All phones sold in the EU to have replaceable batteries from 2027

What if we regulate batteries even more? i.e. what if, in some magical perfect world, the world get's together and agrees on batteries for phones like how we agree on AA,AAA,D,C batteries? Even more though.. a standard connector, a standard comms bus, a variety of sizes, and they were designed for reuse as efficiently as possible.

Now we can scale up volume, swap them out, be free to purchase from a different manufacturer, and have scaled up recycling services.

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

Aren't today's phone batteries already replaceable with commercially available tools? I can walk into a store with my iPhone and walk out with a replaced battery 20 minutes later.

This isn't even what drives obsolesce of phones, it's software updates.

If you really want to be able to self-swap your own battery, you can just buy an Android that has a replaceable battery.

Do we need to regulate something that isn't a problem? All regulation has downsides, is it worth paying this price here?

>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.

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.

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.

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.

This is excellent news. Now make them have user-unlockable and user-relockable bootloaders...

How about computers to have replaceable SSDs? There's no point you can exchange the battery when the hard-soldered SSD dies first. (I had more dead SSDs than batteries)

I thought USB-C was already required.

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dyL6hMZvWQ

Well, 9 more months until I’m going to replace my iPhone 12!

I still sometimes miss the Samsung Galaxy I had that had a microSD slot, a removable battery, and a headphone jack.

Phones have lost so much in a decade.

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.

It seems like the whole world could massively benefit from this much like the other great innovation out of the EU -- the Common Charger Directive (aka USB-C).

Awesome!

And next, hopefully, replaceable software.

Which will do much more for phone longevity.

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.

Hot swap batteries! Who's going to offer THAT first?

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.

Neat. That may allow repurposing phones as mini home servers too.

Lithium batteries in things running 24/7 unsupervised always makes me a bit nervous

Gigaset makes IP68/MIL-STD-810H smartphones with removable batteries and sold the battery for 30€, don't fall for the "but watterproof".

Hopefully the EU can get the battery situation to mirror the charging cable situation. IE force them all to adopt an industry standard.

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.

As a non-European I want to say: thanks EU

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.

Considering that this, and other, regulation is to officially aimed at reducing e-waste, the EU should commit to publish independent data on the amount of e-waste and phones replacement rates now and every year afterwards in order to measure the real world impact.

Too often, including in HN comments, those regulations ate presented as "obviously" good policies. Well, data are better than assumptions.

They should extend the principle to laptops, obviously.

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.

I hope someday EU will implement requirements for phones -> You must be able to flash any firmware (OS) on your phone, without any restrictions.

This is much more important, than batteries.

Have they researched durability with replaceable batteries and can promise us phones won't break more often?

Now do screens.

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.

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.

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.