I absolutely love this. It would be easy enough for Valve to say "do not open the Steam Deck" and leave it at that. Instead they present clear, sensible reasons for recommending against opening the device while acknowledging that this advice won't stop anyone who really wants to open one up.
In the US, the FCC has made it clear in recent years that “warranty void if removed” stickers are illegal. Manufacturers can only void the warranty if they can show that any defects are caused by your tinkering.
Well somehow I missed that (and also I am from Poland which means the sticker is still enforceable here).
But being amateur electronics engineer myself I actually agree with the "warranty void if opened". Handling electronics safely is not trivial and if you touch electronics with your bare hand you can easily damage it due to static discharge. And there is going to be no way of telling who is exactly responsible for the damage.
I have myself destroyed a bunch of things before I have learned the lesson.
I have also seen a lot of electronics that have been "handled" by repair shops. I repair things for fun, but I know people who do it as their day job and frequently they have special rate for repairs when somebody has already tinkered with it. Mainly because of shit people do to electronics.
I just don't like when manufacturers go out of their way to make it hard for me to understand and repair something when I supposedly own the device and bear full responsibility for my mistakes.
I think you and the parent comment agree. Just opening an electronic device is not necessarily damaging to it. The damage is done by improper handling.
The FCCs argument is based on the notion that as long as you handle the device correctly, the manufacturer shouldn't be able to deny warranty _just_ because you opened it. You need to actually damage the device to lose out on warranty service.
What I mean is that it is almost never possible to prove who caused ESD damage. It just fries some unfortunate internal part of some integrated circuit.
And I can understand companies not wanting to deal with this.
When I design electronics I often think of how to make it resistant from people touching it on the outside (ports, enclosure, etc.) but there is about nothing I can do to prevent it getting killed due to direct touching the PCB.
And newer designs are only getting more and more fragile. This mainly due to more and more of the circuit being integrated in chips (so when you touch it it is more likely to hit directly a chip), faster communication paths (so they have less capacitance which could be helpful in filtering the shock) and finer manufacturing process (the chips themselves are less and less resistant to ESD).
Sooo.... what exactly is your professional experience in the area?
I own an electronics lab, design and produce my own circuit boards, I have worked for many years in embedded space including for Samsung. I am not professional electronics engineer by any means, I just know enough to handle electronics safely on daily basis.
Please, do not give people misleading, dangerous advice especially if you have absolutely no experience in electronics.
Whenever you are handling electronics you are supposed to follow certain procedure to ensure there is no electrostatic charge accumulated on you or objects you are handling and to dissipate any potential between you and the objects. And yes, that also means doing any repair on any electronics.
There is reason why RAM and other components are sold in ESD shielding bags. These are not cheap. Do you think they are doing this for fun? Or maybe there is a reason that makes it worth it to invest in an expensive bag? Do you think they would be doing this if the electronic boards placed in them were resistant to ESD?
Electrostatic discharge event may not necessarily mean immediate death to your device. It may manifest itself with instability, degraded performance, reduced life of components, strange behavior or other delayed effects.
It may be repair shop giving back the device that turns on but you discovering that it hangs from time to time.
And yes, that also includes PC components like memory chips.
Producers of PC components are fully aware that they are being handled by clueless people like most of us and so they put some protections in the components that are most likely to be handled manually.
These protection may be able to save the device up to certain voltage of the discharge and up to certain number of discharges. But it is really hard to tell because, as I mentioned, most effects of ESD are not necessarily easily detected or connected with the event.
You need to understand that you need many thousands of volts to get a spark, but most new chips can be fried by discharge as small as tens or hundreds of volts -- well below any capability of a human to detect.
As far as I understand, no warranty does, it’s just that car companies (where warranty work is usually talked about) err on the side of happy customers, even when it’s those customers’ faults (like burning a clutch too much because someone doesn’t know how to drive a manual. E.g. maaaaaaybe it might have been a bad clutch that caused it to die after 20k miles)
> The company cautions that they are completely custom, but says that it will offer a source for “replacement parts, thumbsticks, SSDs, and possibly more” in the coming months.
There you go. that's how you do right to repair.
Of course in an ideal world they'd also design the device to be easy to repair, but this is a massive leap in the right direction IMO.
Exactly that. I get the impression that some commenters here didn't even bother to watch the video or read the description / article. Valve will provide spare parts, and from what I saw so far, it seems repairable. If they don't "dongle" things (looking at you, Apple!), it will still be servable.
People are curious what it looks inside and you don’t want them to open it? Just show them what’s inside and take their reason to open it.
It’s similar to warnings. “Don’t do x” is easy to not take seriously since people can say it for all kinds of reasons, “... because it would kill you” is pretty convincing.
Remember. Right to repair isn't necessarily about having repairs or upgrades be super easy and anyone can do it. But to make the parts, schematics and information accessible by those that are trained to repair and upgrade them.
You can repair a car. Doesn't mean you should repair your own car. Making a mistake can be dangerous. But professionals who know what they are doing have easy access to components and information about the layout of your cars internals if they need them.
I think this is a fair enough position. I don't expect every device to be easily repairable, especially a gen 1 device. They already have enough trouble getting it to fit into a size that is usable. They give clear reasons for you not to do repairs yourself, but they don't impose any arbitrary restrictions. If you want to void your warranty, they give you the full freedom and knowledge to do so.
I'm not necessarily a fan of the complicated design but I accept that it might've been necessary for miniaturisation.
Other than that, to me the message of this video is that if anything goes people will have replacement parts available and a repair shop can take care of it. Assuming that's the intention it's still pretty good.
In general, Valve is really consumer-friendly when it comes to hardware.
I recently destroyed my Index's tether cable, mostly my fault, and their tech support sent me a new one for free with very little hassle, and with instructions on how to replace it.
How is this even remotely true? The only similarity is that they are both portable, or what am I missing in your argument here?
> What happened to everyone talking up the “customization” aspects?
This video proves that it'll be dirty easy to customize the components that are being removed. Want your own thumbsticks? Go ahead, here is a instruction video for how to change them. Not sure what's missing for you here?
Honestly this could replace your gaming desktop if you wanted it too. Granted it would most likely be a downgrade.
But i'm sure when it actually releases they will have an entire driver suite for windows. You could gut the linux install, load up windows with the drivers. Get two docks, one for the desktop and the other for your tv. Dock it on the desk for a normal desktop experience, You have SD Card and Network Shares for expanded storage. If you want to game on the TV just connect a Xbox controller to it, otherwise just time before we get another steam controller.
For me this is temping largely for the fact that windows can be installed and I'd be able to boot up games off my Gamepass.
You can’t have tiny surface mount components packed onto the PCBs in phones without trade offs in repaiability. No one[a] is going to buy a game console made of discrete logic and through hole passives when the PS5, X Box, and Switch do a much better job at giving consumers what they want with 0402 (or smaller) passives.
I applaud Valve for doing this video. They’re admitting that the device is too complex for the average user and that they shouldn’t mess with it, but they also are going to provide replacement parts and a teardown guide should you know what you’re doing. That’s a step in the right direction.
[a]: yes, I’m sure some would want this (especially if you asked on here), but I’d bet that the majority of non-tech people don’t care
You’re strawmanning my argument by picking components least likely to be repaired or replaced by the average user, completely dodging the usual suspects.
Non-removable batteries are almost always the first parts that go bad in handheld devices, and there are absolutely no excuses for using them other than greed and incompetence.
What do you mean by non-removable battery? The video shows how to unplug it. I'm sure it can be replaced by any normal repairman or hobbyist. Aftermarket batteries will also surely be available like they are for other popular devices.
Considering how important it is to keep Lithium Ion batteries within a safe temp range for longevity and the risk of thermal runaway I'm not so sure we will ever see easily replaceable batteries again without a new chemistry.
Everyone seems to have fond memories of their AA's and NiCad's but ignores that replaceable Lithium tend to suck... all my old phones that had replaceable batteries like the Google Nexus had batteries that got way too hot and subsequently lost their ability to hold a full charge
Well, the video does mention that you should "stay tuned" for official vendors for replacement parts for the SSD and thumbsticks.
I think I disagree that this is gaslighting. It's kind of cheeky, in a way, but maybe I'm missing something. There's an inherent tension between "design something that is easy to repair" and "give me a form factor that I actually like for hours of hand held gaming".
Not here. "Difficult to take apart" are the finicky plastic latches all around the seam between the 2 halves of the case. The ones that you can sort of open by sliding the credit card around the seam for half an hour. Or give up, pry them with a screwdriver, and scratch the whole thing in numerous places. I would give Valve credit here for the sole act of not putting them.
That said, I would call BS on SSD vs Wi-Fi interference and semi-BS on the ESD gloves and anchoring. Unless you are handling 100 devices per day while wearing your comfy sweater and sitting on a carpet, just make sure you touch any grounded object beforehand, and you will be fine in most of the cases.
RE: BS
You said it yourself: "... most of the cases ...". For example, my apartment does not have a carpet and I wear cotton clothing most of the time. So my enviroment is less likely to produce static electricity. But what about others?
Its all in the numbers: 1.000.000 units sold (just for stats sake) - 10.000 open it up, 100 have static issues due floor, clothing, etc - some units will fry and die. Totally avoidable, hence the remark in the video.
How is this anything but good for right to repair? The average user is unequipped to repair modern electronics. I wouldn't advise the average consumer to try and repair even the framework laptop. But that's not the point of right to repair. The point of right to repair is that manufacturers are required to release parts and schematics/instructions on how to repair their product. Advanced users or independent repair shops can then fix it.
I dont think there was a way to make a device this small and powerful without making it this tight and difficult to open. Your point is valid for laptops who try this or promote thin and light to have an excuse to do this.
Then get a pi-top instead of this. That takes a normal rasbperry pi 4 and puts it into a huge case and takes away part of the use case for the pi being so small
