All smartphones, including iPhones, must have replaceable batteries by 2027 in the EU::undefined
It’s NOT just phones.
It’s EVERYTHING with a battery. Including cars, laptops, e-bikes, video game controllers, headphones etc. (im not even sure if there are exceptions, such as tiny tiny “airpod” like things… ?)
And they must be (with a few exceptions) replacable by a “layman”, without the use of special tools - which means no heat pads, to soften up glue etc etc. (and for gods sake, i hope it also means apple can’t hardwareID lock a battery)
an exception mentioned in the EU document about the law says, high power batteries for example in an electric car, must be done by a profesional - but of course it still has to be “replacable” and not… tear the whole car apart and rebuild it using new batteries.
replacable batteries in headphones, bluetooth mice, laptops etc, is gonna be awesome.
and lets not forget, they have to recycle the old ones - and produce new batteries using recycled materials.
in fact, i will try to hold on replacing my current (2 year old) phone, and wait to get one before 2027. Usually the battery turns to shit in 3ish years.
Gonna make a guess here and assume that the EU probably wants to increase lithium recycling. Removable batteries would probably make that goal a bit more achievable
I’m having a hard time finding the actual regulation text with all these details. Anyone have that?
The cars will be fun to see unfold considering new EV platforms have them integrated straight into the platform the chassis is built upon.
Not so much new. Has been on the road map for years. More like disgusting.
There was a choice to be made to make things repairable, or not. The industry chose not.
They must all have reached nirvana when they realized they could build in planned obsolescence straight into the platform. No more replacing a tiny belt, now they get to sell a brand new car when the battery goes bad!
I really hope that this regulation from the EU stick and it doesn’t get shut down by Germany as usual when they act as an extension of the auto-industry.
You could buy fairphone if you don’t want to wait and your battery can’t handle it anymore
Also if you want to be blocked by banking apps
I didn’t knew that
Thank fucking god for the EU, for fighting for global digital rights where nobody else does.
According to republicans Europe is hell on Earth tho
mostly cuz EU gives rights and protections to consumers, not corporations
I understand. Unless you’re lining billionaire pockets and actively hurting the poor, Republicans are PISSED
They’re still liberal and give a lot more to corporations than they do people.
And yet to us Americans, we see that the EU does a billion times more for its citizens and we wish our country could be half as good about the things the EU does right.
Grass is always greener…
Actually the Europeans I’ve talked to with a small couple of exceptions very much like their “welfare state” and mainly like America for its entertainment. They do not typically want to live here. I wish I could live in Europe badly
I mean I am European :D I wouldn’t wanna trade either. But there are definitely some people here who still believe in an American Dream or like the idea of earning more and spending less on taxes living in the US. Really depends who you ask.
Anywhere that isn’t a fascist theocracy is hell on Earth to many republicans
They should also demand unlocked boot loaders and open drivers for all devices. That or steep penalties if they don’t support the devices for at least 10 years. We should have manuals and specifications for every component, really. We really need to reduce waste.
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.
I’m glad they got specific. I wonder where Apple’s self-service battery replacement program falls under this? AFAIK it’s not free. They charge a fee to rent the specialized tools, which are also proprietary.
This gives Apple a few choices:
- Make the tools commercially available, but at an astronomical price in typical Apple fashion
- Make the tools commercially available at a normal consumer price (unlikely)
- Make the self-service battery replacement program free (most likely, but will require a significant revision to the tools used since they are industrial-grade)
I’m not sure that #1 and #2 are options, I think Apple’s tools would still be considered “Specialized” or “proprietary” since they can’t have any proprietary rights or restrictions, so I don’t think that they can get away with selling them at a huge markup. I’m no lawyer, but to me that reads like they either need to give the tools away for free, or change the iPhone so it can be disassembled with regular screwdrivers. Given those choices, I’m thinking #2 sounds a lot more likely unless they can weasel out of some loophole
The current tools are not even close. Very proprietary, very specialized, not commercially available. Check out this video or this one. These things are rental only because they are exorbitantly expensive and only really useful to iPhone, and IIRC they differ for some lines/models.
This law absolutely will require an iPhone redesign, which I think is going to be somewhat controversial. If you check out the iFixit teardown it’s pretty obvious there is not a lot of space. Even the larger Pro Max is tight because I think in the case of the larger phones, they tend to fill the space with battery. What I think would be the easiest is make it more like the iPhone 4. In that version, there were like two security screws on the bottom, and then you could remove the whole back plate. Some battery would have to be sacrificed to add space for connectors and a retaining system of some sort.
I say controversial because this is probably going to mean less day-to-day battery, but I think I’m in favor of that rather than having to deal with going through Apple to do a battery replacement and get another year or two out of the device. If they make it more like the hot-swappable old days of Nokia’s and Motorola’s past, I can’t really see anyone being pissy. In practice these days, I don’t worry about battery life anyway, so it’s hard to not see this being a win.
As someome who was able to disassemble and repurpose multiple iphone 4’s.
This was the way.
unless they are provided free of charge
Honestly, they should have said “fuck you, no tools whatsoever to replace the battery.”
My mid-2010’s phone has this and probably the only reason I still have it (instead of contributing to electronic waste) is because I can replace the battery so easily, which I’ve done at least twice.
Stand back everyone, I’m going to attempt nuance.
Industrial design is about tradeoffs. Making the battery easily replaceable will come with drawbacks. Maybe it’ll be size, or water resistance, or durability, but something will have to be compromised. The extent of the compromises remains to be seen, and people will have different opinions about whether it’s worth it.
Ordinarily I’m not a fan of regulators making product design decisions, because that’s exactly the kind of thing market forces are supposed to be good at. In this case, though, there’s a demand that’s clearly not being met, and companies clearly have a vested interest in pushing consumers toward replacing their old hardware rather than repairing it, which creates externalities markets are unable to account for. Market failures like this are exactly the kind of situation where government regulation is needed.
If by size you mean it’s going to become fatter, I’m all for it. PSP Slim was basically as slim as I need for things which go into my pocket. Laptops don’t, so these can be twice fatter than that.
About “market failures” … This particular “market failure” is strongly connected to patent law, which cuts down most of the potential competition. So maybe it’s not a “market failure” at all if you have monopolies and oligopolies because of patents. Because patent law is not a market mechanism, obviously.
Considering Samsung during their cost cutting days designed Galaxy Xcover Pro 2 without drawback just fine, I think everyone will be able to do it without drawback just fine as well.
Maybe it’ll be size, or water resistance, or durability, but something will have to be compromised.
definitely size at the least. We’ll probably have to go back to removable backs so I imagine water proofing will be difficult without adding at least a little size.
Industrial design is about tradeoffs
Nope, for battery removal, nope!
Are you going to say that pentalobe screws is also a trade-off.Also, smartphone are just too thin and it’s because you use a case that you tend to forget about it.
It’s fine to say that the tradeoff doesn’t matter to you because you’re fine with the extra size, but it’s kind of absurd to claim that there’s no tradeoff and also claim that the tradeoff isn’t a big deal in the same comment. Some people may prefer the slimmer size that non-removable batteries allow, and we should at least accept that a downside of this regulation is that those people will be left with fewer thin options, even if it doesn’t seem like a big deal to you or I.
My phone has a removable battery and it’s like 7-8mm thick.
I take in account what has been done by the past in the last decade, a Samsung Note 4 (8cores, 4Gb, etc…) had its battery easily replaceable and it is not any bigger than an iPhone 14!
Sorry, but that’s an awful comparison, and it isn’t even true. The Note 4 was actually ~10% thicker than the base iphone 14, despite having a smaller screen, slightly smaller battery, and not having waterproofing. Obviously most of that discrepancy is because the Note 4 is 8 years older than the iPhone 14 so it really isn’t a fair comparison, but I wasn’t the one that tried to make the comparison in favor of the Note 4.
We really don’t have any reason to disagree, we’re both in support of the new law. I agree with you that the drawbacks are probably going to be minimal and that the tradeoffs will likely be worthwhile, I just still think that it’s dishonest to say that we know for certain that there will be absolutely no drawbacks, or that phones with no drawbacks have existed. I’m just asking for a little bit of nuance instead of dogmatism.
I am not fighting you, pal. I just want to avoid the argument “it’s not because you don’t need it that bla-bla”, of course, I prefer protection but we need to find the right tradeoff, Glueing case, removing and risking to break a glued expensive and serialized screen to reach the battery: nope
Sorry, but that’s an awful comparison, and it isn’t even true. The Note 4 was actually ~10% thicker than the base iphone 14,
You don’t get it, first 10% (actually ~6%) is pretty ridiculous and I took the biggest phone at the time that people were buying and using, actually I still have it. :) We could take the Note20, which is 0.830mm thick (0.785 for the 14 Pro Max and as big). Clearly, in this model, the backplate wouldn’t have needed to get glued, if +0.020mm is all it needs to get a removal plate, let’s got for it. I take extreme high-end smartphone as a ceilling, smartphone too big to my taste but which people buy and use.
*When I’m back from traveling, I will compare my wife’s iPhone Pro max and my Note4, to see if this one is unacceptable. :)
You’ll still want a case even if the phone becomes thicker, so in the end you’ll still end up with more bulk?
where did you live the last 10years when battery were replaceable on highend smartphones?
Replied to the wrong comment?
Apple in 2027: This is not a battery, it’s a…umm … Ultra High Density Low Current Super Capacitor.
EU: Ok, then in addition to that UHDLCSC you also need a removable battery.
EU is killing it right now. Charging port regulation and now removable batteries in everything. If companies are forced to produce different models for the EU maybe just maybe it will be cost effective to just make all their phones with removable batteries. One can hope, cause you know the US wont pass that type of consumer protection regulation.
I see something like this every few years.EU has to make a fine so heavy that it’s impossible to just pay as a tax of doing business.
Unless that’s all it really is.
The EU has a good track record on making companies adopt these standards.
Unless fines hurt the company financially, they are fees. I used to work for a nursery owner who filled his water truck from the hydrant because the fine cost less than the water from the water company.
As the parent comment said, the EU is quite good at enforcing things like this when it wants to. The USB-C thing is literally going to be “you literally can’t sell it”, but they can throw big fines around too
USB C has been pushed for at least four years now. No it does not have a good track record.
Maybe Google is nice enough to comply. Fair! But apples larger and doesn’t. Which speaks volumes. You know what I mean? It’s ironic because USA does nothing about it…at all. But it’s unfortunate because every iPhone still uses that crappy lightning cable and AFAIK I read something saying they make $200m a year on accessories like those cables and adapters.
The new iPhone 15 is launching with a USB c port, the iPad moved there a little while ago and their laptops and such all have usb C ports
I hope so. I don’t plan on renewing my iphone for awhile, I like pixels open firmware stuff with graphene and even just Android. But I hate carrying around the extra special apple cable
The argument that a law was not literally spawned in the year something came up, Nor a law working retrospectively on the design of devices produced before the law, is not any indication of a bad track record,
In fact, by what you have said here, I would argue that 4 years to push an industry-wide norm in 26 separate nations, with feedback from said industry is an incredibly good track record.
Can’t want to be able to buy used phone and just pop in new battery. Still we need a law to allow easier mobile operating systems development for third-parties.
I kind of doubt that support is dropped due to difficulty in development at this point, it’s pretty much planned obsolescence with a weakly credible excuse, the only thing that can truly work would be having a common AOSP image that you can switch to whenever you want, since that’s vendor neutral you wouldn’t have to wait for your phone maker to create their useless customization of the latest version of Android.
How I wish Android had been copyleft, maybe everybody would have concentrated development effort on a single platform then, instead of making awful skins with bloat, sponsored apps, etc. with extra features on top that should have really been contributed to mainline
Did you know about LineageOS ? https://lineageos.org/
Yes, but not all devices are supported and those that are aren’t officially supported, the makers actively make it harder to install other ROMs, except Fairphone and maybe a few others
You are not going to find many legislators understanding the difference between this and open documentation for iOS/Android developers.
I tried Ctrl+F searching to see whether anyone here had pasted the link to the law, and didn’t find anything, so I went to Presearch and found this, which appears to be the official European Union log for it, and has attached PDFs at the end with what seem to be the nitty-gritty for further reading…
If I’ve found an errant page that just looks official, please link something better for those looking for the legalese
Care to summarize so your logic is spelled out?
God bless the European union, doing the kind of consumer protection that America won’t.
I’m afraid they will still find ways to make replacements expensive
Truf
The fact that some of the gen Z crowd think it will be horrible have forgotten that it was much easier to carry 2 batteries and swap them out vs carrying a charger and cable with you everywhere. Pop in the new battery, power it on and carry on with you now full battery phone. Being tethered to a wall so you can have 10% from 20 minutes of charging is crazy.
I used to do this. I thought it was awesome but I was literally the only person I ever knew who did this. It was not a popular thing to do.
Most people did not do this nor needed to since the very beginning of cell phones
We literally do not need replaceable batteries in 2023
Maybe, but you have to admit that battery live used to be longer (specially pre-smartphones), if your phone could comfortably last a couple of days there was less need to have portable power.
I fondly remember the convenience of having a flat, replaceable battery in my pocket even in the early Android days, and I’ve missed it ever since it went away.
Don’t forget the option to carry a 30lb battery bank everywhere with you so you’re at least tethered to something marginally more movable than a wall.
Seriously though, I miss my phone+battery in one charger and the ability to restart with full battery at around 4pm.
I’d much rather just have a bigger battery. Replacement is more useful for longevity for me.
You’re not going to get a bigger battery though. Battery size is a pretty much maxed out, the only way to make a battery bigger would be to make the battery physically bigger. This would make the phone bigger / heavier. So it’s not going to happen.
If you are waiting on some magic new battery chemistry it’ll come along eventually but you’ll be waiting a while, and stubbornly not having a replaceable battery in the meantime isn’t going to make any difference.
There’s some huge battery breakthroughs going on right now. You’re right though, I would give it another 5 or so before they’re widespread among phones.
The main reason I’m thinking of upgrading my mid-range phone now is the battery is on its last legs.
In fairness it’s lasted 6 years, which is two years more than my Nexus 4 got. Pokemon Go eventually killed that.
I don’t know when we all just collectively accepted that batteries should last one day and not a second more. Sure, it’s doing more than a Nokia 3310 ever did, but sometimes you really do need it to last more than that, like when travelling.
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As long as they can engineer a water resistant phone with these guidelines I’m all for it.
I have think really really hard to find an event in the last 14years where I would have needed a water resistant phone. It doesn’t need to be IP67
It’s not that you need it. It’s just that you’ll thank yourself if you drop it in water or if you wanna use it in certain weather
I don’t say I would need it, but that’s not an excuse to not have replaceable battery. A so called waterproof sticker is $0.05. So, it could be sold with the new battery.
I personally have been bringing my phone in the shower for years. It also gives me peace of mind when I’m doing outdoor activities around water.
I remember once I had my phone in my pocket at a party before they were water resistant and I got knocked into the pool. Would have been all set if that phone had water resistance.
I personally have been bringing my phone in the shower for years.
total valide use case. (hem!)
In my mind, in a shower, I use both hands and it doesn’t take more than 5min.
Yeah generally I just finish what I was reading while I let the water warm me up. Then put my phone down and wash up. I suppose I only do this because the phone is water resistant, versus buying a water resistant phone because I need to bring it in the shower.
that’s fine, pal :)
They have in the past and then they decided, no, let’s say it’s too difficult and use it as one of the excuses to guarantee limited lifetime of a product.
Yeah that was honestly my only concern with this. That and durability. But it doesn’t really seem like a problem. Replaceable batteries also means replaceable back glass (or screen?) So that’s awesome.
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