is a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.
My classic Sony CRT television won’t power on. My living room is chilly because my Mitsubishi heat pump isn’t putting out enough hot air. I want my Japanese N64 to play US games, too, but I’ve been too busy to pop the hood. What if I had an AI companion to talk me through?
iFixit just released a voice-and-text chatbot to do just that, one that can supposedly help you figure out repairs just by talking to it — FixBot will ask you questions, and you can share images, too. iFixit claims it “thinks out loud with you, the way a master technician would, until the diagnosis clicks into place.”
Having tried it, I would definitely not trust iFixit’s FixBot to guide amateurs like me through a pricey or dangerous repair, and the app needs work, too!
You can chat with it live, and it usually listens well, but there’s so little visual feedback I can’t tell if the AI is busy thinking or completely errored out. I can’t just point my camera and expect the bot to see what needs repair: that requires a distinct photo, and sometimes the photo button failed. I could also only upload those photos while talking, not typing, due to a bug with Samsung phones. (There, iFixit’s attachment button told me it would only accept PDFs.)
I’d already 3D printed this region-free cartridge slot; I just needed a refresher. Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge
Let’s start with the easiest repair, the Nintendo 64, because it illustrates FixBot’s strengths and weaknesses. In this case, iFixit already has a specific guide to region-unlocking the N64, and I just wanted a confidence boost on how to open and close the console. I started chatting with text, and basically just got a readout of iFixit’s existing guide: pop out the memory Expansion Pak (or jumper), and remove six GameBit screws.
Activating FixBot’s voice mode, I found it kind of nice to just talk to my phone, getting reassuring voice prompts like, “You’re halfway there—you’ve got three more screws to remove from the bottom before the top cover can come off. Keep it up!”
No, it was not the small plastic pieces that fell. Image: iFixit
What wasn’t so reassuring: the sudden clatter when the N64’s two front feet popped out and hit the ground. Even though iFixit’s written guide says to remove them before flipping the console and removing the top lid, FixBot didn’t offer the same warning. iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens tells me it won’t always be that way: In a few months, he says, FixBot will walk you step by step through iFixit’s full guides.
... continue reading