A new app with a straightforward name wants to make it easier for people to fix their stuff by helping them find trustworthy repair services near them.
The Repair App launched today, on a day that’s being celebrated as International Repair Day. The app is currently available in beta form in the US and France, because that’s where cofounders Robert Lise and Caleb Faruki reside, respectively. If the app does well, more countries should be added soon.
The app arrives during a time of renewed interest in the right to repair movement. Through lobbying efforts and consumer advocacy campaigns, right to repair folks argue that when somebody buys a piece of technology, they should have the legal right to fix it, replace broken parts, or upgrade it using services, tools, and replacement parts accessed on the open market.
“You don’t actually own something if you don’t have the ability to repair it,” says Lise, the app’s cofounder.
It sounds like a position that doesn’t need much advocacy, but large companies like Apple, Samsung, and John Deere, have been resistant to allow their customers to tinker with their products.
Lise says the goal of The Repair App is to platform businesses and service providers who cover just about anything that can be repaired, from devices like phones and computers to bicycles, clothes, and maybe eventually vehicles. To start, they have reached out to verified repair businesses that they can vet for inclusion in the app.
Matt Zieminski, vice president of Repair.org and VP of partnerships at the repair marketplace iFixit, has worked with Lise and the others on the Repair App and says he supports the project. He says that if the app is utilized by enough people, it could make finding options for fixing your stuff easier than it is now.
For example, if you’re searching for repair options on Google, Zieminski says, your local community repair shops might not necessarily come up as one of the top results. Instead, you’re presented with big repair franchises or generic service providers.
The app makes it easy to find independent shops near you.
Courtesy of Marine Reliquet; The Repair App
The Repair App will instead show you the shops closest to you that have been vetted by the tech repair experts behind the app.
“I think this is really cool,” Zieminski says. ”It is going to level that playing field and allow everybody to find the services they need and then to offer the services to people that may not even know those services exist.”
Linking customers to businesses is certainly not a new service. (Remember phonebooks?) Sites like Thumbtack or Angi (formerly Angie’s List) have long acted as repositories for finding handypeople to hire for a variety of tasks. Places like Upwork and Fiverr put a gig economy spin on the same format. And there are more specific service finder sites like RepairPal, a resource for car repair shops. (RepairPal was bought by Yelp last year.)
Speaking of Yelp, it is the giant of retail business listings. But the problem is Yelp prioritizes businesses that pay for better placement on the page. Zieminski says that means many businesses—especially smaller local repair shops with very little overhead—don’t get much recognition from investing in putting their businesses on the platform.
“The problem with Yelp is that it’s really a pay to play system,” Zieminski says. “Otherwise, you’re not really given visibility.”
The Repair App is launching as a free service. Limse says the core features—business listings and the ability for fixers and customers to communicate—will always remain free. Eventually, he hopes to offer more premium services later that businesses can pay for, but says the goal is to stay away from the kind of premium features that tend to lead to a service’s enshittification.
“We do not want to fall down that rabbit hole or do anything that’s kind of sleazy in that way,” Lise says. “We’re bootstrapped, everything is funded from ourselves. We’re not taking VC money, we’re not actually looking to raise money. We’re really just looking to build this thing on our terms.”
Users can document their problems, specify needed repairs, and upload photos to help speed things along.
Courtesy of Marine Reliquet; The Repair App
Another challenge will be community engagement. The Repair App hopes to find its niche with a blend of dedicated repairability nerds who just enjoy fixing stuff and the people who are eager to get their stuff repaired. Building that audience will require building up trust, which Lise says will be done on the app by vetting that businesses are what they say they are.
“People go to the trustful person, because it’s personal stuff,” says Hamza, who just uses his first name. He’s the owner of Fixsmart llc, a device repair shop in Hoboken, New Jersey. “You have to be sure about who you trust to fix your device.”
In a time when economic uncertainty and instability are leading to higher prices and widening economic divides, The Repair App hopes to latch onto the right to repair movement during what could be a pivotal moment for it.
“Tariffs are making it harder to buy anything new anymore,” Zieminski says. “So the health of the economy makes it harder, but also we’ve got these right to repair laws that have been incrementally passing in various states over the years are finally coming into effect.”
He points to legislation like Oregon’s right to repair law signed by the governor last year that went into effect in 2025. Oregon’s law makes parts and tools accessible, but also bans “parts pairing,” a method used by manufacturers to force users to only buy expensive authorized parts for their repairs.
Lise agrees that repairability is having a moment. “For a long time, everybody was buying the new iPhone when it came out,” he says. “More and more people are saying to themselves, does this make sense? Everybody’s struggling with money. It’s just cheaper to repair.”
