All phones sold in the EU to have replaceable batteries from 2027
theolivepress.es

・

289 points

・

ramonga

・

2 hours ago

124 comments

mentalgear ・ an hour ago

I was looking forward to finally be able to easily switch out (i)Phone batteries again - after 20 years - but turns out the lobbyists managed to get a loophole in the law - exempting Apple & Co from making their phones more repairable / longer live-able.

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

  • AshamedCaptain ・ 32 minutes ago

    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.

    • close04 ・ 2 minutes ago

      Apple has no chance to claim their batteries can have 80% capacity after 1000 cycles seeing how they never achieved this so far. Lying about it puts them in a world of mass recalls and fraud investigations.

  • kjkjadksj ・ 11 minutes ago

    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.

    • lsxr ・ 7 minutes ago

      No doubt they will redefine maximum battery capacity to a figure that does achieve 80% over 1000 cycles. If you under-declare maximum capacity then there is a lot of headroom for actual degradation before you start to show degradation to the user.

    • zitterbewegung ・ 7 minutes ago

      A battery that can support 1000 cycles and remain above 80% capacity would be a literal brick. For an example the Vision Pro's battery has extreme over-provisioning and limit how long it would last. (note I know it is removable but that isn't the point).

999900000999 ・ an hour ago

>The regulation states that batteries must be removable using ‘commercially available’ tools

This is doing a lot of work here. There's enough wiggle room for this to be absolutely meaningless. Anything short of I can slide off the back cover and maybe unscrew two or three screws to replace the battery means that a lot of people are going to end up not being able to replace the batteries.

  • Clamchop ・ an hour ago

    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.

    • datsci_est_2015 ・ 33 minutes ago

      EU regulatory bodies haven’t been as blindly sycophantic towards megacorporations in terms of allowing them to skirt by rules set forth by their legislatures, so I would be more optimistic than if this were a development in US law.

    • Ajedi32 ・ an hour ago

      In that context it seems like "specialized" means "not commercially available", no?

      • ineedasername ・ 42 minutes ago

        Toss: "technically you can purchase a new phone with non-specialist tool 'cash' so we feel no need to provide anything at all"

      • varispeed ・ an hour ago
        ・ 2 more

        Specialised as in created specifically for swapping battery of that specific phone? As in you cannot do it with a generic commercially available tool (e.g. a screwdriver)

        • troupo ・ 6 minutes ago

          Quote from https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:C...

          --- start quote ---

          Article 11 of Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 states that a battery shall be considered readily removable by the end-user where it can be removed from a product with the use of commercially available tools, without requiring the use of specialised tools, unless provided free of charge with the product, proprietary tools, thermal energy, or solvents to disassemble the product.

          Guidance on tool types can be drawn from standard EN 45554:2020e (2). In the context of the assessment of a product’s ability to be repaired, reused and upgraded, this standard uses the following classification groups: (i) basic tools (including those provided with the product as a spare part) or no tools; (ii) product-group specific tools; (iii) commercially available tools; and (iv) proprietary tools.

          The concept of commercially available tools mentioned in Article 11 comprises the categories of basic tools or no tools and of commercially available tools as per EN 45554:2020e.

          The concept of specialised tools laid down in the Regulation refers to product-group specific tools that are not available for purchase by the general public but are not protected by patents either. Article 11 requires that any such specialised tool that might be necessary to have a portable battery removed and replaced is provided free of charge with the product into which the battery is incorporated.

          As per EN 45554:2020e, proprietary tools refer to tools not available for purchase by the general public, or for which any applicable patent are not available for license under fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. Such tools should not be needed to remove portable batteries

          --- start quote ---

          (I fully expect literally no one on HN to spend even a second looking for and reading the relevant texts, and complain about the law being vague or impossible to implement or something)

  • jahnu ・ an hour ago

    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.

    • ranger_danger ・ an hour ago

      Isn't that already the case though?

      • Aachen ・ an hour ago
        ・ 3 more

        No. I can't find a legit battery for my Samsung phone, only forgeries and "compatible with"s. Local repair shop said they could put a new OEM battery into this 4yo second-hand phone

        So I pay them and they do it. The result:

        - back cover becomes rather loose while it's warm e.g. from fast charging or a hot day out. No longer waterproof

        - the battery is no better than the original and is (2y later now) degrading faster than the original. If you ask a lot of it, the last 35% are gone within minutes. I think it's a knock-off battery but that the repair person doesn't know that

        If there had been commercially available repair parts and tool access, neither would have been a problem and I could just have done it myself

        My mom has the same model and sent hers in to the manufacturer for a battery swap. Took a while and cost half the price of the phone (since it was a 2yo second-hand at that time). That could have been much faster, even if the manufacturer is free to set the same steep prices

        A colleague got their phone back from Google for some repair last week, I don't remember if screen or battery swap. He asked and they said it wouldn't be reset. He put a sticker on it not to wipe the device. They wiped the device. He's now trying to piece together what's in various backup files that Android allows making. Fun fun fun. Also not necessary if you, or your techy nephew, can just do it at home

        ---

        The requirement for commercially availability of repair is so much better than the current state of what repair places can/are offering

        • vladvasiliu ・ 40 minutes ago
          ・ 2 more

          I think the supply chain is pretty broken. I had just about the same experience as you with an iPhone 7 a few years back. I booked my replacement through Apple's website, so I was pretty confident I wouldn't get scammed. The new battery started bulging in less than two years, to the point that there was a serious gap between the screen and the body.

          It was clearly worse than the battery that came with my refurbished (!) phone, which never did that; it just couldn't hold a decent charge anymore. I won't even go into the absolutely ridiculous experience I had with the repair shop, like not honoring booked times and whatnot and having me wait in line for ages, both to drop off and pick up my phone.

          My current phone has lost some of its battery health as reported by the OS, but still gives me over a day of use, but when the time comes to fix it, I'll go directly to Apple.

          • Aachen ・ 9 minutes ago

            Same with laptops btw. I once caught a seller where the store and sticker said 5200 mAh but acpi -i reported 4400 mAh. They provided a replacement free of charge, presumably their supplier scammed them in turn (it was a small local webshop), but that also wasn't great even if now the chip reported the expected capacity. Never once have I had good experiences with replacement batteries, I really wonder what they do with the originals to make them so vastly superior

            Also quite noticeable that the laptop battery market became much smaller once the batteries became an internal component (around 2015) that you can't see without opening it up completely. These also used to be a slider or two

            People don't dare unscrew electronics, even if it's about as trivial as replacing a light bulb in a fixture that requires removing a screw. With phones having the battery inside as well now, not above the sim tray anymore for example, I wonder how much such legislation is going to help the average person

      • jahnu ・ an hour ago
        ・ 11 more

        Last time I checked I’d have to leave my phone for a couple of days and the glue factor meant they wouldn’t guarantee it would come back perfectly. My assumption is this might make it a more trivial change.

        • zarzavat ・ an hour ago
          ・ 10 more

          I don't see what change they can make, at least to an iPhone. The glue is necessary for water resistance.

          • Aachen ・ an hour ago
            ・ 2 more

            There were models that were both waterproof and not glued (the only tools needed for a battery swap were the replacement battery and opposable thumbs). I never had/tested one myself though, this is just going off of the manufacturer's claims and IP (ingress protection) certification

            • vladvasiliu ・ 34 minutes ago

              I used to have a Galaxy S5, the model that usually comes up in these discussions. Now, I never went and threw it in a swimming pool, or pressure washed it, or whatever other ridiculous test you may come up with. But I did attach it to my motorbike's handlebars and rode around under heavy rain on more occasions than I care to remember.

              It was often drenched to the point that the map on the screen was basically illegible without stopping and wiping off the water. But it never skipped a beat. Basically, I was the limiting factor and would eventually give up and find some hotel with a hot shower to pass the night.

          • ineedasername ・ 37 minutes ago
            ・ 2 more

            Glue is not required. Gaskets and other methods exist.

          • bluGill ・ an hour ago

            So why can't I buy the glue?

            If it is a special glue that needs to be heated (or something), I should be able to make/buy an oven the does the cure procedures.

          • phoronixrly ・ an hour ago
            ・ 4 more

            Necessary? Gaskets and o-rings haven't been invented yet?

            • philipallstar ・ 42 minutes ago
              ・ 3 more

              They have, and people preferred smaller phones.

              • TeMPOraL ・ 30 minutes ago

                People didn't prefer shit. This is a supply-driven market, vendors put out whatever they want, and we deal with it.

              • krs_ ・ 33 minutes ago

                And then they got larger again.

      • SkeuomorphicBee ・ 23 minutes ago

        My last phone was all glued and the entry point was the screen. The repair guy said there was a 50% chance the screen would break in trying to unglue it so it was not worth the try. It was a shame, it was a decent phone killed prematurely by a faulty battery.

      • walrus01 ・ an hour ago

        There are a number of phone designs that require special heating apparatus and very careful prying tools to get the back case off. And then extremely careful application of new glue to reassemble. Basically the whole thing is glued together at the factory. Google "phone heating pad for repair" for some examples...

  • red_admiral ・ 22 minutes ago

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

  • napolux ・ an hour ago

    better than glued.

    • mminer237 ・ an hour ago

      Heat guns and pryers are commercially available. I don't think this will change anything there.

      • kotaKat ・ an hour ago

        And Pentalobe screwdrivers are also commercially available now, so Apple doesn't even have to include one...

twilo ・ an hour ago

If a battery can do 1000 cycles and remain above 80% capacity it is exempt from this, which is exactly what Apple implemented a few years ago.

Low cost phones will be most affected.

  • tim333 ・ an hour ago

    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.

    • mentalgear ・ 43 minutes ago

      Don't fall for the 'glue cuz of protection' myth - there are and had been water-resistant phones way before Apple started glueing to avoid customers doing their own repairs and them losing out on new sales.

      • Alupis ・ 39 minutes ago
        ・ 5 more

        Which phones? I ask as someone that's had to replace multiple phones after a trip through the washing machine.

        Modern phone water resistance is incredible. I've even seen people literally swim with their phones and not even question if it was a bad idea.

        • mattkrause ・ 6 minutes ago

          Fifteen years ago, I had a Garmin GPS (admittedly not a phone, but similar form factor) that survived a week of knocking around the bottom of a raft.

          The battery compartment had a rubber gasket and some very tight screws.

        • tencentshill ・ 33 minutes ago
          ・ 2 more

          Samsung Galaxy S5 was the last one that attempted it. IP67 with a removable back cover and swappable battery.

          • Alupis ・ 8 minutes ago

            Yes, but IP67 is not nearly as water resistant as IP68, which all modern phones are for the most part.

            I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if IP68 could be achieved in a phone without glue. There's no clamping mechanism for the backs, they're just press-fit with small clips.

        • markus92 ・ 31 minutes ago

          Samsung Galaxy S5 is the first one to cross my mind.

  • loremium ・ 8 minutes ago

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

  • Bad_CRC ・ 42 minutes ago

    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.

    • raw_anon_1111 ・ 36 minutes ago

      Then don’t buy a phone from a company with a piss poor record of customer service.

      Just looking in maps, there are three Apple Stores within a 45 minute drive from where I live in central Florida.

      The situation is worse in my hometown in South GA admittedly, you have to drive 70 miles for same day service for an authorized repair place - mostly Best Buy.

  • mschuster91 ・ an hour ago

    > 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.

  • Hamuko ・ an hour ago

    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.

    • 46493168 ・ 11 minutes ago

      Apple’s replacement program is $99 for out of warranty battery replacement

    • frizlab ・ an hour ago

      > The regulation states that batteries must be removable using ‘commercially available’ tools

      I’m pretty sure that’s more or less already the case, so…

    • jkestner ・ 40 minutes ago

      My battery’s at 70%, I could replace it for $50, but I consider it a feature to get me off my goddamn phone more.

  • raverbashing ・ an hour ago

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

    So it does not seem a big deal

PaulKeeble ・ 2 hours ago

Batteries have been used as part of planned obsolescence for too long and a whole small business industry of replacing phone batteries has appeared because of it. Next the EU are going to have to address security patches because its another aspect being used to sell new phones.

  • IMTDb ・ 37 minutes ago

    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.

    • gruez ・ 18 minutes ago

      >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 updates for ios 12 are all security updates, not feature updates, so your comparison to "connect to the internet using ADSL in Jan 2000 with your IBM PS/2 rocking in intel 8086" doesn't really make sense. The phones stuck on ios 15 are basically unusable because many apps don't support it anymore. At best you can download an older version from a few years ago, but that depends on whether the backend servers were updated. Apps that insist you use the latest version (eg. banking/finance apps) basically unusable.

  • wasmitnetzen ・ an hour ago

    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.

  • thaumasiotes ・ an hour ago

    > 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.

    • darkwater ・ an hour ago

      That was true 15-20 years ago. Nowadays changing the phone is basically because:

      1) battery dying / not lasting enough

      2) shattered glasses whose replacement costs 35-40% of the cost of the phone new (for budget/mid-range phones, not everybody has iPhones)

      distant 3rd) not enough free internal storage

      • infecto ・ an hour ago
        ・ 2 more

        Batteries are generally a cheap fix from third party stores. If you wanted to keep the phone why not spend the small dollars and just replace the battery?

        • darkwater ・ 42 minutes ago

          Because you need to bring it to a shop, sometimes they may keep it for more times, sometimes if they are not that honest they will find something else and factory reset it and a long etc. If it's something one can do at home by one self as an expected and supported by the vendor operation, why not? You can still bring it to a store if you don't feel like crafty enough to do it.

    • hgoel ・ an hour ago

      Upgrade cycles have slowed down in recent years, the improvements are relatively incremental nowadays. Screens, durability, processors, storage sizes, cameras, even battery life are okay-ish and aren't improving quickly enough to justify the same upgrade rate. Foldables are basically the only big innovation in recent years, but are still a little too fragile and expensive.

      This is also reflected in the increasing support durations from major manufacturers.

    • haritha-j ・ an hour ago

      This might be partially true, but making them inacessible is still a great way approach to planned obsolescence and there's no way this was not part of the motivation. The fact that an entire industry exists to provide replacement batteries is proof of this, as is the fact that Apple offers a £100 battery replacement. They also replace the batteries of all refurbished models they sell, which again wouldn't be necessary if battery life wasn't a concern over the useful life of a phone.

      Secondly, what you said may have been true in the past, when smartphones were rapidly evolving and upgrade cycles were short, but people are holding on to their devices for longer now, so its possible its becoming a problem again.

    • detourdog ・ an hour ago

      Batteries on early cell phones needed to be replaced multiple times a day. I remember talk time of like 10 minutes on my motorola StarTec.

    • m-schuetz ・ 42 minutes ago

      Nowadays batteries seem to be doing pretty good, though. I've got a galax s20 fe, and the battery is still fine after 5 years.

    • stavros ・ an hour ago

      This was true back when Moore's law was the driver of obsolescence. You bought a new phone every year simply because next year's phone was twice as fast.

      Now that this doesn't happen, the driver of obsolescence is the battery, which is much less defensible because you can swap it much more easily than "the whole internals of the phone".

azalemeth ・ an hour ago

This is excellent news. Now make them have user-unlockable and user-relockable bootloaders...

concinds ・ an hour ago

Seems to me like the top goal should be: you can easily replace the most-likely-to-break parts (screen, back, battery, etc) in any local independent repair shop, with genuine parts that have low markups.

I'm confused why that still isn't the case today given all the EU headlines we've seen over the years.

int32_64 ・ 9 minutes ago

I still sometimes miss the Samsung Galaxy I had that had a microSD slot, a removable battery, and a headphone jack.

Phones have lost so much in a decade.

binaryturtle ・ 23 minutes ago

How about computers to have replaceable SSDs? There's no point you can exchange the battery when the hard-soldered SSD dies first. (I had more dead SSDs than batteries)

noja ・ 7 minutes ago

Hot swap batteries! Who's going to offer THAT first?

bhouston ・ an hour ago

Will this affect the water-resistance of current iPhones? I thought that was why the batteries are not easily replaceable by users, because of the seals/gaskets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dyL6hMZvWQ

  • kristjank ・ 44 minutes ago

    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.

  • tencentshill ・ 32 minutes ago

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

    • giobox ・ 11 minutes ago

      While I'd be perfectly content with an IP67 iPhone with interchangeable battery, the current iPhones are IP68 which is a significant step up in dust/water ingress protection. IP68 devices generally require a sealant, IP67 normally doesn't, making it easier to do a battery hatch etc.

dkobia ・ 40 minutes ago

It seems like the whole world could massively benefit from this much like the other great innovation out of the EU -- the Common Charger Directive (aka USB-C).

schubidubiduba ・ an hour ago

Recently replaced the battery and charging port of my Fairphone. 5 screws, two plucked components, done. Hopefully this means that soon you won't have to buy a specific company's phone for this marvelous experience.

  • tristanj ・ 42 minutes ago

    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.

ape4 ・ 44 minutes ago

As a non-European I want to say: thanks EU

oever ・ an hour ago

Awesome!

And next, hopefully, replaceable software.

Which will do much more for phone longevity.

1970-01-01 ・ an hour ago

They (Samsung, Apple, etc.) should never have been allowed to glue it behind the screen. Threaded fasteners and a silicone gasket cover is good enough for 99.999% of the public use-case.

  • rimliu ・ an hour ago 

       > is good enough for 99.999% of the public use-case
    You know this how, exactly?
larusso ・ an hour ago

So this means no iPhone Air 2 in Europe? I can hardly see Apple wiggle around the special tools requirement when these batteries are glued and sealed shut in the devices.

[edit] didn’t see the fine print with the cycles requirement etc. so it seems Apple etc is still safe.

Havoc ・ 30 minutes ago

Neat. That may allow repurposing phones as mini home servers too.

Lithium batteries in things running 24/7 unsupervised always makes me a bit nervous

Bad_CRC ・ 40 minutes ago

Gigaset makes IP68/MIL-STD-810H smartphones with removable batteries and sold the battery for 30€, don't fall for the "but watterproof".

cgannett ・ 40 minutes ago

Hopefully the EU can get the battery situation to mirror the charging cable situation. IE force them all to adopt an industry standard.

pnathan ・ an hour ago

This is good. I recently had to replace a generally working phone because the battery was dying and there was no cost effective & reliable means of replacing.

A proper gasket and screws needs to be the standard solution here.

gbeardish ・ 38 minutes ago

They should extend the principle to laptops, obviously.

  • nomel ・ 33 minutes ago

    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

    • gbeardish ・ 16 minutes ago

      I won't name brands, but there are lots of low cost "tablet with keyboard" laptops with glued battery. Just a couple of months ago I had to ditch one.

      Anyway, if most comply, why not make it mandatory? Or are these kind of directives only aimed at picking fights with manufacturers?

      Note that I am not suggesting that all laptops should have USB-C chargers, that's a separate directive. I mean user replaceable batteries available for at least 5 years, without requiring major surgery to replace.

daoboy ・ an hour ago

I understood that the move to non-replaceable batteries was at least partially driven by water resistance

*Edit. Not sure why people are downvoting. I didn't make a positive declaration. HN didn't used to be this way for completely milquetoast comments.

  • haritha-j ・ an hour ago

    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.

    • bluGill ・ 41 minutes ago

      Rubber gaskets wear out. Best practice is to replace them every time you open the cover. We can put them in, but the replacement battery better come with the gasket because you can't safely replace the battery without a new gasket.

  • Aachen ・ an hour ago

    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)

    • raw_anon_1111 ・ an hour ago

      If the headphone port flap was perfectly sealed….

      • BenjiWiebe ・ an hour ago
        ・ 2 more

        *charge port flap

        • Aachen ・ an hour ago

          Waterproof phones all still have charging ports and no flaps. Not sure how but that seems to be solved. Maybe that one part's connectors are encased in glue?

  • delabay ・ an hour ago

    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.

  • Hamuko ・ an hour ago

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

    • Aachen ・ 41 minutes ago

      Not sure if I should be repeating the same answer below each instance of the question but here goes: See the Samsung Galaxy S5 for example as having a good waterproofing rating and user-replaceable battery

  • gib444 ・ an hour ago

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

mytailorisrich ・ 16 minutes ago

Considering that this, and other, regulation is to officially aimed at reducing e-waste, the EU should commit to publish independent data on the amount of e-waste and phones replacement rates now and every year afterwards in order to measure the real world impact.

Too often, including in HN comments, those regulations ate presented as "obviously" good policies. Well, data are better than assumptions.

Fokamul ・ 41 minutes ago

I hope someday EU will implement requirements for phones -> You must be able to flash any firmware (OS) on your phone, without any restrictions.

This is much more important, than batteries.

gib444 ・ an hour ago

Have they researched durability with replaceable batteries and can promise us phones won't break more often?

  • Aachen ・ 5 minutes ago

    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?!

hparadiz ・ an hour ago

Now do screens.

  • oever ・ an hour ago

    and software.

nslsm ・ an hour ago

Damn, recently I had a phone with a battery that wasn’t properly glued and it would turn off when shaken. I hope this doesn’t become the norm from now on.

  • IsTom ・ an hour ago

    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.

    • Hamuko ・ an hour ago

      Yeah, none of my Nokias with a removable back cover and battery had that issue. What you realistically might've had was instead that you dropped your phone on the floor and the battery came flying out.

  • dragontamer ・ an hour ago

    Behold: the widget of the future.

    A spring.

infecto ・ an hour ago

I am simply not a fan of this type of legislation. It reminds me of CA bullet button. I also don’t quite understand the purpose. Official retail cost from Apple in the US ~$120. Third-party you can usually get it around $60. Sure the battery does not have quick accessibility but I can replace it pretty cheaply.

  • tristanj ・ 33 minutes ago

    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.

yyy3 ・ an hour ago

Phone manufacturers should be able to seal their phones to prevent unwanted substance egress and to compete on aesthetics. They should also make the seal breachable with consumer-grade hand tools like a hairdryer, suction cup, and plastic wedges.

The inside of the phone should use standard screws and securing mechanisms, and batteries should not be glued to the phone.

I actually really like what Apple's been doing with its new batteries by sealing them in metal. That way if a user is being careless and accidentally slips a screwdriver under the back of their phone, the risk that they puncture their battery and start a fire is greatly reduced.

It secures the most dangerous component of your device in a way that makes it easy for anyone to remove and replace safely. I'm sure Apple has a robot to rip the battery out of its case at its recycling plant, and if the phone gets dropped in a lake or something, if that battery eventually catastrophically fails, at least it's wrapped in a suit of armor.

gcanyon ・ an hour ago

Yikes, I don't live in the EU, but I absolutely don't want this. Maybe I'm mistaken and they could have achieved the same with removable batteries, but my phone is completely waterproof, dustproof, and has survived more than a few hard drops with no case. I would definitely take that over a replaceable battery. Again, I acknowledge they might not be mutually exclusive.

  • wklauss ・ an hour ago

    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.

  • w4yai ・ an hour ago

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

  • Someone1234 ・ an hour ago

    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.

    • Noumenon72 ・ 43 minutes ago

      > You're against your own Strawman.

      > The proposal is: batteries must be removable using commercially available tools

      That's exactly what he's against, plus the premise "Making batteries removable prevents them from being waterproof, dustproof, and collision resistant". Which may be true or false, but not a straw man.

      • Someone1234 ・ 36 minutes ago

        It absolutely is a Strawman. There's no basis in fact for why using commercial tools instead of specialist tools would result in worse "waterproof, dustproof, or collision resistance." It is completely fictional claim invented whole cloth.

        Again, multiple phones have already become compliant with this law and didn't lose or compromise any of those things.

        So you OR they, will need to explain the basis for the claim, otherwise it is just a Strawman you're poking baselessly.