaper and nobody cares about certification.

birdsongs 24d ago
This is so disingenuous. I've been part of two Norwegian hard tech startups in the past few years (one as a founder, one currently as an embedded lead) and all it took was our mech engineer (which you will always need) making an accessible case design and publishing a short two page PDF on disassembly. Down the road, if we make it, we will have access to funds for a few roles that maintain spare parts and a repair (more likely replace/refurb) department, that will coordinate with our manufacturing houses. None of this blocks innovation or velocity for early stage startups. Unless you have more concrete examples I'm somehow missing?
- lnsru 24d ago
  How good is your employer prepared for Cyber Resilience Act?
  - birdsongs 23d ago
    Fine. We're already meeting the goals for free by virtue of building a secure product and infrastructure from the start. (Read: a good product.) When risk assessments and certs are required and roll out (1.5 years from now), we'll just get a contractor or two on board for a few months to do it, and to set up the processes to keep it rolling. It's in the budget. People act like these are industry shattering requirements, but hard tech is already subject to a plethora of requirements we have to handle every day. We will always have some kind of process for CE certification, battery safety requirements, GDPR, or open source licensing and toolchain access, etc, etc. This is just another (honestly, minor) process to roll in with the rest of them.
mk89 24d ago
The rule applies to imported goods too. So not sure why would overseas electronics get a free pass.
thrance 23d ago
Always the same weak anti-regulation argument: "if companies can't screw over their consumers, how can they ever turn a profit??". And guess what, this law also applies to foreign companies selling in the EU.
another-dave 23d ago
"The 'right to repair' regulations introduce new rights and supports aimed at encouraging repair over disposal, including a repair obligation for manufacturers of certain products and the establishment of a national repair platform to help consumers locate repair services." If your hardware start-up was going to tell me to buy a new product if it broke after a year, then I've no problem if it doesn't get going in the EU. We don't need more cheap tat, we need things that can have a reasonable shelf life. We used to expect that from products as standard. Then when more things became electronic, it started to drift into obsolence after X years. But there's so many products that don't need to be replaced. I don't need a state-of-the-art pedometer or weighing scales, I just need one that does the job it did when I bought it.
mrweasel 23d ago
Actually they've just handed the entire market to the few companies that will put in the effort. If Apple, Samsung and the Chinese manufacturer isn't compliant, then Fairphone just got handed a market of 500 million people with no real competition. Some US electronics manufacturer who doesn't want to deal with EU regulation, is handing over the entire market to someone who will, and that company can still sell everywhere else.

by lnsru 24d ago

birdsongs 24d ago

This is so disingenuous. I've been part of two Norwegian hard tech startups in the past few years (one as a founder, one currently as an embedded lead) and all it took was our mech engineer (which you will always need) making an accessible case design and publishing a short two page PDF on disassembly. Down the road, if we make it, we will have access to funds for a few roles that maintain spare parts and a repair (more likely replace/refurb) department, that will coordinate with our manufacturing houses. None of this blocks innovation or velocity for early stage startups. Unless you have more concrete examples I'm somehow missing?

lnsru 24d ago
How good is your employer prepared for Cyber Resilience Act?
- birdsongs 23d ago
  Fine. We're already meeting the goals for free by virtue of building a secure product and infrastructure from the start. (Read: a good product.) When risk assessments and certs are required and roll out (1.5 years from now), we'll just get a contractor or two on board for a few months to do it, and to set up the processes to keep it rolling. It's in the budget. People act like these are industry shattering requirements, but hard tech is already subject to a plethora of requirements we have to handle every day. We will always have some kind of process for CE certification, battery safety requirements, GDPR, or open source licensing and toolchain access, etc, etc. This is just another (honestly, minor) process to roll in with the rest of them.

mk89 24d ago

The rule applies to imported goods too. So not sure why would overseas electronics get a free pass.

thrance 23d ago

Always the same weak anti-regulation argument: "if companies can't screw over their consumers, how can they ever turn a profit??". And guess what, this law also applies to foreign companies selling in the EU.

another-dave 23d ago

"The 'right to repair' regulations introduce new rights and supports aimed at encouraging repair over disposal, including a repair obligation for manufacturers of certain products and the establishment of a national repair platform to help consumers locate repair services." If your hardware start-up was going to tell me to buy a new product if it broke after a year, then I've no problem if it doesn't get going in the EU. We don't need more cheap tat, we need things that can have a reasonable shelf life. We used to expect that from products as standard. Then when more things became electronic, it started to drift into obsolence after X years. But there's so many products that don't need to be replaced. I don't need a state-of-the-art pedometer or weighing scales, I just need one that does the job it did when I bought it.

mrweasel 23d ago

Actually they've just handed the entire market to the few companies that will put in the effort. If Apple, Samsung and the Chinese manufacturer isn't compliant, then Fairphone just got handed a market of 500 million people with no real competition. Some US electronics manufacturer who doesn't want to deal with EU regulation, is handing over the entire market to someone who will, and that company can still sell everywhere else.