The future of home tech

/e/OS Foundation & Community Tech News
1

With the shortages of ram and storage, and the ridiculous price inflation, all of which look like being very long term or permanent, it doesn’t seem like there is any recognition of how this is going to affect our lives. I have already been hunting through the loft, pulling out retired laptops and making sure they still work.

How this has just affected me: I have just bought a 12 inch framework laptop and now, I expect it will be the last brand new machine that I buy. I didn’t realise that the SSD format was 2230 and omitted to order one with the laptop. I had several larger form factor SSD’s but, nothing compatible. When I realised my mistake, I quickly placed another order for a 1tb plug in storage module and some other items but, was unable to order a 2230 SSD because Framework are only taking orders for ram and ssd’s when part of an order for a diy laptop. I emailed them and explained my error but, they still won’t allow me to place an order for a 2230 SSD. I am just about to order one from Amazon.

I am starting to conclude that soon our world will soon be very different and access to technology will transcend back into being more of a luxury rather than something that we use all the time and take for granted. Repairability of devices will equate to value, and the old laptops and computers that date back to the days before soldered ram and ssd’s will be in demand again.

I am sure that many of you have been reading the tech news recently - I wondered what you thought the future might hold for ‘home technology’? Should us fairphone owners be buying new parts like spare batteries for our phones, while they are still available? How far is the current scarcity of parts going to spread?

2

I wrote out almost my entire comment before I realized it was you, @linux_fangirl ! Always happy to share a thread with you!

With the shortages of ram and storage, and the ridiculous price inflation, all of which look like being very long term or permanent, it doesn’t seem like there is any recognition of how this is going to affect our lives. I have already been hunting through the loft, pulling out retired laptops and making sure they still work.

Personally…I’m not convinced…primarily, because I remember history.

Back in 2011, there was massive flooding in Thailand. It caused hard disk prices to skyrocket. 3TB drives that cost $129 prior to the flood retailed for $350 the week after. Intel altered their earnings reports. EMC bumped their prices. Dell and HP announced price increases on their computers.

And a year later, a 3TB hard drive was $129 again.

We spent most of 2022 with GPU purchases involving scalpers, waiting lists, purchase limits, and other hurdles that rewarded only the most tenacious buyers. It’s true that GPU prices still reflect the fact that nVidia would much rather sell $25,000 H100 cards to OpenAI than sell an RTX5090 to gamers for the same $699 the 1080Ti sold for back in 2017 (or even an inflation-adjusted $918), but the only barrier for getting one of those cards today today is how much room is on one’s Mastercard.

Now, don’t get me wrong - I fast-tracked a laptop purchase because I was concerned that I might need one later this year and be unable to get one at a sane price, so it made sense to accelerate a purchase I was considering anyway.

That being said, the market is going to shift and adapt. OpenAI can’t buy RAM forever; at some point Microsoft and Google and OpenAI will have spent more on RAM than their quarterly revenue can justify, and the investors simply won’t put out money for new hardware. Lots of forecasts paint a pretty gloomy picture, but I also know that there will be a market correction if retailers end up sitting on too much inventory for too long. Samsung and Dell and HP will also suffer if they can’t move inventory due to manufacturing costs.

Meanwhile, I’ve heard people speculating about whether the RAM shortage will encourage developers to spend a bit of time on a crazy idea called “optimization”, where chat apps stop demanding 2.5GB of RAM to perform a set of tasks that have way too much overlap with dIRC and its 2MB system footprint to justify the thousand-fold increase in RAM usage.

So, I’d agree that 2026 be the year that lots of electronics get longer lives than normal. I think it’s awesome that old electronics can get a longer lease on life out of necessity, so definitely load up your favorite Linux distro on those old laptops if you can!

Do I think 2026 will be a pretty bad year to buy a laptop? Yes. Do I think that RAM is going to be prohibitively expensive three years from now? I bought a 2TB 2.5" hard disk for $79 three weeks ago. 2011 me would have considered that impossible.

1 Like
3

Thanks Voyager529. I enjoy our chats as well.

I am confident that we have enough hardware and spare drives to last us for the foreseeable future. Our fairphones and framework laptops are repairable, and fairly new anyway. I was concerned enough to check all of this.

But, I also know that many rely on one phone, and perhaps one laptop, assuming that they will be able to replace them when they need to. I also know many whose hardware is already quite old, so it’s remaining lifespan is already quite short. And they really don’t appreciate the effect that the failure of this hardware will have on their lives if they suddenly find that replacement may be much more difficult / expensive than they expected.

When I bought my first computer, in the late 1990’s, only 5% of households had a computer and even less had an internet connection. Today, only 5% of the population don’t have internet. And their ability to manage their every day lives, depends on it.

I am not sure that I can really grasp how a gradual ‘dropping offline’ of the population might affect them. Humans are very adaptable but, this sort of change would have a huge impact. People don’t really know how to manage their lives without the internet - they would need to learn and learn quickly.

It just all feels quite dystopian to me. I really hope that you are right and that it doesn’t come to this. And there are many things that would not affect me at all. I don’t use social networking at all but, I know many that do and really rely on it in ways that I don’t really understand.

Thinking about what might happen has left me feeling quite depressed.

1 Like
4

There is definitely going to be a shortage as Crucial will no longer be making RAM modules post 2026 for the consumer market … they are following nvidia trail to A.I. This arrived in my inbox today from a hardware supplier that has been acquired by ‘Frasers’ formerly independent ‘ebuyer’:

WHY IS RAM SO EXPENSIVE RIGHT NOW?
You’ve probably noticed prices starting to shift across laptops, PCs, and components. One of the biggest factors behind this, is a global increase in RAM pricing. We get it. It’s frustrating.

The memes about AI slop causing this, may raise a smile but there’s some truth behind them; rising demand from AI and data centres has put pressure on RAM supply and costs.

Here’s a quick summary to get you up to speed.

WHAT IS DRIVING THE INCREASE?

1.GROWING DEMAND
AI powered software, gaming, cloud computing, and new operating systems need more memory, driving higher demand for high-capacity RAM.

2.Manufacturing constraints
RAM production relies on specialised semiconductor factories that are slow and costly to expand.

3.Manufacturer focus shift
Micron has confirmed it will exit the consumer RAM market under the Crucial brand by 2026*, to focus on AI and enterprise demand, this has tightened consumer supply.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR RETAILERS?
As RAM prices rise, manufacturers face higher build costs. In many cases, this leads to:

• Higher prices for laptops, desktops, and gaming PCs

• Fewer entry level configurations at lower price points

• Slower discount cycles on popular models

Retailers are also navigating tighter stock availability, particularly for high performance products.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU?
The impact may show up as slightly higher prices or fewer budget friendly options but there are still ways to stay ahead.

BUY NOW WHERE POSSIBLE
Prices are about to get tasty. If you’re thinking about upgrading, do it now so you get better value before the next increase.

EXPLORE REFURBISHED PRODUCTS
Refurbished products can offer excellent value compared to buying brand new, especially when memory prices rise.

OUR MISSION.
TO GET THE BEST PRICES.
Our priority is to ensure we get you the highest quality components and offer the best price we can for our gamer community.

Micron Announces Exit from Crucial Consumer Business | Micron Technology*

6

We also need to remember Greenpeace/Friends of the Earth telling us years ago we are consuming 7 times as much what the Earth has in resources. Is it any wonder that future warfare will be fought for rare earth minerals in the China Seas, most recently Ukraine, and now Greenland.

1 Like
7

You may paste your copied content into some simple editor to get plain text and paste that in here and give it some formatting yourself if needed…

2 Likes
8

What might the consumer tech world look like if the current situation of high prices / shortages of key components for consumer tech devices continues?

  1. Possibly, a very short term bounce while people aware of this situation quickly purchase new computers that they may have bought later on instead (from your comments, a few of you have done this already, as I have myself).

  2. Then, people may need to buy refurbished computers instead due to affordability and availability. But, refurbished computers often have old storage and replacing that, whether with new nvme or data ssd’s, is also going to get more difficult. Samsung have already announced that they will no longer be manufacturing sata ssd’s for the retail market. And J Micron / Crucial has already pulled out of the consumer market entirely.

  3. Availability of refurbished hardware will be affected if people are not upgrading to new devices, and releasing their old ones into the refurbished market place. At least, all that non Windows 11 hardware should find a new home rather than being scrapped. But, many who haven’t already upgraded to Windows 11 will simply choose not to, regardless of what Microsoft choose to do about ceasing Windows 10 support this October or delaying it again. But, as it becomes more scarce, over time, no doubt the prices of refurbished computers will also increase.

  4. The numbers of desktop Linux users may well continue to increase due to it’s suitability for installing on older / refurbished hardware.

  5. Smartphones will probably also increase in price and more people will be trying to buy whatever is available at the budget end of the market, until availability will mainly be at the higher end. Many Apple and Android users will probably keep their phones for as long as they still work, whether their OS versions are still supported or not. And the popular app developers may need to rethink their policies of only continuing to support recent OS versions.

  6. I notice that the various tech publications that I read are promoting tablets as cost effective alternative to buying a new laptop or desktop PC. But, I can’t see how tablets would remain unaffected by the current market pressures, in anything but, the short term, until current stocks are depleted.

On the more optimistic side of things, I do think that a market place where buying second hand kit and / or refurbishing the kit that you already have is a good thing. I was never comfortable with the throw away society that we have become, concerning our tech, actively encouraged by the retail sector producing more and more devices that were neither repairable or upgradeable.

And this is why I am not concerned about the effects of these market place pressures in the short term. But, with companies predicting that this current situation is unlikely to change for at least 2 or 3 years, this is a long period of time for the supply of all tech devices to gradually shrink and for everybody’s lives to be affected.

9

Here in the UK there are Dell outlets selling refurbed Notebooks which have 250 GB SSD with Windows 11 for about £390. But I wouldn’t want to buy one.

The problem with GNU/Linux these days is it is trying to keep up with the Jones’s with the kernel being altered to cater for high end processors and Graphics which in turn is helping to make older kit obsolete because newer kernels can have a detrimental effect on the original system installed; whilst dropping to the previous kernel is possible, this raises the issue of security.

Then you have Developers of DE’s creating issues for users. It is interesting to note that members on the Zorin forum have only just discovered Gnome’s intention of dropping mutter and other stuff which Artix Linux picked up back in June last year and no longer support producing .iso’s with Gnome.

In comparison, KDE is another guilty party of making Plasma appear to be upgrading every month. This causes issues for creators of Global Themes, added to the fact that the various websites like freedesktop.org, gnomelook.org, store.KDE.org, are sub’s of Pling dot com which is adding to the problem by halving the fees it distributes to creators income, not to mention the failure of Pling failing to match KDE settings for Global themes with Plasma 5.27. KDE needs to take control and test themes before they are allowed to be uploaded.

My motherboard from about 7 or more years ago does not meet Linux hardware security requirements, and AMD no longer support the Ryzen 7 1700X Processor that I use. Plasma 5.27.xx is the most stable version produced and the Tiled menu written by zren works perfectly as if you were looking at a Windows 10 menu. Then Plasma 6.3.6 comes along and the Tiled Menu reverts to how it worked in pre-5.27 Plasma, instead of just being able to freely move group headings and tiles you now have to use x/y coordinates to place the tiles where you want them to be.

As for tablets, these will, I suspect, use soldered-on drives similar to the innards of an SD or sdhc card with large capacity.

eMMC designed, devices such as Chrome books are the worst thing that ever came onto the tech market (after Celeron and Sempron processors); any element that fails on such devices renders it instant e-waste, as does the short life cycle of the ChromeOS they come with, and Android has been proven to be the most insecure system out there. Chromebooks are the inverse product of MacOS which waste valuable rare earth minerals and endanger the young lives used to dangerously mine for such materials. There was a very good YouTube video uploaded by a computer repair guy who proved that the biggest flaw with MacBook notebooks failure caused by dust created on MacBook Pro’s; a $ Tn company that can’t solve a simple issue.

This is not the original video that someone posted on a different forum:

10

More and more people will buy used. As prices go up, the tech market will begin to resemble the car market. People will buy used and learn to fix things themselves.

As others have said, repairable devices will increase in value.

As for me, I was already in this boat with phones. I wanted a phone with a sceen size under 6 inches and a headphones jack. The Asus Zenfone 8 was the only one available. Now that Asus has removed the ability to unlock the bootloader I can’t even replace my phone with the same model. My USB port is getting iffy, so I guess I’ll be learning how to replace that in the near future.

1 Like
11

People with Asus phones that they like, like yourself, will certainly need to learn how to repair them in the future rather than upgrading to a newer model :

Asus will no longer be selling smartphones. I imagine that fewer smartphone brands will be available in the future. It might be a good idea to source some spare parts for your phone now so, that you have the parts that you need, when you need when you need to repair it.

12

I watch TV on a ≈25 year old Sony Trinitron CRT that weights a ton but works like a charm. It’s connected to a Sanyo VCR a friend of mine cleaned and restored.

I cook on a late 40s wood/coal burning kitchen stove with oven that’s been standing at the same spot since my grandma bought it brand new back then.

I work on a 10yo Lenovo notebook with an SSD and I got 5 used notebooks of the same age or younger in storage which I got for free, because either their HDDs were broken or they were just too old. I upgraded them with SSDs a couple of years ago. I don’t do gaming or any other hardware-heavy stuff

I do my laundry in a Miele machine build in the mid 90s and I dry the laundry on the line outside.

I use a FRITZ!box router from my provider and I got a second one in reserve. I went the extra mile to get an impulse/tone converter so I can use my grandma’s old FeTaP telephone. But, to be honest, I’m playing with the idea of getting StarLink.

I don’t have any “smart” home appliances or devices and I don’t plan on getting any. I’m 100% not affected at all. Not trying to brag here though. This lifestyle was the very reason I bought a Fairphone in the first place.

2 Likes
13

If we have relatives, friends, neighbours - then we are affected by this, if only indirectly.

I am.recommending that people I know do not choose this moment to have a big clear out of their old, unused computers / gadgets but, hang onto them for a bit longer. I am suggesting. That if they think they will need a new laptop or computer, they get it now. Or a good refurbished one, if they can’t afford new. And if they are relying on one device for all of their computing needs, they should ensure they have a couple more, as a backup. Some are taking notice, some are not.

I have investigated what I have in my own loft and found 2 raspberry pi 4b’s with 8gb ram for which I am buying some cases as they would make a great low cost backup for light use. And I have about 5 older laptops and 2 mini PC’s (and a mac mini) ready to be used again if needed.

If things change, and supply can once again meet retail demand, then all I have wasted is a very small amount of time / money. But, if they don’t, I have enough computing devices, of different kinds to last me for a considerable time.

So, I am quite happy that I won’t be affected either - whatever happens. But, I am not so confident for the wider population.

14

If we have relatives, friends, neighbours - then we are affected by this, if only indirectly.

Meh, I got old Parents whose most modern piece oft tech is my dad’s tower pc from 2018-ish. He uses it for Facebook and YouTube. Both don’t have smartphones, my dad has a clamshell one - got him a new one just last week for about 35 Euros off of Amazon.

In general I don’t have any tech savy people in my “inner circle”. They got their smartphones and smart TVs but that’s just about it. There’s noone who uses smart speakers or stuff like that. So nah, I guess I’m not even indirectly affected.

Our lives don’t really revolve around digital things so I guess we’re good. And the few digital things we really do can be done using the cheapest, oldest smartphone or notebook.

15

This is a good thing but, I am not sure it applies to the location where I live (rural Devon, in the UK) Certainly, many people here have quite old devices and computers but, they are very dependent on them. We don’t have many bank branches so, many need to do online banking, whether they want to or not. Car parks in shopping areas are increasingly only taking payments via apps (a pet hate of mine), minor driving infringements require people to do online courses or face large fines. Health centres are moving towards online only booking of Doctors appointments. Many older people rely on doing their grocery shopping online and getting it delivered if they no longer drive, and the nearest supermarkets are far away. In a nutshell, people really need some home technology to manage their every day lives. And just replacing a phone or computer requires either internet access or a car to get to our nearest city where they can be purchased in retail outlets. A high proportion of the local population are older and many no longer drive.

This is what most concerns me, concerning my local community. Fewer people having their own home technology would make them much more dependent on other people to help them. And I really hope that we don’t reach that point.

16

I live in rural western Germany. Here we can see the good side of being not that digitized as you guys in the UK.

Doctor’s appointments usually work by phone, cash is widely accepted (yes even in parking lots) and most tasks can be done if you got literally “any” working computer or smartphone.

Okay, where I live supermarkets are rather close-ish so there’s always some sort of solution even for those old folks who don’t drive anymore.

1 Like
17

I find your comments interesting and am a bit envious that making life digital has not been pushed so hard where you live.

Here, instead, the government has promoted the concept of ‘Digital Exclusion ‘ - this concept promotes the necessity of enabling the entire population to have equal access to digital services. But, it does not allow for people to have the choice whether they want that access or not. Of course, it is not just older people who might want to exclude themselves from doing everything digitally but, younger people as well.

The result up to now, has been a ‘mishmash’ of different types of services, a few that are still non digital and many that are only digital. I believe that this imposed exclusion has had a serious impact on the UK economy. Many elderly people I speak to have stopped going shopping on the high streets if they have to drive to reach them, and they cannot be confident that they will be able to park their car, without a suitable smartphone or a mobile signal. Discouraging a large section of the population from going out and spending money, when in many cases, they are the ones who can still afford to, seems quite crazy to me, and is certainly not going to help all the local businesses that are currently really struggling.

As this thread is about to close, I would like to bring it back to main subject, that I started with. Perhaps, phones, laptops and other computing devices becoming more expensive and harder to obtain may not be such a bad thing after all. Fewer people being able to carry out day to day functions online, may have the effect of pushing back against government policy here and slow down the digitisation. And this is something that I would like to see.

1 Like
18

Germany has some infamous and well-critizized holes when it comes to digitization. And yes, some of these things are indeed a problem that needs to be fixed asap. Especially when it comes to reducing bureaucracy. Here’s one of the main problems that we have a hodgepodge of administrative offices who are on completely different levels of digitzation.

For example: Online registering of a vehicle might or might not be possible for you depeding on which state or even county you live in.

But: That’s one side of the coin. The other one is what I see as the good side. Thanks to Germany’s holes in digitization there’s still a lot of leeway if you don’t wanna use digital means for everything and their mother.

This starts with the fact that there’s virtually nothing where paying cash isn’t at least optional - e-Vehicle charging stations not included. There are basically no shops that don’t accept cash (well there might be in bigger cities but I haven’t seen or heard about them). That includes parking meters, parking ticket printers - and even puclic toilets along the Autobahn. Germans love their cash and I guess no other nation in Europe would fight that much if push came to shove and someone would try to ban cash money.

Or things like this: Just yesterday my mother in-law wanted to make a doctor’s appointment and called them. At first the receptionist wanted her to use their website but when my in-law blatantly replied “honey, I’m 76 years old and I don’t have no E-Mail adress and I sure don’t get one just to make an appointment.” the woman just shrugged and did it by telephone.

I guess having a rather old population plays a big role here. And the fact that many (old-ish) germans are pretty careful about DATENSCHUTZ an FORTSCHRITT. It’s not that Germans in general are “neo-luddites” but we’re definetly not that eager to adapt technology, especially of the digital kind.

See me as a prime example. I guess you could go as far and indeed call me a luddite. To me many aspects of digitization are shown in a too positive, rose-tinted light. IMHO digitization makes many things more vulnerable and/or more complicated and/or is just unnecessary for certain things. That’s why I’m sceptical and have a very analogue (even for a german) lifestyle. I just use what I deem necessary and useful for me and that’s really not much.

Want some easy examples?

  • Why would I need a fridge that’s connected to the internet if I can just look inside, see what’s empty and write it down on a list in my phone or on a small whiteboard on the fridge’s door
  • Why would I want to control my indoor lighting with my phone if there are switches on the walls?
  • Why would I want a computer to controll my window shutters if I can open and close them by hand?
  • Why would I want a security camera in my front door to run its entire data through the servers of some big-tech company if I can just look through an old-fashioned peephole?
  • Why would I want to pay a parking ticket with my phone when I always cary some coins in my pockets which weight close to nothing?
  • Why would I pay in a store with my phone when I need to carry a wallet anyway because German law requires me to have ID and driver’s license with me? A credit or debit card doesn’t add any weight or bulk.

See, there’s many aspects of digitization I deem unnecessary for me. I know there’s others who “digitize for digitization’s sake” but I’m not one of them.

19

This topic was automatically closed after 29 days. New replies are no longer allowed.