Hi Teams,
The following information is for European teams for which warranty is handled by URG. I'll send a separate email concerning warranties for teams in other regions (contracts with Softbank Japan, Softbank China, and RobotLab) once I have information from them.
First off some good news: If you took the discounted warranty extension last year that stated to extend your robot warranty until "July 1 2022 (after the Thailand event)" (because the event was scheduled for end of June at that point) you don't need to worry. URG just confirmed that all those warranties have been extended until July 31, so the competition is covered, as is sending the robots to France after the event. :)
Now some changes introduced by URG: If you've ever forgotten to extend your robot's warranty and then contacted Softbank Europe you'll have noticed that they usually extended the warranty retroactively from the date the previous warranty expired no matter what state the robot was in. URG is handling this slightly differently: If your robot doesn't currently have a warranty they require a "check-up" which will cost 100€ to determine whether the robot will need repairs before being able to be under warranty again. The new warranty will then start from the date of the "check-up" and the 100€ fee will be credited towards the price of the warranty extension. If damage that would require repairs is found during the check-up, the repairs will have to be done and paid for outside of the warranty before the robot qualifies for a warranty again. URG told me that they will be more lenient with Robocup teams than with "normal" customers and things like broken fingers, etc. will be ignored during the check-up. The usual 4 year warranty limit still applies, i.e. it won't be possible to extend the warranty once a robot is more than 4 years old. For those cases URG will offer a repair package at events (as they are doing for Robocup in Thailand this year). URG will also remind teams to extend their warranties before they expire so that the check-up won't be necessary.
Let me know if you have any questions about the process or if you run into any problems with URG.
Rico Tilgner SPL Executive Committee