21 ms·

The EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries

217 points by ZacnyLos 3y ago

seba_dos1 3y ago
I have never used a phone (nor a laptop) where the battery wasn't easily replaceable and to be honest I can't really imagine using one. Batteries can (and do) go bad and start expanding. Using a device where the battery isn't easily accessible feels absolutely distressing.
- veave 3y ago
  Which goes to show that the option is there and people don't take it because they simnply don't want it so this regulation is the EU being the EU.
  - seba_dos1 3y ago
    The option is there indeed, although I'm not sure if the general population would be happy with e.g. an Openmoko phone back when I already was :P
  - onli 3y ago
    Disagree. First, the devices with removable batteries are exceedingly rare right now. They also often enough are niche products. Second, it is not reasonable to expect every consumer to always think about what is right, and not instead to follow what marketing tells him to buy. This is exactly what regulations are good for and historically have solved.
    - veave 3y ago
      Interesting argument against democracy that you have in there - we should go back to monarchy. After all, it is not reasonable to expect every citizen to think about what is right, since instead they follow propaganda.
      - onli 3y ago
        The danger of manipulation through propaganda is indeed an argument used in political discourse, though in reasonable discussions when talking about direct and indirect democracy. The layers of parliamentary systems are partly a means of protection against manipulations. If you want to read an interesting and nice to read book that partly talks about this, then I'd recommend Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy. Though a consumer decision is not the same as a political vote, at least the latter is not supposed to be similarly thoughtless, so there is no need to interpret my comment that broadly.
      - Levitz 3y ago
        When a chosen official makes a law that the citizens have to abide by, that's democracy and not its opposite.
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      Yes people are too stupid to make their own choices. The EU should just start coming out with “5 Year Plans”. What could possibly go wrong? The EU’s regulations must be why there is a thriving tech sector in Europe…
      - f1shy 3y ago
        There is good development in the UK! Oh… they are not EU … The ones that downvoted this comment will be surprised in 10 years…
      - fullspectrumdev 3y ago
        Europes tech sector is thriving, but it’s all boring technology that actually solves real problems that nobody cares about like SAP and shit so the HN crowd don’t think it exists :)
        scarface_74 3y ago
        “Thriving” a bunch of SaaS companies? If you add up the valuations of all of the tech companies in the EU, do they sum up to the value of Apple? That’s not even to mention the pay differential for tech employees.
  - ReptileMan 3y ago
    Oligopoly and cartels are adept at serving their interests and not the interests of society and customers.
  - john61 3y ago
    Regulation is not made for the benefit of individuals, but for the benefit of society as a whole. In this case, for the environment or the planet. I doubt that people don't want a planet to live.
    - nonethewiser 3y ago
      Society as a whole is just a bunch of individuals. If its bad for individuals its bad for society.
      - john61 3y ago
        The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
- ekianjo 3y ago
  > used a phone there are almost no smartphones where you can easily replace the battery these days.
  - Semaphor 3y ago
    While it’s probably not easily, it was (to me) surprisingly easy to change the battery in my OnePlus 5. The battery itself was glued, but not in a way that removing it would destroy anything else. The other parts just required normal phone repair tools.
  - seba_dos1 3y ago
    Thankfully, in the niche I'm interested in it's still common. On my Librem 5 I can replace the battery with nothing but a fingernail to take the back cover out, and could do so the same way on all the other smartphone's I've used in the past too.
  - superkuh 3y ago
    But there are options. And instead of having people chose themselves to pick these options and refuse to buy terrible phones the EU is instead saying it will use the force of government violence against other people so that only phones of their desired non-shittiness are sold there. I really don't thinking bringing violence into this situation is called for. The EU is showing is an implicit assumption that people cannot make choices for themselves and violence must be used by the state to get them to make the correct choices. That's nasty and a very slippery slope to authoritarianism. As a human person with volition I simply chose not to buy bad, anti-consumer devices. It is possible. And I do it without the government threatening violence on my behalf.
    - kaba0 3y ago
      Come on, what a stupid take.. what violence? Let’s also call out the EU next for “using violence” and disallows selling grinded shit as food.. capitalism doesn’t work without rules, period! It’s as per the very Adam Smith! Libertarianism is absolutely divorced from reality.
- scotty79 3y ago
  The only device I've ever seen firsthand that had its battery swollen was a Macbook. Battery was glued of course so replacement wasn't totally easy.
jacquesm 3y ago
I hope there is a provision in there for laptops as well. All this glued in shit is just another plank in the planned obsolescence strategy.
- cm2187 3y ago
  Glue and soldering. Modern laptops aren't upgradable anymore.
- onli 3y ago
  That's actually in the article :) one of the two laws covers all devices with ~~batteries~~ portable batteries.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Thank you! Edit: Hm, I re-read the article and I still can't find that passage, the word 'laptop' doesn't appear. Can you point it out for me?
    - vhanda 3y ago
      "In addition to not offering the longevity loophole, Opsomer also points out that the battery regulation covers all products with a portable battery; it’s far wider-reaching than the phone and tablet-focused ecodesign regulation."
    - onli 3y ago
      Almost didn't find it myself this time. But here it is: > In addition to not offering the longevity loophole, Opsomer also points out that the battery regulation covers all products with a portable battery; it’s far wider-reaching than the phone and tablet-focused ecodesign regulation.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        Ah! Then they really should give that factoid much better billing, including the title. Thank you once again.
bjackman 3y ago
I think this is fantastic news. It will be interesting to see how it affects the amount of phones that get discarded. I think the next bottleneck is likely to be software longevity. This has improved a lot lately! But basically I think phones have now reached a place like laptops and desktops where HW capabilities are stable, and there's no good reason for devices to be obsolete in 5 years any more. I wonder if regulators said "your software has to get security updates for 10 years" would that be enough to get mobile SoC vendors upstreaming their HW support and Google streamlining the Android update process? (To Google's credit they have already done a _lot_ of positive work in that area as I understand it).
- microtonal 3y ago
  The second proposed legislation from the article seems to require that at least 5 years of updates must be provided after the device was last sold. This is far more than many low-end and mid-range Android phones, moreover many Android phone manufacturers start counting after the device was released, not last sold. Interestingly, they also seem to put upper bounds on how quickly these updates should be rolled out. Eg. functionality updates must be rolled out within 6 months after another phone from the same brand has that update. So eg. if Samsung makes Android 12 available on their flagship phone, they also need to make it available within 6 months on the other phones that were sold to up to 5 years ago. https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/12797-Designing-mobile-phones-and-tablets-to-be-sustainable-ecodesign_en https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-sa... This is such an improvement over the status quo.
  - tomjen3 3y ago
    Is it? It is going to meant that Android can't take advantage of the high end features of the new phones that are being released, and that old and slow phones are going to get updates that makes them run even slower. To top it of, it is not like manufacturers are into throwing away money, so this will likely mean that prices on the cheapest phones will increase more.
    - 3y ago
Nocturium 3y ago
[flagged]
mantas 3y ago
Iphone battery is already pretty close to replaceable by this law. You need a common tool to get in (trident screwdriver is available in most DIY shops), then glue tabs can be pried by hand. Doable for layman? Well, some people are afraid of opening up a device in any way. How do we (or, rather, lawyers) draw a line?
- arghwhat 3y ago
  iFixit disagrees: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+14+Battery+Replacement/152966 https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+14+Battery+Replacement/1... Hairdryer, suction anti-clamp, pick that must NOT be inserted more than 3mm or you break the device, both pentalobe and triwing security screws (screw types that only exist to stop users from opening things), numerous fragile cables that must be disconnected, and of course a glued in exposed cell battery. I don't think we have to worry about this being classified as easily user replaceable with basic tools.
- ekianjo 3y ago
  > then glue tabs can be pried by hand. There should be no reason to use glue for batteries. Unnecessary hazard that can easily lead to house fire if you have to use force of a thermal source to remove the glue.
  - 05 3y ago
    If you discharge the battery first it won’t catch on fire if you puncture or overheat it.. so, don’t replace a fully charged battery and you should be fine.
    - ekianjo 3y ago
      Yes. But you don't expect everyone to do that, when you think about safety. You assume the worst, not the best.
      - nonethewiser 3y ago
        If we can’t expect people to be safe with accessing batteries we should make the batteries less accessible, not more accessible.
systemtest 3y ago
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.
- hef19898 3y ago
  You don't hear about them, but they do exist...
  - systemtest 3y ago
    Nokia has been sold, I don't know about any EU smartphone brands outside of Fairphone. The market is so small that adding regulation isn't hurting the EU, which is why its an easy target compared to the automotive industry.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      > I don't know about any EU smartphone brands outside of Fairphone. That's your problem then, don't you think? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_phone_brands_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_phone_brands_by... Now, whether all of these are actually manufactured locally or not is another matter, but the EU definitely is regulating its own market. As they have been empowered to do so. I'm all for it. And I would love to see standardized battery packs for electric vehicles as well because I think that will be a much bigger issue in the longer term.
      - systemtest 3y ago
        > That's your problem then, don't you think? No need to play the man or be belittling. Point still stands that the EU smartphone market is so little that any regulation isn't hurting them. Regulation on car repairability definitely would, hence why you stil need to visit the BMW dealer if you want to change the 12-volt battery or activate your heated seats. The EU will not likely do anything about that.
f6v 3y ago
I don’t know. I already have to click cookie buttons on every goddamn web site I visit, it’s annoying as hell. These EU initiatives can be a bit pointless. Battery needs to be replaced like once every 2-3 years. Why change the device design to make battery user-replaceable when I can bring it to the repair shop?
- croes 3y ago
  They cookie banners are the fault of the website owners. They did this on purpose so the users would blame the laws. Could have simple valued the Do-Not-Track flag but they didn't want to.
  - nonethewiser 3y ago
    If thats true then their competitors will gladly not ask for permission and enjoy higher user satisfaction and the banners will disappear due to that long term. But we all know thats bullshit and the law actually did cause this.
    - kaba0 3y ago
      It’s almost like “the user will choose the best product” is bullshit. It has never been true, people are not rational agents, otherwise marketing wouldn’t work at all. The best we have is to define small markets with strict regulations - within that some competition can happen that will tend to raise better products.
      - Timon3 3y ago
        Especially since it's not like there is a manufacturer for every cell of the feature matrix. Every single option has its downsides, and the optimal option most likely doesn't exist.
    - croes 3y ago
      All these sites make money from tracking, if they back out once the customers would knew they get screwed. And not all websites have banners
nuker 3y ago
I’d hate to lose waterproof feature on iPhone. For it’ll be dealbreaker.
- vletal 3y ago
  Submarines are not glued tight, yet they are waterproof. Much bigger deal for Apple is design. Exposed screws sealing the back cover would give Jony Ive OCD ticks, I'm sure
  - nonethewiser 3y ago
    Submarines are also waaaaaay more expensive. Largely due to all the engineering and quality control that goes into what you’re talking about.
  - mastax 3y ago
    Thankfully, Jony Ive is gone. Though their design has only gotten marginally more practical since.
  - algas 3y ago
    Every part of your first sentence is inaccurate. Submarines are glued tight; all the body panels are welded together. They do this because making waterproof riveted joints is hard [0]. Riveted joints would flex and open up, requiring constant maintenance and caulking, and early riveted subs would leak trails of fuel behind them (and significantly into the sub itself!) Second, submarines aren't even waterproof. There's lots of things that are hard to seal, like the spinning propeller shaft. Submarines have a natural advantage over your phone in this regard: all the water that leaks in can be pumped out. Under the new regulations, phones can't be glued or welded shut, and there's not much room for a bilge pump in the average modern smartphone. [0]: https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=1518898 https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=1518898
    - stjohnswarts 3y ago
      None of that really matters since we have the technology to seal phones now, Apple just chooses not to because it makes engineering, manufacturing, and designed in obsolescence a bit easier for them.
layer8 3y ago
Interestingly, the regulation apparently also applies to small devices like smart watches and wireless earbuds.
- tomjen3 3y ago
  That's not great - those devices really do not have space for a replaceable battery. And no, I don't want them bigger than they already are.
  - progfix 3y ago
    I did a 10 second internet search and found earbuds that have a replaceable battery and are not bigger than usual ones. https://pqearbuds.com/ https://pqearbuds.com/
    - filoleg 3y ago
      Looking at the pictures on the website, they look to be about at least twice the size of the most recent airpods pro, and much larger than the very first airpods (which are massive compared to the more recent ones). I would have compared the weight directly, but PQ website only shows the weight for earbuds+case together (70g), couldn't find the weight of earbuds alone anywhere. Apple's website lists airpods pro 2 at 3g and the case at 50g.
  - layer8 3y ago
    There’s certainly some compromises to be made for sustainability, but I don’t think they have to be a deal breaker.
    - tomjen3 3y ago
      As long as it has any impact on weight, battery size, water tightness or make the device bigger its a deal breaker for me.
      - layer8 3y ago
rich_sasha 3y ago
Replaceable vs long-lasting batteries is not quite equivalent. You can have two replaceable batteries as easy backup. I prefer replaceable.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
MichaelMoser123 3y ago
i think they want to address the chip shortage (or a possible repetition of the shortage) by extending the life of the smartphones - which doesn't make the smartphone producers happy.
thesnide 3y ago
The battery is indeed the HW part that has the most decay. But in that 5y time-frame the SW part is the one that is the most problematic. It would be nice to be able to replace the ROM easily after the EOL of the device. Will self-regulate itself immediately, as then incentives to have longer life is real and you cannot force customers to just buy another device because you decided it's time. By "replace ROM easily" it means that one has the access (keys) and documentation to do it.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  Is ROM really used anymore? It seems like these days, everything is OTA update compatible. Customers aren’t forced to buy new devices, they just no longer get software updates after N (5?) years. You would need an alternative OS, like a version of Android that lacks google apps or something.
  - crote 3y ago
    "ROM" is just used as a term for the system image. It is no longer truly "read only". And replacing that is often intentionally made difficult by cryptographically signing the image, making it impossible to boot a custom one.
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      Oh wow, that’s a weird anachronism that I didn’t expect. Here is the explanation from wiki: > The term "ROM" is sometimes used to refer to a ROM device containing specific software or a file with software to be stored in a writable ROM device. For example, users modifying or replacing the Android operating system describe files containing a modified or replacement operating system as "custom ROMs" after the type of storage the file used to be written to, and they may distinguish between ROM (where software and data is stored, usually Flash memory) and RAM. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Read-only_memory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Read-only_memory So what was once a very hardware term had become a completely software one.
- mrweasel 3y ago
account-5 3y ago
I hope this happens. Making a phone more of an appliance like a washing machine etc. I hope this happens for TVs too since smart TVs are a load of shit just now.
plandis 3y ago
I feel like this will lead to more expensive or bulkier phones (or both!)
dang 3y ago
Related. Others? EU: Smartphones Must Have User-Replaceable Batteries by 2027 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36394922 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36394922 - June 2023 (13 comments) European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36361510 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36361510 - June 2023 (605 comments) EU parliament passes law on user replaceable batteries - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36336190 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36336190 - June 2023 (15 comments) Non-replaceable battery? Not if this proposed EU law passes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34129250 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34129250 - Dec 2022 (234 comments) EU legislation could bring back user replaceable batteries - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34085963 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34085963 - Dec 2022 (23 comments) Replaceable batteries are coming back to phones if the EU gets its way - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30867892 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30867892 - March 2022 (14 comments) EU to make it mandatory to use customer-replaceable batteries in household items - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30660953 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30660953 - March 2022 (637 comments)
askonomm 3y ago
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.
- kwanbix 3y ago
  Yeah, I honestly don't see the advantage. What I would ask is that companies that create phones without replaceable batteries, should provide replacement by a reasonable fee (let's say no more than 9% the cost of the phone).
  - celestialcheese 3y ago
    The problem that these bills are trying to solve isn't just consumer, it's End of Life management at the recycler level. Glued-in, Li-ion batteries over the years have caused so much headache for ewaste processors. Apple has improved over the years with their glue tabs, but it's still a big problem in the market as a whole. https://www.popsci.com/energy/lithium-ion-batteries-recycling-fire/ https://www.popsci.com/energy/lithium-ion-batteries-recyclin... https://www.waste360.com/business/li-ion-battery-fires-unfairly-cost-waste-recycling-and-scrap-operators-over-12-billion https://www.waste360.com/business/li-ion-battery-fires-unfai...
    - kwanbix 3y ago
      That is why I said that companies should provide a reasonably priced battery exchange program.
- kvdveer 3y ago
  Contrary to how this bill is usually portrayed in the news, this bill allows for using screws and gaskets. Those are enough to make a phone waterproof. Lots of other waterproof equipment achieves Ip68 with only screws and gaskets. I don't see why phones should be any different.
- limuc 3y ago
  No. There are already phones that can do this. For example the Samsung Xcover 5.
mk_stjames 3y ago
In the last decade and a half I have owned 4 phones total and I have yet to have one that has such a poor battery that it has needed the battery replaced before the phone itself was essentially obsolete. I don't know if maybe other people just use their phone so much more than me... Mine sits here on my desks and I look at it for notifications every now and then, maybe send a text... Thats it. Take a phone call once every few days. My phone is a Pixel 2 from 2018. The battery lasts nearly 2 days without charging, easily. If I am about to go out and use it heavily on maps or GPS... I charge it, and I get an evening's use out of it still easily. Maybe I'm just not the normal user. But for these people running batteries dead more than once a day and needed to replace a battery once every 2 years... I don't get it. And this is a level of regulation that I don't think will actually do much to save batteries from landfills. Meanwhile in Spain there single-use vape pens for sale in every Tabac shop that have small lithium ion cells in them, and people everywhere are literally buying and tossing those cells in the trash every goddamn day. I find them laying on sidewalks all the time. This is still allowed, but a battery tightly sealed in a phone that should last a normal person years is a problem?
- MitPitt 3y ago
  So, you don't use your phone, and it doesn't run out of battery. Interesting observation.
  - mk_stjames 3y ago
    The revelation here isn't that I don't understand batteries, it's that I don't understand how people use their phones...
- c2h5oh 3y ago
  I the last 5 years alone I've replaced batteries in: - Pixel 4, more than doubling it's battery life - Pixel 2 XL making it usable again - One Plus 6 almost doubling it's battery life So clearly mileage will vary.
jokoon 3y ago
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.
chakintosh 3y ago
I'm all for pro-consumer decisions like this but for me it seems like there is a choice to be made. It's either user-replaceable batteries or waterproof smartphones.
acd 3y ago
Note that wireless headphone batteries and spare parts should also be regulated.
timonoko 3y ago
I once replaced a battery, not by breaking the device (ebook) in two, but by making a battery sized hole in the backplate. I knew approximately where the battery was and there was not much danger drilling in to the dead battery. Now, this idea was better than I thought. I could use bigger and fatter battery just by covering it with adhesive foil. And I could even use AA-shaped lithiums if the device thinness was not important. As regards to electrical connection, you use the connector and controller from the original battery and connect raw battery lines to the new battery of your choice. https://photos.app.goo.gl/YxjgaVVpiPvygHXS8 https://photos.app.goo.gl/YxjgaVVpiPvygHXS8

217 points by ZacnyLos 3y ago

I have never used a phone (nor a laptop) where the battery wasn't easily replaceable and to be honest I can't really imagine using one. Batteries can (and do) go bad and start expanding. Using a device where the battery isn't easily accessible feels absolutely distressing.

veave 3y ago
Which goes to show that the option is there and people don't take it because they simnply don't want it so this regulation is the EU being the EU.
- seba_dos1 3y ago
  The option is there indeed, although I'm not sure if the general population would be happy with e.g. an Openmoko phone back when I already was :P
- onli 3y ago
  Disagree. First, the devices with removable batteries are exceedingly rare right now. They also often enough are niche products. Second, it is not reasonable to expect every consumer to always think about what is right, and not instead to follow what marketing tells him to buy. This is exactly what regulations are good for and historically have solved.
  - veave 3y ago
    Interesting argument against democracy that you have in there - we should go back to monarchy. After all, it is not reasonable to expect every citizen to think about what is right, since instead they follow propaganda.
    - onli 3y ago
      The danger of manipulation through propaganda is indeed an argument used in political discourse, though in reasonable discussions when talking about direct and indirect democracy. The layers of parliamentary systems are partly a means of protection against manipulations. If you want to read an interesting and nice to read book that partly talks about this, then I'd recommend Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy. Though a consumer decision is not the same as a political vote, at least the latter is not supposed to be similarly thoughtless, so there is no need to interpret my comment that broadly.
    - Levitz 3y ago
      When a chosen official makes a law that the citizens have to abide by, that's democracy and not its opposite.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    Yes people are too stupid to make their own choices. The EU should just start coming out with “5 Year Plans”. What could possibly go wrong? The EU’s regulations must be why there is a thriving tech sector in Europe…
    - f1shy 3y ago
      There is good development in the UK! Oh… they are not EU … The ones that downvoted this comment will be surprised in 10 years…
    - fullspectrumdev 3y ago
      Europes tech sector is thriving, but it’s all boring technology that actually solves real problems that nobody cares about like SAP and shit so the HN crowd don’t think it exists :)
      - scarface_74 3y ago
        “Thriving” a bunch of SaaS companies? If you add up the valuations of all of the tech companies in the EU, do they sum up to the value of Apple? That’s not even to mention the pay differential for tech employees.
- ReptileMan 3y ago
  Oligopoly and cartels are adept at serving their interests and not the interests of society and customers.
- john61 3y ago
  Regulation is not made for the benefit of individuals, but for the benefit of society as a whole. In this case, for the environment or the planet. I doubt that people don't want a planet to live.
  - nonethewiser 3y ago
    Society as a whole is just a bunch of individuals. If its bad for individuals its bad for society.
    - john61 3y ago
      The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
ekianjo 3y ago
> used a phone there are almost no smartphones where you can easily replace the battery these days.
- Semaphor 3y ago
  While it’s probably not easily, it was (to me) surprisingly easy to change the battery in my OnePlus 5. The battery itself was glued, but not in a way that removing it would destroy anything else. The other parts just required normal phone repair tools.
- seba_dos1 3y ago
  Thankfully, in the niche I'm interested in it's still common. On my Librem 5 I can replace the battery with nothing but a fingernail to take the back cover out, and could do so the same way on all the other smartphone's I've used in the past too.
- superkuh 3y ago
  But there are options. And instead of having people chose themselves to pick these options and refuse to buy terrible phones the EU is instead saying it will use the force of government violence against other people so that only phones of their desired non-shittiness are sold there. I really don't thinking bringing violence into this situation is called for. The EU is showing is an implicit assumption that people cannot make choices for themselves and violence must be used by the state to get them to make the correct choices. That's nasty and a very slippery slope to authoritarianism. As a human person with volition I simply chose not to buy bad, anti-consumer devices. It is possible. And I do it without the government threatening violence on my behalf.
  - kaba0 3y ago
    Come on, what a stupid take.. what violence? Let’s also call out the EU next for “using violence” and disallows selling grinded shit as food.. capitalism doesn’t work without rules, period! It’s as per the very Adam Smith! Libertarianism is absolutely divorced from reality.
scotty79 3y ago
The only device I've ever seen firsthand that had its battery swollen was a Macbook. Battery was glued of course so replacement wasn't totally easy.

jacquesm 3y ago

I hope there is a provision in there for laptops as well. All this glued in shit is just another plank in the planned obsolescence strategy.

cm2187 3y ago
Glue and soldering. Modern laptops aren't upgradable anymore.
onli 3y ago
That's actually in the article :) one of the two laws covers all devices with ~~batteries~~ portable batteries.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Thank you! Edit: Hm, I re-read the article and I still can't find that passage, the word 'laptop' doesn't appear. Can you point it out for me?
  - vhanda 3y ago
    "In addition to not offering the longevity loophole, Opsomer also points out that the battery regulation covers all products with a portable battery; it’s far wider-reaching than the phone and tablet-focused ecodesign regulation."
  - onli 3y ago
    Almost didn't find it myself this time. But here it is: > In addition to not offering the longevity loophole, Opsomer also points out that the battery regulation covers all products with a portable battery; it’s far wider-reaching than the phone and tablet-focused ecodesign regulation.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      Ah! Then they really should give that factoid much better billing, including the title. Thank you once again.

bjackman 3y ago

I think this is fantastic news. It will be interesting to see how it affects the amount of phones that get discarded. I think the next bottleneck is likely to be software longevity. This has improved a lot lately! But basically I think phones have now reached a place like laptops and desktops where HW capabilities are stable, and there's no good reason for devices to be obsolete in 5 years any more. I wonder if regulators said "your software has to get security updates for 10 years" would that be enough to get mobile SoC vendors upstreaming their HW support and Google streamlining the Android update process? (To Google's credit they have already done a _lot_ of positive work in that area as I understand it).

microtonal 3y ago
The second proposed legislation from the article seems to require that at least 5 years of updates must be provided after the device was last sold. This is far more than many low-end and mid-range Android phones, moreover many Android phone manufacturers start counting after the device was released, not last sold. Interestingly, they also seem to put upper bounds on how quickly these updates should be rolled out. Eg. functionality updates must be rolled out within 6 months after another phone from the same brand has that update. So eg. if Samsung makes Android 12 available on their flagship phone, they also need to make it available within 6 months on the other phones that were sold to up to 5 years ago. https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/12797-Designing-mobile-phones-and-tablets-to-be-sustainable-ecodesign_en https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-sa... This is such an improvement over the status quo.
- tomjen3 3y ago
  Is it? It is going to meant that Android can't take advantage of the high end features of the new phones that are being released, and that old and slow phones are going to get updates that makes them run even slower. To top it of, it is not like manufacturers are into throwing away money, so this will likely mean that prices on the cheapest phones will increase more.
  - 3y ago

Nocturium 3y ago

[flagged]

mantas 3y ago

Iphone battery is already pretty close to replaceable by this law. You need a common tool to get in (trident screwdriver is available in most DIY shops), then glue tabs can be pried by hand. Doable for layman? Well, some people are afraid of opening up a device in any way. How do we (or, rather, lawyers) draw a line?

arghwhat 3y ago
iFixit disagrees: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+14+Battery+Replacement/152966 https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+14+Battery+Replacement/1... Hairdryer, suction anti-clamp, pick that must NOT be inserted more than 3mm or you break the device, both pentalobe and triwing security screws (screw types that only exist to stop users from opening things), numerous fragile cables that must be disconnected, and of course a glued in exposed cell battery. I don't think we have to worry about this being classified as easily user replaceable with basic tools.
ekianjo 3y ago
> then glue tabs can be pried by hand. There should be no reason to use glue for batteries. Unnecessary hazard that can easily lead to house fire if you have to use force of a thermal source to remove the glue.
- 05 3y ago
  If you discharge the battery first it won’t catch on fire if you puncture or overheat it.. so, don’t replace a fully charged battery and you should be fine.
  - ekianjo 3y ago
    Yes. But you don't expect everyone to do that, when you think about safety. You assume the worst, not the best.
    - nonethewiser 3y ago
      If we can’t expect people to be safe with accessing batteries we should make the batteries less accessible, not more accessible.

systemtest 3y ago

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.

hef19898 3y ago
You don't hear about them, but they do exist...
- systemtest 3y ago
  Nokia has been sold, I don't know about any EU smartphone brands outside of Fairphone. The market is so small that adding regulation isn't hurting the EU, which is why its an easy target compared to the automotive industry.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    > I don't know about any EU smartphone brands outside of Fairphone. That's your problem then, don't you think? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_phone_brands_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_phone_brands_by... Now, whether all of these are actually manufactured locally or not is another matter, but the EU definitely is regulating its own market. As they have been empowered to do so. I'm all for it. And I would love to see standardized battery packs for electric vehicles as well because I think that will be a much bigger issue in the longer term.
    - systemtest 3y ago
      > That's your problem then, don't you think? No need to play the man or be belittling. Point still stands that the EU smartphone market is so little that any regulation isn't hurting them. Regulation on car repairability definitely would, hence why you stil need to visit the BMW dealer if you want to change the 12-volt battery or activate your heated seats. The EU will not likely do anything about that.

f6v 3y ago

I don’t know. I already have to click cookie buttons on every goddamn web site I visit, it’s annoying as hell. These EU initiatives can be a bit pointless. Battery needs to be replaced like once every 2-3 years. Why change the device design to make battery user-replaceable when I can bring it to the repair shop?

croes 3y ago
They cookie banners are the fault of the website owners. They did this on purpose so the users would blame the laws. Could have simple valued the Do-Not-Track flag but they didn't want to.
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  If thats true then their competitors will gladly not ask for permission and enjoy higher user satisfaction and the banners will disappear due to that long term. But we all know thats bullshit and the law actually did cause this.
  - kaba0 3y ago
    It’s almost like “the user will choose the best product” is bullshit. It has never been true, people are not rational agents, otherwise marketing wouldn’t work at all. The best we have is to define small markets with strict regulations - within that some competition can happen that will tend to raise better products.
    - Timon3 3y ago
      Especially since it's not like there is a manufacturer for every cell of the feature matrix. Every single option has its downsides, and the optimal option most likely doesn't exist.
  - croes 3y ago
    All these sites make money from tracking, if they back out once the customers would knew they get screwed. And not all websites have banners

nuker 3y ago

I’d hate to lose waterproof feature on iPhone. For it’ll be dealbreaker.

vletal 3y ago
Submarines are not glued tight, yet they are waterproof. Much bigger deal for Apple is design. Exposed screws sealing the back cover would give Jony Ive OCD ticks, I'm sure
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  Submarines are also waaaaaay more expensive. Largely due to all the engineering and quality control that goes into what you’re talking about.
- mastax 3y ago
  Thankfully, Jony Ive is gone. Though their design has only gotten marginally more practical since.
- algas 3y ago
  Every part of your first sentence is inaccurate. Submarines are glued tight; all the body panels are welded together. They do this because making waterproof riveted joints is hard [0]. Riveted joints would flex and open up, requiring constant maintenance and caulking, and early riveted subs would leak trails of fuel behind them (and significantly into the sub itself!) Second, submarines aren't even waterproof. There's lots of things that are hard to seal, like the spinning propeller shaft. Submarines have a natural advantage over your phone in this regard: all the water that leaks in can be pumped out. Under the new regulations, phones can't be glued or welded shut, and there's not much room for a bilge pump in the average modern smartphone. [0]: https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=1518898 https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=1518898
  - stjohnswarts 3y ago
    None of that really matters since we have the technology to seal phones now, Apple just chooses not to because it makes engineering, manufacturing, and designed in obsolescence a bit easier for them.

layer8 3y ago

Interestingly, the regulation apparently also applies to small devices like smart watches and wireless earbuds.

tomjen3 3y ago
That's not great - those devices really do not have space for a replaceable battery. And no, I don't want them bigger than they already are.
- progfix 3y ago
  I did a 10 second internet search and found earbuds that have a replaceable battery and are not bigger than usual ones. https://pqearbuds.com/ https://pqearbuds.com/
  - filoleg 3y ago
    Looking at the pictures on the website, they look to be about at least twice the size of the most recent airpods pro, and much larger than the very first airpods (which are massive compared to the more recent ones). I would have compared the weight directly, but PQ website only shows the weight for earbuds+case together (70g), couldn't find the weight of earbuds alone anywhere. Apple's website lists airpods pro 2 at 3g and the case at 50g.
- layer8 3y ago
  There’s certainly some compromises to be made for sustainability, but I don’t think they have to be a deal breaker.
  - tomjen3 3y ago
    As long as it has any impact on weight, battery size, water tightness or make the device bigger its a deal breaker for me.
    - layer8 3y ago

rich_sasha 3y ago

Replaceable vs long-lasting batteries is not quite equivalent. You can have two replaceable batteries as easy backup. I prefer replaceable.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

MichaelMoser123 3y ago

i think they want to address the chip shortage (or a possible repetition of the shortage) by extending the life of the smartphones - which doesn't make the smartphone producers happy.

thesnide 3y ago

The battery is indeed the HW part that has the most decay. But in that 5y time-frame the SW part is the one that is the most problematic. It would be nice to be able to replace the ROM easily after the EOL of the device. Will self-regulate itself immediately, as then incentives to have longer life is real and you cannot force customers to just buy another device because you decided it's time. By "replace ROM easily" it means that one has the access (keys) and documentation to do it.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
Is ROM really used anymore? It seems like these days, everything is OTA update compatible. Customers aren’t forced to buy new devices, they just no longer get software updates after N (5?) years. You would need an alternative OS, like a version of Android that lacks google apps or something.
- crote 3y ago
  "ROM" is just used as a term for the system image. It is no longer truly "read only". And replacing that is often intentionally made difficult by cryptographically signing the image, making it impossible to boot a custom one.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    Oh wow, that’s a weird anachronism that I didn’t expect. Here is the explanation from wiki: > The term "ROM" is sometimes used to refer to a ROM device containing specific software or a file with software to be stored in a writable ROM device. For example, users modifying or replacing the Android operating system describe files containing a modified or replacement operating system as "custom ROMs" after the type of storage the file used to be written to, and they may distinguish between ROM (where software and data is stored, usually Flash memory) and RAM. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Read-only_memory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Read-only_memory So what was once a very hardware term had become a completely software one.
mrweasel 3y ago

account-5 3y ago

I hope this happens. Making a phone more of an appliance like a washing machine etc. I hope this happens for TVs too since smart TVs are a load of shit just now.

plandis 3y ago

I feel like this will lead to more expensive or bulkier phones (or both!)

dang 3y ago

Related. Others? EU: Smartphones Must Have User-Replaceable Batteries by 2027 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36394922 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36394922 - June 2023 (13 comments) European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36361510 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36361510 - June 2023 (605 comments) EU parliament passes law on user replaceable batteries - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36336190 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36336190 - June 2023 (15 comments) Non-replaceable battery? Not if this proposed EU law passes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34129250 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34129250 - Dec 2022 (234 comments) EU legislation could bring back user replaceable batteries - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34085963 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34085963 - Dec 2022 (23 comments) Replaceable batteries are coming back to phones if the EU gets its way - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30867892 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30867892 - March 2022 (14 comments) EU to make it mandatory to use customer-replaceable batteries in household items - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30660953 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30660953 - March 2022 (637 comments)

askonomm 3y ago

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.

kwanbix 3y ago
Yeah, I honestly don't see the advantage. What I would ask is that companies that create phones without replaceable batteries, should provide replacement by a reasonable fee (let's say no more than 9% the cost of the phone).
- celestialcheese 3y ago
  The problem that these bills are trying to solve isn't just consumer, it's End of Life management at the recycler level. Glued-in, Li-ion batteries over the years have caused so much headache for ewaste processors. Apple has improved over the years with their glue tabs, but it's still a big problem in the market as a whole. https://www.popsci.com/energy/lithium-ion-batteries-recycling-fire/ https://www.popsci.com/energy/lithium-ion-batteries-recyclin... https://www.waste360.com/business/li-ion-battery-fires-unfairly-cost-waste-recycling-and-scrap-operators-over-12-billion https://www.waste360.com/business/li-ion-battery-fires-unfai...
  - kwanbix 3y ago
    That is why I said that companies should provide a reasonably priced battery exchange program.
kvdveer 3y ago
Contrary to how this bill is usually portrayed in the news, this bill allows for using screws and gaskets. Those are enough to make a phone waterproof. Lots of other waterproof equipment achieves Ip68 with only screws and gaskets. I don't see why phones should be any different.
limuc 3y ago
No. There are already phones that can do this. For example the Samsung Xcover 5.

mk_stjames 3y ago

In the last decade and a half I have owned 4 phones total and I have yet to have one that has such a poor battery that it has needed the battery replaced before the phone itself was essentially obsolete. I don't know if maybe other people just use their phone so much more than me... Mine sits here on my desks and I look at it for notifications every now and then, maybe send a text... Thats it. Take a phone call once every few days. My phone is a Pixel 2 from 2018. The battery lasts nearly 2 days without charging, easily. If I am about to go out and use it heavily on maps or GPS... I charge it, and I get an evening's use out of it still easily. Maybe I'm just not the normal user. But for these people running batteries dead more than once a day and needed to replace a battery once every 2 years... I don't get it. And this is a level of regulation that I don't think will actually do much to save batteries from landfills. Meanwhile in Spain there single-use vape pens for sale in every Tabac shop that have small lithium ion cells in them, and people everywhere are literally buying and tossing those cells in the trash every goddamn day. I find them laying on sidewalks all the time. This is still allowed, but a battery tightly sealed in a phone that should last a normal person years is a problem?

MitPitt 3y ago
So, you don't use your phone, and it doesn't run out of battery. Interesting observation.
- mk_stjames 3y ago
  The revelation here isn't that I don't understand batteries, it's that I don't understand how people use their phones...
c2h5oh 3y ago
I the last 5 years alone I've replaced batteries in: - Pixel 4, more than doubling it's battery life - Pixel 2 XL making it usable again - One Plus 6 almost doubling it's battery life So clearly mileage will vary.

jokoon 3y ago

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.

chakintosh 3y ago

I'm all for pro-consumer decisions like this but for me it seems like there is a choice to be made. It's either user-replaceable batteries or waterproof smartphones.

acd 3y ago

Note that wireless headphone batteries and spare parts should also be regulated.

timonoko 3y ago

I once replaced a battery, not by breaking the device (ebook) in two, but by making a battery sized hole in the backplate. I knew approximately where the battery was and there was not much danger drilling in to the dead battery. Now, this idea was better than I thought. I could use bigger and fatter battery just by covering it with adhesive foil. And I could even use AA-shaped lithiums if the device thinness was not important. As regards to electrical connection, you use the connector and controller from the original battery and connect raw battery lines to the new battery of your choice. https://photos.app.goo.gl/YxjgaVVpiPvygHXS8 https://photos.app.goo.gl/YxjgaVVpiPvygHXS8