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The EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries

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Re: The EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries

#161

Post by Barrin92 »

scarface_74 wrote: post #108
Mystery-Machine wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is great because the more expensive phones get, the less likely people will want to replace their 2-year old phone with a new one. Plus, those new high end features...there have been barely any new features in a smartphone in the last 5+ years (I'm exaggerating a bit of course). Check out Fairphone. That's an interesting project!

Isn’t this the ultimate “let them eat cake” argument? There are many people in the world who can’t afford anything but the cheapest phone.

Those people don't live in the EU. And anyhow the higher cost of the phone are balanced out by the increased longevity and support of the device. Lifetime cost may very well be lower when people end up replacing their phones less frequently and just have to swap a battery.

Re: The EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries

#162

Post by forty »

systemtest wrote: post #12

It is interesting that the EU only wants to regulate markets that they are not participating in. They don't make smartphone anymore so any regulations isn't hurting them. It would be admirable if they held the same standard for vehicles, including brands from the EU.

I'd consider the being the buying side of a market as "participating" in that market.

Vehicles are definitely regulated in Europe (see that story with Volkswagen, an EU brand, cheating the regulation as an example [1])

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal

EDIT: I realize this started in the US but EU countries also went after VW and other EU brands after that

Re: The EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries

#163

Post by tomjen3 »

jacquesm wrote: post #64
tomjen3 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? It is going to meant that Android can't take advantage of the high end features of the new phones that are being released, and that old and slow phones are going to get updates that makes them run even slower. To top it of, it is not like manufacturers are into throwing away money, so this will likely mean that prices on the cheapest phones will increase more.

> It is going to meant that Android can't take advantage of the high end features of the new phones that are being released That's perfectly ok, what you don't have you can't use. > and that old and slow phones are going to get updates that makes them run even slower. It would be up to the manufacturers to ensure that this is not the case. One way to do it would be to reduce bloat. > To top it of, it is not like manu…

>This makes no sense: manufacturers are competing with each other, if the prices on the cheapest phones will increase more then surely someone will exploit that.

You assume it costs nothing to maintain software for old phones.

Re: The EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries

#164

Post by jeroenhd »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #130
pizza234 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, the current bottleneck with (Android) phones is that the get very slow without any apparent reasons after a few years. I've had multiple reports of acquaintances complaining about their phones getting slow after a few years, and I've always assumed that they were just full of apps... until it happened to me. I can't find an unambiguois explanation; my guess is a mix of CPUs deteriorating over time d…

Android seems to suffer from a phenomenon similar to "Windows creep" where performance decays over time for no reason in particular, even for users who are good stewards of their devices. It's more of an issue for some devices than it is for others for reasons that are unclear.

I used to think this at well, but then I removed all of the useless apps I'd gathered over the years. The improvements were almost instant. Installing apps doesn't have a noticeable impact on general system performance, but install enough of them and you'll find everything mote sluggish than you remember.

My phone feels as fast as the day I bought it, which so far must've been about four years ago now. It came out with Android 9 and is currently running Android 13 through a custom ROM.

Newer devices certainly feel snappier, but the old phone works as well as it ever did, except for the battery carrying almost half of its original capacity. I still have my OnePlus One and I can't say it feels like the phone is slower than when I bought it.

I think the slowness is caused more by the change in perception thsnt be degradation of hardware and the ever growing software bloat. Modern phones software comes with fluid, high resolution, high speed animations and transitions everywhere that don't work well on older devices. Once you turn those off, you'll quickly find that many older devices will work just as well with modern software as they did with their older software.

Bargain bin devices that come out with specs that can't even run the factory firmware are the exception, of course. However, that segment seems to have shrunk significantly since I last looked into buying a phone.

Re: The EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries

#165

Post by f1shy »

scarface_74 wrote: post #114
onli wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. First, the devices with removable batteries are exceedingly rare right now. They also often enough are niche products. Second, it is not reasonable to expect every consumer to always think about what is right, and not instead to follow what marketing tells him to buy. This is exactly what regulations are good for and historically have solved.

Yes people are too stupid to make their own choices. The EU should just start coming out with “5 Year Plans”. What could possibly go wrong? The EU’s regulations must be why there is a thriving tech sector in Europe…

There is good development in the UK! Oh… they are not EU … The ones that downvoted this comment will be surprised in 10 years…

Re: The EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries

#166

Post by Levitz »

systemtest wrote: post #69
jacquesm wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is their market to regulate. And right to repair is very much a part of EU regulations. Without those regulations you'd be in a far worse situation. https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/automotiv... If BMW idiocy gets you upset: don't drive BMW. My car is 25 and I can do just about anything I want on it. Your beef is first and foremost with BMW, and I'm fairly sure that if the EU deems this kind of b…

It is their market but they don't have any significant participation in it, which is why regulation is easy. There isn't any significant downside to it for them. I don't have beef with BMW, that was just an example. "Don't drive a BMW" is the equivalent of "Don't buy an iPhone" if you care about repairability. It shouldn't be like that.

Consumers are the whole reason as to why any market exists. You can think about regulation as "You have to do this to sell here" but also as "They have to do that for you to buy it here". The EU comes in agreement as to what kind of products they ought to purchase and this is the result. Your wallet is not the only way to vote in modern capitalism.

Re: The EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries

#167

Post by makeitdouble »

giantrobot wrote: post #120
makeitdouble wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replaceability is not about space but design. In particular this legislation lets the maker build sealed and compact products as long as there's a reasonable way to open them and replace the battery.

Replaceability is very much about space. LiPoly batteries are very dangerous without an outer impact shell. If they're bent or punctured they'll catch fire or explode. Batteries sealed in a device use the body of the device as their impact shell so get more battery mass and thus storage for a given envelope. A replaceable battery needing its own impact shell will have less storage for the same envelope volume. This i…

> A replaceable battery needing its own impact shell

Why ? Current battery replacements are sold without an impact shell, and the main issue is to have to remove all the parts to reach the battery at the very bottom of the stack and then deal with the dirty gluing.

A design where you remove the bottom first, unglue the battery through pull tabs and stick the new battery would have exactly the same properties, the body would still act as an impact shell, the only difference being it's a 5 or 6 step process instead of literaly 55.

Re: The EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries

#168

Post by Levitz »

f6v wrote: post #118
progfix wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why change the device design to make battery user-replaceable when I can bring it to the repair shop? You'd rather go to a repair shop and pay a service fee for something that you can probably do in a couple of minutes at home?

I think that making battery replaceable by user will affect the phone design. I had a ton of first-wave Android devices back in the day. I don’t remember carrying an extra battery with me. Maybe someone did, but how many of total users? Another point is that making a phone water-resistant is likely not trivial when you can take the whole back panel away. My point is: are these dramatic changes worth it when the batte…

I've replaced batteries with tools. It's a slab inside the phone and it tends to get somewhat hot, there really aren't that many places to put them, I have a really hard time believing making repairs difficult is not the main reason defining the current standard.

Now, things like bluetooth earphones, those I'm curious about.

Re: The EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries

#169

Post by jeroenhd »

systemtest wrote: post #12

It is interesting that the EU only wants to regulate markets that they are not participating in. They don't make smartphone anymore so any regulations isn't hurting them. It would be admirable if they held the same standard for vehicles, including brands from the EU.

As a European citizen I agree that the way car manufacturers are given the satin glove treatment is despicable.

That said, the EU does regulate every market it participates in. If you can find it on a store shelf, you'll find EU regulation about it.

One of the major driving forces behind the Brexit vote was to "get rid of all of the EU paperwork". Of course they still have to get their paperwork in order if they want to export to the EU now, but for their internal market they're free to ignore all the EU regulations if they want to. As it turns out, most of those regulations were quite reasonable so a lot of the old regulations remained unchanged, but they were definitely there.

Re: The EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries

#170

Post by layer8 »

tomjen3 wrote: post #101
layer8 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s certainly some compromises to be made for sustainability, but I don’t think they have to be a deal breaker.

As long as it has any impact on weight, battery size, water tightness or make the device bigger its a deal breaker for me.

Sounds like you’re incredibly lucky that current products just happen to barely not exceed your deal-breaking threshold. A few years ago you wouldn’t have found any products meeting your requirements.
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