It had been in the works for a while, but now it has formally been adopted. From the article:
The regulation provides that by 2027 portable batteries incorporated into appliances should be removable and replaceable by the end-user, leaving sufficient time for operators to adapt the design of their products to this requirement.
This is great. Now the producers of smartphones will have to make their design around this!
But what does this really mean? Can the producers just use standard screws inside the devices, simplify the interior a bit, provide detailed manuals and call it a day? Replacable batteries doesn’t neccessarily mean easily replacable batteries, I think.
Right. Technically, iPhone X batteries could be considered “replaceable”. Practically, when I did it, I had to purchase an $80 kit with tools, then take on substantial risk that I’d break it irreparably(say 20%), and put in a solid 4 hours of effort to do so.
Valuing my time at $20/hour, and the phone at $800, that’s $80 + $160 + $80 = $320.
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Any natural or legal person that places on the market products incorporating portable batteries shall ensure that those batteries are readily removable and replaceable by the end-user at any time during the lifetime of the product. That obligation shall only apply to entire batteries and not to individual cells or other parts included in such batteries.
A portable 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.
Any natural or legal person that places on the market products incorporating portable batteries shall ensure that those products are accompanied with instructions and safety information on the use, removal and replacement of the batteries. Those instructions and that safety information shall be made available permanently online, on a publicly available website, in an easily understandable way for end-users.
That’s a big one. Nice to see it covered. Negates any silly “well you just need to buy our $200 disassemble kit” nonsense you know would have been there otherwise
I can’t see anything that would force them to change the status quo.
https://a.co/d/c6zxBQu
Boom, $20, every tool needed. Hits the commercially available clause. You don’t have to have a heat gun (it certainly helps). If people want to fight it, then you’re going to have a weaker screen because the glue loosens easier with heat because the alternative is a glue that is weaker at regular temps. IP ratings are included now, they’ll be a price point after this if that issue is forced. Should it be? No, removable batteries with IP68 are made right now, but when has a manufacturer ever needed a halfway decent excuse to raise prices?
Edited: spoke before I researched. Don’t be like me.
“Impede the replacement of” and “compatible battery” has a lot of room for interpretation. I hope they’re defined explicitly somewhere, or else we’re going to find implementations that effectively restrict non-OEM batteries while still adhering to the letter of the law.
For example, all batteries lacking a cryptographically-verified “certification” handshake could have safety restrictions such as:
Limited maximum amperage draw, achieved by under-clocking the SoC and sleeping performance cores.
Lower thermal limits while charging the device, meaning fast charging may be limited or preemptively disabled to ensure that the battery does not exceed an upper threshold of you-might-want-to-put-it-in-the-fridge degrees.
Disabling wireless charging capabilities, just in case magnetic induction affects the uncertified battery full of unknown and officially-untested components.
A pop-up warning the user every time the device is plugged into or unplugged from a charger.
All of that would technically meet the condition insofar that it’s neither impeding the physical replacement nor rendering the device inoperable, but it would still effectively make the phone useless unless you pay for a (possibly-overpriced) OEM part.
If they explicitly defined “Impede the replacement of” as “prevent replacement of or significantly alter user experience as a result of replacing,” and “compatible battery” as “electrically-compatible battery” all those cases would be covered.
Might be a bit of cynical take, but I don’t have too much faith in the spirit of the law being adhered to when profits are part of the equation.
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So, this would cover screens as well? (that is what apple does (at least in the u.s.) to their laptop screens.)
I just recently replaced the screen on an iPad idk the gen but they are all about the same in the screen replacement in my experience and the screen on my Pixel 7 Pro. Both were actually shockingly easy and imo didn’t require special tools. Just need a heat gun, eyeglass screwdriver, etc. You can get the kits with all the “special tools” but really you could make it happen with a butter knife.
From what I recall they will allow screws and similar instead of just having a cover. However no security or custom screws requiring you to purchase tools to replace it. Also, no gluing and stuff like that. Fair enough I think
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In the EU that isn’t as much of an issue when it comes to Android because they mandate that the bootloader must be unlockable (compared to the US at least, cough SAMSUNG cough). So as long as the device is somewhat popular, you’ll always have updates through custom firmware like LineageOS.
Doesn’t help Apple, though they’ve been… surprisingly good with last generation updates lately? iOS 16 can be installed on an 8 year old(ish) phone.
How can the EU target only Android for this unlockable bootloader that you mention? Shouldn’t it apply to iOS as well?
It does apply to both, but there are no real OS alternatives for Apple hardware. Unlike android hardware where there are many custom roms available for most devices.
I’m curious how software can last shorter. Could you maybe give me an example ?
The only way i can think of is companies reducing software support.
It’s possible that Apple may do this, but for android - it’d just result in a thriving community for Custom ROMs.
I think that what @[email protected] is saying, is that now that companies will no longer have the option of planned obsolescence via a shitty battery, companies will pivot into sunsetting software technologies faster, so users can keep replacing their devices at the same pace they do today.
For example they are not provoding security upgrades. Now you can unlock your bootloader and install your own Android Rom built by yourself or fron someone else. However with Safetynet, many applications are not working if you jave unlocked your bootloader. So, you can run the latest version but without lockec bootloader, you cannot use for example some banks. They enforce you to have Google Play Services controlling your phone to have access to your money. So they can pretty easily just sop providing updates and then you sre enforced to buy a new one. The last years Samsung and Pixels are getting more than 5years of support however nowadays our devices are powerful enoughto be used for almost decade.
It’s not just support. Companies like Google and Apple can do a lot to pressure third party developers to remove compatibility for older versions.
This includes:
limiting compatibility for new versions of the API. So if you want to be compatible with the latest Android/iOS version, you have to drop compatibility for older versions.
make the newest version of the toolchains incompatible with older versions of the OS.
In Google’s case, they can mandate things like SafetyNet, which directly targets the custom ROM community.
I felt like Google and Verizon really dropped the ball with the galaxy nexus. Then again with the Moto X. Community support was mixed for the moto and better on the nexus. Which eventually led me to drop android in favor of iOS. However, none of it has compared to the level of OS support I’ve received from my Apple products.
What I really wonder is what happens to water resistance capabilities for phones that are not sealed?
Apple could do this but they’d be driving away their customer base, the hardware is fine but software is really the reason to get an iphone.
I agree with all of the other regulations, but this one doesn’t seem like a good thing.
Phones with internal batteries are arguably better for a variety of different reasons. I don’t want any more flimsy phone bodies like the old androids. As long as the phone can be easily serviced, I think that is enough.
Not sure how removable batteries make a phone more flimsy. The back might pop off when you drop it, sure, but isn’t that preferable to having it crack?
The usual argument manufacturers present is that water-proofing a phone involves having its interior be as completely sealed as possible, whereas a removable battery obviously requires that its interior be at least vaguely accessible, so it makes water-proofing substantially more challenging. Additionally, they can’t be as efficient with packing the internals tightly since the battery has to be accessible without completely disassembling the entire phone, so devices have to be a bit thicker.
I won’t pretend to have enough knowledge about device manufacturing to known just how sound those arguments are, but that’s what they say.
What about water proofing? To make it popoff I guess they have to make it thicker. No expert here though.
Samsung xcover phones have removable batteries while retaining IP68 rating.
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Waterproofing is what came to my mind.
I mean rubber seals and o-rings exist. If I remember correctly the law doesn’t demand easily swappable batteries, but rather them to be replaceable at all. So just use screws to hold the backplate in place, it could even look somewhat cool like on a Royal Oak Watch.
Samsung used to make the “Active” lne of Galaxy phones which were waterproof shock resistent and had removable backs and batteries and a way for the phone to detect if the back was properly sealed.
Most phones today are less waterproof than when they had replaceable batteries. There’s no connection between the two, it’s a red herring.
I had an LG with removable battery and a metal back. The manufacturers that said they couldn’t make a removable back out of anything but shitty plastic were blowing smoke up your ass.
I’m sure we’ll see plenty of skirting the laws around these batteries. “well actually, out barriers are removable and easily accessible if you do XYZ”
Any time there’s regulations there’s always a raft of companies saying how it’s going to put them out of business, yet they’ll all stick around and continue to make sales, almost like they need to adapt to changing environments.