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EU Energy labelling will apply to phones and tablets from June 2025

energy-efficient-products.ec.europa.eu

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Re: EU Energy labelling will apply to phones and tablets from June 2025

#71

Post by ltbarcly3 »

myrmidon wrote: post #66
ltbarcly3 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Estimates for effects of the regulation are right there-- they hope for total savings of 8TWh within 2030, but mainly from longer product lifetime through devices staying functional for longer on old batteries and easier battery repairability. That's an interesting point I didn't realize. I still don't see how they can get to those numbers, do they quote the calculations somewhere? I toned down the claim to be less…

I agree with you that battery tech is basically getting better by itself. Anecdotally, I bought at least one phone where slightly easier/cheaper repairability of screen + battery would have made me keep the old one. I think making these metrics clear on product packaging is also becoming more important, because the improvements in phones have slowed down already, and longer lifetimes should be a consequence/benefit (…

Product packaging? Where do you see the package for a phone? I haven't seen a box for a phone before I bought it before, even in the 90's when I sold phones at RadioShack they were kept under lock and key. In fact every phone I have purchased in the last 15 years or so has been second hand via eBay or direct from Google and shipped. Even at the Apple store you can't see a package.

Re: EU Energy labelling will apply to phones and tablets from June 2025

#72

Post by myrmidon »

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #71
myrmidon wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you that battery tech is basically getting better by itself. Anecdotally, I bought at least one phone where slightly easier/cheaper repairability of screen + battery would have made me keep the old one. I think making these metrics clear on product packaging is also becoming more important, because the improvements in phones have slowed down already, and longer lifetimes should be a consequence/benefit (…

Product packaging? Where do you see the package for a phone? I haven't seen a box for a phone before I bought it before, even in the 90's when I sold phones at RadioShack they were kept under lock and key. In fact every phone I have purchased in the last 15 years or so has been second hand via eBay or direct from Google and shipped. Even at the Apple store you can't see a package.

I phrased that poorly, I ment "mandatory labeling" rather than physical package.

Screen/battery fixability was a major criteria when selecting my last phone and this was really hard to gauge, I'm hopeful that regulation like this is gonna help.

Re: EU Energy labelling will apply to phones and tablets from June 2025

#73

Post by FirmwareBurner »

myrmidon wrote: post #30
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only the EU was like "you can save money and our environment by buying Chinese EVs instead of smokey German, Italian & French diesels" in the same spirit. Oh well. It's pretty easy to regulate things that aren't made by your domestic companies.

This is oversimplifying; European EV tariffs are company specific and (formally) aim to counteract state subsidies. From a an average voter perspective, "sacrificing" local industry for a (temporary?) 20% discount on EVs is not too popular anyway, and neither is it gonna meaningfully save the planet IMO. Tariff levels are basically the same as US import tariffs on pickup trucks, so not especially high, either.

>and neither is it gonna meaningfully save the planet IMO

The EU's tethered bottle caps also aren't gonna save the planet yet we have to live with them because that was the selling point.

Re: EU Energy labelling will apply to phones and tablets from June 2025

#74

Post by FirmwareBurner »

myrmidon wrote: post #17
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This law has more to do with the environment/Energy usage than with the consumer. And the US consumer cares a lot less about energy usage since they're much more energy and monetarily rich than the EU. If they paid German gas and electricity prices for example while having European wages, they'd care a lot more about energy consumption, believe that.

I think regulation like this is just strictly good (even from US perspective/priorities), because you can not realistically "vote with your wallet" for environment-friendly products when relevant info is obfuscated, falsified or not available at all. Just ignoring energy efficiency/repairability labelling is always an option for consumers on the other hand. > If they paid German gas and electricity prices for example…

>I think regulation like this is just strictly good (even from US perspective/priorities)

I never said it's bad, I was just answered why the EU is pushing for this when US isn't: because in US energy affordability is not as big of an issue for consumers.

Re: EU Energy labelling will apply to phones and tablets from June 2025

#75

Post by myrmidon »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #73
myrmidon wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is oversimplifying; European EV tariffs are company specific and (formally) aim to counteract state subsidies. From a an average voter perspective, "sacrificing" local industry for a (temporary?) 20% discount on EVs is not too popular anyway, and neither is it gonna meaningfully save the planet IMO. Tariff levels are basically the same as US import tariffs on pickup trucks, so not especially high, either.

>and neither is it gonna meaningfully save the planet IMO The EU's tethered bottle caps also aren't gonna save the planet yet we have to live with them because that was the selling point.

I personally think tethered caps are fine, pretty sure they objectively reduce wild trash/lead to less cleanup requirements behind tourists and the like.

Do you think that the cost/benefit tradeoff in untariffed Chinese cars would be significantly better than tethered caps or deposits on bottles, or banning throwaway plastic straws?

Because this is far from clear to me; sure, introducing more, cheaper electric cars would help much more than reducing plastic waste, but the cost/risk to local industry is also MUCH higher, and a situation like the one with agriculture (a whole industry sector running basically on subsidies, in every industrialized country) is worth trying to avoid, too.

Re: EU Energy labelling will apply to phones and tablets from June 2025

#76

Post by myrmidon »

gessha wrote: post #69
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only looked at spot prices which is not what a lot for consumers pay in their contracts.

That's a good point. The numbers go the opposite way if you check household prices. Are prices in Germany anomalous due to them putting their eggs in the Russian gas basket? Countries with nuclear power plants seem to have lower electricity prices (who would've known). US $0.18/kWh [1] DE $0.44/kWh [2] EU $0.32/kWh [2] [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU000072610 [2] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-ex…

In Germany, I think a big cost driver is infrastructure buildout, from switching coal plants to renewables as well as building new gas turbines, more so than gas price itself (which is 60% renewables for electricity, so there is at least something to show for it.

France basically invested 40 years ago and are still reaping the spoils; I'd expect prices there to rise significantly once a majority of nuclear reactors reaches end-of-life.

From a household perspective the cost of electricity feels pretty marginal to me, anyway.

Re: EU Energy labelling will apply to phones and tablets from June 2025

#77

Post by hn_throw2025 »

myrmidon wrote: post #3

Nice page! I'm extremely happy about efforts like this. You might argue that the EU is a sprawling, wasteful bureaucracy and you would not be wrong, per se, but they made a lot of useful laws that just simply make the world a better place. Having standardized chargers for phones and laptops is SUPER nice and would never have happened without intervention IMO. The only equivalent for US "useful, average-citizen friend…

Yay for the energy label!

We replaced our old tumble dryer with a modern one. The ones we had to choose from all have the energy sticker and fall into a similar band.

Choose a programme, wait a couple of hours, and bam! You can go from wet to still damp, just like that.

In other news, manufacturers game the system.

Re: EU Energy labelling will apply to phones and tablets from June 2025

#78

Post by someNameIG »

drstewart wrote: post #37
myrmidon wrote: post #3

Nice page! I'm extremely happy about efforts like this. You might argue that the EU is a sprawling, wasteful bureaucracy and you would not be wrong, per se, but they made a lot of useful laws that just simply make the world a better place. Having standardized chargers for phones and laptops is SUPER nice and would never have happened without intervention IMO. The only equivalent for US "useful, average-citizen friend…

Can you share some equivalent Japanese laws that make the world a better place, or maybe Australian ones? Or are there none? :(

I'm pretty sure Australian consumer protection laws are why Steam started offering refunds.

Re: EU Energy labelling will apply to phones and tablets from June 2025

#79

Post by dns_snek »

gessha wrote: post #69
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only looked at spot prices which is not what a lot for consumers pay in their contracts.

That's a good point. The numbers go the opposite way if you check household prices. Are prices in Germany anomalous due to them putting their eggs in the Russian gas basket? Countries with nuclear power plants seem to have lower electricity prices (who would've known). US $0.18/kWh [1] DE $0.44/kWh [2] EU $0.32/kWh [2] [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU000072610 [2] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-ex…

Regarding [1], do these numbers include other charges that appear on the electric bill (e.g. distribution, fixed fees) and all local taxes?

Re: EU Energy labelling will apply to phones and tablets from June 2025

#80

Post by dns_snek »

nottorp wrote: post #24
pjc50 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to have small actors being able the try innovation Yes. While I'm generally in favor of the EU regulatory approach they need to learn about and understand the concept of "small business", including the fact that you can't get a new large EU business without it going through the small business stage. There should be a lot more de minimis exemptions from the whole CE marking system.

> There should be a lot more de minimis exemptions from the whole CE marking system. There are a lot of EU wide requirements that create barriers to entry. Before Altman's scareware campaign to "regulate" "AI", there was: Exhibit 1: https://pcengines.ch/recycle.htm See the blurb about not being able to sell direct to customers in the EU. [Think the company has shut down or is shutting down, possibly because of that t…

> [Think the company has shut down or is shutting down, possibly because of that too.]

It looks like they're shutting down because megacorporations don't want to support small business endeavors, which is perhaps the most critical barrier to entry if you want to do anything in this space.

https://pcengines.ch/eol.htm

> After a long production run, AMD will accept last orders for the SOC used in our apu2/3/4/5/6 boards by end of June 2023.

> Despite having used considerable quantities of AMD processors and Intel NICs, we don't get adequate design support for new projects. In addition, the x86 silicon currently offered is not very appealing for our niche of passively cooled boards. After about 20 years of WRAP, ALIX and APU, it is time for me to move on to different things.

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