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.

As an example, in Jan 2026, Apple published iOS 12.5.8 which provides updates for iPhone 5s which released in Sept 2013. That's 12.5 years ago. The equivalent would be to connect to the internet using ADSL in Jan 2000 with your IBM PS/2 rocking in intel 8086, 512 kb of RAM and expecting an update for your DOS operating system.

They already are. 5 years of updates is now the legal minimum in the EU. https://www.osnews.com/story/142500/new-eu-rules-mandate-fiv...

I'll admit it's a little annoying that I have to pay a hundred bucks to get the battery replaced, but the phone is otherwise fine and still gets updates, so I don't know that I buy that it's "planned obsolescence".

Not really. Take a 4000 mAh rated cell, advertise it as "rated for 3500 mAh" and that's it.

So it does not seem a big deal

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.

This same thing happened to Pixels 6a after 500 cycles.

So manufactures might just responds to this by making your phone heavier with a bigger battery that is being under utilized.

I’d rather get the additional structural rigidity, compactness, and weatherproofing that comes from the tight construction and then pay $99 to have Apple professionally install a new battery for me in 3-4 years. Forcing everyone’s iPhone to take all of the tradeoffs of replaceable batteries so some people can save $50 to replace their own battery isn’t a good deal.

I wouldn’t be surprised if forcing all phones to have easily replaceable batteries would result in a net increase in e-waste due to the additional failure modes introduced. Even if batteries were easily replaceable I think most iPhone users would have Apple do it for them anyway.

I’ve also replaced some iPhone batteries myself and it’s really not that bad if you are familiar with taking modern electronics apart. Apple will send you the entire toolkit if you want complete with a return label.

You seem to referencing from a older exemption for self serviceability if your smartphone can do 1,000 cycles and retain 80% battery. Specifically - B 1.1 (1) (c) (ii) (b) . Here is the link - https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

Article 11 of the new regulation (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...) covers exemptions but nothing to do with 1,000 cycles or Apple as far as i can see.

A spring.

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)

In EU law, the intent matters, not the letter of the law. No silly loophole lawyering.

To quote:

>When interpreting EU law, the CJEU pays particular attention to the aim and purpose of EU law (teleological interpretation), rather than focusing exclusively on the wording of the provisions (linguistic interpretation). This is explained by numerous factors, in particular the open-ended and policy-oriented rules of the EU Treaties, as well as by EU legal multilingualism. Under the latter principle, all EU law is equally authentic in all language versions. Hence, the Court cannot rely on the wording of a single version, as a national court can, in order to give an interpretation of the legal provision under consideration. Therefore, in order to decode the meaning of a legal rule, the Court analyses it especially in the light of its purpose (teleological interpretation) as well as its context (systemic interpretation).

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2017/5993...

If the shop could replace the battery with nothing more niche than a torx bit in 5 minutes we wouldn't be talking about this.

   > is good enough for 99.999% of the public use-case

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.

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.

A better example is the EU cookie consent law. The intent was to make websites stop using cookies, but what resulted was websites didn't change anything except put up annoying consent banners, and made the internet experience worse.

What a disappointment.

I guess there is some built in spare capacity, but that may still qualify for the exemption?

Is there a definition for a cycle? 80->85%? 33->72? 22-83? 87->96? Would each of these be a "cycle"?

Had i gone a little slower, it would have been a very easy repair.

But Apple batteries are already user replaceable? I've replaced my own and batteries come with kits that have all the tools and disposable glue strips and seals.

I mean isn’t that an okay exemption? If the intent is to drive devices to be less disposable and more sustainable… if it incentivizes all mobile phone manufacturers to improve battery longevity, I’d say that’s a win.

I wouldn’t even call it a loophole. The entire purpose of the legislation could be that clause

like this law isn't about users causally replacing batteries like on very old phones

but about an repair shop easily and without risk of breaking your phone being able to replace it without only holding on your phone for idk. 10 minutes

So that you can just drop by (once they have the replacement parts) wait a moment and have a new battery.

This means in the worst case something like needing to a add a bit of additional seal/wax/glue or similar to improve sealing is very much fully viable (Id the sealing agent is generally buy able.)

It just is something you have to design in from the get to go. And it's easier to not do so at all. And maybe if you obsess if your phone is 1/10mm smaller or not that gets in your way too. And not doing so is more profitable as people will buy successor products more likely, even if just very slightly more likely.

But in general? That really isn't the problem.

Also even if it where the problem. What is better? Having a less waterproof phone, but not needing to buy a new one for another one or two years or having to buy one now?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgTon2jqI-A

Some were a bit of a pain in the ass to replace though.

Edit: not the one I saw before, but found a similar document via https://energy-efficient-products.ec.europa.eu -> policy making -> "EIA reports and related analyses" -> 2025 overview report https://circabc.europa.eu/ui/group/418195ae-4919-45fa-a959-3... -> see e.g. the graphic at the top of page 79

The shaded area is the effect that they think is attributable to regulations, e.g. -2.2TWh electricity per year in the category of phones and tablets when comparing 2010 and 2030

As another example, for "Servers and data storage products" they expect almost no change due to regulation: the consumption is expected to go from 48 to 67 TWh (2010 till 2030) and that it would have been 70 TWh without regulations. If I'm reading it right, this small improvement would be due to the 2019 "information requirement ... including the maximum allowed operating temperature for the equipment ... to stimulate data centres to choose equipment that supports higher operating temperatures, to enable further reduction of the cooling load."

Page 42 shows that they also take into account 'additional acquisition costs' (how much more expensive devices are because of this, I think that means?), but that this added expense is well below the energy costs that would have been incurred otherwise. Of course, that's what I'd say too about my regulations :) but I don't know of another information source for this so this is the best info I have atm

I'd be happier if this was something the market took care of, but after 10 years of glued-in batteries that you most likely can't even buy, I think it's time for a regulatory nudge.

Those don't really exist anymore.

> Do we need to regulate something that isn't a problem?

It is a problem and needs to be regulated.

> All regulation has downsides, is it worth paying this price here?

Of course the upsides of regulations are worth it. The downsides might cause slight inconvenience to the manufacturer, so that doesn't really matter.

Agreed, and software-locking parts, like batteries, to only first-party or authorized third-party repair shops is one of those drivers.

I can see the argument for software locking some components (to cut down on theft) even if I don't appreciate or agree with them - it is at least a valid reason from some perspectives.

Batteries are a wear item though, and will have to be replaced periodically until the device is discarded. Software-locking them to only "Apple and people Apple likes" is unconscionable

https://rugone.net/products/xever-7

Ideally, there should be some set of standard protocols/connectors/voltages/sizes, but the manufacturer should only be held to "downward-compliance" with at least one of them, so they can have flexibility in design but still leave a suboptimal standard option available to users as a fallback.

Meaning, when you forcefully standardize and regulate how phones are built, you might expect that companies will not compete on making better phones (since they are not very much differentiated) but on who produces the cheapest phone.

Should I be able to eventually replace gas tank with the larger one in my ICE vehicle?

I don't know why is this even an argument really, like.....in a petrol car, do you expect to be able to fit it with a bigger fuel tank after 10 years? or a more powerful engine? Until very recently even software updates to the infotainment weren't really a thing, if you wanted a newer interface you had to change the entire car(I'm not saying this was a good thing, just that generally the expectation is that the product will work the way it was when you bought it).

Focusing on being able to upgrade battery (and to be clear - upgrade, not replaced/repair) is solving 1% problem.

I agree in spirit though: storage chips wearing out seems to be common from my limited experience and it would be good if you could solder on, or slide in, a new chip with some standard procedure

It's replaceable without special tools, heating, solvents. It can easily feature a screw or a million other solutions.

Even today, phone batteries get replaced until the phone is no longer able to run today’s software.

A good middle ground would have been to enforce an easy to replace specification..but then we are up to interpretation.

Most phones today only look thin on promotional material. With the massive camera bump that is sometimes thicker than the phone itself, and the way most people use cases, in the end, you have quite a brick. Also a glass back panel, which to me is one of the worst materials for that purpose, but it looks good on the store stand.

So to me, a removable battery will not affect the phone dimensions as much as it will affect the look, which may piss off the marketing guys, and I take it as a positive!

Seriously, bring back the removable plastic back covers, plastic may look cheap, but to me, it is the best material, and if you put on a case, as most people do, you won't even see it!

Having thought about this long term, I think the only solution to this would be mandating standardized battery cells. Rather than every phone model having a bespoke cell that is manufactured once and then obsoleted, they need to have standardized shape and electrical characteristics so that batteries being produced for new phones would also be useful to rehabilitate old phones.

No, they won't do the hard part. Just the minimum plus a ton of PR and back patting then move on.

- rules on disassembly and repair, including obligations for producers to make critical spare parts available within 5-10 working days, and for 7 years after the end of sales of the product model on the EU market

- availability of operating system upgrades for longer periods (at least 5 years from the date of the end of placement on the market of the last unit of a product model)

This regulation is targeted to devices with poor battery lives. Just because it hasn’t occurred to people to ask for the feature doesn’t mean they won’t appreciate it.

That remains to be seen. This could accelerate cultural change around desiring shiny new toy being seen as cool

It’s a pretty commonly used canonical example of revealed preferences.

I don’t understand. If we want to see the data we do need to make batteries replaceable.

If you stood on the street corner and asked every passerby if they want their phone to have a replaceable battery, I don't think you would be there very long before receiving a "yes". I think that's a more honest framing of the question.

> I suppose someone will say that this law is necessary for environmental reasons, regardless of people's preferences. But that's nonsense, because the law doesn't actually require people to replace batteries rather than replacing their phone

How could they replace their batteries if they wanted to, unless the manufacturer makes it possible? The goal is not to force individuals to not replace their phones, but rather to provide that as an option at all, for those who want it.

> At the very least we'd need to see some data that shows that most people replace batteries when it is possible to do so.

At the very least, we'd need only data showing that that number is non-zero. From where did you get the idea that we need to prove "most" people would choose to take advantage of this option?

Although some of this depends on how you define replaceable.

Not true. In recent years smartphones do not advance much, and would be perfectly fine to keep working if not for the dying battery.

> At the very least we'd need to see some data that shows that most people replace batteries when it is possible to do so.

The degree of "possible" varies greatly depending on the available expertise and spare parts. Right now in EU it's cost prohibitive for both coz the special labor required is expensive and almost no official spare parts for consumers. So of coz this will be no data to support your claim.

Are you sure about this? I've heard this complaint from a lot of non-tech people who are old enough to remember flip phones with replaceable batteries. It might be age related.

I don't love everything the EU does (cookie banners!?) but this is one where I have confidence that the consumer will ultimately benefit.

As others have noted, most people do not replace their phones every two years anymore, there just isn't any big reason to.

The article (granted, probably not the best source of information) has some numbers like "number of phones sold", but doesn't actually tackle the crux of the issue: how many of those phone sales would be prevented by having user swappable batteries?

Before that, you wrote "One of the most frustrating things about HN is that people seem so unaware of how idiosyncratic their preferences are" and it's exactly what I could say here. Not everyone has lots of money and for some people extending the life of their phones is important. They really do wish they could replace the battery without hassle and without paying a shop to do it.

We have so much experience with scientific method, yet these massive decisions are adhoc, that's how the whole world works. We never tested what would happen by allowing mass production of plastic, or phones, or whatever, so these antipatches are going by the "feels" as well, with no individual taking responsibility for failures.

... the answer would depend on which street corner you asked.

> people seem so unaware of how idiosyncratic their preferences are

Yes, they are. They also tend to state that "most people" agree with them. This is called subjectivity.

Why? There have been few new features in recent years and new phones have restrictions not wanted by many. Google is closing the Android ecosystem and making it more proprietary so I'll keep my phone as long as I'm able.

The non-replaceable battery has to be one of the biggest scams ever perpetrated on consumers. It's great that it's about to be broken.

In fact, the only place I would ever expect somebody to claim otherwise is here.

This is going to be harder, or, at least, harder to replace your current phone with something objectively better. RAM and Flash shortages / high prices are likely going to last for years, wars are additionally jeopardizing production of electronic components, and the current crop of mobile devices is already insanely powerful. It's going to be pretty hard to sell most people an upgrade that feels meaningful when it's going to be like 30% more expensive.

Running AI locally could be a big selling point for an upgrade, but see the problems with RAM and general production capacity overload. I's not going to be a mass-market thing.

I have experience saying the exact opposite, although this was a few years ago.

OnePlus set up a marketing booth on my campus in 2018 or 2019 or so, and they did exactly this, with a large sign asking people what they want out of a phone. They asked passerbys what they want out of a phone, and they let people put their requests on a board.

When I put my request up, I wasn't the first one to request replaceable batteries and a headphone jack. (At the time, OnePlus had removed the jack from their most recent phone, after advertising their previous phone in comparison to Apple's jackless phone).

Very ironic, you almost got it, post.

Welcome to democracy and lawmaking in 2026. We know better than you!

(and yes, I know that power banks exist)

Yeah, for someone that changes phone every 3 years or earlier, that's not a desired feature.

But many people did that change precisely because battery got weak, and there have been less and less reasons to keep on the most modern model for a while now.

For the people I know that do upgrade their phones regularly, they typically want to give their old phone to someone who would love a usable phone, but can't afford a new one. Giving a phone with a shot and non-replaceable battery effectively destroys the value of the gift.

I know many people who can't afford to by new, and they avoid buying older or used phones because they fear the battery may be shot.

We obviously have different opinions regarding what most people want... totally fine.

But what if you asked the right question, "what is the biggest problem with your phone?"

Most would answer, "the battery dies too soon. It doesn't last all day like it used to."

But I don’t think this is the case with phone batteries. I’ve had many conversations with friends and family that came down to replace the battery or upgrade the phone.

I feel the same way about soldered on CPUs, RAM and SSDs in laptops and other computers. The benefits of doing this are marginal at best. We all know the real reason is forced obsolescence.

We all know this is why battery replacement is hard too.

However, these preferences don't really matter anyway because nobody is forced to replace the battery and not buy a new phone when their phone has replaceable batteries.

The phone now has a limited lifespan though because of this prior stupidity where eventually am gonna get into spicy pillow territory. At that point the phone prematurely dies.

We are going into a period where we are throwing away devices with 12mp+ cameras, and processors arguably faster than most desktops. It was arguable when the phones were old and legacy, but at this point the cameras on there are stupidly good.

We need these phones to be repurposed for a second life and actually capture their manufacture energy costs.

Frankly, if Apple allowed old iphones to be used for server usage, it is kind of crazy how efficient per dollar that would be.

Instead this law is designed to provide the public with a good everyone can benefit from - less waste of valuable electronic components polluting our environment.

And even if those same consumers would choose a thinner phone over a replaceable battery, they will probably also enjoy being able to fully charge it more often for less money.

'If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses'....Henry Ford

Nobody cares about repairability....until they are hit hard by it.

Anecdote: Around 5y ago, the lightning connector of my wife's iPhone died after 3y usage.

We brought it to an Apple Store and the official answer was "Sorry, we don't fix that on this model. Here is a 200€ discount on a new one"... The phone was still worth >900€ at the time.

Let's be clear: This kind of commercial practice are unacceptable both ecologically and ethically speaking. It is terrible customer service.

A lot of high end phones (outside Apple) at the time would have their USB-C port fixed in matter of few hours for <100€ in any random "I Fix it" store.

The battery is the exact same shit.

Possibly true, and equally true of the screen, the charging port, or any other component.

"Repairability" isn't a feature people list unprompted, it's a property they notice the moment a £5 part bricks their phone.

The street-corner survey tells you what people currently notice, not what they'd value if the option existed.

> by the time batteries wear out, most people are going to want a new phone

In a market where batteries are glued in and replacement costs a meaningful fraction of a new device, of course people upgrade on that timeline. Change the cost structure and the behaviour changes with it.

Fair point that we'd want data, but the original claim rests on the same intuition, just pointed the opposite way.

The broader framing (that repairability is an idiosyncratic preference being imposed on a majority who don't want it) gets this backwards. Most people don't want to care about repairability, in the same way most people don't want to care about food safety standards. They want the option to exist without having to think about it. That's what the law provides.

Its not enough by itself that the phone has amassed scratches and is 20% slower or has a 30% worse camera optic than the current generation, or that updates will only continue for a year or two more.

But the slowdown (associated with battery degradation btw) and fact that it doesn’t get me through a whole day definitely move the needle into me buying a new phone.

Extreme consumer brain coupled with privilege. Billions of people can’t afford a new phone every couple years, they buy things and use them until they are past the point of repair, only buying a replacement when they have no other choice.

Can you honestly even say this year’s new flagships, or any from the last decade, represent meaningful improvement for most people outside the tech bubble and influencer sphere? Smartphones have been “good enough” for a long time.

I doubt most people wouldn't even think that this is a thing they can wish for or that this is even within realm of possibility.

It has to be explicitly named as an option - as, I'm afraid, people have forgotten that you can have "nice things".

Also I feel rather uncomfortable every time somebody purports to be representitive of or know that "most people" want.

At the same time, 5.78 billion people have a smartphone worldwide. It is obviously wildly unsustainable to live in a world where 5.78 billion people have to throw away their old phone and buy a new one every 2-3 years. However, phone manufacturers have figured out that if they force people to, they can amass ridiculous levels of wealth because the demand for new phones would be constantly high. So obviously the incentives here are completely wrong. This has happened before with lightbulbs in the 20th century and is a legitimate form of market failure that needs to be resolved, as it wastes a lot of consumer spending to replace what consumers already had (like the parable of the broken window).

For many years since phone manufacturers started gluing phones together with a consumable part inside, consumers have been denied the ability to replace their battery. Where the option does exist, it's often very inconvenient, difficult, or with a price inflated to be nearly as expensive as buying a new one.

Phones stopped advancing significantly many years ago. Phone manufacturers now re-release practically the same phone with slight CPU and camera improvements, something completely unheard of until relatively recently. Lately the main marketing trend for new phones has been AI, but this is a nonsense trend because most of modern AI runs in the cloud, and very few are actually utilizing any local AI features, so the only "AI" thing about the phone is just a preinstalled ChatGPT-like app you can get on any other phone. So clearly they have run out of things to improve, and things to market around. In a normally functioning market, this would mean phones have become a solved technology and we can stop replacing our phones as often, maybe once every 10 years if you're careful with your phone. But this is not what we see precisely because phone manufacturers have been manufacturing problems that are most easily solved by buying a new phone, which they will push people to do whatever way they can for profit. The phone industry has failed to regulate itself, and so this is why we are seeing a push for this type of regulation.

And no, I don't want a new phone just because the battery wears out, it did not lost the ability to do phone calls and SMS in the process.

We are on the year of Android 17, my oldest device still runs Android 12 perfectly well, with the apps I care about.

I challenge you to give me an example of how this law might result in a phone that is worse for most people.

This law does not require a slide-off phone cover. It does not require a screwed-on backplate. It does not forbid the use of chemical adhesives. It does not stipulate how a phone should or shouldn't be designed.

It basically just requires the manufacturer to offer replacement batteries and to enable the replacement to be done with commercially available tools. I'd wager the overwhelming majority of phones are already compliant, pending availability of a replacement battery from the manufacturer.

I'm quite confident I could replace the battery on my Sony Xperia 1 iii with a heat gun and my basic iFixit toolkit.

E.g. most peoples don't really think or ask that their tap water be free of cholera and other harmful substances, and yet we might want to make sure that continues to be the case. So it's not strong argument worth arguing about.

The real argument is - how much a compromise a replaceable vs non-replacable battery is. And I suspect the biggest part of non-replaceable batteries is actually superficial vanity considerations (gee, is it 7mm or 6.5mm), and planed obsolescence making more money. But the technical aspects are still a valid debate.

> this law will make phones _worse_ for most people

Sometimes we have to acknowledge the externalities of our lifestyle and take things down a notch.

Even if most throw out their old phones, now at least it'll be trivial to shuck these devices to get the battery for recycling, while sending the device for refurb or further recycling.

A key component to effective recycling is separation, and this is one step in that direction

I guess I run my iPhone on low battery mode a lot, due to idiosyncratic reasons too. Maybe I do.

Apple battery replacement costs anywhere from $70 (for a ~$400 phone) to $120 (for a ~$1000+ phone). In many global markets you can get a brand new phone for that much.

I think that law doesn't even go far enough, they should standardize a battery format. When like me you are used to open smartphones and replace batteries you realize how very similar they are all in footprint and could be compatible with each other with very minimal effort. If there were only a couple of standardized formats you could find new batteries in every small shop/airports whatever and easily have spares. Chance is that other electronic devices or toys would also adopt them.

Okay, you're claiming two things: (i) replaceable batteries will compromise some other features, and (ii) most people want those features more than they want a replaceable battery.

Can you name 3 of those features? I personally can't.

<proceeds to state opinions contrary to what the overwhelming majority of elected representatives of the people of Europe just expressed>

Were you trying to prove your own point?

What sort of compromise do you envision? I mean, toasters still have a crumb tray on the bottom that open so you can clean them even though no one does. Am I "missing out" on sleek, streamlined toaster designs because manufacturers feel they have to put a door in the bottom?

Then I sold it, because I ran out of 64GB space. If I could add an sd card, I would probably use this phone longer, instead of contributing to consumerism and creating more e-waste.

I wish that people would think about sustainability and using their devices for longer rather than chasing “new and shiny” every year Apple releases the “best iPhone we ever made”

Invert the situation. If every iPhone in history had a replaceable battery, until 2027 when the newest iPhone did not have a replaceable battery, I think we can all agree that the uproar would be significant.

Just as much, there's a certain HN complaint form that basically goes "any complaint about the crap that sold now is just programmer/civil-rights-fan/etc idiosyncrasy, real people want exactly this crap 'cause markets never lie".

1. lifestyle

2. software updates

3. battery capacity

While it is hard to change the first, the other two can be influenced by laws. And while the second is rather complex, the third is quite simple. Since the manufacturers have few incentives to produce phones with replaceable batteries, there are very few options on the market to choose from. Most have other major limitations, like slow CPU/GPU, crappy cameras, or else.

So eliminating one factor of unnecessary waste is absolutely a good idea. I just hope it doesn't backfire in some weird way. And I don't say that replaceable batteries don't come at a cost, they do. But that cost is much lower than many assume and not that easy to measure, because currently, you can compare only apples with oranges.

Why? My phone works almost perfectly still three and a half years after I bought it. Except the battery lasts shorter.

If I go to battery health in settings it says:

> Important Battery Message

> Your battery's health is significantly degraded. An Apple Authorised Service Provider can replace the battery to restore full performance and capacity.

> Find Your Service Options

Aside from my current phone, I also have a very old iPod Touch. That old iPod Touch would have been usable still as well, if it wasn’t for the fact that it takes somewhere around 10 minutes of active use until it goes from full charge to zero charge. In other words, unusable for bringing with me anywhere plainly because of the battery.

Replaceable battery would have been great. Both for my iPhone and my iPod Touch. Even if it meant they would have been a bit thicker than they currently are.

Most people want new phones because of shit software updates and marketing not because out of necessity.

Not really. The battery just needs to have a connector rather than soldered, and no other things blocking the battery once the back-case is opened. Realistically, a service shop will do the replacement like how watch-batteries are typically replaced.

Yes, and if you asked every passerby what feature they would like to add to the streets, I think you would be there all day before someone said "I wish there were more accessibility ramps".

Luckily for us, we're not governed by "passerby" people.

Not my experience at all. The (few) non-tech people I've talked to about phones soon getting batteries again like it. People believe the idea that non-removable batteries are a conspiracy by the phone companies to sell you more phones the same way cartels manipulated the lightbulb market (Phoebus cartel).

People don't change batteries in their phones now because they'd need a heat gun and a soldering iron and they'd have even chances of starting a fire, breaking the phone, or succeeding in changing the battery without prior experience using those tools. A shop could do it reliably, but the shop will charge 100€ because it's time-consuming and error-prone. A 3-5 year old phone is often not worth 100€.

When a battery change costs 25€ and takes 5 minutes, people will do it all the time even if they don't know that today.

I feel like I will be using this phone until it crumbles to dust. Apple shows no interest in making decently sized phones. I would support the EU enacting legislation to enforce at least one phone in each lineup to be no bigger than 60 mm x 125 mm. (iPhone Mini is ok, but it's still bigger than what I prefer.)

Smaller and lighter phones are an accessibility concern. Miniaturization has been the goal for computers since they were invented. It is incomprehensible that designers and manufacturers are reversing course. My options right now are basically do nothing or replace my phone with a watch.

Hopefully this will help bring the headphone jack back.

Least self-aware HN user out there.

Do you really think the European commission got lobbied hard by HN folks?

This law will make phones better for most people, who would rather keep their phone for a decade rather than having to every three years buy a new phone optimized for some vanity metric that looks good on Engadget reviews.

What's next, having TV remote controls with non-removable rechargeable batteries, for the "convenience"?! Gimme a break. I love tech progress, but leave your hands off my removable batteries! And my 3.5mm audio jack, now that I think about it! :-)

Some products on the market are there to address some inherent need or desire people have; some are for more manufactured needs/desires.

To me the intent of this law looks to put a floor on the environmental cost of providing for the manufactured variants.

Som even if most people change phone before the battery gets really bad (I doubt that this is really the case), the end result will still be that fewer new phones will be purchased.

Now we just need a law that requires hardware makers unlock their devices when they stop providing updates.

You make it sound like a large number. I’m keeping iPhones for 4 years now and upgrading because of cameras. Are pixels really that bad?

like unified charging cable, free EU roaming or intercountry bank payments that are instant and almost free, air travel protections?

This doesn't restrict the design space that much at all.

"Cheap" isn't enough, especially if it's cheap through externalizing cost.

There is a shocking amount of apathy on the part of people who think this doesn't affect them because they personally have no desire to use their car out of warranty or to take a car to an independent mechanic. It affects them because it affects resale price, which affects depreciation which hits their pocketbooks directly. Even if they lease the car.

There is a reason that EVs are getting hammered and even ICE vehicles are seeing steeper depreciation curves, and that's because they are becoming more disposable and harder to repair. People are talking about "useful life" of a car as if this was a disposable consumer device, and not a durable good that can be repaired and maintained for decades as long as the ability to replace components is out there. Toyota famously said "Our mission is to build cars that last for 30 years in the third world" and what do you know Toyotas don't depreciate nearly as much as other cars and people still pay 5 figures for 20 year old landrovers.

We also used to build toasters and refrigerators that easily last 50, 60 years or even 100 years if properly maintained. There is no reason cars can't do the same, and for some cars this is possible, but not for modern cars and certainly not for modern EVs. This can change.

I, for one, don't welcome that change. I'd be ok with paying someone a bit extra to replace the battery. I mean, I'd be ok if I had a battery die in my phone in the last 10 years, which I don't remember it did.

Apple winces.

If it's such a superior product that people want despite the tradeoffs, why don't they just fund a company to create such a phone? Why doesn't anyone?

I'm quite certain you can find many companies in the far East who will produce cells of exactly the size and shape you want, as long as you're willing to order a minimum quantity. There are also a few semi-standard sizes of prismatic cells available.

That said, having a few truly standard sizes like we had with 1.2/1.5V and 9V batteries would be a good idea. BL-5C and its variants were a de-facto standard for many years too, and apparently are still available new.

There’s a bunch of things that don’t need their own battery if they just drew enough power off USBC. I have an office coffee setup. My grinder and espresso maker have their own batteries. But there’s no reason I couldn’t have a single battery pack and just plug both into USBC saving me a ton of weight. (In fact the Lagom Mini 2 grinder is powered straight off USBC with no internal power.)

For phones and cameras, that need their own power source, a replaceable battery is mostly just an end of life thing for me. Because I’d still have to carry a cable or spare battery around.

This last point is actually a real killer, an easily swappable battery in a phone probably sacrifices >10% "maximum" capacity in lost space. e.g a phone with a glued battery can have 5000mAh but the same phone with a more durable battery connector can only be 4500mAh.

I question whether battery packs would be a good thing to bring back now. USB power banks have 100% interchangeability among many device classes, which is something that not even dry cell batteries achieved. I can choose to leave the house with or without a power bank and just rent one in my city (YMMV). Modern charging wattages are high enough that I don't miss shutting down my Nexus, changing the pack, then rebooting.

It's tempting to say that this could be solved if battery sizes were standardized, but that would inevitably limit device dimensions. For example, I especially loathe how the 18650 has made almost all modern flashlights clunky. I would hate it if Apple pushes for a 4.5mm thick battery standard to kill all foldables because they don't want to enter the market and cannibalize their iPad demand.

As to why we want to make phones as thin as possible... I don't know, but I guess it makes them look futuristic, which helps with sales. The same goes for highly-reflective, glossy screens. I guess I'm not gonna cry if that gets regulated away.

A camera doesn't care if you take the battery out, except for that sub-second bit when it's saving the photo. Otherwise it doesn't notice you swapping the battery at all.

Modern phones are different because they are basically computers, and computers really don't like it when you just cut the power with no warning.

it's so routine that they get abused that every llm I asked blamed leaving laptops plugged in for a spicy pillow.

> Replacement batteries for any model will have to remain available to users for at least five years after the last unit of the product is placed on the market, the regulation also states.

Nowadays, good luck to find someone arguing that lightning iphones are better than usb-c.

I guess it would cost them dearly to recognize that they owe that to the eu regulation.

In the us they say vote with your wallet, obviously it didn't work..

“let’s just pass a law that says ‘no trade offs’, problem solved”

Not me, and not most people.

Even if you stripped a 5G phone down to a Series 40-esque interface the 5G radios alone would use more power than a whole 3310.

In order to get the power density modern phones need they require high power Li-poly batteries. An extra 3mm worth of ABS shell is a lot of lost capacity. You can't sell user serviceable Li-poly batteries without a protective shell. You'd never get a UL rating because Li-polys are dangerous if mishandled.

It is LineageOS HEAD compatible and has replaceable batteries.

But it has some quirks. Medium performance if even that, non working fingerprint sensor. Camera quality from 2005.

I don't have gapps installed so I'm using my phone without any type of payment/2fa/banking apps. That decision from opsec makes it easily reflashable, so my anti malware strategy is essentially just reflashing the phone every couple weeks :D

My battery usually lasts a week because of using only f-droids chat, navigation, and translation apps for the most part, aside from the browser. I use Firefox with uBlock Origin, saves an insane amount of battery lifetime.

To me, repairability is the feature I value the most in a phone, so I'm kinda willing to compromise on the other features.

Fun fact: Did you know that WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal all restart themselves when you connect to your headphones? If you froze them before, they'll just drain your battery again when you have any bluetooth changes. You can easily verify that by staying in airplane mode and freezing them, then connecting your headphones in airplane mode.

You also can't simply assume that an existing solution on the market is not the best already.

I mean, who told us that smartphones with user-replaceable batteries are better than smartphones that are 0.5 mm thinner because their batteries are non-replaceable? The same people who want to ban encryption?

> Regulatory interventions in the market can then serve as an effective lever to help the market break free from that situation.

No, they can't. Regulatory processes are shaped by the same incentives as market ones. It's just that the tools for achieving goals are different. And because of this, it is always moving in the opposite direction from "help the market".

> I’m supposed to just shut up and accept that there isn’t enough demand for my quirky, special requests?

Generally speaking, yes, it is a market ideology. But what's not clear about it? People adhere to it not because they like when unqualified masses, with their consumer behavior, encourage all sorts of nasty things in mass-market products. It's simply better than when a regulatory body implements its "quirky, special requests" at the expense of everyone else.

According to research bottle caps are one of the biggest source of beach litter because they float and end up washed up. They are also exceptionally harmful to animals that confuse them for fish and end up consuming them.

I don’t think anyone who is against the bottle caps directive is serious about protecting our environment. It’s a minor change with an outsized impact.