BuyMyTronics.com was an electronics resale business in Denver, Colorado, [1] founded in 2007 as BuyMyBrokeniPod.com. [2] Its business model was to purchase used and broken cell phones, iPods, iPhones, game consoles, pdas, MP3 players, Apple laptops, and other electronics that have been replaced by newer models. [3] [4]
In 2007, BuyMyTronics.com was operated and founded by Brett Mosley. In his first year, he hired two employees, fixed 1,000 iPods, and branched out into fixing his first dozen iPhones and game consoles. Fixed models were resold online, and other models were scrapped for their parts; Mosley stated that this was both profitable and productive toward electronic waste mitigation. [2] His company repaired, resold, or stripped hundreds items of electronic waste per week, including cell phones, iPods, iPhones, game consoles, PDAs, Apple laptops, and MP3 players, [1] and offered free shipping. [5] [6]
In 2013, BuyMyTronics was purchased and became part of the GameStop Network. [7]
The iPod is a discontinued series of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first version was released on October 23, 2001, about 8+1⁄2 months after the Macintosh version of iTunes was released. Apple sold an estimated 450 million iPod products as of 2022. Apple discontinued the iPod product line on May 10, 2022. At over 20 years, the iPod brand is the oldest to be discontinued by Apple.
In economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in or customer lock-in, makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products, unable to use another vendor without substantial switching costs.
Consumer electronics or home electronics are electronic equipment intended for everyday use, typically in private homes. Consumer electronics include devices used for entertainment, communications and recreation. Usually referred to as black goods due to many products being housed in black or dark casings. This term is used to distinguish them from "white goods" which are meant for housekeeping tasks, such as washing machines and refrigerators, although nowadays, these would be considered black goods, some of these being connected to the Internet. In British English, they are often called brown goods by producers and sellers. In the 2010s, this distinction is absent in large big box consumer electronics stores, which sell entertainment, communication and home office devices, light fixtures and appliances, including the bathroom type.
iRiver, stylized IRIVER and formerly as iriver, is a South Korean consumer electronics division owned by Dreamus which markets music and other accessories in its domestic market.
A portable media player (PMP) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. The data is typically stored on a compact disc (CD), Digital Versatile Disc (DVD), Blu-ray Disc (BD), flash memory, microdrive, SD cards or hard drive; most earlier PMPs used physical media, but modern players mostly use flash memory. In contrast, analogue portable audio players play music from non-digital media that use analogue media, such as cassette tapes or vinyl records.
Electronic waste recycling, electronics recycling ore-waste recycling is the disassembly and separation of components and raw materials of waste electronics; when referring to specific types of e-waste, the terms like computer recycling or mobile phone recycling may be used. Like other waste streams, re-use, donation and repair are common sustainable ways to dispose of IT waste.
Electronic waste or e-waste describes discarded electrical or electronic devices. It is also commonly known as waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) or end-of-life (EOL) electronics. Used electronics which are destined for refurbishment, reuse, resale, salvage recycling through material recovery, or disposal are also considered e-waste. Informal processing of e-waste in developing countries can lead to adverse human health effects and environmental pollution. The growing consumption of electronic goods due to the Digital Revolution and innovations in science and technology, such as bitcoin, has led to a global e-waste problem and hazard. The rapid exponential increase of e-waste is due to frequent new model releases and unnecessary purchases of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE), short innovation cycles and low recycling rates, and a drop in the average life span of computers.
Zune is a discontinued brand of digital media products and services that was marketed by Microsoft from November 2006 until June 2012. Zune consisted of a line of portable media players, a music subscription service known as Zune Music Pass plus Zune Marketplace for music, TV and movies, streaming services for the Xbox 360 game console, and the Zune software media player for Windows PCs which also acted as desktop sync software for Windows Phone.
The Green Box (GB) is a large metal container, designed and utilized for free public disposal and recycling of electronic waste. It is produced and sold by an eponymous California company.
Wolfson Microelectronics plc was a microelectronics and fabless semiconductor company headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland. It specialised in signal processing and mixed-signal chips for the consumer electronics market and had engineering and sales offices throughout Asia-Pacific, Europe, and the United States. In 2014, it was acquired by Cirrus Logic for £291 million.
Refurbishment is the distribution of products that have been previously returned to a manufacturer or vendor for any reason, not sold in the market or new launch of a product. Refurbished products are normally tested for functionality and defects before they are sold to the public. They are repaired by the original manufacturer and resold.
A dock connector is a connector used to attach a mobile electronic device simultaneously to multiple external resources. The dock connector will typically carry a variety of signals and power, through a single connector, to simplify the process of docking the mobile device. A dock connector may be embedded in a mechanical fixture used to support or align the mobile device or may be at the end of a cable.
iResQ is a DBA of ResQ Systems, LLC, an Internet-based company founded in 1994 and located in Olathe, Kansas. iResQ diagnoses and repairs Apple products and the Sony PSP. iResQ also sells accessories and parts in addition to its repair and upgrade services.
RMS Communications Group, Inc., doing business as CellForCash.com, was a company that bought used cellular handsets. CellForCash.com was located in Ocala, Florida. Its website allowed consumers and business to sell their cellular phones for cash. The website listed over 200 cell phones the company is willing to buy. Users selected a manufacturer and model and complete a registration. The company provided a box and a prepaid shipping label for mailing.
Electronic waste or e-waste in the United States refers to electronic products that have reached the end of their operable lives, and the United States is beginning to address its waste problems with regulations at a state and federal level. Used electronics are the quickest-growing source of waste and can have serious health impacts. The United States is the world leader in producing the most e-waste, followed closely by China; both countries domestically recycle and export e-waste. Only recently has the United States begun to make an effort to start regulating where e-waste goes and how it is disposed of. There is also an economic factor that has an effect on where and how e-waste is disposed of. Electronics are the primary users of precious and special metals, retrieving those metals from electronics can be viewed as important as raw metals may become more scarce
Mobile phone recycling describes the waste management of mobile phones, to retrieve materials used in their manufacture. Rapid technology change, low initial cost, and planned obsolescence have resulted in a fast-growing surplus, which contributes to the increasing amount of electronic waste around the globe.
iReTron is a recommerce and recycling service company in Los Gatos, California. It allows consumers to sell their old electronics, including cellphones, iPhones, iPods, mp3 players, tablets, iPads, e-readers, calculators and other devices, for free.
NextWorth Solutions, Inc., was an electronics trade-in and recycling service. Users of the service exchange used electronics for cash or discounts on newer models. NextWorth was founded by business students at Babson College in 2005. It started as a commission-based service to help businesses setup online auctions for their used items, then changed its business model to focus on electronics trade-ins in 2006. As of late 2012, NextWorth was one of the best-known and largest electronics trade-in and recycling services in the United States, although it handles only a small percentage of total trade-in traffic.
ecoATM,LLC, doing business as Gazelle,Is an eCommerce company founded in 2006 that recycles used electronic devices, Such as mobile phones and tablet and laptop computers. It is headquartered in San Diego, California with operations in Louisville, Kentucky.
Electronics right to repair is proposed legislation that would provide the practical means for electronics equipment owners to repair their devices. Repair is legal under copyright law and patent law. However, owners and independent technicians are often unable to make their own repairs because of manufacturer limitations on access to repair materials such as parts, tools, diagnostics, documentation and firmware.