Smart phone, dumb contracts

The consumer electronics industry talks the talk of green but when it comes to planned obsolescence it doesn't walk the walk. It's a good thing when manufacturers commit to energy efficiency and green packaging. It's hypocrisy when marketing practices relegate tons of perfectly usable equipment to the recycle bin.

If you want to get an idea of how much waste is involved try saving your old equipment. I've kept my cast-offs for a few years and I've got piles of obsolete, but still perfectly functioning stuff on the floor, in a drawer in my office and in bins in my garage. It's embarrassing to see how fast it all accumulates.

Planning for obsolescence

The worst example of waste, of course, are smart phones. Consumers have been conditioned to throw them away after just 24 months, lest they squander the opportunity to get a "free" phone on their plan. And that wasteful business model also factors into how manufacturers build phones.

Last week I spoke with a manufacturer of organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays, which are increasingly popular in smart phones. While adoption of the technology in larger devices has been hampered by the fact that OLEDs until recently have had a much shorter lifespan than LCDs, manufacturers of smart phones weren't the least bit worried about that. Why? Because by the time the blue OLEDs wear out in your phone (yes, the blur color wears out first) you will have traded up and tossed the old one into a drawer. Or into a landfill. Or maybe, if it's not too much of a hassle, into the recycling bin at your local Best Buy.

The latest generation of OLEDs can endure much longer - more than 100,000 hours. That makes the technology attractive for use in devices people keep around for several years, such as tablets and laptops. But the smart phones that ship with the latest and greatest OLED technology today will be discarded well before they've worn out. Tossing a 100,000 hour display after less than 20,000 hours of use is like putting 50,000 mile radials on your car and replacing them every 10,000 miles.

When it comes to planned obsolescence, the electronics industry makes the automotive industry look like a bunch of amateurs. At least most car leases go for three years - and someone else is perfectly willing to take your hand-me-down when you're through with it.

Contract with the devil

I know, I know. Consumer electronics is different. The technology is moving soooo fast that we really to need to replace our smart phones every two years - or maybe sooner. For some it was so important to be on the newest generation iPhone that they couldn't even wait for the balance of that 24-month contract to expire when the 4th generation iPhone launched. AT&T encouraged the behavior, easing the expense of breaking the contract and trading up early so that all of its customers could be on the latest and greatest technology. How many iPhone users still have a perfectly usable first, second or third generation model - or maybe all three - in a drawer somewhere?

What happened to reduce, reuse and recycle? Reducing consumption of smart phones only means waiting until the current contract has expired. Reuse is OK if someone else wants your cast-offs, but not if it means keeping that phone for an extra year. Recycling is how consumers assuage their conscience when they toss perfectly workable electronics.

That doesn't make it right.

A challenge

If the the industry truly wants to make a difference in its carbon footprint, mobile carriers should change the standard service contract to three years instead of two. If everyone kept their phone 50% longer the reduction in the waste stream - and in overall carbon emissions - would dwarf everything else the industry has done to make itself look green.

But that would mean that smart phone manufacturers would sell fewer phones. Product life cycles would extend and the rate of innovation, which drives the rest of the industry, would slow. But most important of all, the opportunity for carriers to raise rates would come every three years instead of every two.

But it's too late for such changes. Even if carriers were so inclined, consumers are so conditioned to throwing electronics away every 24 months that they would probably rebel. The problem, in the US at least, seems intractable.

In the grand scheme of things cell phones are just one rather obnoxious part of the problem. But at least the old phones fit into a drawer, unlike the two functionally obsolete printers now cluttering my floor. Why are they there? In a word: Windows 7. More on that tomorrow.

Postscript Nov 19: Good news! Now you'll be able to throw away that iPhone every year. Next up: Six month refreshes?

Note: I enjoy engaging in conversations with blog readers but it's difficult to keep track of ongoing threads from regular readers if everyone post as "anonymous."  To keep the dialog going please consider taking a moment to enter a regular identity "handle" with your posts.  Keep the comments coming! --RLM