This month, Connecticut's right-to-repair law took effect — the latest in a wave of state legislation giving consumers and independent repair businesses access to parts, diagnostics, and manufacturer documentation that OEMs previously kept locked down. Texas follows in September 2026. By then, more than 35% of Americans will live under some form of right-to-repair protection.
For anyone running a phone refurbishing or ITAD operation, this shift is worth paying attention to — not because it changes your workflow today, but because it signals where the market is heading.
What the laws actually cover
State right-to-repair statutes vary, but most require manufacturers to provide independent repair businesses and consumers with the same documentation, tools, and parts available to authorized service providers. Electronics are the focus in most bills. That means smartphones, tablets, and computers.
Connecticut's law is part of a broader consumer protection act passed in 2025. The U.S. House Committee has also advanced right-to-repair legislation at the federal level, and a July 2026 FTC enforcement action against John Deere — requiring the manufacturer to open repair resources to independent shops — showed that regulators are willing to use existing law to achieve similar outcomes in other sectors.
Why refurbishers benefit
The secondary device market has always depended on a steady flow of parts and service documentation. OEM restrictions on repair parts and schematics have made cosmetic and component repairs harder for independent shops, which in turn limits the grade of devices they can bring to market.
As right-to-repair expands, independent refurbishers gain:
- More parts availability — manufacturers must offer parts through the same channels they supply authorized dealers.
- Access to diagnostics documentation — service manuals and error codes that were previously restricted.
- Stronger consumer confidence — the public perception of "repaired = lower quality" weakens when repair becomes a legislated, normalized part of the device lifecycle.
The grading and certification gap
Right-to-repair increases the volume of repairable devices entering the secondary market. That's a good problem to have — but it increases the importance of consistent grading and verifiable data erasure.
A battery replacement or screen swap doesn't reset device data. Buyers on eBay Refurbished, Back Market, and similar platforms are now sophisticated enough to ask for proof: a grading standard, a test report, an erasure certificate. For refurbishers, the operations question shifts from "can I get the part?" to "can I prove this device is clean and tested?"
Certified erasure — specifically ADISA-certified erasure — answers the data question in a way that a factory reset doesn't. An ADISA AAL Level 3 certificate is third-party verified and recognizable to enterprise buyers and certified marketplace programs alike.
A market in expansion
The timing matters: new phone sales are expected to fall 14–15% in 2026 as memory shortages push prices up, while the global secondary device market is growing at roughly 15% year-over-year. Organized sales of used smartphones increased 4% in Q1 2026. The macro is straightforward — fewer new phones means more buyers looking at refurbished.
Right-to-repair accelerates this by making it easier for shops to bring more devices to a sellable state. The refurbishers who are ready to grade consistently and document their process will be in the best position to capture that demand.
If you're building or scaling a refurb operation
testPod handles the diagnostics, grading, and certified data erasure side of the workflow — 30+ hardware tests, ADISA AAL Level 3 certified erasure (certificate ADPC251, valid to September 2027), and a cloud certificate issued per device at the end of every session. Including locked Samsung devices.
Pricing is $30/month per computer, which includes 100 devices. Free 14-day trial, 25 devices, no card required. hiteknova.com