when Samsung Announced Galaxy S23 In February, it highlighted that the S23 Ultra has twice as many recycled components as the Galaxy S22 Ultra. It’s one of many changes Samsung has made in the name of sustainability over the past several years, along with reducing its product packaging by ditching the power adapter.
But sustainability is about more than recycling and reusing materials. Repairability also has a significant impact, experts say, in curbing the move toward a circular economy. Samsung still has a lot of progress in this area. Recent Samsung phones like the Galaxy S22 and S23 aren’t as easy to repair as they should be, according to the technicians at iFixit.
The giant warehouse in Texas could be key in Samsung’s efforts to change that. At its repair facility in Irving, where about 14,500 gadgets arrive for repair per month, Samsung does more than break down broken devices. It explains the overhaul process, too, considering lessons that can be applied to future product designs and procedures.
With the growing concern about e-waste and high-end smartphones costing over $1,000, there is a growing interest in holding onto the devices for as long as possible. A survey conducted by insurance company Assurant and published in September reported that the average age of phones in circulation exceeded 3.5 years for the first time. This shift indicates that consumers are holding on to their existing phones for longer periods before upgrading.
Making devices more repairable – and providing easier access for repairs – is a key part of extending a phone’s life cycle. For Samsung, the next major step in optimizing the repair process could be shortening the amount of time between when you drop your broken phone in the mailbox and when it arrives at your doorstep.
“We want to get as close to same day as possible,” said Mark Williams, vice president of customer service for Samsung Electronics America.
Samsung warehouse is like a smartphone hospital
The receiving area of the Samsung Postal Repair Facility.
Samsung
Inside Samsung’s sprawling 23,000-square-foot warehouse, I’m surrounded by machines of all shapes and sizes. It’s quiet, apart from the beeps of various instruments and the blowing of air gaskets. Samsung’s mail-in repair facility looks like a smartphone hospital; It’s where screens are meticulously disassembled, new ones pressed in, and dozens of diagnostic tests performed.
Of the devices Samsung receives each month, the company says, 67% are phones, 24% are watches, 6% are earphones, and 3% are tablets.
The overhaul begins at 10:30 a.m., when shipments of the device begin arriving at the facility. Cameras around the check-out area record the status of parcels and devices as they are received. Products are placed in colored trays to keep track of their arrival time. For example, the red trays may have been used on Tuesday, and the green trays on Wednesday. This tells the workers that they must prioritize the red trays first.
Color-coded trays help Samsung keep track of the day the device arrived for repair.
Samsung
After the receiving process is complete, the devices are sent to an incoming quality check area, or IQC as Samsung calls it. This is where technicians run tests, most of which are automated, to find out what is causing the problem. Samsung then compares its results to the customer’s complaint.
The screen repair process begins at the disassembly station, where hot plates are used to heat the hardware and soften the adhesive so that it is easier to disassemble. Once the inside of the device has been cleaned and the tape that connects the screen to the frame has been added, the phone undergoes a number of operations to attach, press, bond and screw the new screen and frame to the device – each requiring special machinery.
Hot plates used at the screen disassembly station at a Samsung repair facility
Samsung
After the device is reassembled, a resin bond is applied to make the device waterproof. Samsung then uses a simulated air pressure machine to test the water resistance, ensuring it reaches its intended IP rating before the device is returned to its owner. There are also 4G and 5G test machines, as well as camera calibration.
Same day access for repairs
The entire process — from performing diagnostics to the repair itself and final outgoing quality checks — takes about four to seven days, says John Meagher, Samsung’s senior mail operations manager. That’s a long time to be without your phone.
Williams told me the company is looking to address this by opening two more regional mail repair centers in the second quarter of this year: one in Dallas and one in Florida. The Dallas site will serve Texas and Oklahoma, while the Florida site will cover Florida and Georgia, freeing up the main Irving facility for repairs from elsewhere in the United States. Williams says the additional centers should reduce shipping times for those regions. If these centers are successful, Samsung wants to open another location in the northeast and an additional location in the west.
The device used to attach the screen during the screen repair process.
Samsung
It’s part of the company’s goal to get as close to inbox repairs on the same day as possible, although there are still many challenges to overcome. One of the biggest things is timing. Since devices are dropped off at 10:30am and picked up at 6pm, the company has a relatively short window to work with. Samsung may not always have all the necessary components in stock, and some issues take longer to diagnose than others.
“We believe they are not insurmountable,” Meagher said of the challenges. “We think very soon, we’ll have some kind of solution that will make a quick fix for the mail actually.”
The company is testing expedited service concepts that are in beta, according to Williams, but he couldn’t share additional details.
Samsung also offers in-person repair services at over 1,000 authorized US locations and repair vans that act as mobile repair shops for faster same-day service. But only eight of these authorized repair centers are Samsung-branded locations, while most are run by Samsung partners like uBreakiFix and Best Buy. (Apple, Samsung’s biggest cellphone competitor, has more than 270 Apple Stores in the US.)
Samsung sells Home repair kits in collaboration with iFixitAlso, the move came after Samsung and other tech giants faced pressure from self-reform advocates and legislators To make DIY repairs even easier. The company says more than 2,170 customers have used the self-fix program through iFixit to date.
But some Samsung owners don’t feel the company’s efforts have gone far enough. Reddit threads detail repair trials that are being delayed or cancelled, sometimes resulting in a customer being without a phone for weeks.
“My Fold 3 has been at Samsung for over 5 weeks,” read one comment posted a year ago in response to a question on Reddit about Samsung’s repair timeline.
Make devices more repairable
Samsung’s repair center also plays a bigger role in how Samsung designs and develops upcoming phones to be more repairable. Feedback from this facility is forwarded to Samsung’s design teams to facilitate future device repairs. Samsung is also sending employees from the company’s headquarters in South Korea to Texas to monitor the repair process and ensure best practices are applied in other regions.
“We want to reduce this (fix) time,” said Williams. “We want to determine ‘are all these tests necessary?'” Should we do it? Are there any additional tests we should run? “
Tape pressing machine used at a Samsung repair facility.
Samsung
One example of such feedback appears in the tape used to attach the Galaxy S23’s screen, according to Edir Tukic, Samsung’s director of customer engineering. The company previously used a hot melt application to bond the screen, which meant that a machine was required to remove the screen. Now that Samsung has switched to the tape method, the company can offer screen repairs at walk-in locations instead of just a mail-in repair service. Samsung made this change in the third quarter of 2022 starting with the Galaxy S21 and Galaxy S21 Plus models.
But the Samsung Galaxy S23 only got a 4 out of 10 on iFixit’s repair score. This shows that there is still a lot of work to be done, although it is an improvement from the Galaxy S22’s score of 3 out of 10. iFixit gave Samsung credit this year for including a battery pull tab on the Galaxy S23, which in theory should make it easier to remove the battery. (Though iFixit is still struggling to do that, as seen in this video.) iFixit also said it would give Samsung two bonus points if and when it provided repair manuals and parts for the Galaxy S23 lineup.
Samsung said it plans to expand the range of products and parts as the software matures. She also said that repair volumes tend to skew toward models that have been on the market longer.
Making phones easy to repair is crucial to extending their life cycle. This is especially true because recycling rates aren’t as high as you might think, despite pushes from tech giants like Samsung and wireless carriers toward extra trade. A report by the United Nations and the International Solid Waste Association found that only 17.4% of global e-waste was officially collected and recycled in 2019.
“You want to extend and reuse as much as possible,” Autumn Stanish, a principal analyst at Gartner who specializes in sustainability research, previously told CNET. “So repairability is really the key thing that we have to aim for before we start targeting full recycling of our devices.”
Water resistance test machine at a Samsung repair facility.
Samsung
When a new product is launched, the Samsung Care team makes sure that technicians are trained, equipment is ready, and components are stocked at repair sites. It is a difficult task under normal circumstances. But Samsung is more familiar than most tech companies with what can happen when a broken product reaches consumers’ hands.
In 2016, it was Remember the Galaxy Note 7 on issues with Overheating batteries. as it was The launch of the original Galaxy Fold has been delayed in 2019 after a few reviewers had issues with its screen.
When a problem occurs, Williams says the team meets in a “war room” to identify the problem. Doing so is likely all the more important as Samsung is not only seeking to make its current phones more repairable, it is exploring future devices with Rollable and sliding screens.
“Identify the issues as early as possible,” Williams said. “I think that’s probably the most important thing.”