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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

#281
post #133
post #124

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> Because most people won't: > - it's expensive > - it takes their phone away Ok, people don’t go to shops to replace battery now? “oh, it’s 99$ to replace the battery? I’d rather pay 1000$ for a new iPhone!” That’s a bit silly.

Most people don't have a $1000 iphone, which is even more problematic, because if you have a cheaper $3-400 phone, that $99 replacement would be very expensive.

Exactly this! I keep seeing this nonsense that a $70/99 store replacement battery is a great cheap deal.

Yeap, only compared to a brand new phone. When you have a cheap iPhone from 5 years ago and you compare the price of a battery replacement to the actual price of your phone it quickly become obnoxiously expensive.

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

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still on a dumb phone and that's because I think spending $800 on a phone is ridiculous. And it's not like I can't afford it.

I spend money where I spend time: phone, chair, monitor, mattress. I rarely drive so my car is 19 years old. I use my phone daily (right now!) so I have the newest one.

Exactly. Normal people have already replaced their computer with phones so how old is the PC that HN commentators use? Five years?

Phones are appliances that are being used up to 10 hours every single day. And sure you can keep repairing them but at some point buying a new one will actually be cheaper.

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

#283
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do any phones designed by EU companies move more than a million units per year?

Are you going for the record of all moving the goalposts comments?

How is that moving a goalpost? Reality is that since Nokia's demise something like 99.99% of phones sold in EU are Apple, Samsung, or some crap from China. Europe managed to produce couple of smartphones, 15 years ago, but tries to regulate the market as if they knew anything about smartphones at all.

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

#284
post #277

No more waterproof phones I guess. This saddens me. I find it very useful when driving my bike outdoors with it being mounted to my bike.

You can still have a waterproof phone with replaceable battery through the revolutionary technology of gaskets ;-) There were several models like that already before manufacturers figured out it's cheaper to glue them

Price matters to consumers. If phones become more expensive because of this virtue signalling regulation it will be killed. The EU parliament is still a democracy.

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

#285
If only apps could run on old smartphone so we don't have to change phone every 2 to 4 years.

Good luck using popular apps with an old phone, it's DESIGNED to run slower because Google constantly upgrades the android api, which constantly makes phones obsolete.

This is an excellent example of wirth law.

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

#286

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.

Is there a significant amount of electric vehicles that get discarded because it's too hard to change the battery?

Leaf is the one that needs most replacements so far, and there are swaps and upgrades available.

The fact that you can upgrade a 24kWh 2011 Leaf to a 40kWh battery makes me optimistic for the current-gen cars: by the time they need a battery replacement, we'll have better and/or cheaper batteries available for them.

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

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to be able to change the battery far more often - possibly every 8 hours if I'm using the phone a lot during an off-road adventure or other adventure where having a charging device isn't a great solution. When I used to travel a lot I had a smartphone with a replaceable battery and I carried several replacement batteries. Going from 5% battery life to 100% battery life in the few seconds it takes to change the…

You will be able to change your Tesla batteries after this as well!

I don't give a rats ass about Tesla or their batteries.

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

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current LiPoly replacement batteries are not sold as consumer items. You can't buy them off a peg at a normal retail store. Take a look at phone batteries sometime and make note of the logos everyone ignores. A UR mark (its a backwards printed UR) is a UL certification for components meant to go in a UL listed product but themselves aren't individually certified as UL products. Not that UL or any other testing labs a…

Thanks for the details. If I correctly get your point, the whole UL/UR system will need to be revised to adapt to more consumers directly buying replacement parts, as they'll expand beyond the nerds following iFixit tutorials. On the glue part, sretch release strips are simple enough to deal with.

> If I correctly get your point, the whole UL/UR system will need to be revised to adapt to more consumers directly buying replacement parts, as they'll expand beyond the nerds following iFixit tutorials.

No, the underwriting and test labs system will not be "updated". User serviceable parts/devices would need significant structural changes to pass testing.

The whole point of testing labs is to give a liability sign-off for manufacturers. A UL listing just says "this particular product built to X specifications did not immediately explode, catch fire, or kill anyone during our testing". It means that design isn't immediately dangerous under normal use co dictions. The UR listing is really just a claim that the component can sit in its packaging in a warehouse (in normal conditions) and not explode, catch fire, and is unlikely to immediately kill someone before it's sent to be assembled into a UL listed device.

If a manufacturer is selling to consumers no retailer, wholeseller, warehouse, or shipping company will touch electronics without some sort of test lab underwriting. In order for batteries to get that underwriting they need to survive physical abuse tests that will cause most LiPoly batteries to explode or catch fire. Look up LiPoly battery fires on YouTube. It's common to use naked batteries with no protective cases in hobby projects.

In order to make LiPoly batteries that will pass those underwriting tests they will need outer impact and puncture resistant casings. For any given envelope for a battery the protective casing will eat into the battery's capacity. Depending on the material and envelope the casing could be up to 50% of the battery's volume.

Internal layouts for some phones would be untenable if the batteries were user serviceable and required a protective shell. The L-shaped batteries in phones like the iPhone XS would be an impractical shape.

The difference between a high capacity battery and bomb is really only the discharge speed. Lithium is incredibly reactive with oxygen. The only reason they're relatively safe to keep in your pocket is they're wrapped in a sturdy aluminum shell.

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

#289
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> used a phone there are almost no smartphones where you can easily replace the battery these days.

I recently replaced the battery in a Pixel 4. Definitely not latest-and-greatest, but also still just about getting feature updates. I think the biggest challenge for most people would be confidence, rather than it being intrinsically difficult. iFixit sold me a kit with all the necessary (OEM) parts and (iFixit) tools, and they have a web page with sufficiently-detailed instructions.

The pixel 4 reached EOL earlier this year, you should upgrade.

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

#290
post #249
post #51

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Those tabs are not that easy to pull by hand. Very easy to break and then you're forced to pry out the battery, which is less safe than if it didn't need prying. I know the glue is unnecessary because every time I've replaced a battery, I didn't glue the new one back in, and my phone performed fine.

Your last sentence is odd because obviously the glue isn’t something like thermal paste. It won’t affect performance. The glue is there for structural reasons. Adhesion allows better rigidity by making use of the structure around it.

By performed fine, I mean it didn't cave in on itself and the battery did not disconnect.
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