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Removable batteries in smartphones will be mandatory in the EU starting in 2027

ecopv-eu.com

491–500 of 560 posts

Re: Removable batteries in smartphones will be mandatory in the EU starting in 2027

#491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t want to pay the extra penalties of reduced structural rigidity and water tightness for a battery This is a BS excuse. Lots and lots of gadgets with removable batteries and waterproof design as evidence.

> Lots and lots of gadgets with removable batteries and waterproof design as evidence. And this is a BS rebuttal. None of them achieve the same miniaturization and water tightness as iPhone. This law is basically government being co-opted by a tiny vocal minority to force their unpopular opinions onto the rest of the public. If any modest percentage of the market cared about replaceable batteries above all else in th…

AFAIK, the primary reason Apple and others for avoiding removable batteries was the reputational risk and fire hazard of having customers put fake or damaged batteries, because that was long before they started marketing an IP rating.

And by the way, the "water proofing" is only 30 minutes with pressure equivalent to 6 meters deep, tested with water nozzles. That's not a lot. Other gadgets that employ gaskets or positive pressure achieve more. I'm sure they can design for the same rating without hurting easier battery replacement ability with the right incentives.

Re: Removable batteries in smartphones will be mandatory in the EU starting in 2027

#492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phones should be like PCs - they give you the hardware, and you figure out what to install on it. Unfortunately Linux imo is partially to blame here - if they decided to do a stable driver ABI (don't hate me, this was the norm outside Linux and open source OSes), you could easily separate the OS and drivers and update the m separately.

Who is "they"? Linux isn't a person or an organization. The people (and organizations) contributing to Linux are all doing it for their own motivations to solve their own problems. You are asking them to make their lives harder, for free, in service of fixing an issue that they don't care about.

Linus Torvalds for one, but generally people in charge of the kernel have a principle of API/ABI compatibility outside the kernel, but no promise for API ABI stability for anything inside, including drivers.

Re: Removable batteries in smartphones will be mandatory in the EU starting in 2027

#493
post #7

There's an exception for batteries that "retain at least 80% of its original capacity after 1,000 charge cycles." Coincidentally, iPhones and probably other flagships already qualify for this exception.

JFTR: achieving that capacity retention is a question of charge settings. Pretty much any Lithium ion battery can achieve it if you don't charge it to the absolute maximum possible each time. It's quite simple. While you can charge a "good old" Lithium ion battery to 4.2V, you already start getting slow degradation at that point. Charging it to 4.1V or 4.05V massively reduces that. But at the same time, those 100 or…

I suppose they can advertise a 0.9x Wh battery and include a 1x Wh battery instead, which is fine for me. If the battery is going to degrade hard just give me one that only reaches 90% max.

Re: Removable batteries in smartphones will be mandatory in the EU starting in 2027

#494
post #448
post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This should be for the market to decide, not EU bureaucrats. Ohh sweet summer child... We are in an era of obscene consolidation, in pretty much every sector, wealth is being consolidated to degrees unseen before, oligopolies enshrine their dominance via regulatory capture and a plethora of unfair practices. There's just no competition left to suggest that "markets can decide" of anything beneficial for our skinny…

* Samsung Electronics * Apple * Xiaomi * Oppo (includes OnePlus) * Vivo * Huawei * Honor * Motorola Mobility * realme * Google * Sony * Nokia * Asus * Nothing * HTC * ZTE * Fairphone * LG Electronics But yeah, "no competition left," okay..

ok, now bring-up a photo and datasheet of the flagship model from each of those brands, and articulate how they effectively depart from one another on metrics such as ergonomics, operating system, and hardware specs such as CPU/GPU/modem.

- The ergonomics story is: all those devices look and handle the same

- operating system is: a duopoly between Android and iOS

- chips: a triopoly between Qualcomm, Samsung and Apple

those manufacturers are not innovating as much as copying each-other's formula, using a very short list of identical suppliers, with no room for error. If that's not the definition of consolidation, please show it to me.

Re: Removable batteries in smartphones will be mandatory in the EU starting in 2027

#496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JFTR: achieving that capacity retention is a question of charge settings. Pretty much any Lithium ion battery can achieve it if you don't charge it to the absolute maximum possible each time. It's quite simple. While you can charge a "good old" Lithium ion battery to 4.2V, you already start getting slow degradation at that point. Charging it to 4.1V or 4.05V massively reduces that. But at the same time, those 100 or…

If the bill defines a charge cycle as 100->0->100 then the restriction should be more meaningful right? Manufacturers would have to ship a larger battery and cap its capacity to get the same lifespan.

100% and 0% are essentially arbitrary, though. That’s the point. What is 100% for a battery? 4.1V? 4.4V? What’s 0%? 3.0V? 2.5V? Lower?

Re: Removable batteries in smartphones will be mandatory in the EU starting in 2027

#497
post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. I've had my XCover 6 for 3½ years now. I've dropped it many times, on hard surfaces (like outdoor concrete/brick). I've undoubtedly been fortunate. the plastic has gouges in it. there's (small) scratches on the screen (some from my keys), but the screen is not cracked. When it is dropped the back and battery pop off, which I think helps dissipate the forces. BTW, for anyone trying to extend their phone life,…

> I strongly recommend those magnetic USB connectors Note that these connectors are in violation of USB standard and potentially harmful as they expose the pins in an unintended way. For instance, notice that all the connection on the USB port are not all the same length, it is a form of protection, to make sure the power lines are well connected before the data lines make contact. With magnetic USB connectors, you l…

At least the USB-C ones I purchase are not flush - I never found those to be reliable. It's a male prong that looks pretty much identical in wiring to the male prong on the phone, that connects to a female one plugged into the socket. That plus a bit of a collar to help hold it in place. So I don't see why there would be any difference in grounding, it's the same connection...

(that plus the comments from the more knowledgeable person below)

Eventually they start wearing out, and I just replace them. I've had no issues with high voltages (45W+ charging on phone and steamdeck) and with peripherals (hub for example).

Re: Removable batteries in smartphones will be mandatory in the EU starting in 2027

#498
post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The batteries regulation[1] doesn't contain such an exemption. The legal argument that iPhones may be exempt goes like this: - The batteries regulation is a general regulation and article 11 specifically says the following: > This paragraph shall be without prejudice to any specific provisions ensuring a higher level of protection of the environment and human health relating to the removability and replaceability of…

But what exactly is a charge cycle? I mean, the effect on a battery being loaded from 0% to 100% and drained to 0% again is vastly different from a battery being charged from 40% to 50% and being used until 40% ten times in a row.

I also wonder how this is impacted by time. If I have a device that's at 75% capacity at 200 cycles, but it's 7 years old, does that fail to meet these requirements?

Because my experience has been that the cycle count doesn't matter that much as the battery gets old. Old batteries just lose capacity.

Re: Removable batteries in smartphones will be mandatory in the EU starting in 2027

#499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how many people have the free mental space to manage the charge capacity of their phone? I plug mine into the charger when I go to bed, and unplug it in the morning when I start my day. I don't have time to think about phone charge levels much beyond that.

The will mange it for you - the iOS setting app has options to do this.

Can’t say I really trust that stuff like “charge only when green energy is available”. It’s a nice idea but whenever I’ve used Android devices my expectation was that sometimes I plug in my device at night but it doesn’t really charge and I am not going to pay top dollar and deal with life in a walled garden to have that experience.

Re: Removable batteries in smartphones will be mandatory in the EU starting in 2027

#500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

External battery banks are a far superior solution now that almost everything has standardized on USB and we have power banks supporting high speed charging. They can be charged with the same power adapter you use to charge your phone, without the need of an extra docking thing. They can be used to charge any USB-chargeable device. They are not tied to your specific model, and thus you're not vendor locked with them,…

Lots of advantages, but one major downside: you can't pop the empty battery, put a new one and keep working. There's a reason professional devices (e.g. cameras) still have replaceable batteries.

There are a few flashlights that have USB PD power bank functionality and also run on 18650 or 21700 rechargeable, replaceable Li-ion cells. I bought a Loop Gear SK05 Pro to replace Anker power banks for this use case.
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