This article is a bit of a mess. What the fuck does AI have to do with the amount of glue used in a device?

And why focus on a limited run from a failed product rather than the literal millions of successful wearable products like airpods that are equally hard to recycle?

Also

Meanwhile, the use of the technology is only expected to grow.

Very insightful

I mean, this sucks, but Apple's Airpods are far more egregious, far more numerous (something like 550 million+ versus 10,000+ AI pins), and have spawned an army of copycats all which cannot be repaired and are just ewaste waiting to happen.

It's really that the entire fucking industry just doesn't god damned care and I can't even find places that reliably take electronic waste like desktops and laptops, let alone this fucking horseshit. USA produces massive amounts of ewaste and basically is like "fuck it" on creating a recycling industry around it.

This problems goes so far beyond these dinky AI pins.

Futurama was making jokes about the horrors of ewaste in its first return run in 2013, it's 2025 and it's only gotten worse.

When I was a kid, I remember my parents frequently taking electronics for repair. Our old VHS and Television had been repaired 7 times over and lasted years.

It really does grip me that every tech device made these days which relies on a battery is near impossible to self service. For years I built PC’s for people so not unfamiliar with components but I can’t change a battery on Samsung / iPhone or change the battery in my £300 Sony Bluetooth ear buds.

The problem is everywhere not just tech as such. Recently my kettle element gave up the ghost. No problem I thought, I can pick up an element for a few quid and change it.

Kitchen Aid however have decided to internally solder their elements so once that’s gone, throw it. £250 kettle with literally not a blemish on it, in the bin because a component that costs all of about 50p to manufacture is no longer replaceable.

I find it so egregious and wasteful…… I do look as far as possible at repairability before buying anything these days but alas, it’s a bloody uphill struggle and as other have said, with so much crap also being manufactured we’re in a pretty sad state which is only going to get worse :(

That can't be too much of an issue. How many people bought that shit? Five?