Scheduled obsolescence is generally related to household electrical or electronic products. This phenomenon, whether voluntary or not, also exists with regard to sports shoes.
Premature wear of Xodus 5 Saucony Trail Shoes
The shoe brand Saucony, both road and trail, known especially for indicating the drop of its models (height difference ground between the front and back of the sole) has tarnished its image and its reputation with the Xodus 5 model because of a fabric (mesh) which wears out very prematurely. Many users complained, without effect. The model photos on this page are only 300 km of use.
The seller (website lepape.com) arguing that the shoe was more than 6 months while having less than a year refused any change. Honesty obliges us to specify that the same salesman had changed us a Mizuno model a year ago because it had a defect.
This shoe Xodus 5 has many qualities including Vibram sole very catchy on the snow hard winter or very steep terrain. So many users find themselves with shoes which only one element (fabric) has aged much faster than the others (sole, seam etc.). Is it a wrong calibration of the resistance of the fabric or a voluntary approach of the manufacturer? In the end this situation seems damaging to the manufacturer in terms of brand image, the consumer wondering if he can trust the brand?
Polar manufacturer of watch / heart rate monitor GPS and polarpersonaltrainer.com
Another case of planned obsolescence attempt in the field of running with Polar.com and its course visualization site https://polarpersonaltrainer.com/. This site allows you to unload the running exits that everyone performs and then analyze them using many parameters (speed, duration, heartbeat, GPS track etc. ...) The Polar watch is almost useless for nothing the online software polarpersonaltrainer.com.
Polar has sent a message dated October 3, 2017 indicating the end of this site replaced by a new site / software "polarflow" ... but which is unfortunately incompatible with older models of Gps watch such as the very popular RC3 / GPS model. Only solution: throw your GPS heart rate monitor and buy a newer one!
Fortunately, the brand Polar faced the multitude of protest messages had no other choice, a few days later, than to reconsider this decision and postpone the migration of polarpersonaltrainer.com to PolarFlow when the PolarFlow system will be backward compatible with the old models of GPS / Cardio!
The ascending compatibilities and backward compatibility of a product are more and more a factor of choice in our acts of consumption!
French links concerning this subject of obsolescence:
- A video found on the net that proposes to repair the Xodus de Saucony
- http://obsolescence-programmee.fr/
- https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsolescence_programm%C3%A9e
- https://www.lesechos.fr/week-end/business-story/liste/030625216481-7-marques-qui-luttent-contre-lobsolescence-programmee-2118741.php
- http://www.halteobsolescence.org/