Planned obsolescence of electronics has long been criticized, but hard-coded obsolescence dates for hardware are probably never heard of by the vast majority of people. Users of Epson printers have complained on social networks that their printers suddenly stopped working, displaying an error message saying a part had reached the end of its life and the device needed repair. According to the support information available on Epson’s website, the problem is related to ink pads, which are used to collect residual ink on printed pages, so the ink pads can become saturated with ink over time, but this usually does not happen when the printer is replaced for other reasons Before. Instead of measuring the saturation state of the ink pad to tell when it has reached the end of its life, Epson uses a hard-coded counter that disables the device once the threshold is reached . For Windows users, Epson offers a single-use reset tool that will only continue to print for a short period of time. For Mac users or Windows users who have used a reset, Epson recommends service. Epson also points out that for devices like printers, repairs are very uneconomical, so it’s better to just replace the printer. Legal experts believe Epson’s approach is illegal and it requires customers to be notified of a hard-coded end-of-life before they buy.
This article is reprinted from: https://www.solidot.org/story?sid=72385
This site is for inclusion only, and the copyright belongs to the original author.