Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

techspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 622 posts

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#251

Post by tpmoney »

johnfernow wrote: post #203
upon_drumhead wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

iFixit sells iPhone XS Max batteries for $35, nearly a third of the cost Apple is charging. $99 may not be a ton in some regions of the world, but it is enough that many are unwilling to spend that kind of money on a 5 year old phone, versus for $35, it's a low enough amount that many might just stick with their phone and replace the battery, leading to less e-waste. And while $99 may not be a lot in some regions of…

>but it is enough that many are unwilling to spend that kind of money on a 5 year old phone, versus for $35, it's a low enough amount that many might just stick with their phone and replace the battery, leading to less e-waste.

Are there people that find spending $99 on a battery replacement expensive that are really making the decision to replace their whole phone for 5-10x that amount?

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#252

Post by bombela »

eterevsky wrote: post #166
hunter2_ wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like it should be possible for the phone (not the battery compartment and battery door, just the rest of the phone) to be waterproof, and for the battery to be waterproof, and the two can contact each other regardless of that contact being in a wet location. After all, we have plenty of electrical wiring methods rated for wet locations, so why not this? Water isn't the very best insulator (especially saltwater…

Wikipedia says that the resistance of water is 0.2 Ω·m for sea water, 2 to 200 Ω·m for drinking water. This is very low and can drain your battery almost immediately.

Wikipedia also says that water starts conducting at 1.23V, and the common Li-Ion nominal voltage is 3.7V.

3.7V - 1.23V == 2.47V. 2.47V / 0.2Ω ~= 30W (12.5A).

You will be able the find your phone on the seabed from the bubble emanating from it.

Though the battery protect circuitry (which is inside the battery package) will most likely cut power before the battery is risks damages.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#253

Post by lagadu »

qalmakka wrote: post #213
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…

I think Apple would never tolerate that. I can see them lobbying political parties in order to sabotage EU cohesion if that gets proposed.

Like they never would tolerate being forced into USB-C or being forced into allowing other app stores?

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#254

Post by waboremo »

thrashh wrote: post #228
codetrotter wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> many of them may not even exist any longer making it near impossible to get any sort of permission to do something like this So plan ahead. For the 2024 model of each iPhone, get all the permissions to release all of the firmware in year 2032.

The usual concern with regulation is not the big players. It’s the smaller products and businesses that cease to exist because it’s too expensive to meet regulations. Bad regulation raises the cost of entry into the market and strengthens the big players like Apple.

Not sure how much weight this really has in a market such as mobile phones in which additional external competitors are never going to become a reality.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#256

Post by slim »

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.

How about a rule that says you have no intellectual property whatsoever on my phone if you don't maintain it for a year. I would be free to decompile it recompile it and make it opendource

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#257

Post by fnimick »

phyllistine wrote: post #97
alex7734 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> No manufacturer wants a repeat of the 1080Ti I think I'm out of the loop. What does this mean?

NVidia made a video card good enough that people who bought it had no need to upgrade for 4-5 years afterward. It hampered sales of cards for two generations afterward.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#258

Post by veave »

COGlory wrote: post #240
phan wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must be joking if you think its just a BOM adjustment and a small cost... way to oversimplify the actual implementation

Kyocera has been doing it for years.

https://fdn2.mobgsm.com/vv/pics/kyocera/kyocera-duraforce-pr...

I don't want my phone to look like that by law.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#259

Post by pryelluw »

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…

Are both note true?

We should have both. Replace battery, components, and software access.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#260

Post by dang »

officialchicken wrote: post #137
dang wrote: post #99

Is this rule enacted now or was this just a vote? That's the important detail for whether this counts as SNI or not ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... ).

No, the rule can not be enacted since it has not been fully adopted - the final (multilingual) text has to be added to the European Council Rules via the plenary voting procedure. This rule will come into effect following that vote.

Thanks - I appreciate the help. Do you know if the final vote is just a formality or if there is a real chance it won't pass?

Most proposed bills / votes don't end up resulting in much so we tend to downweight those threads on HN and wait for the thing to actually happen (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).

Post reply on HN