Right to Repair Just Became an AV Problem

A technician in Denver orders a replacement part for a broken control processor. The part is identical to the one it's replacing: same specifications, same function, built to do the same job. The system won't recognize it. Nothing is wrong with the part. It just didn't come from the right place.

For years, that was simply how commercial AV equipment worked in Colorado, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Manufacturers could withhold parts, tools, and documentation from anyone outside their own authorized network. Increasingly they used embedded software– a practice known as "parts pairing"– to reject a part like that one, even when it worked perfectly, simply because the device hadn't been told to recognize it.

HB24-1121 changed that.

Governor Jared Polis signed the house bill in a branch of the Denver Public Library in May 2024, surrounded by the bill's sponsors and a handful of repair advocates. 

"Protecting our right to repair our own broken equipment will save money, strengthen small businesses, and reduce technology waste," he said. 

Before this law, Colorado had no right-to-repair protection covering digital electronics at all. Manufacturers could withhold parts, tools, and documentation from anyone outside their own authorized network. A part didn't have to be broken to get rejected, it just had to come from the wrong place.

The statute, which took effect on January 1, 2026, doesn't list categories by name. Instead, it defines "digital electronic equipment" broadly, as a hardware product that depends partly or wholly on embedded or attached digital electronics, and leaves it there. Repair advocates, including U.S. PIRG, along with legal analyses of the legislation, have identified categories such as personal electronics, printers, appliances, HVAC systems, IT equipment, e-bikes, and music and sound equipment as ones they expect it to touch.

The statute's definition doesn't exclude commercial AV equipment either;it simply doesn't address it one way or the other, which means a piece of gear installed in a Colorado boardroom or stadium could fall inside the same rules written with phones and laptops in mind. 

As part of HB24-1121, manufacturers of covered equipment manufactured and sold or used for the first time in Colorado on or after July 1, 2021, have to make parts, tools, documentation, and software-based repair tools available to independent repair providers and equipment owners on fair and reasonable terms. 

Software-based repair tools must also be provided at no charge; physical tools can carry a reasonable charge for preparation and delivery. A separate provision applies to digital electronic equipment manufactured for the first time and sold or used in Colorado after January 1, 2026. 

The bill also restricts the use of software (parts paring) to identify or authenticate component parts, when that pairing is used to block installation of a replacement part, degrade performance, or trigger misleading warnings. 

Independent repair providers have a disclosure obligation of their own. Before beginning covered work, they must provide written notice that they are not an authorized repair provider for the manufacturer and disclose whether they use new or used replacement parts obtained from another supplier. The notice must be displayed conspicuously at the repair provider's premises or provided to the owner by email. Violations of the statutory requirements may be enforced as deceptive trade practices under Colorado law.

The law’s exemptions include motor vehicles, marine and aviation equipment, video-game consoles, most medical devices, and specified equipment intended for use in medical settings, certain safety and security systems, some telecommunications-provider equipment, and specified construction, industrial, and energy-related equipment. 

In an integrated AV installation, spanning displays, control processors, networking gear, and building systems, coverage may therefore differ from component to component, rather than follow any blanket AV-industry designation.

While the bill was under debate, State Sen. Nick Hinrichsen put the underlying logic of the bill bluntly: "If you can't repair something that's yours, do you really own it?"

According to the Repair Association, more than 33 right-to-repair bills had been introduced across 13 states in the opening weeks of 2026 alone. 

Nathan Proctor, who leads the U.S. PIRG's national Right to Repair campaign, has said "there's a lot to point to," showing the momentum isn't slowing down.

 Roughly 25.75% of Americans live in a state with some form of right-to-repair protection in effect as of January 1, 2026, according to PIRG’s calculations. 

Connecticut's law took effect July 1, and Texas's is scheduled for September, pushing that figure past 35.5% by fall, though "some form of protection" covers laws with meaningfully different scopes from state to state.

Minnesota also enacted a broad digital right-to-repair law, though the details and exemptions differ from Colorado's. New York's law is narrower still: it excludes certain products sold under business-to-business and government contracts, which limits its usefulness for parts of the commercial AV market specifically.

Nothing has passed, although matching Fair Repair Act bills have been introduced in both chambers at the federal level. H.R. 7404 was introduced on February 5, 2026, and referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. S. 3821 was introduced on February 10 and referred to the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.

The bills would require manufacturers of digital electronic equipment to provide owners and independent repair providers, on fair and reasonable terms, with documentation, diagnostic tools, and parts needed for repair, and would impose restrictions on parts pairing. Neither bill has advanced beyond referral to committee.

Separately, the FTC has not publicly issued a decision on a 2023 rulemaking petition filed by PIRG and iFixit, following the commission's own 2021 report documenting manufacturer restrictions on independent repair.

Bill C-244 received royal assent in November 2024,  amending Canada's Copyright Act to permit circumventing a digital lock specifically for the purpose of diagnosing, maintaining, or repairing a product, closing a copyright-law barrier that could previously make that circumvention unlawful even when the person doing it owned the device outright. 

Quebec passed its own law a year earlier, Bill 29, strengthening legal warranties, prohibiting planned-obsolescence techniques, and creating new rules concerning the availability of replacement parts, repair services, and repair information for goods sold in the province.

The EU has been moving on this trend for much longer. Adopted in June 2024, Directive (EU) 2024/1799 must be in force across every member state by July 31, 2026, and obligates manufacturers to repair a specific list of covered products, including washing machines, refrigerators, and electronic displays, at a non-deterrent price, even after the warranty has expired. It also requires them to supply spare parts and repair information to independent repairers, and bars using contract terms, hardware, or software locks to block that repair unless the manufacturer can point to a legitimate reason.

But the EU's rule has the opposite blind spot from Colorado's. It names its covered categories explicitly, electronic displays among them, rather than defining coverage broadly the way Colorado does. And by design, it stops at the point of sale and repair access; it doesn't regulate how a device validates a part once installed. Parts pairing, the exact mechanism Colorado's law targets directly, isn't addressed by the EU directive at all. The two systems are solving different halves of the same problem. One guarantees you can get the part, the other decides whether it's allowed to work.

Colorado's law doesn't rewrite existing agreements on its own, and whether it applies to a given piece of equipment is a statutory question first, not a contractual one. Coverage will depend on the equipment involved, the manufacturer, the relevant manufacture and sale-or-use dates, and any applicable statutory exemption.

That ambiguity cuts both ways. Two years ago, servicing a DSP or control processor was simple: you did it however the manufacturer allowed. Colorado's law doesn't clearly settle whether that's still true. Nobody knows yet whether a specific piece of commercial AV gear falls under the statute, because no dispute has forced the question into a courtroom. Whichever service disagreement gets there first will end up deciding it for everyone else, and finding that out in the middle of a dispute is a bad time to learn where you stand.