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European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

techspot.com

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Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#181

Post by surgical_fire »

deelowe wrote: post #120
surgical_fire wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please, EU: bring a law that forces manufacturers to release their drivers / firmware whenever they stop updating a digital device. I wish I could upvote this more. It's a crime how I had to throw away in the past perfectly usable devices because they were forced into obsolescence.

I don't see how this would work given modern supply chains. It can be extremely difficult to track down all of the owners of a particular IP and when you do, many of them may not even exist any longer making it near impossible to get any sort of permission to do something like this.

That's the beauty of regulation.

Do you want to sell your devices in this large, debeloped, profitable market? The you have to comply.

Manufacturing supply chains are already awfully complicated beast. Complying with reflgulaion of providing firmware for your hardware should hardly be a huge problem.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#182

Post by JohnFen »

chongli wrote: post #56
unglaublich wrote: post #7

The problem is not really the battery anymore, it's the software mainly. It's all closed source and is often deprecated before the hardware is dead. Then the manufacturer makes it hard to unlock bootloaders; keeps drivers closed source and effectively bricks the device. For recurring sales are the backbone of modern economy so we must force obsolescence. Why would you want to replace a battery in a useless device? Pl…

No, it's batteries too. And water/dust/fluid ingress protection. Modern phones are sealed up pretty tight because users want them to be waterproof. This makes it very difficult to build in replaceable batteries!

> This makes it very difficult to build in replaceable batteries!

Except it doesn't. The last two waterproof phones I had had user-replaceable batteries, a USB port, and even a headphone jack.

What it does is add a few dollars onto the BOM.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#183

Post by constantcrying »

nulld3v wrote: post #150
constantcrying wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one I know of was a Samsung which didn't really succeed at water tightness.

Are you talking about the S5? It has a removable battery and has an IP67 rating so it should definitely be watertight.

>It has a removable battery and has an IP67 rating so it should definitely be watertight.

Yes, there is a mechanical cover which keeps the very small battery away from moisture. The risk with these mechanical covers is that they deform under pressure and let water enter. It is difficult engineering challenge and anecdotally it didn't work that reliably.

Glueing phones makes the engineering simpler as it removes the need for any kind of screws and mechanical locking mechanism, instead all electrical conponents can be fit very tightly into the interior of the phone.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#184

Post by [deleted] »

danpalmer wrote: post #6

I love the EU's focus on consumer protections and I'm all for progressive policies on environmental issues, but this and the USB-C issue strike me as misguided, policies from people who aren't qualified to to make the decisions they are making, and aren't listening to experts. I'm glad we're getting USB-C on the iPhone, but it wasn't a huge problem and it was probably coming anyway in the next few years. But replacea…

[deleted]

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#186

Post by refurb »

malermeister wrote: post #25
refurb wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they just create one phone for the EU market and don't market the rest?

That just doesn't happen because you lose economy of scale. The EU actually has a ton of soft power through this, enough for it to be a term in geopolitics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect

Europe is about 20% of Apple sales internationally. It's not that much power.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/382175/quarterly-revenue...

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#187

Post by eppp »

constantcrying wrote: post #33
eppp wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would make the weight trade in an instant to get replaceable batteries back. I dont see why waterproofness has to be sacrificed to get it though.

Modern phones include glued in gaskets to enable water proofing. This is incompatible with any kind of easy removability.

Glue in all the gaskets around the electronics and then epoxy the battery terminal wires into the waterproof area. Let the battery get wet if you can get a new one.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#188

Post by munk-a »

xenadu02 wrote: post #165
dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But really waterproofing the phone doesn't require gluing everything together to within an inch of its life, just a gasket and a few screws. Yes it will add $5 or something to the cost of a phone, totally worth it, and will improve repairability in general to boot.

You make this claim but have you ever worked in product design for something trying to achieve an IP water and dust ingress rating? It is far more than "just a gasket and a few screws". The rating can't just be good on unboxing day. You want it to hold even after a few years, several drops on the floor, in cold weather, etc.

Watch makers solved this problem decades ago - there are very reasonable mechanical solutions to waterproofing. And if some limited components need to be sealed (i.e. the USB port requires special shielding) that sealing can easily exist in a device that is otherwise reasonable to maintain.

Watch maintenance has been done by skilled professionals using generic tools and (generally) generic components. Waterproofing is an excuse used to limit our ability to repair and maintain our devices and maybe because somebody didn't like the appearance of a screw face or screw cover on one side of the device.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#189

Post by powerapple »

I remember when we had replaceable batteries, many, with different shape, different spec, different charger. Then someone did invent a universal charger with movable pin. If you want to replace battery on your iPhone, you can actually do it in local repair shops. Powerbank is actually a good product. I don't miss replaceable batteries.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#190

Post by rstat1 »

upon_drumhead wrote: post #69
ruined wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

battery life is the driver of phone waste. i buy used sub-flagship phones two or three cycles behind. they're much cheaper, they do what i need, they're not too slow for modern software. but the battery is the worst part. i get a day's life at best. a year in i'm camping by outlets all day if i need to use my phone more than incidentally. all of these phones would be perfectly good on the secondary market if a batter…

I paid $99 to get my iPhone XS Max's battery replaced directly by Apple a few weeks back. That phone is almost 5 years old. I really don't think that $99 is unreasonable.

Compared to $25 for a battery replacement that you could do yourself if it was replaceable kinda makes it seem unreasonable.
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