Available at: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/3255
Date of Award
6-2026
Degree Name
MS in Mechanical Engineering
Department/Program
Mechanical Engineering
College
College of Engineering
Advisor
Hyeonik Song
Advisor Department
Mechanical Engineering
Advisor College
College of Engineering
Abstract
Smartphones are a major part of daily life, allowing people to communicate, browse the internet, shop, and enjoy entertainment. However, smartphones tend to be replaced quickly and therefore contribute to the growing electronic waste problem. The lifecycle of a smartphone can be extended by designing them to be more repairable, making it easier for owners and users to perform the repairs themselves. By only replacing failing components, the device can be in use longer, reducing the waste and pollution generated by replacing the device entirely. Therefore, product designers and engineers must focus on designing smartphones to be more repairable. Design-for-repairability focuses on designing a product to be as easy as possible for users to diagnose and replace failing components themselves to extend the life of the product.
This paper presents a benchmarking tool that analyzes battery replacement guides from iFixit and generates a repairability score based on the number of steps, types of tools required for the repair and how difficult they are to use, and the types of fasteners holding components together. The score is used to quantify the evolution of smartphone repairability based on design changes made between generations of four smartphone model lines, the Apple iPhone, Samsung Galaxy S, and Google Pixel, with a comparison to the Fairphone. These design changes are influenced by the addition of consumer requested features, and more recently government regulation and the Right-to-Repair movement to make devices more repairable. While there are existing design-for-repairability tools, the tool described in this paper is intended to provide a complementary source of insights for designers to use based on historical design choices of fastener types in smartphones.
The repairability of smartphones significantly declined in the mid-2010s, primarily with the addition of water resistance, but has been slowly recovering since 2020 with the push for more repairable devices in the European Union. A case study is also conducted to demonstrate a potential real world use case for designers. By understanding the evolution of product repairability, designers can observe changes in fastener and tool selections made between each model year and benchmark their designs with competitor products to design their own products for repairability.