The Control Board Crisis: Why Your Appliance Repair Is Stuck in 2025’s Most Overlooked Supply Chain Nightmare

While homeowners across Massachusetts are dealing with rising repair costs and longer wait times, there’s a hidden culprit behind many of these delays that most people have never heard of: control boards. These central processing units that manage an appliance’s various functions are experiencing “significant lag time” especially for overseas brands like Samsung, LG, and Bosch, creating a perfect storm for frustrated homeowners waiting weeks or even months for their appliances to be fixed.

What Are Control Boards and Why Are They So Critical?

Think of a control board as your appliance’s brain. It’s the computer chip that tells your dishwasher when to fill with water, signals your dryer to stop heating, and manages every function of your smart refrigerator. With the rise of IoT, appliances are becoming increasingly connected, with built-in sensors and communication capabilities, making these control boards more sophisticated—and more difficult to source.

Unlike a broken heating element or worn-out door seal, control boards can’t be easily substituted or repaired. When they fail, your appliance becomes essentially useless, and finding a replacement has become increasingly challenging in 2025.

The Perfect Storm: Why Control Boards Are So Scarce

The control board shortage is a convergence of multiple supply chain issues that have been building for years. High-demand industries like automotive, consumer electronics, and IoT have long dominated the electronic component supply, while during COVID-19, housebound consumers fueled a surge in personal electronics, and vehicles and smart appliances integrated more advanced technology. Now, 2025 brings a new competitor: generative AI.

Lead times for chip-making equipment is at 18-30 weeks, improving from the 18 months buyers experienced in 2022, but this improvement isn’t translating to faster availability for appliance repair parts. The complexity of their manufacturing process, which can take up to 6 months, is partly to blame for the crisis.

What This Means for Massachusetts Homeowners

For residents in Middlesex County and throughout Massachusetts, this shortage translates to real-world problems. Repair shop owners report they’ve never seen anything like the parts shortage the industry is experiencing, with parts that used to be available the same day or within two to three days now taking weeks.

The financial impact is significant. Just as the cost of new appliances has surged, so has the cost of appliance repairs, with the scarcity of parts leading to increased prices. When you factor in the extended downtime while waiting for parts, many homeowners are forced to make difficult decisions about temporary solutions or premature replacements.

Smart Strategies for Navigating the Control Board Crisis

While the situation is challenging, there are practical steps Massachusetts homeowners can take:

• Act Fast When Problems Arise: Smart appliances can detect potential issues early on and alert you before they escalate, helping prolong the life of your appliance and saving money on repairs by addressing problems right away.
• Consider Preventive Maintenance: By analyzing data collected from IoT-connected appliances, manufacturers and repair technicians can identify patterns and trends that indicate potential failures, allowing for proactive maintenance where repairs or part replacements can be scheduled before a breakdown occurs.
• Work with Local Repair Services: Some repair services are increasing their inventory of essential spare parts to ensure they can meet repair demands promptly, avoiding delays caused by the current supply chain disruption.
• Explore Alternative Solutions: Some customers are finding aftermarket parts online, and repair services may be willing to install customer-purchased parts to meet customers halfway.

The Local Advantage: Why Middlesex County Residents Have an Edge

Despite the challenges, Massachusetts homeowners have advantages that many other regions lack. Local repair services like Appliance Repair Services Boston MA understand the unique challenges of the current supply chain environment and have adapted their business models accordingly.

Local repair services provide response advantages that national chains cannot match, stocking frequently needed replacement parts locally and eliminating shipping delays that extend equipment downtime for days. This local approach becomes even more valuable when dealing with hard-to-source components like control boards.

Looking Ahead: When Will Things Improve?

While the control board shortage is expected to continue through 2025, there are signs of gradual improvement. Supply chain issues that delayed many appliance deliveries after the pandemic have been resolved for many components, but control boards remain a persistent challenge due to their complexity and the competing demands from other industries.

Many appliance manufacturers and repair services are turning to local sourcing to mitigate the impact of the global supply chain crisis, bypassing some of the delays and disruptions caused by international supply chain issues.

The Bottom Line

The control board crisis represents a hidden challenge that’s affecting appliance repairs across Massachusetts and beyond. While this shortage creates frustration and delays, understanding the issue helps homeowners make better decisions about maintenance, repairs, and when to seek professional help.

For Massachusetts residents, the key is working with experienced local repair services that understand these supply chain challenges and have adapted their inventory and service models accordingly. By staying proactive about appliance maintenance and working with knowledgeable repair professionals, homeowners can navigate this challenging period while keeping their essential appliances running.

The control board shortage may be 2025’s most overlooked supply chain crisis, but with the right approach and local expertise, it doesn’t have to derail your household’s daily operations.