The online repair service iFixit has a new app out today. When you open it, you will see something you've likely grown to expect in a new release: a chatbot.
The app, now available for both iOS and Android, can help users check on the health of their phone’s battery, find tools and instructions to repair things around their home, and fix their way out of all manner of device problems. It offers mobile access to repair manuals and guides for the more than 125,000 devices iFixit has cataloged in its long running repair library.
The new chatbot, called FixBot, just makes finding what you need all that much easier. Need to replace the screen on your iPhone? Change the tire on your 1986 Volvo station wagon? FixBot can help if you just type or speak your request by describing the problem you’re having. You can even use your phone’s camera to get started. Snap a pic of that Volvo’s flat tire, your non-working iPod, or your broken espresso machine, and FixBot’s computer vision engine will probably be able to recognize what model it is and walk you through the process of fixing it.
FixBot is a fusion of a dozen different AI models from just about every player in the generative AI space. The bot is intended to focus solely on repair, pulling from iFixit’s ever growing pool of repair guides and giving you links to find where to get the spare parts or special tools needed to do the fixing. (Most of those links go back to the iFixit shop, naturally.)