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This is very welcome news if it passes. Non-replaceable batteries have NO redeeming qualities in my opinion. Some will say that they're important for waterproof

This is very welcome news if it passes. Non-replaceable batteries have NO redeeming qualities in my opinion. Some will say that they're important for waterproofing, but I previously owned an IP68 (ie, certified waterproof) mobile phone which had a user replaceable battery. It's clearly not a requirement. Being able to replace batteries as they go bad will go a long way towards reducing electronic waste, as devices can be used for significantly longer.

klntsky 4y ago
> Non-replaceable batteries have NO redeeming qualities in my opinion Non-replaceable batteries contribute to lowering the price. If the producer can expect to sell more copies of the same product, the price of a single item can be lower.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
  Which is useful to the producer, not to the consumer. The consumer ends up spending more money by having to buy more phones. It's only cheaper if you're looking at a single purchase, not over time.
  - klntsky 4y ago
    > It's only cheaper if you're looking at a single purchase, not over time. It's not entirely true, if you don't buy a new phone and simply live with a battery not holding power for more than a day, you get both cheaper price of the phone and a technically working phone. Of course someone with higher expectations for battery time will have to buy a new phone sooner, but if you can't afford it, it's valuable to you personally regardless.
    - hattar 4y ago
      If the device degrades to the point where it’s effectively useless for my primary use case, I’m not really saving money. Useful timeline needs to be accounted for when considering cost effectiveness.
      - klntsky 4y ago
        You are implying that the primary use case is the same for everyone. Consider this counter example: what if I want a phone to use a navigator app in my car (to leave it always on charge)? Battery life would not be important at all.
  - tosc 4y ago
    You don’t have to buy a new phone to replace the battery. Just take it to any repair shop.
    - don-code 4y ago
      This may work for common phones (aka: Apple and Samsung phones). I had to retire a perfectly workable, but five years old, HTC phone after three such shops refused to fix it, citing unfamiliarity and cost. I now have an ASUS phone, and fully expect the same to happen in several years.
      - tosc 4y ago
        It seems like weird logic to legislate that Apple and Samsung must make their phones less reliable for everyone simply because a 5 year old phone made by a cut price manufacturer is no longer supported. Why did you buy the ASUS phone if you don’t expect to get support for it?
        don-code 4y ago
        I bought it used, and with the expectation that I'm going to be on the hook for my own long-term maintenance and support, as is true with more or less everything I buy. (Full-time Linux user here.) The sad reality is that the experience of running an off-brand phone with an easily-replaceable battery would, long-term, be much worse than running a locked-in flagship that LineageOS builds for.
        janosdebugs 4y ago
        They can't really say Apple and Samsung have to do this, everybody else doesn't. And they are by far the market leaders, so they sell the most phones ending up in landfills.
    - dns_snek 4y ago
      > Just take it to any repair shop. Device manufacturers see that as a bug, not a feature. They are starting to pair genuine parts to a specific device, which will completely lock us out of 3rd party repair options if we accept and normalize this behavior. See for example: - "The iPhone 14 Continues Apple’s Digital Repair Lockdown" by iFixit - https://www.ifixit.com/News/66879/iphone-14-parts-pairing-results-apple-is-still-trying-to-monopolise-repair https://www.ifixit.com/News/66879/iphone-14-parts-pairing-re... - "iPhone 14 Pro Programmed To Reject Repair" by Hugh Jeffreys - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2WhU77ihw8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2WhU77ihw8 - The long list of Louis Rossmann's rants on the topic
- Jorchime 4y ago
  Which probably doesn't reflect the real costs of extracting, processing and discarding resources and their effect on humans, life and nature very well.
- dns_snek 4y ago
  Given that we've largely decided that sustainability is the way forward, an argument in favour of e-waste isn't particularly convincing. User-replaceable batteries are just the first step. What we should all be pushing towards to reduce waste and emissions is a no-compromise right to repair, with easily accessible parts, tools and schematics.
  - nradov 4y ago
    I support the right to repair, but it's not the only way to reduce e-waste. Another complementary approach is through refundable deposits, just like with beverage containers. Include a $20+ deposit in the price of each smartphone, then refund it when the consumer returns it to a retailer or manufacturer for proper recycling and safe disposal.
    - witheld 4y ago
      Recycling is pretty much a scam, the first step of reduce-reuse-recycle is “reduce”. One commenter said this legislation doesn’t make sense because they get a new phone every three years. Even if they do, it would reduce demand if the phone continued to have parts and software for someone else to use.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
  The price of the battery or the price of the final product that uses batteries? Regardless, it matters what your pricing power is. For a luxury finished product - you price on what your consumers will bear (with some maximization curve). For a commodity battery - then maybe. Though, I'm not sure I follow your logic why this means more batteries will be sold.
- hn92726819 4y ago
  In the very short term, maybe. But it's only cheaper for the very first phone. In a few years when the battery dies, the cost of the battery would be much lower than the cost of a new phone, which the consumers are required to buy Same faulty logic for injket printers. They're extremely cheap so sure, you're "saving money" for a period, but the scales tip after one or two refill ink cartridges
- onli 4y ago
  If non-repairable products were cheaper and those savings passed on to consumers, apple products and the surface series would be the cheapest that exist. They are not...
tosc 4y ago
This is just wrong. Replaceable batteries add cost and fragility to the device, make battery life worse, and most phones die because they stop getting software updates anyway. Replaceable batteries will increase e-waste because there will be a lot more broken phones.
- kewrkewm53 4y ago
  Thankfully EU is also working on legislation that mandates more years of software support. Hopefully days of only 2-3 years of support will be soon gone for good, it's just plain wrong.
- gaganyaan 4y ago
  Saying "we shouldn't legislate repairablity because <other bad practice that needs to be legislated away>" is not terribly convincing. There should 100% be legislation aimed at keeping old phones able to run newer software.
  - tosc 4y ago
    We shouldn’t legislate repairability at the expense of reliability. The only people that benefits are repair shops. That should be up to the user to choose, as it is now.
    - pantalaimon 4y ago
      Yea like those famously unreliable Nokia phones with their replaceable batteries
- bakugo 4y ago
  > most phones die because they stop getting software updates anyway Contrary to what most phone manufacturers would like you to think, no, devices do not suddenly stop working if they go a week without an update.
  - josephcsible 4y ago
ggreer 4y ago
There are many advantages to integrated batteries: - Waterproofing. Fewer seals means more resistance to water ingress. - Compact size. Standard battery sizes rarely fit thin or irregular designs. - Better battery life. An integrated battery can be designed to fill all available spare space in a device. - Cost. Integrated batteries involve fewer connectors and parts. - User satisfaction. Users often blame original manufacturers when the problem is actually poor quality 3rd party batteries. This was extremely common back when most laptops had removable batteries. And why do arguments in favor of removable batteries apply to phones and laptops, but not headphones, vehicles, cameras, etc? Just let people buy the devices they want. There’s no need to have the government force people to use things they dislike.
- schwartzworld 4y ago
  > but not headphones, vehicles, cameras, etc Both my car and my DSLR have user replaceable batteries. My headphones don't because they are wired.
  - ggreer 4y ago
    I’m talking about EVs, not combustion vehicles. Also there’s no law forcing everyone to use removable batteries in any of those devices. My point is that users freely choose different types of batteries for different applications. It makes no sense to coerce everyone else into choosing your favorite type of battery.
    - schwartzworld 4y ago
      > My point is that users freely choose different types of batteries for different applications. Where is the choice when all manufacturers arrive at the same conclusion: it's better for profits not to offer replaceable batteries?
- gumboza 4y ago
  Agree on all points. The key thing the EU are ruling on here are phones. I replace my phone or laptop battery every 3 years at average! Does it need to be removable for that? Hell no. Sticky tape, glued in I don't care. I will pay apple or whoever to replace it. 30 minutes of labour is fine for this interval! What pisses me off are the people who are too fucking cheap to pay for a phone battery from the manufacturer but will throw 10x the cost on trivial repairs on a premium car while whining about it.
TheCleric 4y ago
I also had a user replaceable battery on an IP68 phone. And it had multiple warnings on the phone and the manual about how to get a good seal and a strong implication that if it goes wrong that's your fault. So while I am 100% in favor of right of repair, I wonder if the law of unintended consequences will lead to more difficult warranty claims.
- SillyUsername 4y ago
  Sounds more like poor design. Plenty of other devices such as outdoor cameras have replaceable batteries with no warnings. Shavers have a water proofed interior shelled battery that although usually not replaceable, technically can be since all but 2 flat contacts are sealed. Designing batteries for said water protection incurs extra cost, and is cheaper to just seal in, ensuring the financial burden of the design failure is on the consumer, this law helps end that practice.
  - nikau 4y ago
    Its likely he is referring to the galaxy s5 - the cameras and shavers you mentioned aren't trying to keep to the same size and weight limitations as mobile phones.
    - TheCleric 4y ago
      I couldn't remember at the time which phone this was since it was almost a decade ago, but yes I now recall it was an S5!
megablast 4y ago
> Non-replaceable batteries have NO redeeming qualities in my opinion This is some insane ramblings.

klntsky 4y ago

> Non-replaceable batteries have NO redeeming qualities in my opinion Non-replaceable batteries contribute to lowering the price. If the producer can expect to sell more copies of the same product, the price of a single item can be lower.

mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
Which is useful to the producer, not to the consumer. The consumer ends up spending more money by having to buy more phones. It's only cheaper if you're looking at a single purchase, not over time.
- klntsky 4y ago
  > It's only cheaper if you're looking at a single purchase, not over time. It's not entirely true, if you don't buy a new phone and simply live with a battery not holding power for more than a day, you get both cheaper price of the phone and a technically working phone. Of course someone with higher expectations for battery time will have to buy a new phone sooner, but if you can't afford it, it's valuable to you personally regardless.
  - hattar 4y ago
    If the device degrades to the point where it’s effectively useless for my primary use case, I’m not really saving money. Useful timeline needs to be accounted for when considering cost effectiveness.
    - klntsky 4y ago
      You are implying that the primary use case is the same for everyone. Consider this counter example: what if I want a phone to use a navigator app in my car (to leave it always on charge)? Battery life would not be important at all.
- tosc 4y ago
  You don’t have to buy a new phone to replace the battery. Just take it to any repair shop.
  - don-code 4y ago
    This may work for common phones (aka: Apple and Samsung phones). I had to retire a perfectly workable, but five years old, HTC phone after three such shops refused to fix it, citing unfamiliarity and cost. I now have an ASUS phone, and fully expect the same to happen in several years.
    - tosc 4y ago
      It seems like weird logic to legislate that Apple and Samsung must make their phones less reliable for everyone simply because a 5 year old phone made by a cut price manufacturer is no longer supported. Why did you buy the ASUS phone if you don’t expect to get support for it?
      - don-code 4y ago
        I bought it used, and with the expectation that I'm going to be on the hook for my own long-term maintenance and support, as is true with more or less everything I buy. (Full-time Linux user here.) The sad reality is that the experience of running an off-brand phone with an easily-replaceable battery would, long-term, be much worse than running a locked-in flagship that LineageOS builds for.
      - janosdebugs 4y ago
        They can't really say Apple and Samsung have to do this, everybody else doesn't. And they are by far the market leaders, so they sell the most phones ending up in landfills.
  - dns_snek 4y ago
    > Just take it to any repair shop. Device manufacturers see that as a bug, not a feature. They are starting to pair genuine parts to a specific device, which will completely lock us out of 3rd party repair options if we accept and normalize this behavior. See for example: - "The iPhone 14 Continues Apple’s Digital Repair Lockdown" by iFixit - https://www.ifixit.com/News/66879/iphone-14-parts-pairing-results-apple-is-still-trying-to-monopolise-repair https://www.ifixit.com/News/66879/iphone-14-parts-pairing-re... - "iPhone 14 Pro Programmed To Reject Repair" by Hugh Jeffreys - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2WhU77ihw8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2WhU77ihw8 - The long list of Louis Rossmann's rants on the topic
Jorchime 4y ago
Which probably doesn't reflect the real costs of extracting, processing and discarding resources and their effect on humans, life and nature very well.
dns_snek 4y ago
Given that we've largely decided that sustainability is the way forward, an argument in favour of e-waste isn't particularly convincing. User-replaceable batteries are just the first step. What we should all be pushing towards to reduce waste and emissions is a no-compromise right to repair, with easily accessible parts, tools and schematics.
- nradov 4y ago
  I support the right to repair, but it's not the only way to reduce e-waste. Another complementary approach is through refundable deposits, just like with beverage containers. Include a $20+ deposit in the price of each smartphone, then refund it when the consumer returns it to a retailer or manufacturer for proper recycling and safe disposal.
  - witheld 4y ago
    Recycling is pretty much a scam, the first step of reduce-reuse-recycle is “reduce”. One commenter said this legislation doesn’t make sense because they get a new phone every three years. Even if they do, it would reduce demand if the phone continued to have parts and software for someone else to use.
onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
The price of the battery or the price of the final product that uses batteries? Regardless, it matters what your pricing power is. For a luxury finished product - you price on what your consumers will bear (with some maximization curve). For a commodity battery - then maybe. Though, I'm not sure I follow your logic why this means more batteries will be sold.
hn92726819 4y ago
In the very short term, maybe. But it's only cheaper for the very first phone. In a few years when the battery dies, the cost of the battery would be much lower than the cost of a new phone, which the consumers are required to buy Same faulty logic for injket printers. They're extremely cheap so sure, you're "saving money" for a period, but the scales tip after one or two refill ink cartridges
onli 4y ago
If non-repairable products were cheaper and those savings passed on to consumers, apple products and the surface series would be the cheapest that exist. They are not...

tosc 4y ago

This is just wrong. Replaceable batteries add cost and fragility to the device, make battery life worse, and most phones die because they stop getting software updates anyway. Replaceable batteries will increase e-waste because there will be a lot more broken phones.

kewrkewm53 4y ago
Thankfully EU is also working on legislation that mandates more years of software support. Hopefully days of only 2-3 years of support will be soon gone for good, it's just plain wrong.
gaganyaan 4y ago
Saying "we shouldn't legislate repairablity because <other bad practice that needs to be legislated away>" is not terribly convincing. There should 100% be legislation aimed at keeping old phones able to run newer software.
- tosc 4y ago
  We shouldn’t legislate repairability at the expense of reliability. The only people that benefits are repair shops. That should be up to the user to choose, as it is now.
  - pantalaimon 4y ago
    Yea like those famously unreliable Nokia phones with their replaceable batteries
bakugo 4y ago
> most phones die because they stop getting software updates anyway Contrary to what most phone manufacturers would like you to think, no, devices do not suddenly stop working if they go a week without an update.
- josephcsible 4y ago

ggreer 4y ago

There are many advantages to integrated batteries: - Waterproofing. Fewer seals means more resistance to water ingress. - Compact size. Standard battery sizes rarely fit thin or irregular designs. - Better battery life. An integrated battery can be designed to fill all available spare space in a device. - Cost. Integrated batteries involve fewer connectors and parts. - User satisfaction. Users often blame original manufacturers when the problem is actually poor quality 3rd party batteries. This was extremely common back when most laptops had removable batteries. And why do arguments in favor of removable batteries apply to phones and laptops, but not headphones, vehicles, cameras, etc? Just let people buy the devices they want. There’s no need to have the government force people to use things they dislike.

schwartzworld 4y ago
> but not headphones, vehicles, cameras, etc Both my car and my DSLR have user replaceable batteries. My headphones don't because they are wired.
- ggreer 4y ago
  I’m talking about EVs, not combustion vehicles. Also there’s no law forcing everyone to use removable batteries in any of those devices. My point is that users freely choose different types of batteries for different applications. It makes no sense to coerce everyone else into choosing your favorite type of battery.
  - schwartzworld 4y ago
    > My point is that users freely choose different types of batteries for different applications. Where is the choice when all manufacturers arrive at the same conclusion: it's better for profits not to offer replaceable batteries?
gumboza 4y ago
Agree on all points. The key thing the EU are ruling on here are phones. I replace my phone or laptop battery every 3 years at average! Does it need to be removable for that? Hell no. Sticky tape, glued in I don't care. I will pay apple or whoever to replace it. 30 minutes of labour is fine for this interval! What pisses me off are the people who are too fucking cheap to pay for a phone battery from the manufacturer but will throw 10x the cost on trivial repairs on a premium car while whining about it.

TheCleric 4y ago

I also had a user replaceable battery on an IP68 phone. And it had multiple warnings on the phone and the manual about how to get a good seal and a strong implication that if it goes wrong that's your fault. So while I am 100% in favor of right of repair, I wonder if the law of unintended consequences will lead to more difficult warranty claims.

SillyUsername 4y ago
Sounds more like poor design. Plenty of other devices such as outdoor cameras have replaceable batteries with no warnings. Shavers have a water proofed interior shelled battery that although usually not replaceable, technically can be since all but 2 flat contacts are sealed. Designing batteries for said water protection incurs extra cost, and is cheaper to just seal in, ensuring the financial burden of the design failure is on the consumer, this law helps end that practice.
- nikau 4y ago
  Its likely he is referring to the galaxy s5 - the cameras and shavers you mentioned aren't trying to keep to the same size and weight limitations as mobile phones.
  - TheCleric 4y ago
    I couldn't remember at the time which phone this was since it was almost a decade ago, but yes I now recall it was an S5!

megablast 4y ago

> Non-replaceable batteries have NO redeeming qualities in my opinion This is some insane ramblings.