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The final law just makes replacing batteries more accessible (i.e. no glue or special screws), but it doesn't mandate battery packs. Also some devices like hearing aids are exempt.

I question whether battery packs would be a good thing to bring back now. USB power banks have 100% interchangeability among many device classes, which is something that not even dry cell batteries achieved. I can choose to leave the house with or without a power bank and just rent one in my city (YMMV). Modern charging wattages are high enough that I don't miss shutting down my Nexus, changing the pack, then rebooting.

It's tempting to say that this could be solved if battery sizes were standardized, but that would inevitably limit device dimensions. For example, I especially loathe how the 18650 has made almost all modern flashlights clunky. I would hate it if Apple pushes for a 4.5mm thick battery standard to kill all foldables because they don't want to enter the market and cannibalize their iPad demand.

I don't think this is where peak battery tech ends up. At current capacities, batteries are becoming genuinely dangerous, and faster charging only amplifies the risk. Charging high-capacity cells outside a temperature-controlled charger is risky, and even reputable chargers shouldn't be left unattended — many workplaces ban it outright (it only takes one fire to make that policy). Phone batteries are the worst of it: highest power density, fastest charging, odd geometry, and tight space constraints. Manufacturers shrink the phone by offloading temperature monitoring and heat dissipation onto the phone's own electronics and housing — so replaceable, externally rechargeable batteries are tricky to design. IMO, swappable batteries were a feature because batteries used to suck. In less volume-constrained devices like cameras, swappable batteries still work — but you're trading single-charge runtime for that convenience.

This last point is actually a real killer, an easily swappable battery in a phone probably sacrifices >10% "maximum" capacity in lost space. e.g a phone with a glued battery can have 5000mAh but the same phone with a more durable battery connector can only be 4500mAh.

Separate battery modules can be subjected to obsolescence too, being hard pressed into finding a suitable replacement with similar specifications and which manufacturer that still makes them. I am on my 3rd Zenfone2 battery and it is definitely no longer in production..

The fact that pretty much no phones have a replaceable battery says something. And it doesn't mean that all manufacturers are somehow colluding with each. The market is very competitive and pretty much every manufacturer decided the trade offs are not worth the benefit. If Samsung or Xiaomi or Google could sell you a better phone with a replaceable battery, they would. But everyone came to the conclusion that the trade off is just not worth it. And now the EU, in its infinite wisdom has decided it knows whats best.

If it's such a superior product that people want despite the tradeoffs, why don't they just fund a company to create such a phone? Why doesn't anyone?

and you can’t even find anyone who will fit them for the older models.

I'm quite certain you can find many companies in the far East who will produce cells of exactly the size and shape you want, as long as you're willing to order a minimum quantity. There are also a few semi-standard sizes of prismatic cells available.

That said, having a few truly standard sizes like we had with 1.2/1.5V and 9V batteries would be a good idea. BL-5C and its variants were a de-facto standard for many years too, and apparently are still available new.

Phones don't have removable batteries mostly because of the desire to make the device as thin as possible. The battery is just a delicate, flexible pouch that can easily be damaged and catch fire if removed from the phone and carried around. To make it safe, you'd need to add a hard shell, which would probably make the device 2 mm thicker or so.

As to why we want to make phones as thin as possible... I don't know, but I guess it makes them look futuristic, which helps with sales. The same goes for highly-reflective, glossy screens. I guess I'm not gonna cry if that gets regulated away.

Having a battery pack has its uses though. As crazy as USBC is, you can now get a relatively large amount of power from a battery pack.

There’s a bunch of things that don’t need their own battery if they just drew enough power off USBC. I have an office coffee setup. My grinder and espresso maker have their own batteries. But there’s no reason I couldn’t have a single battery pack and just plug both into USBC saving me a ton of weight. (In fact the Lagom Mini 2 grinder is powered straight off USBC with no internal power.)

For phones and cameras, that need their own power source, a replaceable battery is mostly just an end of life thing for me. Because I’d still have to carry a cable or spare battery around.

Quickswap batteries work for stateless devices.

A camera doesn't care if you take the battery out, except for that sub-second bit when it's saving the photo. Otherwise it doesn't notice you swapping the battery at all.

Modern phones are different because they are basically computers, and computers really don't like it when you just cut the power with no warning.

I cannot wait until I can carry a spare battery in my wallet again

There are benefits and downsides. Consumers and companies can make these decisions just fine.

> I can use 40+ year old cameras

Apple winces.

Some action cameras have replaceable batteries, some don't. I had a perfectly good Contour Roam 2 where the battery died and I still have a Contour Roam 3 with some low capacity battery.

With cameras you don't care about every mm of width, nor about how resistant it is to falls. With phones you do.

I, for one, don't welcome that change. I'd be ok with paying someone a bit extra to replace the battery. I mean, I'd be ok if I had a battery die in my phone in the last 10 years, which I don't remember it did.

I suspect (but am no expert) that the main arguments for integrated batteries are actually to extend the lifetime and sturdiness; drop your Nokia and there's a chance the battery pops out and gets damaged, drop it in the water and the battery compartiment is a point of ingress.

I'm arguing that the sealed / glued / tightly packed / irreplaceable battery thing helps keep phones working for longer.

Of course the counterpoint is that often the battery is the first component to go, and this law is intended to make it easier to keep them in working order for longer.

If they filled that negative space my phone wouldn't rock annoyingly and sit awkwardly on flat surfaces, and that would be a great shame.

Fairphones already have replacable battery for more than a decade (2013?), so yes, it could, can, hold a swappable battery.

It wasn't even that long ago. My Galaxy S4 had a back plate that clipped on and was still thin

Nokia still make phones. They even had a line of smartphones until last year. I've got an XR20 "rugged" phone that's served me well for a few years.

I have my 9300 still in a drawer ( checked ) . Interesting if it is possible to find a replacement battery for it and what functionality would still be usable? A physical SIM, 3G still works…

If you remember Nokia's batteries they were covered in a relatively thick ABS shell. They were also, compared to today, had laughably little storage. A Series 40 Nokia just did not draw that much power. The single GSM/PCS radio also sipped power.

Even if you stripped a 5G phone down to a Series 40-esque interface the 5G radios alone would use more power than a whole 3310.

In order to get the power density modern phones need they require high power Li-poly batteries. An extra 3mm worth of ABS shell is a lot of lost capacity. You can't sell user serviceable Li-poly batteries without a protective shell. You'd never get a UL rating because Li-polys are dangerous if mishandled.

This is not correct. There is no exemption for Apple devices

You seem to referencing from a older exemption for self serviceability if your smartphone can do 1,000 cycles and retain 80% battery. Specifically - B 1.1 (1) (c) (ii) (b) . Here is the link - https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

Article 11 of the new regulation (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...) covers exemptions but nothing to do with 1,000 cycles or Apple as far as i can see.

I was wondering about that. I lost my iPhone 13 mini the other day, did the find my phone beep thing and got a distant beep from my washing machine which was on wash cycle.

Surprisingly the phone was fine and works fine after a brief rinse under the tap. It must be hard to combine that sort of water resistance with easy user changing.

This could be "fixed" right now by a software update that limits the maximum charge level to 80% of capacity. However, this comes at the cost of how many minutes of runtime your phone can operate.

So manufactures might just responds to this by making your phone heavier with a bigger battery that is being under utilized.

And what about if 4 years they says that they have dettected a problem in your battery? A new battery should fix that but now you cannot do it properly because it could do 1000 cycles.

This same thing happened to Pixels 6a after 500 cycles.

The goal should be reducing e-waste, and honestly this seems reasonable.

I’d rather get the additional structural rigidity, compactness, and weatherproofing that comes from the tight construction and then pay $99 to have Apple professionally install a new battery for me in 3-4 years. Forcing everyone’s iPhone to take all of the tradeoffs of replaceable batteries so some people can save $50 to replace their own battery isn’t a good deal.

I wouldn’t be surprised if forcing all phones to have easily replaceable batteries would result in a net increase in e-waste due to the additional failure modes introduced. Even if batteries were easily replaceable I think most iPhone users would have Apple do it for them anyway.

I’ve also replaced some iPhone batteries myself and it’s really not that bad if you are familiar with taking modern electronics apart. Apple will send you the entire toolkit if you want complete with a return label.

Where did you see this? Can't see that in the article or a quick search on the rules PDF.

What if they don't? What if there are manufacturer errors? What if they burn your battery with updates along the way?

I wonder if this is part of why Apple is behind most competitors in terms of fast charging. Would almost make marketing sense to come out and say it at this point.

> Low cost phones will be most affected.

Not really. Take a 4000 mAh rated cell, advertise it as "rated for 3500 mAh" and that's it.

Isn't like most of the new phones claim at least 1000 cycles?

Funnily enough I've had a "low cost phone" with replaceable batteries (the "old school way")

So it does not seem a big deal

1000 cycles is barely 3 years, that's far too low a number

Wish they'd have implemented it before the iPhone 14 Pro launched. I'm at 624 cycles right now and my phone's gone below 80% fucking ages ago.

Is 1000 cycles above 80% even possible without gimping the device like apple does with all its hardware?

This is part of a broader push to reign in on batteries not being recycled at the end of their lives.

An easily swappable battery can be processed separately and hopefully become a source of materials that would otherwise need to be mined somewhere far away.

Ultimately the goal is to have a closed-loop economy:

https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/waste-and-recycling/...

They're taking "commercially available" to mean things like a screwdriver - not a $1000 phone disassembly machine.

You talk about "an Android that has a replaceable battery" as if that was something you could just buy at any store at no inconvenience. Sadly the majority of Android phones no longer have user-replaceable batteries, and only a select few models have official replacement parts available.

I'd be happier if this was something the market took care of, but after 10 years of glued-in batteries that you most likely can't even buy, I think it's time for a regulatory nudge.

> This isn't even what drives obsolesce of phones, it's software updates.

Agreed, and software-locking parts, like batteries, to only first-party or authorized third-party repair shops is one of those drivers.

I can see the argument for software locking some components (to cut down on theft) even if I don't appreciate or agree with them - it is at least a valid reason from some perspectives.

Batteries are a wear item though, and will have to be replaced periodically until the device is discarded. Software-locking them to only "Apple and people Apple likes" is unconscionable

This one is pretty cool, it has a swappable battery plus an internal battery so you can swap the battery without shutting down the device.

https://rugone.net/products/xever-7

Not replaceable in the sense of popping it out and putting in a new one in 5 seconds.

People shouldn't have to go to a special store or buy special tools requiring special skills to change a battery.

> If you really want to be able to self-swap your own battery, you can just buy an Android that has a replaceable battery.

Those don't really exist anymore.

> Do we need to regulate something that isn't a problem?

It is a problem and needs to be regulated.

> All regulation has downsides, is it worth paying this price here?

Of course the upsides of regulations are worth it. The downsides might cause slight inconvenience to the manufacturer, so that doesn't really matter.

> I'm an exception for sure

You're not. This is a big reason why "tech" went so all-in on AI.

The era of rapid innovation and rapid growth on phones is over. We hit "peak smartphone" in 2019-2020, look at a chart of iphone or Samsung models. Like a lightswitch they locked in on a specific design.

Hell, the more curmudgeon-y will complain that phones have degraded since. Gone is the 3.5mm jack, gone is the SD card slot. "Fuck you, buy our expensive bluetooth junk." "Fuck you buy our cloud storage".

(The reality is that consumers appear to prefer bluetooth audio and cloud storage, phones that do still retain the 3.5mm/sd card slot aren't gaining ground in the market. Sony is likely to close down their phone division in the upcoming years despite being one of the last holdouts.)

Hence all the desire in tech to find "The next iPhone", and the dozens of attempts to make "AI hardware" despite the fact that literally all of it has failed against the simple question of "why can't this be a smartphone/smartwatch app?"

This extends to AI in general. It can't just be a tool with some specific applications, it has to "Change The World", "Be the next iPhone".

To me the best "tradeoff" right now is buying used Fairphones from ebay.

It is LineageOS HEAD compatible and has replaceable batteries.

But it has some quirks. Medium performance if even that, non working fingerprint sensor. Camera quality from 2005.

I don't have gapps installed so I'm using my phone without any type of payment/2fa/banking apps. That decision from opsec makes it easily reflashable, so my anti malware strategy is essentially just reflashing the phone every couple weeks :D

My battery usually lasts a week because of using only f-droids chat, navigation, and translation apps for the most part, aside from the browser. I use Firefox with uBlock Origin, saves an insane amount of battery lifetime.

To me, repairability is the feature I value the most in a phone, so I'm kinda willing to compromise on the other features.

Fun fact: Did you know that WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal all restart themselves when you connect to your headphones? If you froze them before, they'll just drain your battery again when you have any bluetooth changes. You can easily verify that by staying in airplane mode and freezing them, then connecting your headphones in airplane mode.

I have found out that the main phone providers (Apple, Google, Samsung) have extremely long support period. I really don't get the "planned obsolescence" thing.

As an example, in Jan 2026, Apple published iOS 12.5.8 which provides updates for iPhone 5s which released in Sept 2013. That's 12.5 years ago. The equivalent would be to connect to the internet using ADSL in Jan 2000 with your IBM PS/2 rocking in intel 8086, 512 kb of RAM and expecting an update for your DOS operating system.

The EU already requires 5 years of patches since last year. Motorola thinks they have found a loophole, so there are still some, ahem, patches needed to the law.

> Next the EU are going to have to address security patches because its another aspect being used to sell new phones.

They already are. 5 years of updates is now the legal minimum in the EU. https://www.osnews.com/story/142500/new-eu-rules-mandate-fiv...

I dunno, my wife has has the same iPhone 11 Pro Max since 2020. She had to get the battery replaced once at an Apple store, which I believe cost $99, and it took like thirty minutes and it wasn't that hard.

I'll admit it's a little annoying that I have to pay a hundred bucks to get the battery replaced, but the phone is otherwise fine and still gets updates, so I don't know that I buy that it's "planned obsolescence".

> Batteries have been used as part of planned obsol[esc]ence for too long and a whole small business industry of replacing phone batteries has appeared because of it.

Note that early phones had replaceable batteries and it was later phones that dropped that feature. The idea wasn't that making the phone impossible to open would compel people to replace their phone faster; it was that given that people didn't keep their phones long enough to wear out the battery, there was no need to make the battery accessible.

Phones would be hard because manufacturers want to fill every square mm of it, but we can start with power tools batteries...

I'd settle for requiring the battery specs to be fully available, and that they can't be made difficult to manufacture without good reason.

Ideally, there should be some set of standard protocols/connectors/voltages/sizes, but the manufacturer should only be held to "downward-compliance" with at least one of them, so they can have flexibility in design but still leave a suboptimal standard option available to users as a fallback.

That's an excellent idea! It will work out absolutely great - much like Communism.

Meaning, when you forcefully standardize and regulate how phones are built, you might expect that companies will not compete on making better phones (since they are not very much differentiated) but on who produces the cheapest phone.

From the article

> Replacement batteries for any model will have to remain available to users for at least five years after the last unit of the product is placed on the market, the regulation also states.

While standardization would be nice, I can still order batteries for the Samsung phones I've used 15 years ago. Availability might not be that much of an issue with larger brands.

In case of Fairphone, which already has swappable batteries, this did not manifest: the batteries cost, depending on the model, between €39 and €59.

Low markups wouldn't be the main issue in the EU, though it would help. It's labor cost because it takes skill, specialized tools, and time.

If the shop could replace the battery with nothing more niche than a torx bit in 5 minutes we wouldn't be talking about this.

Exactly. I had phones and laptops with replaceable batteries in the past. I liked the idea of it, but in practice there was no OEM-quality replacement available by the time I wanted one. The device would have been usable to me still, but not with a random black market battery that may well be a fire hazard.

Having thought about this long term, I think the only solution to this would be mandating standardized battery cells. Rather than every phone model having a bespoke cell that is manufactured once and then obsoleted, they need to have standardized shape and electrical characteristics so that batteries being produced for new phones would also be useful to rehabilitate old phones.

> Now they only need to make sure that a supply chain for replacement batteries exists, there is regulation and competition and options remain available for a reasonable price.

No, they won't do the hard part. Just the minimum plus a ton of PR and back patting then move on.

> That’s why you can’t simply assume that competition will lead to the product offerings converging on the best product.

You also can't simply assume that an existing solution on the market is not the best already.

I mean, who told us that smartphones with user-replaceable batteries are better than smartphones that are 0.5 mm thinner because their batteries are non-replaceable? The same people who want to ban encryption?

> Regulatory interventions in the market can then serve as an effective lever to help the market break free from that situation.

No, they can't. Regulatory processes are shaped by the same incentives as market ones. It's just that the tools for achieving goals are different. And because of this, it is always moving in the opposite direction from "help the market".

> I’m supposed to just shut up and accept that there isn’t enough demand for my quirky, special requests?

Generally speaking, yes, it is a market ideology. But what's not clear about it? People adhere to it not because they like when unqualified masses, with their consumer behavior, encourage all sorts of nasty things in mass-market products. It's simply better than when a regulatory body implements its "quirky, special requests" at the expense of everyone else.

> In order to reduce plastic pollution, they forced manufacturers to make attached bottle caps (terrible idea)

According to research bottle caps are one of the biggest source of beach litter because they float and end up washed up. They are also exceptionally harmful to animals that confuse them for fish and end up consuming them.

I don’t think anyone who is against the bottle caps directive is serious about protecting our environment. It’s a minor change with an outsized impact.

I will never get the bottle cap haters. It’s a genuine improvement for me, and at most a minor inconvenience for anyone. Calling that a „terrible” idea makes you wonder what kind of scale you’re using, putting so much weight on something so minor.

The regulation targets most portable electronics, not just phones.

The law is not about you, but about everyone: 1) Apple doesn't have service centers everywhere: some countries/cities/small towns don't have them 2) Apple doesn't provide service for older devices 3) making it easier doesn't mean you'll be able to swap them live as we did in the 90s, but it means you could do it at home with a reasonable set of tools instead of sending the device to some shop that would need to unglue, unsolder, ...

Why pay 90 when it could be 20

Aren't security updates the deciding factor for the life of a phone these days? Manufacturers provide updates for 7 years max which is probably less than the battery life.

Seems entirely reasonable. Embedded batteries have a lot of advantages. Cheaper, higher battery capacity, water proof, smaller, stronger. I think this will largely just make the mid to low tier android market in the EU shittier.

What proportion of devices would need to meet this 80% rule? 50%? 90%? 99%? Could make a huge difference

My iPhone 14 is 1081 days old, charged every night, battery capacity is reported as 81%. So in Apple's own measurements this is possible.

I guess there is some built in spare capacity, but that may still qualify for the exemption?

> If a battery can do 1000 cycles and remain above 80% capacity it is exempt

Is there a definition for a cycle? 80->85%? 33->72? 22-83? 87->96? Would each of these be a "cycle"?

I recently did a battery replacement on an iphone mini 13 with some success and some failure. I absolutely killed the screen without cracking it. A little too much pulling with the ifixit reverse clamp.

Had i gone a little slower, it would have been a very easy repair.

It's like saying you were looking forward to shooting and killing an invader but unfortunately no one invaded your house and that made you sad.

Yes, this is the most non-story I have ever seen on this topic. I do not know of any manufacturer who does not claim this, verifiable or otherwise; and even if they can't claim it, all they have to do is one minor purely-software capacity adjustment, which they will gladly do before they will even consider offering removable batteries.

What a disappointment.

> the lobbyists managed to get a loophole in the law - exempting Apple & Co

But Apple batteries are already user replaceable? I've replaced my own and batteries come with kits that have all the tools and disposable glue strips and seals.

“ If a battery can do 1000 cycles and remain above 80% capacity it is exempt”

I mean isn’t that an okay exemption? If the intent is to drive devices to be less disposable and more sustainable… if it incentivizes all mobile phone manufacturers to improve battery longevity, I’d say that’s a win.

I wouldn’t even call it a loophole. The entire purpose of the legislation could be that clause

No shot at all apple batteries can last 1000 cycles and remain above 80% capacity. Probably can’t even do 300 in my experience. Sounds like an easy lawsuit.

The rest of that same sentence, " – and that if specialised tools are required, they must be provided free of charge when the phone or tablet is purchased," seems to mitigate that concern, no? I suppose it hinges on what the test for a "specialized tool" is.

Maybe. Maybe not. If my local phone and phone accessories shop can do it for little money in 15 minutes then the current calculus changes for a heck of a lot of people.

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

I presume it means "don't even try doing the printer ink DRM thing".

That reads true. While replaceability is definitely a good thing, but whether it will end up being a good thing for the average user (and not lead to some further price hikes in the EU market) remains to be seen.

better than glued.

That is a very American view of law that has burned American companies again and again.

In EU law, the intent matters, not the letter of the law. No silly loophole lawyering.

To quote:

>When interpreting EU law, the CJEU pays particular attention to the aim and purpose of EU law (teleological interpretation), rather than focusing exclusively on the wording of the provisions (linguistic interpretation). This is explained by numerous factors, in particular the open-ended and policy-oriented rules of the EU Treaties, as well as by EU legal multilingualism. Under the latter principle, all EU law is equally authentic in all language versions. Hence, the Court cannot rely on the wording of a single version, as a national court can, in order to give an interpretation of the legal provision under consideration. Therefore, in order to decode the meaning of a legal rule, the Court analyses it especially in the light of its purpose (teleological interpretation) as well as its context (systemic interpretation).

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2017/5993...

And lose water resistance…

Your experience is not at all what I see out there. Most people I know only get new phones because their battery will no longer get them through the day. They hate having to set up a new phone when their old one is totally fine other than the battery.

For the people I know that do upgrade their phones regularly, they typically want to give their old phone to someone who would love a usable phone, but can't afford a new one. Giving a phone with a shot and non-replaceable battery effectively destroys the value of the gift.

I know many people who can't afford to by new, and they avoid buying older or used phones because they fear the battery may be shot.

We obviously have different opinions regarding what most people want... totally fine.

> If you stood on the street corner and asked every passerby what they would change about their phone, I think you would be there all day before someone said "I wish I could replace the battery".

I have experience saying the exact opposite, although this was a few years ago.

OnePlus set up a marketing booth on my campus in 2018 or 2019 or so, and they did exactly this, with a large sign asking people what they want out of a phone. They asked passerbys what they want out of a phone, and they let people put their requests on a board.

When I put my request up, I wasn't the first one to request replaceable batteries and a headphone jack. (At the time, OnePlus had removed the jack from their most recent phone, after advertising their previous phone in comparison to Apple's jackless phone).

I think phone manufacturers will figure it out once it is a requirement. Was switching everyone to USB-C annoying for Apple? Sure. Are we in a better place because the EU forced it. You betcha. That's the point.

I don't love everything the EU does (cookie banners!?) but this is one where I have confidence that the consumer will ultimately benefit.

As others have noted, most people do not replace their phones every two years anymore, there just isn't any big reason to.

I moderate /r/flashlight. Something I've seen a substantial increase in over the past few years is people who are surprised to learn that it's possible to have a built-in charger in combination with a field-replaceable battery. It doesn't take much explaining; it just hadn't occurred to them because the devices they're used to don't work that way.

People don't change batteries in their phones now because they'd need a heat gun and a soldering iron and they'd have even chances of starting a fire, breaking the phone, or succeeding in changing the battery without prior experience using those tools. A shop could do it reliably, but the shop will charge 100€ because it's time-consuming and error-prone. A 3-5 year old phone is often not worth 100€.

When a battery change costs 25€ and takes 5 minutes, people will do it all the time even if they don't know that today.

It used to be true that it made sense to replace your phone every few years because new ones were so much better. But like... I have a Pixel 8 and there's not really anything in a newer phone that's compelling enough to spend any money on...

> most people are going to want a new a phone.

This is going to be harder, or, at least, harder to replace your current phone with something objectively better. RAM and Flash shortages / high prices are likely going to last for years, wars are additionally jeopardizing production of electronic components, and the current crop of mobile devices is already insanely powerful. It's going to be pretty hard to sell most people an upgrade that feels meaningful when it's going to be like 30% more expensive.

Running AI locally could be a big selling point for an upgrade, but see the problems with RAM and general production capacity overload. I's not going to be a mass-market thing.

> If you stood on the street corner and asked every passerby what they would change about their phone, I think you would be there all day before someone said "I wish I could replace the battery".

But what if you asked the right question, "what is the biggest problem with your phone?"

Most would answer, "the battery dies too soon. It doesn't last all day like it used to."

> you would be there all day before someone said "I wish I could replace the battery"

Before that, you wrote "One of the most frustrating things about HN is that people seem so unaware of how idiosyncratic their preferences are" and it's exactly what I could say here. Not everyone has lots of money and for some people extending the life of their phones is important. They really do wish they could replace the battery without hassle and without paying a shop to do it.

> I think you would be there all day before someone said "I wish I could replace the battery".

Possibly true, and equally true of the screen, the charging port, or any other component.

"Repairability" isn't a feature people list unprompted, it's a property they notice the moment a £5 part bricks their phone.

The street-corner survey tells you what people currently notice, not what they'd value if the option existed.

> by the time batteries wear out, most people are going to want a new phone

In a market where batteries are glued in and replacement costs a meaningful fraction of a new device, of course people upgrade on that timeline. Change the cost structure and the behaviour changes with it.

Fair point that we'd want data, but the original claim rests on the same intuition, just pointed the opposite way.

The broader framing (that repairability is an idiosyncratic preference being imposed on a majority who don't want it) gets this backwards. Most people don't want to care about repairability, in the same way most people don't want to care about food safety standards. They want the option to exist without having to think about it. That's what the law provides.

> If you stood on the street corner and asked every passerby what they would change about their phone, I think you would be there all day before someone said "I wish I could replace the battery".

Are you sure about this? I've heard this complaint from a lot of non-tech people who are old enough to remember flip phones with replaceable batteries. It might be age related.

I don't think any single person I know would say they would exchange replaceable batteries for a 1mm thinner phone, waterproof up to 100m instead of 10m, or a $5 difference in price.

In fact, the only place I would ever expect somebody to claim otherwise is here.

> by the time batteries wear out, most people are going to want a new a phone.

Not true. In recent years smartphones do not advance much, and would be perfectly fine to keep working if not for the dying battery.

> At the very least we'd need to see some data that shows that most people replace batteries when it is possible to do so.

The degree of "possible" varies greatly depending on the available expertise and spare parts. Right now in EU it's cost prohibitive for both coz the special labor required is expensive and almost no official spare parts for consumers. So of coz this will be no data to support your claim.

I think the data for your last sentence does exist. When Apple was forced to replace broken batteries on the 12, lots of people opted to replace the phone and there was a corresponding drop in iPhone sales.

It’s a pretty commonly used canonical example of revealed preferences.

> One of the most frustrating things about HN is that people seem so unaware of how idiosyncratic their preferences are.

<proceeds to state opinions contrary to what the overwhelming majority of elected representatives of the people of Europe just expressed>

Were you trying to prove your own point?

Counter-point - people might not know what they want until they experience it.

Yeah, for someone that changes phone every 3 years or earlier, that's not a desired feature.

But many people did that change precisely because battery got weak, and there have been less and less reasons to keep on the most modern model for a while now.

Non-technical users might not be aware of much.

E.g. most peoples don't really think or ask that their tap water be free of cholera and other harmful substances, and yet we might want to make sure that continues to be the case. So it's not strong argument worth arguing about.

The real argument is - how much a compromise a replaceable vs non-replacable battery is. And I suspect the biggest part of non-replaceable batteries is actually superficial vanity considerations (gee, is it 7mm or 6.5mm), and planed obsolescence making more money. But the technical aspects are still a valid debate.

> At the very least we'd need to see some data that shows that most people replace batteries when it is possible to do so.

I don’t understand. If we want to see the data we do need to make batteries replaceable.

>compromise the things that most people want in order to provide something that most people don't want.

What sort of compromise do you envision? I mean, toasters still have a crumb tray on the bottom that open so you can clean them even though no one does. Am I "missing out" on sleek, streamlined toaster designs because manufacturers feel they have to put a door in the bottom?

Half of cellphone users hold onto phone for 3+ years and experience battery degradation, and cell phone battery life is the #1 complain/concern about cellphone users. They might not immediately demand swappable batteries (particularly if they're too young to have ever owned a cellphone with swappable batteries) but I suspect if you prompted them, that the response rate would be very high, and that this isn't just an echo chamber concern.

I think that’s the wrong way of framing it. If, before the launch of the iPhone, you asked what people wanted from their phones you’d be there a very long time before anyone described something like an iPhone (no buttons, capacitive touch interface, etc). And yet, once they were offered it, people flocked to it.

This regulation is targeted to devices with poor battery lives. Just because it hasn’t occurred to people to ask for the feature doesn’t mean they won’t appreciate it.

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

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

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

The biggest problem with my phone is that it took too long to find one that isn't comically large (I have an iPhone 13 Mini). The second biggest problem is that the battery is not what it used to be. It lasts 2 days on a full charge instead of 3. The battery will need to be replaced in a few years.

I feel like I will be using this phone until it crumbles to dust. Apple shows no interest in making decently sized phones. I would support the EU enacting legislation to enforce at least one phone in each lineup to be no bigger than 60 mm x 125 mm. (iPhone Mini is ok, but it's still bigger than what I prefer.)

Smaller and lighter phones are an accessibility concern. Miniaturization has been the goal for computers since they were invented. It is incomprehensible that designers and manufacturers are reversing course. My options right now are basically do nothing or replace my phone with a watch.

We had replaceable batteries in phones for years. There's no reason battery replacement has to involve 20 steps and require ungluing the screen.

I appreciate such a law very much. I find it very irritating how people always want new phones. And I think there are three major reasons to upgrade to a new phone:

1. lifestyle

2. software updates

3. battery capacity

While it is hard to change the first, the other two can be influenced by laws. And while the second is rather complex, the third is quite simple. Since the manufacturers have few incentives to produce phones with replaceable batteries, there are very few options on the market to choose from. Most have other major limitations, like slow CPU/GPU, crappy cameras, or else.

So eliminating one factor of unnecessary waste is absolutely a good idea. I just hope it doesn't backfire in some weird way. And I don't say that replaceable batteries don't come at a cost, they do. But that cost is much lower than many assume and not that easy to measure, because currently, you can compare only apples with oranges.

This doesn't require the battery to be replaceable. It requires either the battery to still be good after 1000 charges or for it to be replaceable, either one.

Although some of this depends on how you define replaceable.

A quick google will show you’re relying too much on your own views of what people desire for phone improvements. This law will lead to much needed changes and improvements in a mature and arguably stale market.

> One of the most frustrating things about HN is that people seem so unaware of how idiosyncratic their preferences are. If you stood on the street corner and asked every passerby what they would change about their phone, I think you would be there all day before someone said "I wish I could replace the battery".

Yes, and if you asked every passerby what feature they would like to add to the streets, I think you would be there all day before someone said "I wish there were more accessibility ramps".

Luckily for us, we're not governed by "passerby" people.

Me and partner are both on iPhone 14 Pro. And this is more than powerful and sufficient for our daily use, except the battery is around 82%. I'd happily replace the battery right now for a more powerful one.

>and by the time batteries wear out, most people are going to want a new a phone

That remains to be seen. This could accelerate cultural change around desiring shiny new toy being seen as cool

Modern phones have 7 years of software support, but the battery lasts only around 3 years.

"…by the time batteries wear out, most people are going to want a new a phone."

Why? There have been few new features in recent years and new phones have restrictions not wanted by many. Google is closing the Android ecosystem and making it more proprietary so I'll keep my phone as long as I'm able.

The non-replaceable battery has to be one of the biggest scams ever perpetrated on consumers. It's great that it's about to be broken.

> by the time batteries wear out, most people are going to want a new a phone

Why? My phone works almost perfectly still three and a half years after I bought it. Except the battery lasts shorter.

If I go to battery health in settings it says:

> Important Battery Message

> Your battery's health is significantly degraded. An Apple Authorised Service Provider can replace the battery to restore full performance and capacity.

> Find Your Service Options

Aside from my current phone, I also have a very old iPod Touch. That old iPod Touch would have been usable still as well, if it wasn’t for the fact that it takes somewhere around 10 minutes of active use until it goes from full charge to zero charge. In other words, unusable for bringing with me anywhere plainly because of the battery.

Replaceable battery would have been great. Both for my iPhone and my iPod Touch. Even if it meant they would have been a bit thicker than they currently are.

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

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

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

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

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

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

A lot of high end phones (outside Apple) at the time would have their USB-C port fixed in matter of few hours for <100€ in any random "I Fix it" store.

The battery is the exact same shit.

> this law will make phones _worse_ for most people

Not really. The battery just needs to have a connector rather than soldered, and no other things blocking the battery once the back-case is opened. Realistically, a service shop will do the replacement like how watch-batteries are typically replaced.

I don't know, I see people every day using old smartphonereachinfg for a power outlet everywhere they can because their phone do not last a day. Most think going to a shop to ask them to replace the battery will cost an arm.

I think that law doesn't even go far enough, they should standardize a battery format. When like me you are used to open smartphones and replace batteries you realize how very similar they are all in footprint and could be compatible with each other with very minimal effort. If there were only a couple of standardized formats you could find new batteries in every small shop/airports whatever and easily have spares. Chance is that other electronic devices or toys would also adopt them.

I had a perfectly fine iPhone 11 I bought new. The first thing I replaced in it was battery. I had to pay for “genuine” Apple battery + certified laboratory. The price was higher than the price of my iPhone as second hand, but I liked this phone.

Then I sold it, because I ran out of 64GB space. If I could add an sd card, I would probably use this phone longer, instead of contributing to consumerism and creating more e-waste.

I wish that people would think about sustainability and using their devices for longer rather than chasing “new and shiny” every year Apple releases the “best iPhone we ever made”

Modern iPhone batteries are basically user replaceable are they not? They are metal encased and the adhesive can be electronically disabled. They don't seem "worse" to me?

> this law will make phones _worse_ for most people

Sometimes we have to acknowledge the externalities of our lifestyle and take things down a notch.

Even if most throw out their old phones, now at least it'll be trivial to shuck these devices to get the battery for recycling, while sending the device for refurb or further recycling.

A key component to effective recycling is separation, and this is one step in that direction

More replaceable batteries can have secondary effects that most people would probably like though - like the ability to by a used phone on ebay/FB marketplace that doesn't have an abysmal battery.

Screen and battery replacements are by far the number one repair service that people avail. The data is clear. I'm afraid you're completely wrong.

With the battery no longer a concern, more people will opt to buy used phones rather than cheap new phones.

Som even if most people change phone before the battery gets really bad (I doubt that this is really the case), the end result will still be that fewer new phones will be purchased.

Now we just need a law that requires hardware makers unlock their devices when they stop providing updates.

I'm curious about the environmental argument here. At face value it makes sense, but is there some hard data that shows that there is a meaningful number of consumers that buy new phones only (or "mostly") because of battery degradation?

The article (granted, probably not the best source of information) has some numbers like "number of phones sold", but doesn't actually tackle the crux of the issue: how many of those phone sales would be prevented by having user swappable batteries?

So I guess newer iPhones and iPad allow you charge up to 80%, which extends battery life, for idiosyncratic reasons? I’m sure there must have been a reason and demand for that.

I guess I run my iPhone on low battery mode a lot, due to idiosyncratic reasons too. Maybe I do.

Apple battery replacement costs anywhere from $70 (for a ~$400 phone) to $120 (for a ~$1000+ phone). In many global markets you can get a brand new phone for that much.

With the replaceable batteries the people at least have a choice. Without the option for a battery swap you had to buy a new device and throw away a otherwise totally fine one.

In last 5 years or so me and my wife have purchased 5 new phones. Except for one, where the phone slipped from a flat countertop due to having a glass back, in all other cases the reason was battery life getting worse, with no other issues with the phone at all. So I have to disagree with you here.

I am using mobile phones since 1996, I will gladly accept the "worse" experience.

And no, I don't want a new phone just because the battery wears out, it did not lost the ability to do phone calls and SMS in the process.

We are on the year of Android 17, my oldest device still runs Android 12 perfectly well, with the apps I care about.

A lot of people buy new phones only because their battery doesn't get through the day anymore.

Very ironic, you almost got it, post.

I don’t know what’s with tech people and their insistence that most people who use tech are mindless zombies.

How about you ask people if they want a non-swappable battery for 1 mm less thickness?

> this law will force phone manufacturers to compromise the things that most people want in order to provide something that most people don't want.

Okay, you're claiming two things: (i) replaceable batteries will compromise some other features, and (ii) most people want those features more than they want a replaceable battery.

Can you name 3 of those features? I personally can't.

If we run this experiment and most people say they wish they could replace their battery would you concede you are actually the one with idiosyncratic preferences?

> because this law will force phone manufacturers to compromise the things that most people want

Hopefully this will help bring the headphone jack back.

most of the time I replace my phone because the battery degraded so badly and a replacement is expensive.

Its not enough by itself that the phone has amassed scratches and is 20% slower or has a 30% worse camera optic than the current generation, or that updates will only continue for a year or two more.

But the slowdown (associated with battery degradation btw) and fact that it doesn’t get me through a whole day definitely move the needle into me buying a new phone.

Given that probably one in twenty people you'd meet would have between 5 and 10% of battery left: probably most of those.

(and yes, I know that power banks exist)

Everything you just described as "what people want" translated in my brain to "what they're programmed to want".

Some products on the market are there to address some inherent need or desire people have; some are for more manufactured needs/desires.

To me the intent of this law looks to put a floor on the environmental cost of providing for the manufactured variants.

I think most people who are capable of figuring out how buying a new phone impacts their financial goals would be in favor of this

you act like making batteries disposable will fundamentally alter the usability of the phone.

Right to repair has never been about requirement to repair. Obviously we can't force people to repair their phones instead of buying a new one, because that would involve replacing the market economy with a planned economy. This would be extremely difficult to pull off and would be wildly unpopular.

At the same time, 5.78 billion people have a smartphone worldwide. It is obviously wildly unsustainable to live in a world where 5.78 billion people have to throw away their old phone and buy a new one every 2-3 years. However, phone manufacturers have figured out that if they force people to, they can amass ridiculous levels of wealth because the demand for new phones would be constantly high. So obviously the incentives here are completely wrong. This has happened before with lightbulbs in the 20th century and is a legitimate form of market failure that needs to be resolved, as it wastes a lot of consumer spending to replace what consumers already had (like the parable of the broken window).

For many years since phone manufacturers started gluing phones together with a consumable part inside, consumers have been denied the ability to replace their battery. Where the option does exist, it's often very inconvenient, difficult, or with a price inflated to be nearly as expensive as buying a new one.

Phones stopped advancing significantly many years ago. Phone manufacturers now re-release practically the same phone with slight CPU and camera improvements, something completely unheard of until relatively recently. Lately the main marketing trend for new phones has been AI, but this is a nonsense trend because most of modern AI runs in the cloud, and very few are actually utilizing any local AI features, so the only "AI" thing about the phone is just a preinstalled ChatGPT-like app you can get on any other phone. So clearly they have run out of things to improve, and things to market around. In a normally functioning market, this would mean phones have become a solved technology and we can stop replacing our phones as often, maybe once every 10 years if you're careful with your phone. But this is not what we see precisely because phone manufacturers have been manufacturing problems that are most easily solved by buying a new phone, which they will push people to do whatever way they can for profit. The phone industry has failed to regulate itself, and so this is why we are seeing a push for this type of regulation.

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

> If you stood on the street corner and asked every passerby what they would change...

... the answer would depend on which street corner you asked.

> people seem so unaware of how idiosyncratic their preferences are

Yes, they are. They also tend to state that "most people" agree with them. This is called subjectivity.

> by the time batteries wear out, most people are going to want a new a phone.

Extreme consumer brain coupled with privilege. Billions of people can’t afford a new phone every couple years, they buy things and use them until they are past the point of repair, only buying a replacement when they have no other choice.

Can you honestly even say this year’s new flagships, or any from the last decade, represent meaningful improvement for most people outside the tech bubble and influencer sphere? Smartphones have been “good enough” for a long time.

Apple is about to deprecate the iphone 11/SE 2020 version. Am gonna repurpose them as webcams given the 12MP camera put in there is arguably better than the brand new ones they put on new macs.

The phone now has a limited lifespan though because of this prior stupidity where eventually am gonna get into spicy pillow territory. At that point the phone prematurely dies.

We are going into a period where we are throwing away devices with 12mp+ cameras, and processors arguably faster than most desktops. It was arguable when the phones were old and legacy, but at this point the cameras on there are stupidly good.

We need these phones to be repurposed for a second life and actually capture their manufacture energy costs.

Frankly, if Apple allowed old iphones to be used for server usage, it is kind of crazy how efficient per dollar that would be.

> this law will make phones _worse_ for most people

I challenge you to give me an example of how this law might result in a phone that is worse for most people.

This law does not require a slide-off phone cover. It does not require a screwed-on backplate. It does not forbid the use of chemical adhesives. It does not stipulate how a phone should or shouldn't be designed.

It basically just requires the manufacturer to offer replacement batteries and to enable the replacement to be done with commercially available tools. I'd wager the overwhelming majority of phones are already compliant, pending availability of a replacement battery from the manufacturer.

I'm quite confident I could replace the battery on my Sony Xperia 1 iii with a heat gun and my basic iFixit toolkit.

"Normal people" (tiresome and unnecessarily reductive meme) do not necessarily care about how it's implemented, but they certainly care about planned obsolescence, which is the target of this law. It just another way to enforce reasonable service life and reduce e-waste. That's the goal of this regulation.

> If you stood on the street corner and asked every passerby what they would change about their phone, I think you would be there all day before someone said "I wish I could replace the battery".

If you stood on the street corner and asked every passerby if they want their phone to have a replaceable battery, I don't think you would be there very long before receiving a "yes". I think that's a more honest framing of the question.

> I suppose someone will say that this law is necessary for environmental reasons, regardless of people's preferences. But that's nonsense, because the law doesn't actually require people to replace batteries rather than replacing their phone

How could they replace their batteries if they wanted to, unless the manufacturer makes it possible? The goal is not to force individuals to not replace their phones, but rather to provide that as an option at all, for those who want it.

> At the very least we'd need to see some data that shows that most people replace batteries when it is possible to do so.

At the very least, we'd need only data showing that that number is non-zero. From where did you get the idea that we need to prove "most" people would choose to take advantage of this option?

Consumers may not know that a feature is something they want until they don't have it anymore.

Invert the situation. If every iPhone in history had a replaceable battery, until 2027 when the newest iPhone did not have a replaceable battery, I think we can all agree that the uproar would be significant.

bookmarking this to revisit after couple years.

How the hell can we have more data on people replacing their batteries if the batteries are not user replaceable?

Most people want new phones because of shit software updates and marketing not because out of necessity.

Totally agree. It makes you wonder who the EU polled regarding this initiative? Who initiated it and why?

I provide food and services for the homeless in my area working with friends outside of any non-profit. That the phone people get from non-profits become unusable in some number of months is a big complaint. Batteries dying is significant part of this (lack of security updates is another part). Replaceable batteries are something that a lot of people would want (especially the option to have several batteries).

Just as much, there's a certain HN complaint form that basically goes "any complaint about the crap that sold now is just programmer/civil-rights-fan/etc idiosyncrasy, real people want exactly this crap 'cause markets never lie".

This is not about charging your phone.

> If you stood on the street corner and asked every passerby what they would change about their phone, I think you would be there all day before someone said "I wish I could replace the battery".

I doubt most people wouldn't even think that this is a thing they can wish for or that this is even within realm of possibility.

It has to be explicitly named as an option - as, I'm afraid, people have forgotten that you can have "nice things".

Also I feel rather uncomfortable every time somebody purports to be representitive of or know that "most people" want.

Following the bottle-cap madness, I don't think any current data shows the actual issue was resolved. Even worse, the effect on marine life is still not measured, and afaik reduction of harm was the primary goal. Instead of brutally high fines on fishing net waste, we got bottle-cap madness.

We have so much experience with scientific method, yet these massive decisions are adhoc, that's how the whole world works. We never tested what would happen by allowing mass production of plastic, or phones, or whatever, so these antipatches are going by the "feels" as well, with no individual taking responsibility for failures.

I think you're plain wrong. I have never talked to anyone in my life about phones who didn't want replaceable batteries and wasn't annoyed by the throwaway culture. It's a top priority for the people I know, though by far not important enough for most of them to go for something like a Fairphone.

However, these preferences don't really matter anyway because nobody is forced to replace the battery and not buy a new phone when their phone has replaceable batteries.

I envision somone keeping a phone long time, not updating it and evtualluy the spying hooks get obsolete and so phone gets more secure, as tech companies move on with new apis and drop support for the old ones. This might be the biggest win. Ms still has customers using win95

> I suppose someone will say that this law is necessary for environmental reasons, regardless of people's preferences.

Welcome to democracy and lawmaking in 2026. We know better than you!

It would take a great deal of lawmaking to make phones more worse, for most people, than phone manufacturers and mobile app developers already do. You want to talk about idiosyncratic preferences, really? Here?

Imagine getting a car without a replaceable battery.

Buddy. You are on the Hacker News. It's like you wanted to get skewered on purpose. Of course we want replaceable batteries! Anyone over the age of 30 will remember the convenience of throwing another charged battery in your car/backpack/briefcase and heading out for the day. Carefree. Also, what a treat to be able to properly restart or power off my phone (no, I mean REALLY power it off) by ripping out the battery!

What's next, having TV remote controls with non-removable rechargeable batteries, for the "convenience"?! Gimme a break. I love tech progress, but leave your hands off my removable batteries! And my 3.5mm audio jack, now that I think about it! :-)

> One of the most frustrating things about HN is that people seem so unaware of how idiosyncratic their preferences are.

Least self-aware HN user out there.

Do you really think the European commission got lobbied hard by HN folks?

This law will make phones better for most people, who would rather keep their phone for a decade rather than having to every three years buy a new phone optimized for some vanity metric that looks good on Engadget reviews.

LOL, please do the experiment for real and be amazed! :D

> If you stood on the street corner and asked every passerby what they would change about their phone, I think you would be there all day before someone said "I wish I could replace the battery".

Not my experience at all. The (few) non-tech people I've talked to about phones soon getting batteries again like it. People believe the idea that non-removable batteries are a conspiracy by the phone companies to sell you more phones the same way cartels manipulated the lightbulb market (Phoebus cartel).

My own hesitation with HM echo chamberification is federation. Nobody cares. And until you can point to a concrete benefit to end users, you should stop and think about why you’re pushing it this hard.

But I don’t think this is the case with phone batteries. I’ve had many conversations with friends and family that came down to replace the battery or upgrade the phone.

I feel the same way about soldered on CPUs, RAM and SSDs in laptops and other computers. The benefits of doing this are marginal at best. We all know the real reason is forced obsolescence.

We all know this is why battery replacement is hard too.

what are you on about? most people i know have 4 year old phones which are just fine and want only the battery changed. my phone was 6 years old this year and it hurt me that I had to change it because of the battery. otherwise it was a perfectly fine phone.

The Fairphone 5 is only IP55 rated (dust protected, and water droplet resistant). Most flagship phones are IP68 rated (fully dust sealed, and water submersible). IP68 phones are sealed with a single-use adhesive gasket, and replacing battery requires breaking (and replacing) this seal. If the seal is improperly applied, the phone is no longer protected from dust or water.

You wish.

Just like how it already work with watches. You can replace batteries yourself, but waterproofing is not guaranteed. If you want to be certain that the waterproof rating is maintained, you have to sent it to an authorised service provider.

Yeah great

“let’s just pass a law that says ‘no trade offs’, problem solved”

You will need to have a factory to replace the battery and also run tests to prove that the phone still works with water then

"I would rather have IP67 over a replaceable battery"

Not me, and not most people.

It's replaceable with commercially available tools, it doesn't mean that you should be able to pop off the battery during the day at any point.

This doesn't restrict the design space that much at all.

... other EU consumer-protection regulation ...

like unified charging cable, free EU roaming or intercountry bank payments that are instant and almost free, air travel protections?

Not having cheap plastic junk that ends up as toxic landfill is a pro, not a con.

"Cheap" isn't enough, especially if it's cheap through externalizing cost.

This is not what the laws is about, though: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47835530

It's replaceable without special tools, heating, solvents. It can easily feature a screw or a million other solutions.

Useful life of most of the cars is on par with their battery longevity, as long as you have proper thermal management and your usage patterns are not outliers.

Focusing on being able to upgrade battery (and to be clear - upgrade, not replaced/repair) is solving 1% problem.

You bought a car with some range, you are fine with it. Why you have to replace it with longer range?

Should I be able to eventually replace gas tank with the larger one in my ICE vehicle?

That will probably come when EV marketshare is higher and innovation plateaus. I definitely appreciate the phone thing as someone typing from an iPhone SE. I also think phone batteries degrade faster than cars, right? I think my phone is from 2022 and I’m definitely starting to feel it.

I don't see how that's even remotely comparable. It's not like you can replace the battery in your phone with a larger one. You will be able to buy a new battery for your car, that's already guaranteed in the EU - but it will be the same capacity as what you got.

I don't know why is this even an argument really, like.....in a petrol car, do you expect to be able to fit it with a bigger fuel tank after 10 years? or a more powerful engine? Until very recently even software updates to the infotainment weren't really a thing, if you wanted a newer interface you had to change the entire car(I'm not saying this was a good thing, just that generally the expectation is that the product will work the way it was when you bought it).

it's all virtue signalling. Always has been.

one step at a time

There was nothing stopping you (and others) getting the battery swapped previously for a fraction of the price of a new device.

> Every single Pixel upgrade I made - every single one

You make it sound like a large number. I’m keeping iPhones for 4 years now and upgrading because of cameras. Are pixels really that bad?

   > is good enough for 99.999% of the public use-case

At least there's a choice there. I've never bought a computer with a soldered-on SSD.

And get rid of soldered RAM while we're at it as well.

This should be mandatory, although I never had a computer where the SSD was not replaceable.

Some were a bit of a pain in the ass to replace though.

Same but from the other side. The new phone (without SD, removable battery, or headphone jack) is already acquired and laying in my drawer, but I have yet to bite into the lemon and start making the switch. Too damn convenient compared to the abstract threat of software updates... I'm dreading the new situation so much

I have a Samsung Galaxy from 2022 that has exactly that and it's still supported by manufacturer. Unfortunately it's a Samsung Galaxy Tab Active4 Pro.

Most wristwatches provide much stronger water resistance while still being very user serviceable with a $20 watch tool kit. Whatever the phone makers are peddling are mostly excuses.

There are multiple watches, cameras, etc., with a lot of physical buttons even, all with replaceable batteries and weather-resistant (or even better, water proof). This is a bad excuse.

water resistance + easily battery exchange for repairs is very viable (AFIK always had been, too.)

like this law isn't about users causally replacing batteries like on very old phones

but about an repair shop easily and without risk of breaking your phone being able to replace it without only holding on your phone for idk. 10 minutes

So that you can just drop by (once they have the replacement parts) wait a moment and have a new battery.

This means in the worst case something like needing to a add a bit of additional seal/wax/glue or similar to improve sealing is very much fully viable (Id the sealing agent is generally buy able.)

It just is something you have to design in from the get to go. And it's easier to not do so at all. And maybe if you obsess if your phone is 1/10mm smaller or not that gets in your way too. And not doing so is more profitable as people will buy successor products more likely, even if just very slightly more likely.

But in general? That really isn't the problem.

Also even if it where the problem. What is better? Having a less waterproof phone, but not needing to buy a new one for another one or two years or having to buy one now?

Galaxy S5 worked quite well. IP67 and a removable battery.

the largest danger with pouch cells will always be mishandling followed by bad BMS.

it's so routine that they get abused that every llm I asked blamed leaving laptops plugged in for a spicy pillow.

Find a repair shop that will order the battery in advance?

No because phones should be priced as what people pay for them... It's an open market.

The IP rating will degrade the moment they bring it back. The jacks will either corrode or let water inside the phone and kill it entirely. Nobody wants to deal with that giant hole.

https://energy-efficient-products.ec.europa.eu/product-list/...:

- rules on disassembly and repair, including obligations for producers to make critical spare parts available within 5-10 working days, and for 7 years after the end of sales of the product model on the EU market

- availability of operating system upgrades for longer periods (at least 5 years from the date of the end of placement on the market of the last unit of a product model)

the secondary market for old phones seems strong?

You mean the kind of "first" that comes right after shattered screens, worn batteries, and loose charging ports? :P

I agree in spirit though: storage chips wearing out seems to be common from my limited experience and it would be good if you could solder on, or slide in, a new chip with some standard procedure

The right to repair legislation the EU passed is heartening. Now, let's see if they actually enforce it.

There is a shocking amount of apathy on the part of people who think this doesn't affect them because they personally have no desire to use their car out of warranty or to take a car to an independent mechanic. It affects them because it affects resale price, which affects depreciation which hits their pocketbooks directly. Even if they lease the car.

There is a reason that EVs are getting hammered and even ICE vehicles are seeing steeper depreciation curves, and that's because they are becoming more disposable and harder to repair. People are talking about "useful life" of a car as if this was a disposable consumer device, and not a durable good that can be repaired and maintained for decades as long as the ability to replace components is out there. Toyota famously said "Our mission is to build cars that last for 30 years in the third world" and what do you know Toyotas don't depreciate nearly as much as other cars and people still pay 5 figures for 20 year old landrovers.

We also used to build toasters and refrigerators that easily last 50, 60 years or even 100 years if properly maintained. There is no reason cars can't do the same, and for some cars this is possible, but not for modern cars and certainly not for modern EVs. This can change.

Was there ever a plan for an iPhone Air 2? They're struggling to sell the stock they have.

I'll take what is a screen protector for 500, Alex.

Already exists in the EU: https://www.reddit.com/r/Smartphones/comments/1lad1a4/eus_ne...

It probably makes things easier, but its unlikely that the industry that found a way to make foldables waterproof couldn't figure out a way to put rubber gaskets on battery covers. And in fact, they did, there were several devices introduced in the transition period that had both features.

Galaxy S5 was IP67-rated (1 metre depth, 30 minutes) and had a user-replaceable back cover / battery

Also a notification LED, OLED screen, bezels to pick the device up by, headphone jack, unlockable, a continuous light sensor... peak smartphone, save perhaps for the meager 200 Hz accelerometer refresh rate (modern phones have 500 Hz usually, I have no idea what for but I personally love toying with FFT plots)

Yes and don't forget consumer preferences. This is Hacker News where they are still clamoring for a "small smartphone" because everything else is too big. Shocker, small phones don't sell. Neither do bulky ones when compared to sleek iPhones.

Haven't modern smartphones had non-replaceable batteries long before they had any kind of water resistance ratings?

Anything except full support of the EU during European hours gets downvoted

I am not sure people actually care that much about dimensions.

Most phones today only look thin on promotional material. With the massive camera bump that is sometimes thicker than the phone itself, and the way most people use cases, in the end, you have quite a brick. Also a glass back panel, which to me is one of the worst materials for that purpose, but it looks good on the store stand.

So to me, a removable battery will not affect the phone dimensions as much as it will affect the look, which may piss off the marketing guys, and I take it as a positive!

Seriously, bring back the removable plastic back covers, plastic may look cheap, but to me, it is the best material, and if you put on a case, as most people do, you won't even see it!

Obviously it helps with the design to embed. But it's also obvious so hard to replace batteries are by design to make those phones throw away after the 1000cycle or whatever batties last.

A good middle ground would have been to enforce an easy to replace specification..but then we are up to interpretation.

This won’t do much for the environment.

Even today, phone batteries get replaced until the phone is no longer able to run today’s software.

I know a common refrain with my friends is "IDGAF about an extra few centimeters, give me an audio jack". I think consumers are down for thicker phones if they get something for it. In this case, a phone that lasts longer

I think most (all?) would already comply. What laptop do you see as not having a user replacable battery? Even MacBook can be swapped out pretty easily [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgTon2jqI-A

I don't know if this is standard, but at least for some previously enacted electronics regulations I know they look into the real-world effects. I think I was looking for information on how they calculate the battery life for the new smartphone energy labels (e.g. is the browsing test over WiFi or the LTE/NR modem) when I found some document about how much energy they're expecting to save with this regulation. It showed a base path of expected energy consumption development, and then how the regulation is expected to modify that

Edit: not the one I saw before, but found a similar document via https://energy-efficient-products.ec.europa.eu -> policy making -> "EIA reports and related analyses" -> 2025 overview report https://circabc.europa.eu/ui/group/418195ae-4919-45fa-a959-3... -> see e.g. the graphic at the top of page 79

The shaded area is the effect that they think is attributable to regulations, e.g. -2.2TWh electricity per year in the category of phones and tablets when comparing 2010 and 2030

As another example, for "Servers and data storage products" they expect almost no change due to regulation: the consumption is expected to go from 48 to 67 TWh (2010 till 2030) and that it would have been 70 TWh without regulations. If I'm reading it right, this small improvement would be due to the 2019 "information requirement ... including the maximum allowed operating temperature for the equipment ... to stimulate data centres to choose equipment that supports higher operating temperatures, to enable further reduction of the cooling load."

Page 42 shows that they also take into account 'additional acquisition costs' (how much more expensive devices are because of this, I think that means?), but that this added expense is well below the energy costs that would have been incurred otherwise. Of course, that's what I'd say too about my regulations :) but I don't know of another information source for this so this is the best info I have atm

I still remember the people arguing that lightning is just fine and we don't need usb-c. It's true, they existed.

Nowadays, good luck to find someone arguing that lightning iphones are better than usb-c.

I guess it would cost them dearly to recognize that they owe that to the eu regulation.

In the us they say vote with your wallet, obviously it didn't work..

I don't think hackers (in the Hacker News sense of the word) are generally iphone users, considering apple's hostility and condescension towards customers, fighting consumer rights forced by regulators, and device lock-down. People who already compromised on that for a status symbol would probably take the shiny new toy over functionality, sure

Most modern eBicycle have a swappable battery. For extra convenience aim for big brands like Bosch or Shimano but other brands are not a huge deal to swap as the voltages are mostly the same: 24, 36, 48. You sometimes need to keep the BMS + connectors part but that’s not a big deal either with a few screwdrivers.

Don’t buy non-removable batteries bikes without the advice of a mechanist but those bike are not the norm.

Like, a landline?

Don't remember that being necessary to taketh away, and now that they're required to giveth it back we don't want it anymore?!

that is THE reason i ended up getting a new phone several times.

and software.

Never had this issue with several cellphones I had in ye olden times when all cellphones had removable batteries. All it takes is a properly designed connector.

Behold: the widget of the future.

A spring.

Agreed. This rule will likely be irrelevant in 5-10 years when battery technology improves, and it has such a huge carve out (batteries that maintain 80% capacity after 1000 cycles are exempt) every phone manufacture can get around it. Phone makers can meet this regulation by artificially limiting battery capacity through software to protect battery health. Or they could put in a 10,000 mAh battery and only allow the user to use 8,000 of it, and use the rest as buffer.

A better example is the EU cookie consent law. The intent was to make websites stop using cookies, but what resulted was websites didn't change anything except put up annoying consent banners, and made the internet experience worse.

$60 has different value in other parts of the world.

As the law is written, the latest iPhones, for example, would be compliant (battery is replaceable with commercially available tools under the self-repair program), and they are completely waterproof and dustproof. Some manufacturers now use glued seals for their phones and would probably need to change their approach in design, but I think the majority would be okay with minimal changes.

Like others have pointed out, if phones can certify using batteries with 1000 cycles of charge above 80%, they'll also be exempt, so this will likely only affect very cheap models.

I don't have the same experience at all. For me, battery life is the #1 reason of obsolescence of my smartphones.

With respect, maybe read the article? You're against it, because you didn't read what is being mandated and instead just invented worst-case scenarios instead. You're against your own Strawman.

The proposal is: batteries must be removable using commercially available tools, if the manufacturer requires specialist tools then they must provide them for free.

Essentially they're banning specialized tools, and mandating that repair shops and consumers must be able to purchase replacement batteries for "at least five years."

For context the iPhone was already altered to be compliant with this law and none of the issues you raised were notably worse in the iPhone Air, or 17.

This likely will eliminate specialist software to "sync" batteries, and non-standard screws/attachment mechanisms.