>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 26 minutes 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.
Ajedi32 7 minutes ago [-]
In that context it seems like "specialized" means "not commercially available", no?
ineedasername 1 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 4 minutes ago [-]
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)
jahnu 29 minutes 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 28 minutes ago [-]
Isn't that already the case though?
Aachen 16 minutes ago [-]
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% to 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 sent in a phone to Google for some repair, 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
jahnu 25 minutes ago [-]
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 18 minutes ago [-]
I don't see what change they can make, at least to an iPhone. The glue is necessary for water resistance.
bluGill 5 minutes 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 an oven the does the cure procedures.
Aachen 9 minutes ago [-]
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
phoronixrly 11 minutes ago [-]
Necessary? Gaskets and o-rings haven't been invented yet?
philipallstar 1 minutes ago [-]
They have, and people preferred smaller phones.
walrus01 20 minutes 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...
napolux 30 minutes ago [-]
better than glued.
mminer237 14 minutes ago [-]
Heat guns and pryers are commercially available. I don't think this will change anything there.
kotaKat 10 minutes ago [-]
And Pentalobe screwdrivers are also commercially available now, so Apple doesn't even have to include one...
raw_anon_1111 23 minutes ago [-]
And lose water resistance…
mentalgear 7 minutes 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
twilo 43 minutes 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.
Bad_CRC 1 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.
tim333 20 minutes 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 2 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.
mschuster91 41 minutes 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 25 minutes 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.
frizlab 19 minutes 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…
raverbashing 38 minutes 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
azalemeth 18 minutes ago [-]
This is excellent news. Now make them have user-unlockable and user-relockable bootloaders...
bhouston 5 minutes 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.
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.
PaulKeeble 53 minutes 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.
wasmitnetzen 27 minutes 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 44 minutes 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 30 minutes 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 15 minutes ago [-]
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 1 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.
m-schuetz 1 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.
hgoel 34 minutes 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 34 minutes 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 24 minutes ago [-]
Batteries are early cell phones needed to be replaced multiple times a day. I remember talk time of like 10 minutes on my motorola StarTec.
stavros 26 minutes 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".
ButlerianJihad 3 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
larusso 6 minutes 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.
concinds 31 minutes 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.
yyy3 12 minutes 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.
ape4 3 minutes ago [-]
As a non-European I want to say: thanks EU
schubidubiduba 12 minutes 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 1 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 submersible for 30 minutes). 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.
infecto 16 minutes 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.
1970-01-01 30 minutes 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 19 minutes ago [-]
> is good enough for 99.999% of the public use-case
You know this how, exactly?
oever 17 minutes ago [-]
Awesome!
And next, hopefully, replaceable software.
Which will do much more for phone longevity.
pnathan 21 minutes 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.
gib444 12 minutes ago [-]
Have they researched durability with replaceable batteries and can promise us phones won't break more often?
daoboy 40 minutes 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 32 minutes 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.
Aachen 33 minutes 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 21 minutes ago [-]
If the headphone port flap was perfectly sealed….
BenjiWiebe 17 minutes ago [-]
*charge port flap
Aachen 6 minutes 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 22 minutes 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 24 minutes ago [-]
Haven't modern smartphones had non-replaceable batteries long before they had any kind of water resistance ratings?
gib444 11 minutes ago [-]
Anything except full support of the EU during European hours gets downvoted
hparadiz 31 minutes ago [-]
Now do screens.
oever 15 minutes ago [-]
and software.
nslsm 42 minutes 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 27 minutes 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 23 minutes 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 40 minutes ago [-]
Behold: the widget of the future.
A spring.
gcanyon 18 minutes 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 8 minutes 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.
Someone1234 11 minutes 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 2 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.
w4yai 12 minutes ago [-]
I don't have the same experience at all. For me, battery life is the #1 reason of obsolescence of my smartphones.
16 minutes ago [-]
Rendered at 14:39:26 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
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.
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% to 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 sent in a phone to Google for some repair, 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
If it is a special glue that needs to be heated (or something), I should be able to make an oven the does the cure procedures.
> If a battery can do 1000 cycles and remain above 80% capacity it is exempt
Low cost phones will be most affected.
This same thing happened to Pixels 6a after 500 cycles.
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.
Not really. Take a 4000 mAh rated cell, advertise it as "rated for 3500 mAh" and that's it.
I’m pretty sure that’s more or less already the case, so…
So it does not seem a big deal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dyL6hMZvWQ
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.
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
This is also reflected in the increasing support durations from major manufacturers.
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.
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".
[edit] didn’t see the fine print with the cycles requirement etc. so it seems Apple etc is still safe.
I'm confused why that still isn't the case today given all the EU headlines we've seen over the years.
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.
And next, hopefully, replaceable software.
Which will do much more for phone longevity.
A proper gasket and screws needs to be the standard solution here.
*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.
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)
A spring.
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.
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.
> 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.