TL;DR
- The European Council has ended its adoption procedure for rules related to phones with replaceable batteries.
- By 2027, all phones released in the EU must have a battery the user can easily replace with no tools or expertise.
- The regulation intends to introduce a circular economy for batteries.
Hopefully this doesn’t go the way of charging cables and we have a different battery shape for every phone… Otherwise a 2040 regulation will be to standardize battery shape(s)
Battery shape (and connector) will sadly still be a thing for a long time, and usually it’s for engineering reasons, so I don’t really think it will be possible to standardize it
We really should just adopt the “best one” that becomes the standard. Only change it with significant advancement
It depends on the layout of the phone though. Size of camera module, placement of fingerprint sensors, other sensors/modules, heat sinks. You name it, really.
As such the batteries tend to be oddly shaped, and even spread out in different places to get as much battery in as possible.
The “best one” differs from phone to phone.
I‘ve had a couple dozen different phone batteries in my hand. It’s really not that complicated if you have to make it work. Sure, manufacturers will yell that they couldn’t make their 27 lenses at the edge of the case work. I say make them 16:9 in 5 different sizes and manufacturers can work around that, end of story. New sizes can be adopted if the benefit for everyone outweighs the cost.
I’d really like to see it but I don’t think we will see it unless legislation forces it.
I’d like to see it in more than just phones. Standardise battery sizes for cars and other vehicles as well, and make it possible to replace them manually. If there were automated battery charging stations I might even be convinced that electric cars will work for more than just city travel.
I agree again. EVs do work imo but proprietary stuff always gets in the way. It’s actually time to reform the way intellectual property works and is enforced. It’s a way to leech out millions of dollars for insanely old or convoluted content which is not how our world functions anymore. There should be a limit on how big of an idea can be patented as well. Just think about tissues in boxes. If that got patented, they would be insanely expensive. That’s why I think things that are insanely common (medical formulas) should have very short patent spans. We need to take power away from megacorps (which is a can of worms in itself). Same goes for ev batteries, vaccines, etc.
I agree with you entirely. Maybe not so much on EVs, but my only real gripe with them is the battery, which would be solved if we standardised battery sizes and engineered some sort of solution which allowed for “swapping stations” to automatically swap out batteries. It would require makers to design and engineer their cars around these swappable batteries but I think that’s the way to go.
The way it’d work today is if some manufacturer implemented this, it’d be some sort of proprietary BS thing and it just wouldn’t work in practise. Legislating a standard for all the manufacturers to adhere to is the only real workable way of doing something like that.
There isn’t one “best one”. Always depends on requirements, which vary by device, underlying technology and use case.
Well battery shapes will be custom, but the regulation does include demand to offer said batteries as spare parts.
shall ensure that those batteries are available as spare parts of the equipment that they power for a minimum of five years after placing the last unit of the equipment model on the market, with a reasonable and non-discriminatory price for independent professionals and end-users.
This being EU, EU will actually even police that reasonability clause via consumer protection agencies. You might not like the still probably pretty hefty price, but outright monopoly price gouging will not be allowed. Atleast not with in EU jurisdiction. Also makers will tend to gravitate to number of pretty standard battery sizes and geometries. Simply out of economies of scale. If you have to offer the batteries available as spares. You don’t want to offer 150 different battery models on you warehousing and supply to your retail stores. You want as few as possible. Maybe say 5 different sizes or maybe couple ten different kinds on the biggest makers with the largest product range. Cheaper to buy more of similar batteries from battery supplier, than have custom module developed for each new phone model. Well unless one is apple and only has couple new models per year. They probably will have now just little bit different optimized shape battery for each models, but they also have the scale per model to make sense for that.
also:
Software shall not be used to impede the replacement of a portable battery or LMT battery, or of their key components, with another compatible battery or key components.
Meaning companies can’t use software locks to deny third party batteries. Since the language says compatible battery, not replacement battery. Which wouldn’t make sense anyway, since replacement battery would be the one the OEM offers. Ofcourse I’m sure there will be lot of hurdur by makers over “don’t use third party batteries, those aren’t as safe” and “well but that isn’t compatible”. However as one remembers during the early 2000’s and upto mid 2010’s there was a very healthy both OEM and third party replacement battery market. As with that experience, yes shoddy batteries from non-reputable people can be problem. However in this basic consumer electronic safety regulation (aka you can’t just shovel anything to the market with utterly nuts unsafe circuitry in the first place) and the market itself handles it. Again it will be found out over little time, which makers are the reputable ones with the good batteries with all the proper safeties and good production quality. Reputable big chain electronics dealers then focus on only offering the established reputable third party batteries and parts out of their own reputation (You sold me a shoddy battery. I burst and ruined my phone. I’m never buying from this phone store ever again). Plus same with the actual makers with stuff like offering extensive warranties, warranting the replacement of the device, if their battery messes it up and so on.
This is all “we have already been here” ground except instead of the T9 numpad on the phone front, there is now a whole front covering touch screen on it’s place.
The headline says it’s official. But then the article mentions -
Now, the only step left is for the European Council and Parliament to sign on the dotted line.
So it’s not official?? Can anyone explain please??
Proposed and introduced legislation, but not ratified?
The political analogy might be a bill that’s been passed into the parliament, but the governor-general/president hasn’t signed it yet.
Basically being merely a formality.
Thanks.
God bless the EU.
Remember to vote to keep this up next June, my fellow Europeans
as an American, bless the EU, they’re carrying America with stuff like GDPR
hungarian here, i’ll try my best but please keep on overpowering us when we inevitably fail
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oh yeah, we know. the problem is, 80% of the country is a rural population and a lot of them just want to “own those libs in budapest” even if they fuck their own life up. that’s why the same right-wing party has stayed in government for 13 years now with no change on the horizon.
we tried last year. like really tried, even the left and the far right have made an alliance with one goal: topple this shitty party, everything else is secondary. it didn’t even make a dent.
at this point, i see no chance that our eu parliament reps won’t be from the same party either. i’ll vote against them for sure, but it’s just inevitable at this point.
Vote in what exactly? I’m lost.
European Elections are on June 2024.
Thanks, it’ll actually be my first time voting on these elections.
It is a special day when there is happy tech news. This is a day for celebration. Having done my own battery replacements some have been a nightmare to do with all the glue and hoping the screen doesn’t break. I look forward to this, since with rise of phone costs I don’t intend to update frequently. I’d actually change my battery annually if it wasn’t such a hassle.
Now we just need headphone jacks and SD cards and lineageos support and my dream phone will be mandated.
Not having SD card is real painful.
Between basic storage being so much larger than it used to be (the 4-8GB days were brutal) and USB-C flash drives that can plug into your charging port, I seldom miss them these days
Still sucks that they removed them as an option though
Xperia phones have headphone jacks and SD cards. Pretty sure you can install lineage on them as well.
Your force open drivers would be really cool.
I’m not a fan of xiaomi (even though it’s my daily driver), but most of their phones fit your needs. In the past I used redmi note 4, note 9 pro and now note 10 pro and they’ve all been great.
Custom roms community really is something.
Had bad luck with China phones being open before, but when the time comes I’ll have to take a look.
I pretty much stopped using my phone for audio when they got rid of the headphone jack.
Wireless headphones still aren’t great and most are uncomfortable. It’s super annoying keeping them charged and they are so expensive when you consider how short their lifespan is.
I listen to certain YouTube videos to get to sleep and have for years and years. Wireless ear buds just aren’t in the cards for something like that.
I’m in a similar boat. The only time I do plug in headphones (via the usb port) is on nights I’m having a very hard time fall asleep. But I do that at the expense of being able to charge my phone 😔
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My YouTube premium downloads are on my sd card, which works out nicely.
They should do the same for laptops
I think laptops are also covered.
Indeed in the article it says all battery powered devices… Does that also mean somehow headphones(wireless) earbuds, watches, etc
They have standard lithium ion sizes that are tiny; there’s no reason why they couldn’t add threading to earbuds so that you could unscrew them.
i really hope the framework already qualifies, would suck to lose that upgrade path
Try everything that uses a battery
And electric cars. I wish you could swap a battery out at a gas station as easily as I can swap out a propane tank.
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Only because the US government doesn’t feel like doing any actual governing whatsoever.
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they’re too busy throwing shit at each other (ai debate that’s too real) to govern anything.
I’m not getting my hopes up, but I’d like to see this influence the smartphones being sold in the US as well. One of the primary things that keeps me replacing my smartphones is battery life, so being able to replace the battery would be incredible.
Because the EU is such a massive market, EU law tends to bleed out. It’s expensive to keep different SKUs for different regions, so compliance tends to seep out.
I’d expect at least some of this to have an impact outside the EU.
And they know people are going to be importing these smartphones once it goes live and it’s not a battle that can be fought.
The company Fairphone makes almost perfectly repairable smartphones, but they’re only for the European market and the radios won’t really work in the US. I think it would be a similar case for a lot of phones so it might not actually be super viable to import phones in the future either, unfortunately.
Fairphone just partnered with Murena to bring it to the U.S. https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/5/23783714/murena-fairphone-4-us-release-date-price-sustainability-repair
oh damn! awesome! my current phone still functions well, so hopefully the next one has a headphone jack and I’ll get one, thanks for linking that!
I remember when iPhones first came out, they were locked to a single telecom provider. It got jailbroken within a week and every patch following it for over a year got jailbroken too.
If there is enough demand by big brands, unlike the fairphone, there will be a way to use it outside of the EU. Combined with the extra cost to manufacture, I don’t see big companies just producing it uniquely for the EU or even if they do, not for long.
It also means that other places can introduce similar laws with less friction. Like the GDPR and the various American privacy-oriented laws.
idk, apple is already ramping up their region locking systems just to get better about locking out non-EU countries for when sideloading is mandated in march 2024
We’re talking about substantial hardware differences, though, which are substantially more expensive to maintain than simple region locking.
yeah, absolutely, but at apple’s scale and stubbornness, i wouldn’t be surprised if they made a europhone that was intentionally thick and non-waterproof, supported sideloading, had a usb-c slot and a replaceable battery, and then they just made the regular iphone with their original plan (probably fully sealed with no charging port whatsoever)
i do want eu law to bleed out to everyone and finally fix up the phone industry, but the iphone is literally apple’s main money-maker, and regulation is cutting away at all the ways they optimize that revenue stream, by enforcing failures to increase the frequency people buy phones at, maintaining an iron grip on the ecosystem to sell with a nebulous sense of wonder (and also make switching away as hard as possible), and keeping a vendor lock-in through their ecosystem. these are all horribly anti-consumer strategies that the eu is rightfully cutting down on, but all of these directly prop up apple’s product line, so at some point it’s gotta be cheaper to isolate the eu and keep the phone to their specifications everywhere else.
Do you still have different charger plugs for each phone?
if this makes batteries smaller so be it
let’s go back to 2012 and carry a few of them at a time
There’s no need. Battery tech has advanced substantially. There is no reason phones shouldn’t last all day and then some, then when the battery becomes shitty, replace it instead of massive e-waste. We’re lucky the EU exist.
The battery is only one piece of the puzzle. If the EU wants to really reduce e-waste they should also mandate a minimum of 4 years of android security updates, preferably 5 or 6.
Very true, or mandate unlocked bootloaders so people can put custom roms that will patch.
Both is the real answer.
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Yes, but the vast majority of android phones get 2, maybe 3 if you’re lucky, and on the budget market you’re lucky if you get 2.
Sometimes the EU is just based af.
It’s kinda annoying and sad to see that EU have to make bills these days for basic things that android had a decade ago.
We’ve gone full circle. This used to be the way!
a lot of industries seem to solve problems well initially, then backtrack and make their product purposefully shitty in order to capture more revenue.
I don‘t know how to feel about this. While It’s nice to be able to replace the battery, I very much prefer the durability of todays phones over those flimsy removable back plates that used to be common in the 00s.
I really hope they mean that no special tools/skill are required. They should just standardize one type of micro screwdriver that everyone has to use.
Replaceable batteries inevitably also have to be sturdier s.t. they don‘t pose a fire hazard, making the entire phone bulkier or reducing battery life.
My iPhone XR is now over 4 years old and battery capacity is still at 80%, getting me through the day easily.
Before that I had an iPhone 4s where I replaced the battery after ~6 years. I was really disappointed with the new battery and ended up buying a new phone anyway after a few weeks.My phone is the device that I use the most by a huge margin. It doesn‘t bother me too much if I have to replace it every 5-6 years. And I‘m pretty environmetally conscious in general.
Yeah those old Nokia’s are notoriously flimsy because of the removable batteries 🤦♂️
Yeah. If you owned one and don’t get all your information from memes on reddit, they were incredibly flimsy. It was all cheap ass plastic that was clipped in, they would break and your phone would be heald together by hopes and dreams.
I get what you’re saying, but removable batteries and flimsy plastic backs don’t have to go hand in hand. The LG V20 had a metal back and a removable battery
Yeah I had a V10 and it was one of the most premium devices I’ve ever felt. And the best sound quality from a phone, too.
The Galaxy Xcover pro has a good durability, is IP68 and has a removable battery. It’s a matter of willingness.
Gee, I can’t understand how my lgg3 is still in one piece, what with that replaceable battery making it so flimsy.
It’s almost as if I’m imagining it being able to turn on because it fell apart when I sat it on the table three years ago.
Good thing it broke back then! Otherwise, I might have spent tens of dollars on replacement batteries each year!
Not to mention all the tablets that broke because they were flimsy with replaceable batteries. The galaxytab 2 and 3 alone would have blown up from materials fatigue if I’d replaced those batteries over the years. Whew, what a relief I don’t have to have them in use as digital picture frames like I would have otherwise.
My Galaxy S5 never felt flimsy. It was even highly waterproof for the time because it had a COVER for the USB Port attached to the phone! It even had a gasp HEADPHONE JACK!
It also looked and felt cheap. HTC did the best solution but back was metal so no wireless charging. I would prefer a back cover like the nexus 5 or lg g4
I didn’t know the USB port had a cover. I bought mine used but excellent condition, apparently other than the port cover. My S5 had a brief dip in a river and never charged again. :(
Good thing you had a removable battery so you could charge the battery outside the phone lol
Of my last three phones battery has not been the issue I disposed. Mostly it is they grind to halt software wise as they fail to cope with newer apps expectations for storage or ram, I change my phone every 3 to 4 years.
Give me a phone with a removable battery in the style of the HTC Sensation 4G. Sexy, metal, easy to open and swap the battery. It was an incredible device that I remember using fondly.
Flimsy? have you tried the LG V20?
One thing I haven’t seen mentioned is that this will inevitably make batteries smaller.
If you are supposed to be able to open the phone and remove the battery manufacturers need to design a way to remove the cover, shield other components, create a compartment for the battery, and use sturdier batteries. All of those things take us space. Manufacturers aren’t just going to make phones thicker so that physical space has to be eaten by something… and it’s going to be the battery.
I really liked having a removable battery on my phone 10 years ago in case I had a particularly long/intensive day. But now that I make it through a day without worry this could actually be sorta annoying.
If we are gonna get removable batteries there needs to be a standard battery format so that each company won’t have its own special battery design. One battery design for all devices. This way the battery will work in whichever phone you put it in.
On the surface that sounds good, but wouldn’t that put a hamper on battery innovation?
I don’t believe so. A battery standard would specify the interface, not the actual battery design from a technical standpoint. It would specify:
- size and shape, i.e. where connectors go, assuring it fits in a phone
- voltage and amperage provided
The rest is up to the battery manufacturer and is completely open to innovation. You want to put a Li-ion battery in there? Just make it the right shape and as long as it can provide the output required, it’s fine. Want some future-tech fusion battery? As long as it’s the right shape and puts out the required power!
Usb is a de-facto standard and are we still using usb 1.1?
I mean, I use a fairphone (with removable battery) and in a normal day it can go a whole day without going below 20%. And even if I don’t comsider ot too much of a hassle bringing an external battery for recharge with me when I know I’m gonna use it a lot or will not have time to recharge during the night.
To add, I think the batter capacity of a fairphone is 3905 mAh while eg Pixel 7 has 4355 so the diff is only ~10%
If I can replace a battery without throwing away the phone, I’d definitely be OK with 10% battery reduction
sure, but we’re at a point with battery chemistry where that no longer really matters that much. the fairphone 4 is already at 3900 mAh and with both phone electronics constantly getting smaller and battery chemistry improving, it’s highly likely that this year’s fairphone 5 will not only crack the 4000 mAh barrier but fly past it. with a modern mid-range soc (which is really all you need to have a smooth experience outside of games) it’ more than enough to get you through the day with a good margin to spare. and that’s already a user-servicable design that no doubt guided eu legislature on this issue.
Do you think this mandate will also impede ip68/etc water resistance certifications?
9 years ago the galaxy S5 had a removeable battery and was ip67 rated. I’d bet it’s doable.
That was one of the last “jack of all trades” phones. It literally had everything. I loved it
It was so nice having a 3.5mm jack
Fine print will probably say if you don’t replace the seal when replacing the battery, or get it professionally changed, your warranty is void.
this fine print is illegal in lots of countries (including the USA) by the way.
Do you have any source to that? Manufacturer saying “replace the rubber seal which blocks water when you replace the battery, else you’re operating the device incorrectly and thus caused avoidable damage, and warranty is now void,” sounds ok and legal to me. It’d be similar to leaving your battery door literally open then you complain water got in.
https://www.ifixit.com/News/74736/warranty-void-stickers-are-illegal-in-the-us-what-about-elsewhere
Here you go, fellow internet user.
edit: the problem with this is that companies won’t listen to the law because they know that you probably won’t sue them, and even if you do sue them they don’t care because they will receive a slap in the wrist.
I don’t think they’re referring to something like a “rubber seal”, I think they mean these things:
Ah, they mentioned replacing a rubber seal. I was assuming a gasket to keep out water, not a warranty sticker.
Ah I see they did say seal. I still read it as one of these stickers, but reading it as gasket seems sensible too.
Not really, I have a chinese ip68 certified phone (and actually tested it, no water got in) and the battery is replaceable
Waterproofing will also become more difficult
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Companies would need some time to redesign their products.
Well some GDPR implementations did make it across the pond for the sake of simplicity so I imagine this might go the same way.
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In the case of GDPR it is not just for simplicity. It’s because companies that operate in the EU need to provide those protections to all EU citizens, even those across the pond. You cannot check if someone is an EU citizen so if you operate in the EU you effectively need to treat everyone like an EU citizen.
Not really as a design change as drastic as user exchangeable batteries means phone companies would probably rather adopt a unified design (removable batteries) than a region based design
2027 is actually pretty early for such a dramatic change, and somewhere I heard that it’s all phones sold, if that’s the case (i.e. you can’t sell old models if they don’t have easily replaceable batteries) than that is a really early date for such a law.
The problem is easy to solve:
Batteries will have unique encrypted codes (readable by the device), so only original ones from the manufacturer will work. Pretty easy for manufacturers to justify that, based on safety and liability.
Then the replacement batteries will cost more than a new phone.
Doesn’t Apple already do this? All of the parts on an iPhone are serialized so that any unofficial replacement part causes the device to freak out.
Apple is already ahead on the evil train.
Apple is already ahead on the evil train.
They usually are.
One of their top innovations
They did it to kill two birds with one stone - Prevent repairs, and to prevent theft, and it works.
A few years ago you would use Find my iPhone and see your stolen device was halfway across the world in a few days because it was stolen for parts, stripped down, remade and sold as refurbished. Now it’s much less common because it’s so much harder.
If they only wanted to prevent theft, they could have had the same system, but only lock iPhone parts once that iPhone is reported as lost (i.e Find my iPhone was used on it, and it wasn’t later confirmed as being found)
AFAIK even original parts don’t work. I heard even if you get a Apple battery the serial must be teached by a Apple technician. Otherwise you will still get warning messages
Well some sneaky legislative aide in EU already thought about that.
Any natural or legal person that places on the market products incorporating portable batteries or LMT batteries shall ensure that those batteries are available as spare parts of the equipment that they power for a minimum of five years after placing the last unit of the equipment model on the market, with a reasonable and non-discriminatory price for independent professionals and end-users.
Software shall not be used to impede the replacement of a portable battery or LMT battery, or of their key components, with another compatible battery or key components.
apple does this but, it’s outlawed by the same regulation that this is. Batteries must be easily accessible and there must not be software restrictions for them
