Right to Repair Laws Are Changing How You Fix Your Phone

If your phone screen cracked five years ago, your options were limited: pay the manufacturer's authorized repair shop, take a chance on an unauthorized one and risk voiding your warranty, or just live with the crack. That's changed. A wave of state right-to-repair laws has forced manufacturers to open up parts, tools, and repair manuals directly to consumers.

This guide covers what right-to-repair laws actually require, which states have them, and what it practically means the next time your phone, laptop, or tablet needs a fix. It's written for anyone who has ever been quoted a repair price that made buying a new device look cheaper than fixing the one already in their pocket.

At their core, right-to-repair laws require manufacturers to sell the same parts, tools, and documentation to consumers and independent shops that they already provide to their own authorized repair network. New York's Digital Fair Repair Act, one of the first to take effect, set the template most other states have followed since.

We've reviewed several of these laws at The Spectrum Post, and the pattern holds: manufacturers can still charge for parts and tools, and they can still require identity verification for certain security-sensitive components, but they can no longer simply refuse to sell.

New York, California, Minnesota, Colorado, and Oregon have all passed electronics right-to-repair laws since 2022, and several more states have bills moving through their legislatures. According to tracking by the Federal Trade Commission's own repair restrictions report, the momentum has been building since a 2021 executive order directed the agency to examine anti-repair practices across the electronics industry.

Apple's Self Service Repair program now covers iPhone, MacBook, and several iPad models, letting anyone order genuine parts and rent professional-grade tool kits. Samsung runs a similar program in partnership with iFixit, and Google offers parts for recent Pixel phones through the same retailer.

In our experience testing these programs, the tools and parts are genuinely the same ones authorized shops use, though the process still assumes a fair amount of technical comfort. A cracked screen replacement, for instance, typically takes 30-45 minutes and requires precision tools most households don't already own.

For a straightforward repair like a cracked screen or a swapped battery, doing it yourself with manufacturer parts can cost 30-50% less than an authorized repair shop, since you're only paying for parts and a tool rental rather than labor. The gap narrows for more complex repairs, where the risk of damaging other components rises without professional experience.

Independent repair shops have benefited even more directly. Access to genuine parts and manufacturer diagnostics lets them offer warranty-safe repairs at prices well below authorized service centers, since their overhead is typically lower. The Repair Association, an advocacy group that tracks the independent repair industry, has reported steady growth in shops adding manufacturer-authorized repair services since the laws took effect.

The United States is following a path Europe started earlier. The European Union's Right to Repair Directive required manufacturers selling in EU countries to guarantee spare parts availability for up to ten years on many appliances, a stricter standard than any single U.S. state has adopted so far.

We've noticed a ripple effect from this at The Spectrum Post: several manufacturers have extended their EU-mandated parts availability to U.S. customers voluntarily, since running two separate supply chains costs more than just applying the stricter standard everywhere.

Consumer advocacy groups argue current laws don't go far enough. Software locks that pair specific parts to a specific device's serial number, a practice called "parts pairing," can still make a genuine replacement part unusable until a manufacturer authorizes it electronically, even after a law requires the part itself be sold. Oregon's law specifically targets this practice, becoming the first state to ban parts pairing outright starting in 2025.

Coverage gaps remain. Right-to-repair laws generally exclude medical devices, motor vehicles (which have their own separate right-to-repair framework), and, in several states, video game consoles. Some laws also carve out exceptions for parts tied to security or safety functions, like biometric sensors, which manufacturers argue need tighter control.

State-by-state variation also means a consumer's actual rights depend heavily on where they live. A resident of a state without a right-to-repair law is still at the mercy of whatever policy a manufacturer chooses to offer voluntarily, though most large manufacturers have extended their parts programs nationwide regardless of state law, since building state-specific supply chains would be more expensive than just complying everywhere. We've found that checking a manufacturer's own repair-program page is often the fastest way to confirm current availability, since state coverage maps can lag behind actual company policy.

A cracked screen or a battery that no longer holds a charge are the two most repair-friendly issues for a confident DIYer, especially with a genuine parts kit and a video guide from the manufacturer or iFixit's repair guide library. Water damage, motherboard issues, or anything involving the camera module is usually better left to a professional, even an independent one, given how easily a small mistake compounds into a more expensive problem.

Battery replacements deserve special mention. A phone battery that's degraded below 80% of its original capacity, which most manufacturers flag directly in the device's settings menu, is one of the highest-value DIY repairs available: parts typically cost under $30, the process takes less time than a screen replacement, and it can meaningfully extend a device's useful life by another year or two before an upgrade becomes necessary.

The Spectrum Post generally recommends starting with the manufacturer's own repair guide before ordering parts, since it will flag which repairs are genuinely beginner-friendly versus which ones carry real risk of further damage.

Right-to-repair laws have meaningfully changed what's possible when your phone or laptop breaks, opening up genuine parts and tools that used to be locked behind authorized repair networks. Coverage still varies by state and device, and the DIY option isn't right for every repair, but the option itself is now real in a way it wasn't a few years ago. Anyone shopping for a new device might also want to check a manufacturer's repairability track record before buying, since some brands have committed to longer parts-availability windows than others. The Spectrum Post covers the everyday tech questions readers actually run into, from device repair to digital privacy, and will keep tracking how these state laws evolve.