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European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

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Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#111

Post by hutzlibu »

smn1234 wrote: post #16
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…

I'd much rather be able to swap a charged battery for the drained one in my phone especially in such circumstances as when I'm in a foreign country and dependent on my phone (for e.g. safety, to get around) and there's not a iPhone cable or charge point around. It seems like a no brainer, certainly from a consumer benefit perspective. Using batteries as a mechanism for hardware upgrades is ridiculous, instead of the…

For your use case, powerbanks work very well. Because then you dont have to turn the phone of.

My main motivation for only using battery removable phones is privacy, because I know they are really off, when I remove the battery.

But the choice is currently very limited.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#112

Post by bluSCALE4 »

ars wrote: post #45
gevz wrote: post #9

I wonder what is the definition of easily removable and replaceable. Does popping a few screws and using a specialized tool qualifies as easy? What about re-sealing the device after to keep the waterproof rating?

There's nothing to reseal, it's just a simple rubber gasket. Waterproofing is not some rocket science complicated thing that requires magic. Usually when they write these laws they say something like "replaceable using commonly available and inexpensive tools".

My Xperia Z something had a gasket over the charging port and like all gaskets, it failed. Lost a beautiful phone over a "simple gasket".

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#114

Post by marcosdumay »

alex7734 wrote: post #28
adaml_623 wrote: post #3

Cool. The manufacturers will figure out a way to make nice phones with a longer lifetime. Because the EU forces them to.

Engineers have become experts in selecting components so that they fail right after the warranty period. Replaceable batteries just means they will make something else weaker instead, preferably something that fries the device once it fails (see https://youtu.be/7cNg_ifibCQ?t=238 ). It's too dangerous not to, as nowadays phones (or computers in general) don't really need to be upgraded that often to remain useful. No…

Wow, Apple engineering a computer to fail destroying all the data after the guarantee and lying to their customers why their computers failed is pretty damning.

Did anything come out of this?

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#115

Post by ajaimk »

robin_reala wrote: post #51

Feels like, as per usual, people haven’t read the source text.[1] In order to ensure that portable batteries that were incorporated into appliances are subject to separate collection, treatment and high quality recycling once those appliances become waste, provisions to ensure the removability and replaceability of batteries in such appliances are necessary. Consumer safety should be ensured, in line with Union law a…

Pretty sure the iPhone 14 already satisfies this requirement

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#116

Post by notRobot »

gevz wrote: post #9

I wonder what is the definition of easily removable and replaceable. Does popping a few screws and using a specialized tool qualifies as easy? What about re-sealing the device after to keep the waterproof rating?

> In order to ensure that portable batteries that were incorporated into appliances are subject to separate collection, treatment and high quality recycling once those appliances become waste, provisions to ensure the removability and replaceability of batteries in such appliances are necessary. Consumer safety should be ensured, in line with Union law and in particular Union safety standards, during the removal of portable batteries from or the replacement of portable batteries in an appliance. A portable battery should be considered to be removable by the end-user when it can be removed with the use of commercially available tools and without requiring the use of specialised tools, unless they are provided free of charge, or proprietary tools, thermal energy or solvents to disassemble it. Commercially available tools are considered to be tools available on the market to all end-users without the need for them to provide evidence of any proprietary rights and that can be used with no restriction, except health and safety-related restrictions.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2023-0237...

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#117

Post by [deleted] »

epolanski wrote: post #34
gevz wrote: post #9

I wonder what is the definition of easily removable and replaceable. Does popping a few screws and using a specialized tool qualifies as easy? What about re-sealing the device after to keep the waterproof rating?

Is waterproof even a real needed feature? Like, I've been owning mobile phones for 22 years at this point and it's literally something I've never cared or benefitted from. On the other hand, having replaceable batteries is definitely something that's been useful in the past.

[deleted]

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#118

Post by FpUser »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #59

I believe that the average replacement rate of smartphones is less than 3 years. That's one of the reasons manufacturers have given up on (easily) replaceable batteries. It's simpler and allows for slicker design and anyway, most people will buy a new smartphone before the battery reaches its end of life. The EU is fighting the wrong fight here. It'd be more useful to improve recyclability and actual recycling than t…

>"I believe that the average replacement rate of smartphones is less than 3 years."

It is probably the same as with PC. Initially each generation was way more powerful and allowed "better" and more powerful applications. But at some point your generic PC has become powerful enough to run nearly everything the average person wants and there are no more reasons to upgrade. Smartphones may have reached the same point.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#119

Post by chrisbrandow »

epolanski wrote: post #34
gevz wrote: post #9

I wonder what is the definition of easily removable and replaceable. Does popping a few screws and using a specialized tool qualifies as easy? What about re-sealing the device after to keep the waterproof rating?

Is waterproof even a real needed feature? Like, I've been owning mobile phones for 22 years at this point and it's literally something I've never cared or benefitted from. On the other hand, having replaceable batteries is definitely something that's been useful in the past.

Is it useful to protect an $800 device from being ruined by accidentally dunking it in a pool, lake, toilet?

Yes.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#120

Post by deelowe »

surgical_fire wrote: post #43
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…

> 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.
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