Do you miss phones with replaceable batteries? By 2027, you won’t anymore because, by law, almost every smartphone will have them again.
Its NOT just smartphones
Its damn near everything!
Electric cars, other electronics etc
Some are just not “user replacable” (such as a cars batteries)
this law will change all iPhones. It will also change all tablets, laptops, EVs, e-bikes, and anything else with a rechargeable battery
Headphones, gaming mice, gaminh controllers. Its gonna be great
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again (someone else definitely said this before me) I’m totally fine with a user replaceable battery but I don’t really need a “hot swappable” battery. Don’t you guys remember the old memes where an android phone is dropped and the Lego brick breaking sound effect is used from the Lego video games. I’m ok with a semi sealed device for water resistance and what not. It would just be nice to be able to replace the battery when the time comes
The memes I don’t remember but … I’m old. And…
Reading this gave me an instant flashback of dropping my old Ericsson on a train and it just … lost all its parts! Man that was 😱
Yes I had to hunt for: the battery, the battery cover and the SIM card! In those days the latter was bigger than we have now but very expensive.
To be honest: hot swappable wasn’t all that cool or user friendly at all. You had the dropping issue, the dirt and grime got in the cracks causing it to loose contact. Just like a mouse ball back in the day. All that and … when it was time to change it, never found a replacement and the phone was just outdated anyway.
Now all those different chargers we had? That was the real nightmare. Man! Very glad that is solved, even with the mess usb-c is.
I fear this is again one of those rules politician’s make without any knowledge; or they just ignore reality. Per usual.
just the first one I found but basically this . and I feel that with the move to USB C or even with iphones and the lightning cable. You either have one of those two so it’s pretty nice now compared to back then
I can’t really remember if that was an issue for my S4. I’m sure it happened like once or twice but I don’t really drop my phone and I’m sure the majority of people nowadays have a case that will pretty much prohibit the battery cover from opening. What I DO remember is keeping a spare battery in my wallet and anytime my phone was low (I’m terminally addicted and 3 hours of screen on time was the best I got back then) just popping that bad boy in. Was a great feature and took a lot of stress off of me in the days when battery life was terrible. I hope they can revive a feature like that in a modern premium phone.
I had a Galaxy s4! and I remember I bought 2 extended batteries (about 3000mah but they were the same size so who knows) and a wall charger for them from ZeroLemon. I would hot swap the batteries instead of charging my phone. it was such a convenient system I felt so cool 🤓
I really miss hot swappable batteries. Just carry a small spare battery and swap it when needed. So much now convenient than needing to plug it in to top up.
You can do that now with a heat gun and some very basic tools.
That’s an overstatement. It takes a lot of work for some phones and you risk damaging it. Not everyone is able to do it even with the right tools. We need to have a solution so that anyone can do it
I literally bought an iFixIt kit to open my phone up (for a screen replace rather than a battery swap, but still) and could not get it open after an hour+ of trying. I’d definitely believe it’s because I’m inexperienced in modern phone repair, but I’m not a generally unsavvy person. I build computers and mess around with tech as a hobbyist. I had to take it to a shop and return the kit. It’s definitely not an easy process for some devices.
You can do that now with a heat gun and some very basic tools.
A heat gun is a specialized tool. That’s the problem.
It’s really not a specialized tool.l at all, there are a million things you can use a heat gun for. And they’re like $20 at Harbor Freight.
A hair dryer?
People are gonna hate on this comment but it’s true. I can replace the battery in my iPhone in an hour if I want to, even if it’s not as easy as it used to be with removable plastic covers on the back of phones.
On the Fairphone everyone can do it, without tools in under 30 seconds. That is replaceable, not having to order equipment and asking your family “IT guy”…
Good luck on waterproofing.
* in Europe
Tim Cook can suck a fat one.
Oftentimes EU device laws affect other markets because it’s easier to send the same device everywhere than to design and produce a separate one just for Europe.
Yeah I don’t see Apple paying for wildly different phone designs for different markets. But I have no doubts they’ll find some new way to make their phones worthless after 2 or so years.
Updates. That’s all you need to know. They’ve already be caught with the whole slow phone after updates to make you buy a new phone.
I used to say that- but, they did actually have an argument for that- consistent battery life in exchange for lower performance. They thought users would prefer lowering performance of the phone so the battery still lasts just as long- and honestly I don’t think they’re that wrong. 95% of the time as long as it’s usuable I don’t care about the performance of my phone- but I do care about battery life.
He’d probably just enjoy it.
I wonder how apple will react to this
By designing a model of iphone with replaceable battery, of course.
I think they’re already complying. Tri-tip bits are already bought easily and affordably on Amazon. Same with suction cups, picks and tweezers. Literally $30 or less to get all of the above in one nifty carrying case. If you have suction cups then you can break the screen seal without using heat and let’s be honest, hair dryers are perfectly adequate for these repairs. It’s literally what I use for friends and family repairs that I do at home rather than in my workshop.
I think it’s a step in the right direction but not even remotely strong enough to force change on current cell phones.
Design batteries that can also function independently as a powerbank? That would be useful.
Apple fanboy here… but they’re probably gonna market the feature with some cool new trendy name and make the battery replacements proprietary.
Oh you probably shouldn’t go around admitting that so willingly.
One of my phones battery became swollen and hated not being able to change it without removing the adhesive stuck backing, camera, wireless charging cable, brackets preventing battery cable to be removed normally, battery being adhesive stuck to the battery slot. I hope all phones go back to removable batteries.
I just hope the battery doesn’t cost as much as a new phone would.
The EU almost forced the phone industry to start using standardised/interchangeable batteries.
If the batteries cost as much as a new phone, they’ll reconsider that decision.
It’s so dumb that a standard hasn’t been developed yet. Like AA/C/D, 18650 batteries, etc. They could have modular batteries with different sizes and capacities that work interchangeably.
It took forty years for aa batteries to become a standard. They were a trademark type by I think everready.
Good. I also read appliances (like your electric toothbrush or headphones) will also have to follow this guidance. This should make it easier to repair and recycle electronics.
Wonder how waterproofing will hold up
Depends on how important it is to customers. Waterproofing was always just an excuse to seal the case and make repairs harder, and wasn’t a feature that the market demanded. We always had waterproof phones for people who needed them. You can seal a battery compartment to IP68 with a bit of effort, and IP44 is essentially what you need to put it in your pocket anyway.
I think all phones should be waterproof to some degree
Would you pay extra for waterproofing? If so how much?
I think all phone lines should have a waterproof option that doesn’t have a an easy to remove battery. That way consumers are given the choice at the time of purchase, and the people that want waterproofing are the only ones affected by the repairability tradeoff.
The Samsung S5 has an IP67 rating and the battery on that was easy to replace.
If you drop either phone they are probably just as likely to be compromised.
I could see a latch that you need the sim ejector to open. Something that still very secure, but possible for an user user to replace with out the need of a freaking heat gun. While still keeping the design.
It’s not so much the batteries for me but the USB C port that has been my main issue and that damn humidity/water sensor that thinks that I’ve dipped my phone in water when I haven’t
It’s not a Samsung device is it? Their sensors seem to be super sensitive. Meanwhile my pixel has been used in the shower and not said a word…
It actually is! Second time I’m having the subboard replaced. 3rd time I can request a new phone or a replacement by law. Still not ok for a flagship phone by such a large manufacturer
Try cleaning it. I used to have the same issue, and had to get the subboard replaced multiple times too, until I realized that mechanically cleaning it with something really thin works as well. Felt really dumb after finding out lol. The pocket lint can absorb moisture and then the sensor doesn’t work properly.
I’ll try it out thanks
It’s almost hypersensitive, well beyond what it needs to be. I couldn’t charge it by cable for 3 days. Not ok at all, good luck with it mate!
That’s part of the problem I have with this. Most electronics life cycle is gone before or around the time the battery is gone. Only people that abuse the batteries by over charging / full draining typically benefit from replacement batteries. -And this just mostly needs awareness.
The vast majority of batteries operated devices are stuff that in its use is going to be “abused”. The hell is the harm in letting people switch out a fucking battery if that’s the issue. Companies won’t let people switch batteries out so they are being made. Apple have been fighting tooth and nail over repair shops
You use Apple? lol.
Uhhh no I was just using them as an example of a company that is really against customer repairs
They fucking brick stuff that’s repaired.
This is the best news I’ve read in a while. Hopefully the US (or at least Cali) jump on board as well.
Seeing as our (Cali) CCPA is about as strict (if not moreso) than the GDPR it’s not a longshot that they might.
I’m looking to upgrade my iPhone 11 for no reason other than the battery life is starting to bug me. None of the features released since the 11 hold any interest for me, I literally just want more battery life. Looks like that’ll cost me about $1000 if I want to stay with iOS. Absolutely insane.
Just hit up an apple store bud - they’ll swap a new battery for like $89. I had the battery replaced on my 11 a few months ago. Took like 20 minutes.
You know you can get the battery replaced, right? Not as cheap as buying a replacement yourself, but not that much compared to a 1000$ phone.
but only the EU though, everywhere else is still fucked
Chances are most companies aren’t going to make two separate production lines with and without a removable battery. The cost likely outweighs the profit i’d wager. Much like how we see apple finally begrudgingly moving to USB-C despite no NA law requiring them to do so.
I hope so too. But if somehow the cost to manufacture phones with removable batteries is higher then I doubt they’d switch the existing production line to removable battery. I hope I’m wrong, to be honest.
There’s just going to be more plastic phones.
Why not? Many companies already have US exclusive SKUs. Some companies like Samsung even have a history of shipping completely different SOCs.
A different chip is a different scenario. We’re talking about how the entire design, case etc has to accommodate for a removable battery.
Different SOC means different motherboard, different antenna layout, different everything. It’s no different from making battery removable.
I have mixed feelings on this. I think there were a few good reasons to move to sealed batteries. In an ideal world you could give consumers choices between the various trade-offs and offer multiple models or variants.
But of course that will never happen because non-replaceable batteries present a far better business case. If they were forced to offer options, the manufacturers would deliberately make the user-replaceable models far shittier and then complain to the regulators that they were unpopular.
Good, no reason why my Pixel 6 shouldn’t last until I accidentally drop it instead of the slow death of worsening battery.
Does this mean they’ll mandate SD card slots and headphone ports too?
Don’t worry. Phone manufacturers will appease this in the most frustrating way possible. Kind of like how apple does the at home replacement hardware.
Doubtful since those are not required for the life/longevity of the tech.
Which this isn’t totally solving. Don’t get me wrong this is a good thing. But the real issue with planned obsolescence is OS support.
Very true, limited OS support kills most devices eventually, sadly there is only so much you can mandate as many apps and programs will stop working on old OS as they are updated. What should be criminal is apple patching old OS too purposely slow them down.
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