Live data from Hacker News

All phones sold in the EU to have replaceable batteries from 2027

theolivepress.es

381–390 of 1001 posts

Re: All phones sold in the EU to have replaceable batteries from 2027

#381
post #258

One of the most frustrating things about HN is that people seem so unaware of how idiosyncratic their preferences are. If you stood on the street corner and asked every passerby what they would change about their phone, I think you would be there all day before someone said "I wish I could replace the battery". It's okay to have idiosyncratic preferences (I certainly do), but people should recognize that this law wil…

I think most americans are happy to have usb-c on their Iphones.

Re: All phones sold in the EU to have replaceable batteries from 2027

#382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has no chance to claim their batteries can have 80% capacity after 1000 cycles seeing how they never achieved this so far. Lying about it puts them in a world of mass recalls and fraud investigations.

Depends on how "cycle" is defined - I'm sure they can finagle it so "any charge added to the battery" counts as a cycle. As a datapoint my iPhone reports 522 cycles and 89% max - from march 2024. I do use the "limit charging to 80%" feature which I suspect may become mandatory before 2027 ...

> Depends on how "cycle" is defined - I'm sure they can finagle it so "any charge added to the battery" counts as a cycle.

The definition is pretty well established, and Apple themselves have for years used it consistently.

https://www.apple.com/batteries/why-lithium-ion/

> You complete one charge cycle when you’ve used (discharged) an amount that represents 100% of your battery’s capacity* — but not necessarily all from one charge. For instance, you might use 75% of your battery’s capacity one day, then recharge it fully overnight. If you use 25% the next day, you will have discharged a total of 100%, and the two days will add up to one charge cycle. It could take several days to complete a cycle.

Re: All phones sold in the EU to have replaceable batteries from 2027

#383
post #258

One of the most frustrating things about HN is that people seem so unaware of how idiosyncratic their preferences are. If you stood on the street corner and asked every passerby what they would change about their phone, I think you would be there all day before someone said "I wish I could replace the battery". It's okay to have idiosyncratic preferences (I certainly do), but people should recognize that this law wil…

Are laws typically enacted to compel companies to follow consumer demand? I think that’s what the market itself is best at.

Instead this law is designed to provide the public with a good everyone can benefit from - less waste of valuable electronic components polluting our environment.

And even if those same consumers would choose a thinner phone over a replaceable battery, they will probably also enjoy being able to fully charge it more often for less money.

Re: All phones sold in the EU to have replaceable batteries from 2027

#384
post #37

They (Samsung, Apple, etc.) should never have been allowed to glue it behind the screen. Threaded fasteners and a silicone gasket cover is good enough for 99.999% of the public use-case.

> is good enough for 99.999% of the public use-case You know this how, exactly?

Via firsthand observation of people in the world. Go ahead and check the number of people on the street that need the edge case of using the phone under IEC standard 60529. Now go ahead and check out how many people on the street want to be able to replace their battery.

Re: All phones sold in the EU to have replaceable batteries from 2027

#386

>The regulation states that batteries must be removable using ‘commercially available’ tools This is doing a lot of work here. There's enough wiggle room for this to be absolutely meaningless. Anything short of I can slide off the back cover and maybe unscrew two or three screws to replace the battery means that a lot of people are going to end up not being able to replace the batteries.

Everyone is thinking Apple is the target, but they are actually one of the better companies with this. You can buy first-party replacement parts, tools are available. If you take a look at Chinese or sometimes even Samsung phones it's basically impossible to get replacement parts and if you do it may need other parts like the glass back to be replaced as it's impossible to remove it without breaking it.

Re: All phones sold in the EU to have replaceable batteries from 2027

#387
post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you would be there all day before someone said "I wish I could replace the battery" Before that, you wrote "One of the most frustrating things about HN is that people seem so unaware of how idiosyncratic their preferences are" and it's exactly what I could say here. Not everyone has lots of money and for some people extending the life of their phones is important. They really do wish they could replace the battery…

With the storage cost crisis which will make future phone more expensive I'm sure a lot of people will wish they could prolong the lifetime of theri current device with a battery swap.

>With the storage cost crisis

On that note, mandating an SD card slot as a requirement would be a very much welcome next step.

Manufacturers selling space-crippled devices just to upsell "premium" models is such an environmental waste (at the very least).

Re: All phones sold in the EU to have replaceable batteries from 2027

#390
post #258

One of the most frustrating things about HN is that people seem so unaware of how idiosyncratic their preferences are. If you stood on the street corner and asked every passerby what they would change about their phone, I think you would be there all day before someone said "I wish I could replace the battery". It's okay to have idiosyncratic preferences (I certainly do), but people should recognize that this law wil…

> asked every passerby what they would change about their phone, [...] before someone said "I wish I could replace the battery".

'If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses'....Henry Ford

Nobody cares about repairability....until they are hit hard by it.

Anecdote: Around 5y ago, the lightning connector of my wife's iPhone died after 3y usage.

We brought it to an Apple Store and the official answer was "Sorry, we don't fix that on this model. Here is a 200€ discount on a new one"... The phone was still worth >900€ at the time.

Let's be clear: This kind of commercial practice are unacceptable both ecologically and ethically speaking. It is terrible customer service.

A lot of high end phones (outside Apple) at the time would have their USB-C port fixed in matter of few hours for The battery is the exact same shit.

Post reply on HN