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All things considered, 4 years is pretty good! Someone explained to me it's more of a supply chain thing than planned obsolescence. Phone technology and batter

All things considered, 4 years is pretty good! Someone explained to me it's more of a supply chain thing than planned obsolescence. Phone technology and batteries specifically have pretty short production lives - keeping a battery in production and in stock for long periods of time can be crippling to your product line when the competitors come out with 10% denser batteries every year.

ThemalSpan 4y ago
I think we can all agree that maximizing profit is a cause, while also acknowledging that the situation is not ideal. There are many solutions to this self-imposed problem, like standardizing the battery interfaces. I agree most company's have no incentive to do that. I think those incentives should be put in place though.
Fatnino 4y ago
So sell compatible size higher density batteries. Actual disposable batteries (remember those?) have improved dramatically over the decades but you can still put a brand new AA battery loaded with the latest 2022 tech into a remote control from the 50s and expect it to work.
- SideQuark 4y ago
  >Actual disposable batteries they have the same form factor, and they have not changed much over decades in capability and certainly not size. Phone batteries do not do this - they are designed to fit in a certain (few) phones, and market change on phone sizes mean there is no standard size. When phone batteries get higher density, then it's likely a readeoff between adding more other features and keeping the same battery size - and as other features change, so do battery needs. The rapid evolution of phone tech, in every aspect, makes it cheaper (and wiser) to re-eval each piece quickly, or you get beat in the market place. Maybe in decades this will settle down, like it took for the disposable batteries to standardize over decades...
  - KronisLV 4y ago
    > Phone batteries do not do this - they are designed to fit in a certain (few) phones, and market change on phone sizes mean there is no standard size. It would be nice if that wasn't the case. I've seen power tools from certain companies adopt the same battery type across multiple of their tools, so that they are interchangeable. I can imagine something like that happening industry-wide with a bit more lawmaking, like happened with USB types. Actually, it would be even better if we had a few common phone battery standards and every manufacturer had to use those (ideally with removable batteries). This might mean that phones would have to be built with the batteries in mind, not vice versa, which doesn't seem like a bad thing to me. Then again, personally I wouldn't even mind if there were like 10-20 common phone form factors in the first place.
    - radicalbyte 4y ago
      > I've seen power tools from certain companies adopt the same battery type across multiple of their tools That's because electric power tools are sold as a platform: you choose a brand and buy in to their platform. For example I mainly use a driver + drill so bought in to Milwaukee. Ended up buying a lot of other kit from them too.
    - rlt 4y ago
      > with a bit more lawmaking No thanks. Things like this almost always have unintended consequences.
      - asddubs 4y ago
        you could say that about literally any law. should we just not have laws then, lest there be unintended consequences?
      - lm28469 4y ago
        Because the opposite doesn't have unintended consequences ? Do you know what we do with e waste ? ship them to Africa/China for """recycling"""
    - 4y ago
- mongol 4y ago
  Imagine a smartphone designed to use AAA batteries. That would be something. Would be cool to see.
  - masklinn 4y ago
    > Would be cool to see. Probably not the word I’d have used. You’d need what, 6 high-capacity AAAs to get standard battery size/life? Maybe 8? Possibly 10 with recent phones?
    - Nition 4y ago
      An iPhone 14 Pro has a 3,200mAh battery. The Energiser rechargeable AAA I happen to have here is 800mAh. So exactly four standard rechargeable AAAs. Not bad really. Edit: As explained below, this is incorrect, as I didn't take voltage into account.
      - coder543 4y ago
        "mAh" is a useless measurement that should be banned from marketing to the public, period. It does not actually represent the energy stored in the batteries, and it can easily mislead people. I also get annoyed that no one uses Ah, when "thousands of thousandths" is a really annoying way to communicate. 3200mAh -> 3.2Ah. Why do no manufacturers understand this? And why don't manufacturers just use a proper unit that measures the energy stored in the battery? You must compare watt-hours (or use joules, if you like) for it to be meaningful. AAA voltage is 1.5V, lithium ion voltage is 3.7V or 4.2V or something, which means that each "mAh" is worth several times as much as one from a AAA battery. The iPhone 14 Pro battery is about 12Wh. A single AAA battery has about 1.9Wh, according to google. So, 6 AAA batteries, optimistically, excluding other factors that could raise the count. Using your number of 800mAh*1.5V=1.2Wh, which would mean 10 AAA batteries.
        consp 4y ago
        The load characteristics also matter. Under certain load profiles those AAAs won't come even close to their rated capacity (no matter what misleading unit used). I also find the 1.9wh very optimistic, I guess you took the average AA capacity, in which case the battery would almost become bigger than the phone.
Sakos 4y ago
> All things considered, 4 years is pretty good! 4 years would be fine if you voluntarily upgrade because a newer model improves over what you have in an appreciable way. 4 years isn't fine if the device meets your needs and the only reason you have to replace it is because of the battery wearing out.

ThemalSpan 4y ago

I think we can all agree that maximizing profit is a cause, while also acknowledging that the situation is not ideal. There are many solutions to this self-imposed problem, like standardizing the battery interfaces. I agree most company's have no incentive to do that. I think those incentives should be put in place though.

Fatnino 4y ago

So sell compatible size higher density batteries. Actual disposable batteries (remember those?) have improved dramatically over the decades but you can still put a brand new AA battery loaded with the latest 2022 tech into a remote control from the 50s and expect it to work.

SideQuark 4y ago
>Actual disposable batteries they have the same form factor, and they have not changed much over decades in capability and certainly not size. Phone batteries do not do this - they are designed to fit in a certain (few) phones, and market change on phone sizes mean there is no standard size. When phone batteries get higher density, then it's likely a readeoff between adding more other features and keeping the same battery size - and as other features change, so do battery needs. The rapid evolution of phone tech, in every aspect, makes it cheaper (and wiser) to re-eval each piece quickly, or you get beat in the market place. Maybe in decades this will settle down, like it took for the disposable batteries to standardize over decades...
- KronisLV 4y ago
  > Phone batteries do not do this - they are designed to fit in a certain (few) phones, and market change on phone sizes mean there is no standard size. It would be nice if that wasn't the case. I've seen power tools from certain companies adopt the same battery type across multiple of their tools, so that they are interchangeable. I can imagine something like that happening industry-wide with a bit more lawmaking, like happened with USB types. Actually, it would be even better if we had a few common phone battery standards and every manufacturer had to use those (ideally with removable batteries). This might mean that phones would have to be built with the batteries in mind, not vice versa, which doesn't seem like a bad thing to me. Then again, personally I wouldn't even mind if there were like 10-20 common phone form factors in the first place.
  - radicalbyte 4y ago
    > I've seen power tools from certain companies adopt the same battery type across multiple of their tools That's because electric power tools are sold as a platform: you choose a brand and buy in to their platform. For example I mainly use a driver + drill so bought in to Milwaukee. Ended up buying a lot of other kit from them too.
  - rlt 4y ago
    > with a bit more lawmaking No thanks. Things like this almost always have unintended consequences.
    - asddubs 4y ago
      you could say that about literally any law. should we just not have laws then, lest there be unintended consequences?
    - lm28469 4y ago
      Because the opposite doesn't have unintended consequences ? Do you know what we do with e waste ? ship them to Africa/China for """recycling"""
  - 4y ago
mongol 4y ago
Imagine a smartphone designed to use AAA batteries. That would be something. Would be cool to see.
- masklinn 4y ago
  > Would be cool to see. Probably not the word I’d have used. You’d need what, 6 high-capacity AAAs to get standard battery size/life? Maybe 8? Possibly 10 with recent phones?
  - Nition 4y ago
    An iPhone 14 Pro has a 3,200mAh battery. The Energiser rechargeable AAA I happen to have here is 800mAh. So exactly four standard rechargeable AAAs. Not bad really. Edit: As explained below, this is incorrect, as I didn't take voltage into account.
    - coder543 4y ago
      "mAh" is a useless measurement that should be banned from marketing to the public, period. It does not actually represent the energy stored in the batteries, and it can easily mislead people. I also get annoyed that no one uses Ah, when "thousands of thousandths" is a really annoying way to communicate. 3200mAh -> 3.2Ah. Why do no manufacturers understand this? And why don't manufacturers just use a proper unit that measures the energy stored in the battery? You must compare watt-hours (or use joules, if you like) for it to be meaningful. AAA voltage is 1.5V, lithium ion voltage is 3.7V or 4.2V or something, which means that each "mAh" is worth several times as much as one from a AAA battery. The iPhone 14 Pro battery is about 12Wh. A single AAA battery has about 1.9Wh, according to google. So, 6 AAA batteries, optimistically, excluding other factors that could raise the count. Using your number of 800mAh*1.5V=1.2Wh, which would mean 10 AAA batteries.
      - consp 4y ago
        The load characteristics also matter. Under certain load profiles those AAAs won't come even close to their rated capacity (no matter what misleading unit used). I also find the 1.9wh very optimistic, I guess you took the average AA capacity, in which case the battery would almost become bigger than the phone.

Sakos 4y ago

> All things considered, 4 years is pretty good! 4 years would be fine if you voluntarily upgrade because a newer model improves over what you have in an appreciable way. 4 years isn't fine if the device meets your needs and the only reason you have to replace it is because of the battery wearing out.