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Trained repair professionals at hospitals are regularly unable to fix medical devices because of manufacturer lockout codes or the inability to obtain repair parts. During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, broken ventilators sat unrepaired for weeks or months as manufacturers were overwhelmed with repair requests and independent repair professionals were locked out of them. At the time, I reported that independent repair techs had resorted to creating DIY dongles loaded with jailbroken Ukrainian firmware to fix ventilators without manufacturer permission. Medical device manufacturers also threatened iFixit because it posted ventilator repair manuals on its website. I have also written about people with sleep apnea who have hacked their CPAP machines to improve their basic functionality and to repair them.
PS: he got it repaired.
For a $100k device, I would expect better long term support.
You would, but if there’s no reason for them to spend the money on it why?
This is what regulation is for, and it needs to have teeth.
They just want him to get a new one… Why repair a $20 battery on a perfectly functioning device when you can force him to get a new $100,000 exoskeleton?
This is just more capitalist ghouls doing the only thing they know
Remember when people unironically said “you get what you pay for”?