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 All that and … when it was time to change it, never found a replacement and the phone was just outdated anyway.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.
I wonder how apple will react to this
By designing a model of iphone with replaceable battery, of course.
Probably voiding warranty for any phone that has its battery replaced by the user instead of having it done at an apple store/apple vertified store. Or some good old planned obsolescence where the phone detects a replacement battery and just stops working as fast as it used to. Anything to get people to buy the next new iphone every year.
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.
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.
Why not? Many companies already have US exclusive SKUs. Some companies like Samsung even have a history of shipping completely different SOCs.
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.
Yurop did it again.
Good, no reason why my Pixel 6 shouldn’t last until I accidentally drop it instead of the slow death of worsening battery.
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.
Does this mean they’ll mandate SD card slots and headphone ports too?
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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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.
I am curious how Apple will get around that this time. I’m almost sure this will be as funny as the whole story about the USB-C cables
Simply remove the battery and sell iPhones with magsafe battery pack cases instead?
Hopefully all Apple employees are still on Reddit.
or just like the vision pro - a wired external power pack with a proprietary connector to the iPhone, but USB C on the power pack :D
Lmao that’d be hilarious!
Super capacitor instead of battery. lol
Only EU though
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