There's an exception for batteries that "retain at least 80% of its original capacity after 1,000 charge cycles." Coincidentally, iPhones and probably other flagships already qualify for this exception.
Oh yeah so it's utter trash and not worthy of our attention. Imagine carrying a whole 58 grams more, during a whole day, impossible for the average tech worker's atrophied muscles
The point is that people have different preferences, so the EU should not force people to buy phones with removable batteries. People who want such features can buy those phones, and people who want smaller, thinner phones can buy ones with integrated batteries.
At most the EU should tax externalities like electronic waste, though that would be a rounding error compared to the cost of the phone itself.
The comment is not meant to give you something to buy, it's just proof that it can technically be done, they just don't want to do it for modern flagships.
At what cost though?! And no, I am not talking about money. Any device (and any product really) is a set of tradeoffs.
I like it when different producers select a different subset of priorities for their offer. Competition at work. One of the reasons we witnessed such an awesome evolution in the smartphone market.
I hate it when a bureaucrat dictates a set of demands with absolutely zero regard to the cost or the tradeoffs involved in product decisions and market competition.
I'm kinda surprised with esim, wireless charging and Bluetooth noones just made a phone with a solid layer of glass completely surrounding it for 100% waterproofing
My low-cost plastic Casio watch based on a very old design is waterproof and battery can be swapped out by undoing 4 philips screws, no glue. Its buttons can also be operated under water while staying waterproof.
I get it for watches, but I've never understood the mass-market need for a waterproof phone, outside of a few niche hobbies. Are people showering and swimming with their phones or something? Or dropping them in their toilets? The wettest my phone has ever been in 8 years is in my pocket while it's raining.
People in humid climates and cold climates were regularly having their phones get denied warranty service because the water ingress stickers turned red due to condensation, without ever exposing their phone to water immersion. This was understandably upsetting for a lot of people who just wanted their phone to be fixed under warranty.
Thus, companies put in a big effort to seal their phones against dust and water, which ought to have dramatically reduced these service issues and led to a better customer experience overall!
I like to wash my phone under the tap, not getting paranoid of having it in a table close to the pool while drinking a few beers with my wife and friends, it is a really nice to have feature if you live in a warmer climate.
Kayaking, fishing, river floating, surfing, diving, snorkeling, etc. "No one I know takes their phone snorkeling" <- that's because they're not presently waterproof, but I imagine a lot of people would like to take a high quality camera under water.
I think it's mostly marketing. When all phones are identical glass rectangles, the only meaningful way to distinguish your product is by being the biggest, thinnest, highest IP-rating.
Most of these metrics are entirely orthogonal to what any real person wants from a phone, but that's an irrelevant detail to marketing types
I normally much prefer screws over glue but Apple has at least been using repair-friendly glue like the electrically debonding adhesive in use for iPhone 16e/17e.
At first it looks like a normal torx head, but then you realize it has 5 lobes instead of 6. Apple used these on early iPhone models when you actually could open them with this proprietary screwdriver.
I actually never did. I think you're only supposed to replace it on those scuba-style watches with screw-on casebacks that shred the gasket when fully tightened to ensure a tight seal.
But on those watches with 4 screws on the case, the gasket seemed fine to me to keep reusing.
I think a lot of sealing rings / gaskets are meant to be single use. I had to swap the heater on my hot tub a while back and the store told me to change the o-rings on the inlet and outlet as it was unlikely the prior ones would re-seal after being loosened.
Timex has been making iron-man watches held together with Philips-head screws that can withstand 100 meters of water pressure since the mid-1980s. Waterproofing is no excuse for this nonsense.
I once had a cheap Timex watch die from water ingress after running a track workout during a torrential downpour. At the time I joked that it only failed because we ran farther than the 100m rating
Watch cases are relatively huge for what needs to be inside them. You can see the difference between an entire smartphone and a simple time keeping device, right?
They also don’t have the long aspect ratio of phones (bending moment).
This doesn’t compare to phones at all. It’s like trying to compare your TI-83 calculator to a MacBook Pro
I think the USB & speaker are the weak links for water ingress. Also, a removable battery would (probably?) significantly weaken the phone. So, if you dropped it, it'd be more likely to sustain real damage.
Doesn't seem like a problem. Assuming the phone needs recharging every 3 days, that's 80% capacity remaining after ~8.2 years; longer than the OS is likely to be supported. Assuming a recharge every 2 days, that's 80% capacity remaining after ~5.5 years.
That had me thinking as well. What if the manufacturer says that to get to that number you are only allowed to charge it to 80% ever? My iPhone pro battery is at 92% at 417 cycles over 20 months.
The problem is that consumers want to buy a phone with 24 hours of runtime and an EV with 200 miles of range, and they want the phone to be thin and light and the car to be fast and light, and manufacturers want to achieve those capacities with as little electrochemistry as possible. The number of charge cycles at full capacity will be a big deal a year or two in, but on the sales floor it's a secondary concern for typical buyers and sellers.
Playing fast and loose with the numbers, I'm sure that if 100% on the display was 80% in the battery and 0% was 20%, you'd have an amazing number of charge cycles. You could program that 40% of unused capacity to be reduced as the battery ages very slowly, and by the time the used capacity is only at 80% of its original revealed capacity you're at many thousands of cycles. But you'd have a phone or car that weighed 40% more and cost 40% more than one that had no buffer and ran at the bleeding edge on day 1.
Absent breakthroughs in battery chemistry, this basically regulates the amount of buffer capacity that manufacturers are required to include in their ~~lies~~ marketing materials.
As others have mentioned this is for phones with batteries that can’t survive a reasonable number of cycles.
That’s a reasonable exemption, in my opinion. I don’t want to pay the extra penalties of reduced structural rigidity and water tightness for a battery that I don’t need to replace for 3-4 years anyway.
I do wish one manufacturer would make a flagship phone with replaceable battery so all of the uncompromising replaceable battery fans could have a phone that fits their niche demands rather than trying to force everyone else to pay the extra costs (price, size, water intrusion, structural rigidity) that would come with laws forcing all phones to have removable batteries.
> a battery that I don’t need to replace for 3-4 years anyway.
This is not just about battery replacement. I used to keep several fully charged batteries stocked in my rucksack whenever I went hiking or anywhere else that was remote. After a day of taking photos in the wild its nice to be able to just chuck in a fresh batttery and off you go.
I feel like this feature of phones was not only lost, but pretty much forgotten about after smartphones stopped including user replaceable batteries.
yes exactly my point, I dont want to wait to charge up my device with another device. I just want to pop in a fresh 100% battery. It used to be so simple.
Many flagship phones promise 7 years of security updates now. 3-4 years means the battery will only last for half that time, and heavy users (1 cycle per day) will hit that quota in under 2.75 years.
This regulation isn't primarily for fans of replaceable batteries, it's driven by general concerns about e-waste. It's unclear how much it might actually reduce e-waste in practice but it will certainly increase compliance costs.
I just called the shop to replace the perfectly fine e-Call battery in my soon four year old Hyundai car. 250€ to change a battery that has a ten year lifespan. I am not allowed to replace it on my own as it would invalidate the five year long guarantee provided by the manufacturer (not the one by law). Why is this stuff not considered as well?
Also curious whether the "specialized devices" exemptions are AND requirements. Even if those are AND, wouldn’t smartphone manufacturers try to satisfy all three of them?
> I am not allowed to replace it on my own as it would invalidate the five year long guarantee provided by the manufacturer. Why is this stuff not considered as well?
They're the ones paying for repairs, so it doesn't seem that unreasonable? That said: If you can prove the car is being maintained according to the manufacturer's specifications they can't require you to go to a brand dealership. That's just not necessarily easy to prove.
The number of people worried about a slightly thicker phone are absolutely baffling to me. I honestly think there is no hope for us broadly. Normally I'd say that people cannot deal with minor inconveniences -- but this does not even register as an inconvenience.
From my view, this is a _perceived_ downgrade in luxury status. Not even a real downgrade in luxury status -- and not a downgrade in convenience whatsoever.
You can bet it will be measured in such a way that the major companies’ devices will qualify. And that it will have little bearing on the retained charge amount you’ll have in real life use. I’m at 82% and 714 cycles. But it’s a joke to suggest that all cycles are equal. Some people never go outside the 20-80 band, others charge to 100% and keep it there all day, then burn it down to 10%. Both of those generate “cycles” but are very far apart.
We have similar phones. I’m now at 82% at 714 cycles. In real life, our devices wouldn’t qualify but I’m sure Apple will be allowed to write the testing methodology in a way that’ll be nice and gentle.
Huh interesting datapoint. I just checked on mine, also August 2023 15PM, and 86% @ 707 cycles here. I’m pretty careless with charging it whenever is convenient/letting it drain to 0% while traveling/etc as well.
It’s more about the calendric aging than number of cycles these days. My own stayed at 99% until ~400 cycles, and then in a few days it dropped to 94%.
Wait, that’s not true: In true regulatory capture fashion, I’ll bet the exemption requires some sort of testing/certification that makes it significantly more expensive for smaller firms to bring devices to market.
> I’ll bet the exemption requires some sort of testing/certification that makes it significantly more expensive for smaller firms to bring devices to market.
Maybe that would be the case in the US but since that is the EU it will likely be some kind of self-certification where the manufacturer swears that they're not lying, and if enough people complain then maybe one of the national regulators will look into it and ask the manufacturer to do better.
Recently my 2021 macBook gave me an alert that its battery was not charging past 80%. I took it to the Apple Store and because it had only been through 971 charge cycles, the battery was replaced for free.
This is a waste of money. All flagship phones have hit the requirements so do not need to make them removable. It might impact some of the budget garbage but not yet clear. All this will do is increase compliance costs.
Lots of non-flagship phones making e-waste. This is a sensibly-tailored regulation, targeting the problem instead of specifying a solution because some bureaucrat likes replaceable batteries.
My initial reaction as an EU citizen is “oh hell no” because it gave me flashbacks to removable covers with clips that broke my nails. But after reading the article where it mentions that the battery is also considered removable if standard tools should be used, I’m quite okay with it. I welcome getting more rugged and durable devices.
Serious question: how are you worse off with a cover that breaks your nails vs. the status quo: a cover that’s glued on and a battery that’s glued in? If they did bring that back, couldn’t you just not open the cover and be just as happy?
> A portable battery should be considered to be removable by the end-user when it can be removed with the use of commercially available tools and without requiring the use of specialised tools, unless they are provided free of charge […] to disassemble it.
> Commercially available tools are considered to be tools available on the market to all end-users without the need for them to provide evidence of any proprietary rights and that can be used with no restriction, except health and safety-related restrictions.
> If people wanted removable batteries in their phones, they would buy them a lot. They don't.
This argument gets thrown about every time companies make anti-consumer changes, and it completely ignores the information asymmetry and other dynamics at play. When I go to the store to buy a new phone, where does it list on the box how repairable the device is? Where does it show how expensive the repair will be? If I'm locked in the apple ecosystem, where do I buy an iPhone with a replaceable battery?
Your assumption that the market is driven by informed consumer choices presupposes that every buyer is an expert.
So you're suggesting we all just need to buy exclusively flip phones for a few years to send the market a signal that it wants replaceable batteries. Then the free market will do its thing and keep the engine of innovation running
Speaking of which, does anyone want to do a list of "features added to smartphones over the last 10 years" vs "features removed from smartphones over the last 10 years" so we can see just what innovations are at risk?
I'm not suggesting anything, I'm simply offering the reality of the smartphone market. What you are suggesting is a contrived, exaggerated take of how markets function.
People generally like small, thin phones, as evidenced by the billions sold. It really isn't much more complicated than that.
To steelman your response some, there's also the Samsung XCover 7. It has a Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 processor (from 2024, two years newer than the latest Kyocera Duraforce) and up to 8GB RAM. But it's still not exactly a flagship device, and the American telcos I checked only offer the 6GB RAM variant.
> "If people wanted removable batteries in their phones, they would buy them a lot. They don't."
For that to happen there obviously needs to be a supply worth writing home about. Furthermore, speaking purely for myself, a removable battery is not a must but a nice-to-have. A lot of slabs that have removable batteries are out of the game for entirely different reasons.
> For that to happen there obviously needs to be a supply worth writing home about.
Not really. If there’s no supply, it’s probably because the manufacturers did a market analysis and decided it’s not even worth it to offer that. So either their analysis is extremely wrong and it actually would sell, or the consumers don’t want to buy it that bad.
> "If there’s no supply, it’s probably because the manufacturers [...] decided it’s not even worth it to offer that."
You got it surrounded. Why offer devices that you have to support for a longer time (e. g. enterprise models) when there's more money to be made when you enshittify (which obviously goes beyond just batteries)?
So really it's not about phones having a removable battery, but a whole host of other features plus a removable battery. Which is just untenable from a regulatory POV.
I want removeable batteries in my phone, largely because it means I don't have to buy them a lot!
I ran my LG G5 with replaceable batteries from 2016 through 2021, at which point there were no affordable replaceable-battery phones left. I bought quite a few replacement batteries, even trying aftermarket batteries with varying levels of success after the OEM LG ones were discontinued.
That is, of course, a problem for manufacturers that want to sell a lot of phones.
That's not the point. It being done in a local shop for a few bucks with no small letter text saying that "we may break your screen in half because this thing can't be repaired properly". It mentions that it should not use glue, not need solvent and only commercially available tools may be usable (or they have to be provided next to the phone).
that isnt how markets really work. you could say that if apple had two otherwise identical iphones except one has removable battery and one doesn't. but the enshittification cycle works via a ratcheting effect. once you achieve a certain level of dominance and lock-in, you can start getting away with all kinds of anti-consumer strategies to make more money and not get punished for it, and your competitors will follow suit. as long as you can ratchet above whatever detrimental thing you want to get away with is you'll probably be fine.
you can look at the lightning connector as an example. if you said "if people wanted usb connectivity they wouldn't buy iphones", nobody would take you seriously. and when apple was forced to switch, it absolutely didnt tank their sales because people just loved the lightning connector so much. the bad thing went away and it was great.
The link is not working for me, but I hope they have defined what "removable" means (removable without special tools)
If not, a lot of companies are going to argue that they already make removable batteries
Also, removeable by who? Its all very well saying its removeable, but thats useless if only possible by a skilled techinician with tools. I dont see the term 'user-removable' anywhere.
IIRC, screwdrivers and prying tools are not considered special. Removal cannot require solvents or heat, but I believe those pull tab glue pads are allowed.
I wish those prying tools were considered "special". I have a very low success rate at opening up any device that's held together with "clips" without snapping any plastic. It inevitably means "force it just hard-enough to break stuff if you don't do it absolutely perfectly".
I'm not a fan of regulation in general but over the last decade it has been extremely frustrating with the removal of replaceable SD cards and batteries from Androids.
I never put my phones in my back pocket nor do I wear butt hugging leggings, so having a thick phone stick out my ass and make it look bad isn't on my list of worries. I end up purchasing thick waterproof cases for these slim phones anyways.
What's most confusing is the premium phones lack replaceable SD cards and batteries - it's like they are trying to take the worst ideas from the Apple ecosystem and simply don't understand why some people use Androids.
Surprisingly, it's the cheaper models that carry replaceable SD cards and batteries - I would have imagined the opposite!
I often go on trips and hikes with poor cellular coverage and having some SD cards with useful information or being able to swap them out as the camera gets full is really helpful. Attaching drives over the USB port isn't really practical.
When I do have cellular coverage, I might have to rapidly download a LOT of data, which overheats the phone and discharges the battery. With a replaceable battery, this isn't even an issue.
The benefits of replaceable batteries cannot be overstated when you're not on the grid or take great care of the phone where they last more than a few years. I can have a few batteries charged, during the day using solar that I can then just swap them in as evening sets in, instead of having to plug the phone into a powerbank and pray it doesn't shut off as I keep using it.
The introduction of glue into the assembly of consumer electronics is a crime against humanity and the Earth. If Timex could make iron-man watches 100-meter waterproof with Phillips-head jeweler's screws back in the '80s, there's no good reason smartphones and laptops can't. And there's a whole host of bad reasons to eschew screws.
Of course you can build a waterproof smartphone with screws (except the screen has to be bonded to the glass for capacitive touch to work and the glass to the frame so there’s still some glueing involved), but it would probably have 1cm bezels around the screen.
I think this was discussed recently on HN. It’s not a bad idea. There’s nothing about this that “ruins” anything else. This is not specific for phones even if everyone focuses on them. The usual arguments are waterproofing and thinness but we can still have them with removable batteries.
I keep hearing this over and over, but it's neglected to add that it sets a minimum durability requirement which applies only for a very small niche of ruggedized waterproof devices
Unless your device complies to MIL-STD-810G CN1 and has the certification to back it up your product will be required to add user replaceable batteries
>Unless your device complies to MIL-STD-810G CN1 and has the certification to back it up your product will be required to add user replaceable batteries
Can you provide your source for this? If nothing else, it's very surprising to me that an EU regulation uses a US standard as the baseline!
Edit: Having done a bit of reading on the standard, it also seems like the regulation needs quite a bit of detail if it really does rely on the MIL-STD, since the standard only defines test procedures, not pass/fail criteria?
This makes no sense but I still see it mindlessly repeated to exhaustion. That mention is in no way Apple specific, it’s a quality of the battery itself. Any manufacturer is in the same position, not like Apple has a monopoly on batteries that hold 80% charge after 1000 cycles.
I don’t understand how this could be measured fairly though. What kind of cycles? What temperatures was it exposed to? Charged fast or slow? This is an incomplete set of criteria, which seems designed specifically to be meaningless / gameable.
To me this seems like saying you can sell a car with a sealed gas tank as long as it “gets 40 miles per gallon.” And GM gets to decide the test course for measuring MPG, which will be a 2-mile slightly downhill coast with no stopping. Surprise! All our cars get 40-60MPG!
The unspoken implication here is that if your phone still retains 80% after 1000 cycles, then it’s probably so old and obsolete by then that battery replacement would be a silly waste of time, so why burden people with these “onerous rules” in that case.
But in reality, nothing about that metric, even if it’s true, means that customers don’t need to replace their batteries. My iPhone 15 Pro Max is in dire need of a battery replacement, at 82% after only 714 cycles. Aside from the battery, I have literally zero motivation to replace this phone. The phone manufacturers hate the idea that the battery might get replaced, because in this day and age it’s pretty much the only reason a 2 to 3-year-old phone (especially a flagship) isn’t extremely adequate for 99% of the population.
In the US the EPA gets to set the guidelines for mileage testing, which GM has to follow. We've already had a major case in penalties for not following the guidelines via VW and emissions.
It will likely boil down to "typical use" so in the event that someone wants to bring Apple to court over it and demonstrate the issue, it could solidify what's currently a little vague. Laws aren't required to get it perfect out of the gate.
> then it’s probably so old and obsolete by then that battery replacement would be a silly waste of time
obsolescence is a spectrum, if a swappable battery mandate gives a small % of devices a few extra years it would be worth it... I already give old devices to family members and kids on the "free is better than nothing" spectrum and a swappable battery would have extended the life at least a few of said devices, in my personal experience
The supposed aim of this is to reduce e-waste. But when 90% of smartphones sold are iPhones and Samsung Galaxies which are exempt it makes this bill completely pointless, as the ewaste it will save is a small fraction of a percentage of the total.
There's an exception for batteries that "retain at least 80% of its original capacity after 1,000 charge cycles." Coincidentally, iPhones and probably other flagships already qualify for this exception.
i’m ok with this and an $80 battery replacement in exchange for better waterproofing
IP68, replaceable battery, phone jack, 5G: https://m.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_xcover6_pro-11600.php
2 mm thicker and 58 grams heavier than the latest iPhone.
Oh yeah so it's utter trash and not worthy of our attention. Imagine carrying a whole 58 grams more, during a whole day, impossible for the average tech worker's atrophied muscles
The point is that people have different preferences, so the EU should not force people to buy phones with removable batteries. People who want such features can buy those phones, and people who want smaller, thinner phones can buy ones with integrated batteries.
At most the EU should tax externalities like electronic waste, though that would be a rounding error compared to the cost of the phone itself.
FFS. Everything is a compromise. People who want smaller and lighter are not more wrong than those who want battery and physical protection.
And 4 years old... I wouldn't buy this new
There's a new model the 7 pro https://m.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_xcover7_pro-13780.php
The comment is not meant to give you something to buy, it's just proof that it can technically be done, they just don't want to do it for modern flagships.
> it can technically be done
At what cost though?! And no, I am not talking about money. Any device (and any product really) is a set of tradeoffs.
I like it when different producers select a different subset of priorities for their offer. Competition at work. One of the reasons we witnessed such an awesome evolution in the smartphone market.
I hate it when a bureaucrat dictates a set of demands with absolutely zero regard to the cost or the tradeoffs involved in product decisions and market competition.
> At what cost though?!
maybe just a little less margin for apple...
The tradeoff was discussed in a sibling thread: it's heavier by 58 grams and thicker by 2mm. That's it. That's the tradeoff. Why go crazy on the guy?
I hate when a technocrat at a multi-billion dollar company makes those decisions, maximizing profit and not giving a fuck about any other criteria.
Ugly as hell
There is not waterproofing, on any phone. Yes, when you buy it, no after 3 years when the glue that waterproofs no longer sticks due to ageing.
"Yes, when you buy it, no after 3 years when the glue that waterproofs no longer sticks due to ageing."
My 2014 Kyocera Duraforce Pro is STILL waterproof and I use it for underwater photography incessantly.
all that water is keeping the glue moist
I'm kinda surprised with esim, wireless charging and Bluetooth noones just made a phone with a solid layer of glass completely surrounding it for 100% waterproofing
My low-cost plastic Casio watch based on a very old design is waterproof and battery can be swapped out by undoing 4 philips screws, no glue. Its buttons can also be operated under water while staying waterproof.
What is this whicraft?
I get it for watches, but I've never understood the mass-market need for a waterproof phone, outside of a few niche hobbies. Are people showering and swimming with their phones or something? Or dropping them in their toilets? The wettest my phone has ever been in 8 years is in my pocket while it's raining.
People in humid climates and cold climates were regularly having their phones get denied warranty service because the water ingress stickers turned red due to condensation, without ever exposing their phone to water immersion. This was understandably upsetting for a lot of people who just wanted their phone to be fixed under warranty.
Thus, companies put in a big effort to seal their phones against dust and water, which ought to have dramatically reduced these service issues and led to a better customer experience overall!
I like to wash my phone under the tap, not getting paranoid of having it in a table close to the pool while drinking a few beers with my wife and friends, it is a really nice to have feature if you live in a warmer climate.
Life happens, people want the assurance that their phone isn’t necessarily e-garbage after an accidental dunk.
I like wash my phones every now and then. Even submerging them in water.
> Or dropping them in their toilets?
That.
It’s also nice to be able to wash them under the tap
Kayaking, fishing, river floating, surfing, diving, snorkeling, etc. "No one I know takes their phone snorkeling" <- that's because they're not presently waterproof, but I imagine a lot of people would like to take a high quality camera under water.
What, you stop refreshing HN while you're showing?
I think it's mostly marketing. When all phones are identical glass rectangles, the only meaningful way to distinguish your product is by being the biggest, thinnest, highest IP-rating.
Most of these metrics are entirely orthogonal to what any real person wants from a phone, but that's an irrelevant detail to marketing types
Yes, people are so addicted to scrolling their idiotic looping videos that they take their phones in public pools. Saw it myself.
How do they waterproof around the screws?
I normally much prefer screws over glue but Apple has at least been using repair-friendly glue like the electrically debonding adhesive in use for iPhone 16e/17e.
Friendly for who? I certainly cant electrically debond chemical compounds, but I sure do know how to undo a screw.
And you can't follow a guide either? All you have to do is clip a 9v battery on.
Do you also consider yourself incapable of jump starting a car because you might have to look up instructions first?
The buttons can’t be operated underwater. You’ve been lucky thus far. Casio asks you not to use the buttons underwater.
https://www.casio-intl.com/asia/en/wat/water_resistance/
> Even if a watch is water-resistant, do not operate its buttons or crown while it is submersed in water or wet.
An Apple product manager just fainted at the thought of a user taking a screwdriver to an iPhone.
not if they manage to find a screw head that can only be opened by a clean, minimalist, proprietary, expensive Apple screwdriver
You joke but...
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Lukyamzn-P2-P5-P6-Pentalobe-Scre...
At first it looks like a normal torx head, but then you realize it has 5 lobes instead of 6. Apple used these on early iPhone models when you actually could open them with this proprietary screwdriver.
A gasket.
technically you're meant to replace the rubber ring around it, but yes, not hard to do.
I actually never did. I think you're only supposed to replace it on those scuba-style watches with screw-on casebacks that shred the gasket when fully tightened to ensure a tight seal.
But on those watches with 4 screws on the case, the gasket seemed fine to me to keep reusing.
I think a lot of sealing rings / gaskets are meant to be single use. I had to swap the heater on my hot tub a while back and the store told me to change the o-rings on the inlet and outlet as it was unlikely the prior ones would re-seal after being loosened.
That's common on high-pressure systems. It's not very common on diving-depth water-proof equipment.
Timex has been making iron-man watches held together with Philips-head screws that can withstand 100 meters of water pressure since the mid-1980s. Waterproofing is no excuse for this nonsense.
I once had a cheap Timex watch die from water ingress after running a track workout during a torrential downpour. At the time I joked that it only failed because we ran farther than the 100m rating
Watch cases are relatively huge for what needs to be inside them. You can see the difference between an entire smartphone and a simple time keeping device, right?
They also don’t have the long aspect ratio of phones (bending moment).
This doesn’t compare to phones at all. It’s like trying to compare your TI-83 calculator to a MacBook Pro
Then use more screws. Stud them all the way down the perimeter of the back 1cm apart for all I care. Still better than heat-guns and prying.
Adding more holes to a surface isn't going to make it more waterproof
Tell that to boat hull riveters
You'd be really interested to learn the difference between a rivet and a screw.
They also don't have speakers, microphones, and charging ports.
My Galaxy Watch disagrees.
I think the USB & speaker are the weak links for water ingress. Also, a removable battery would (probably?) significantly weaken the phone. So, if you dropped it, it'd be more likely to sustain real damage.
Huh, my iPhones have never come close to this. They are always under 80% capacity before 1000 charge cycles.
unfortunately, it will be based on _design_ / _rated_ capacity, probably.
Doesn't seem like a problem. Assuming the phone needs recharging every 3 days, that's 80% capacity remaining after ~8.2 years; longer than the OS is likely to be supported. Assuming a recharge every 2 days, that's 80% capacity remaining after ~5.5 years.
That's a pretty crazy assumption.
Still, the majority of the population would get a phone with replaceable battery.
All the top smartphone manufacturers hit that bar, at least for their mid and high end phones. The focus on apple is misleading and weird.
This will only impact bottom barrel phones.
Remember ios 10.2.1? Batterygate?
In my bubble, some. In the general population? Very very few.
That had me thinking as well. What if the manufacturer says that to get to that number you are only allowed to charge it to 80% ever? My iPhone pro battery is at 92% at 417 cycles over 20 months.
In that hypothetical scenario they should advertise 80% as the full capacity. Competition generally prevents this kind of "underclocking".
Do what EVs do: make 100% on the display not 100.0% electro-chemically and 0% not be 0.0% chemically.
This is a serious suggestion, as I think it’s actually net beneficial for the consumer.
There's no coming back from 0% chemically. Running li-ions that low results in physical damage.
The problem is that consumers want to buy a phone with 24 hours of runtime and an EV with 200 miles of range, and they want the phone to be thin and light and the car to be fast and light, and manufacturers want to achieve those capacities with as little electrochemistry as possible. The number of charge cycles at full capacity will be a big deal a year or two in, but on the sales floor it's a secondary concern for typical buyers and sellers.
Playing fast and loose with the numbers, I'm sure that if 100% on the display was 80% in the battery and 0% was 20%, you'd have an amazing number of charge cycles. You could program that 40% of unused capacity to be reduced as the battery ages very slowly, and by the time the used capacity is only at 80% of its original revealed capacity you're at many thousands of cycles. But you'd have a phone or car that weighed 40% more and cost 40% more than one that had no buffer and ran at the bleeding edge on day 1.
Absent breakthroughs in battery chemistry, this basically regulates the amount of buffer capacity that manufacturers are required to include in their ~~lies~~ marketing materials.
This is already the case and has been so for a long time. But it's a trade off between longevity and capacity
So as far as I can tell, they can't do this as it's based on equivalent full-charge cycles - so that's nice at least.
I wonder how much did the phone manufacturers spend on lobbying for this.
Apple doesn't comply with regulations that weren't their idea with sincerity.
As others have mentioned this is for phones with batteries that can’t survive a reasonable number of cycles.
That’s a reasonable exemption, in my opinion. I don’t want to pay the extra penalties of reduced structural rigidity and water tightness for a battery that I don’t need to replace for 3-4 years anyway.
I do wish one manufacturer would make a flagship phone with replaceable battery so all of the uncompromising replaceable battery fans could have a phone that fits their niche demands rather than trying to force everyone else to pay the extra costs (price, size, water intrusion, structural rigidity) that would come with laws forcing all phones to have removable batteries.
> a battery that I don’t need to replace for 3-4 years anyway.
This is not just about battery replacement. I used to keep several fully charged batteries stocked in my rucksack whenever I went hiking or anywhere else that was remote. After a day of taking photos in the wild its nice to be able to just chuck in a fresh batttery and off you go.
I feel like this feature of phones was not only lost, but pretty much forgotten about after smartphones stopped including user replaceable batteries.
You can keep several power bricks that will charge any USB-C device now.
yes exactly my point, I dont want to wait to charge up my device with another device. I just want to pop in a fresh 100% battery. It used to be so simple.
Many flagship phones promise 7 years of security updates now. 3-4 years means the battery will only last for half that time, and heavy users (1 cycle per day) will hit that quota in under 2.75 years.
Importantly “last” means that it will have at least 80% battery capacity left.
Degradation is usually nonlinear.
This regulation isn't primarily for fans of replaceable batteries, it's driven by general concerns about e-waste. It's unclear how much it might actually reduce e-waste in practice but it will certainly increase compliance costs.
I've a plan: 2027 I'm buying a Motorola with first-party support for GrapheneOS and a replaceable battery. Things are looking up!
I just called the shop to replace the perfectly fine e-Call battery in my soon four year old Hyundai car. 250€ to change a battery that has a ten year lifespan. I am not allowed to replace it on my own as it would invalidate the five year long guarantee provided by the manufacturer (not the one by law). Why is this stuff not considered as well?
Also curious whether the "specialized devices" exemptions are AND requirements. Even if those are AND, wouldn’t smartphone manufacturers try to satisfy all three of them?
> I am not allowed to replace it on my own as it would invalidate the five year long guarantee provided by the manufacturer. Why is this stuff not considered as well?
They're the ones paying for repairs, so it doesn't seem that unreasonable? That said: If you can prove the car is being maintained according to the manufacturer's specifications they can't require you to go to a brand dealership. That's just not necessarily easy to prove.
The number of people worried about a slightly thicker phone are absolutely baffling to me. I honestly think there is no hope for us broadly. Normally I'd say that people cannot deal with minor inconveniences -- but this does not even register as an inconvenience.
From my view, this is a _perceived_ downgrade in luxury status. Not even a real downgrade in luxury status -- and not a downgrade in convenience whatsoever.
> this does not even register as an inconvenience
You don’t have any idiosyncratic product preferences?
Not ones where design decisions reduce features for no other reason.
Does this need a law? Most phones have replaceable battery.
Rule does not apply to gadgets that already retain 80% charge capacity at 1k charge cycles.
What is the share of the smartphone market that this applies to?
You can bet it will be measured in such a way that the major companies’ devices will qualify. And that it will have little bearing on the retained charge amount you’ll have in real life use. I’m at 82% and 714 cycles. But it’s a joke to suggest that all cycles are equal. Some people never go outside the 20-80 band, others charge to 100% and keep it there all day, then burn it down to 10%. Both of those generate “cycles” but are very far apart.
Do we know if and how cycles are defined in the regulation?
My iphone 15 pro max. manufactured in Aug 2023. 536 cycles. is at 84%. I doubt it will make it to 1k at above 80%.
We have similar phones. I’m now at 82% at 714 cycles. In real life, our devices wouldn’t qualify but I’m sure Apple will be allowed to write the testing methodology in a way that’ll be nice and gentle.
Huh interesting datapoint. I just checked on mine, also August 2023 15PM, and 86% @ 707 cycles here. I’m pretty careless with charging it whenever is convenient/letting it drain to 0% while traveling/etc as well.
My 15 pro max is at 649 cycles and 91%
iPhone Air. 225 cycles, started use in October 2025, 99%
It’s more about the calendric aging than number of cycles these days. My own stayed at 99% until ~400 cycles, and then in a few days it dropped to 94%.
0%.
Wait, that’s not true: In true regulatory capture fashion, I’ll bet the exemption requires some sort of testing/certification that makes it significantly more expensive for smaller firms to bring devices to market.
> I’ll bet the exemption requires some sort of testing/certification that makes it significantly more expensive for smaller firms to bring devices to market.
Maybe that would be the case in the US but since that is the EU it will likely be some kind of self-certification where the manufacturer swears that they're not lying, and if enough people complain then maybe one of the national regulators will look into it and ask the manufacturer to do better.
Recently my 2021 macBook gave me an alert that its battery was not charging past 80%. I took it to the Apple Store and because it had only been through 971 charge cycles, the battery was replaced for free.
Might be a good idea to verify before sharing misinformation
Not perfect, but the “80% capacity after 1000 cycles” part at least creates some decent incentives imo.
This is a waste of money. All flagship phones have hit the requirements so do not need to make them removable. It might impact some of the budget garbage but not yet clear. All this will do is increase compliance costs.
> All flagship phones have hit the requirements
Lots of non-flagship phones making e-waste. This is a sensibly-tailored regulation, targeting the problem instead of specifying a solution because some bureaucrat likes replaceable batteries.
based on many comments in this thread your statement is not accurate.
for example my iphone 15 pro is at 83% with 654 cycles. clearly it will drop below 80% in less than 1000 cycles
Was discussed recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47834195
My initial reaction as an EU citizen is “oh hell no” because it gave me flashbacks to removable covers with clips that broke my nails. But after reading the article where it mentions that the battery is also considered removable if standard tools should be used, I’m quite okay with it. I welcome getting more rugged and durable devices.
Serious question: how are you worse off with a cover that breaks your nails vs. the status quo: a cover that’s glued on and a battery that’s glued in? If they did bring that back, couldn’t you just not open the cover and be just as happy?
So in order to save your nails you rather buy a new device? Makes total sense.
80% after 1000 cycles. I hope that doesn’t mean faking battery health instead.
When has a legally mandated metric ever been gamed into a loophole? /s
Headline is misleading as the loopholes written into the regulation will likely end up exempting many/most phones
And make all these batteries compatible among all smartphone brands
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47834195
Why not anything that has a battery? Why just cellphones?
What is a “special tool”? A Philips screwdriver is pretty clearly not, but is a T-5 Torx? A security T-5? A Tri-wing? A Pentalobe?
> A portable battery should be considered to be removable by the end-user when it can be removed with the use of commercially available tools and without requiring the use of specialised tools, unless they are provided free of charge […] to disassemble it.
> Commercially available tools are considered to be tools available on the market to all end-users without the need for them to provide evidence of any proprietary rights and that can be used with no restriction, except health and safety-related restrictions.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/1542/oj
Why does the Pentalobe exist in the first place?
in one product design i did, unironically because the customer thought that six-star screws were antisemitic
Antisemitic geometry. Now I've seen everything
Imagine the lasting havoc the Nazis could have wrought if they adopted a + instead of a swastika
Any tool you can’t get at a random local hardware store.
While sounding nice in theory, these sorts of regulations will certainly curtail innovation while providing very, very little value elsewhere.
If people wanted removable batteries in their phones, they would buy them a lot. They don't.
> If people wanted removable batteries in their phones, they would buy them a lot. They don't.
This argument gets thrown about every time companies make anti-consumer changes, and it completely ignores the information asymmetry and other dynamics at play. When I go to the store to buy a new phone, where does it list on the box how repairable the device is? Where does it show how expensive the repair will be? If I'm locked in the apple ecosystem, where do I buy an iPhone with a replaceable battery?
Your assumption that the market is driven by informed consumer choices presupposes that every buyer is an expert.
Which flagship phones with replaceable batteries can customers buy?
Samsung was the last major brand in the US to have one, and they made the choice to remove it.
Not sure. But there are plenty of flip phones with removable batteries.
So you're suggesting we all just need to buy exclusively flip phones for a few years to send the market a signal that it wants replaceable batteries. Then the free market will do its thing and keep the engine of innovation running
Speaking of which, does anyone want to do a list of "features added to smartphones over the last 10 years" vs "features removed from smartphones over the last 10 years" so we can see just what innovations are at risk?
I'm not suggesting anything, I'm simply offering the reality of the smartphone market. What you are suggesting is a contrived, exaggerated take of how markets function.
People generally like small, thin phones, as evidenced by the billions sold. It really isn't much more complicated than that.
"Which flagship phones with replaceable batteries can customers buy?"
Most of the Kyocera Duraforce line has this ability.
To steelman your response some, there's also the Samsung XCover 7. It has a Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 processor (from 2024, two years newer than the latest Kyocera Duraforce) and up to 8GB RAM. But it's still not exactly a flagship device, and the American telcos I checked only offer the 6GB RAM variant.
Their latest and greatest PRO 3 runs a chip that was mid-range when it releases 4 years ago and only 6 GB of RAM. That is decidedly not a flagship.
> "If people wanted removable batteries in their phones, they would buy them a lot. They don't."
For that to happen there obviously needs to be a supply worth writing home about. Furthermore, speaking purely for myself, a removable battery is not a must but a nice-to-have. A lot of slabs that have removable batteries are out of the game for entirely different reasons.
> For that to happen there obviously needs to be a supply worth writing home about.
Not really. If there’s no supply, it’s probably because the manufacturers did a market analysis and decided it’s not even worth it to offer that. So either their analysis is extremely wrong and it actually would sell, or the consumers don’t want to buy it that bad.
> "If there’s no supply, it’s probably because the manufacturers [...] decided it’s not even worth it to offer that."
You got it surrounded. Why offer devices that you have to support for a longer time (e. g. enterprise models) when there's more money to be made when you enshittify (which obviously goes beyond just batteries)?
So really it's not about phones having a removable battery, but a whole host of other features plus a removable battery. Which is just untenable from a regulatory POV.
I want removeable batteries in my phone, largely because it means I don't have to buy them a lot!
I ran my LG G5 with replaceable batteries from 2016 through 2021, at which point there were no affordable replaceable-battery phones left. I bought quite a few replacement batteries, even trying aftermarket batteries with varying levels of success after the OEM LG ones were discontinued.
That is, of course, a problem for manufacturers that want to sell a lot of phones.
Innovation generally happens because of some kind of impediment to doing things the old way. So this is more likely drive innovation than curtail it.
Even with a battery that can be replaced using a tiny screwdriver, this still doesn’t make it DIY for probably 80-90% of smartphone users.
That's not the point. It being done in a local shop for a few bucks with no small letter text saying that "we may break your screen in half because this thing can't be repaired properly". It mentions that it should not use glue, not need solvent and only commercially available tools may be usable (or they have to be provided next to the phone).
that isnt how markets really work. you could say that if apple had two otherwise identical iphones except one has removable battery and one doesn't. but the enshittification cycle works via a ratcheting effect. once you achieve a certain level of dominance and lock-in, you can start getting away with all kinds of anti-consumer strategies to make more money and not get punished for it, and your competitors will follow suit. as long as you can ratchet above whatever detrimental thing you want to get away with is you'll probably be fine.
you can look at the lightning connector as an example. if you said "if people wanted usb connectivity they wouldn't buy iphones", nobody would take you seriously. and when apple was forced to switch, it absolutely didnt tank their sales because people just loved the lightning connector so much. the bad thing went away and it was great.
I absolutely would buy a Samsung Smartphone with replacable battery. The last one which had this was the S5 I think...
...is what people said when they brought in the mandate for usb charging but it didnt.
It turns out market consolidation is usually the biggest innovation killer.
It would be nice to have mandatory SD cards..
SD cards and phone jacks!
The link is not working for me, but I hope they have defined what "removable" means (removable without special tools) If not, a lot of companies are going to argue that they already make removable batteries
Also, removeable by who? Its all very well saying its removeable, but thats useless if only possible by a skilled techinician with tools. I dont see the term 'user-removable' anywhere.
> If a special tool is required for replacement, the manufacturer must provide it free of charge.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/21/23079058/apple-self-servi...
79-pound hyper-elaborate repair kit. Expensive for them to send out, but since only two people will ever want them to, probably amortizes well.
IIRC, screwdrivers and prying tools are not considered special. Removal cannot require solvents or heat, but I believe those pull tab glue pads are allowed.
I wish those prying tools were considered "special". I have a very low success rate at opening up any device that's held together with "clips" without snapping any plastic. It inevitably means "force it just hard-enough to break stuff if you don't do it absolutely perfectly".
I'm not a fan of regulation in general but over the last decade it has been extremely frustrating with the removal of replaceable SD cards and batteries from Androids.
I never put my phones in my back pocket nor do I wear butt hugging leggings, so having a thick phone stick out my ass and make it look bad isn't on my list of worries. I end up purchasing thick waterproof cases for these slim phones anyways.
What's most confusing is the premium phones lack replaceable SD cards and batteries - it's like they are trying to take the worst ideas from the Apple ecosystem and simply don't understand why some people use Androids.
Surprisingly, it's the cheaper models that carry replaceable SD cards and batteries - I would have imagined the opposite!
I often go on trips and hikes with poor cellular coverage and having some SD cards with useful information or being able to swap them out as the camera gets full is really helpful. Attaching drives over the USB port isn't really practical.
When I do have cellular coverage, I might have to rapidly download a LOT of data, which overheats the phone and discharges the battery. With a replaceable battery, this isn't even an issue.
The benefits of replaceable batteries cannot be overstated when you're not on the grid or take great care of the phone where they last more than a few years. I can have a few batteries charged, during the day using solar that I can then just swap them in as evening sets in, instead of having to plug the phone into a powerbank and pray it doesn't shut off as I keep using it.
The introduction of glue into the assembly of consumer electronics is a crime against humanity and the Earth. If Timex could make iron-man watches 100-meter waterproof with Phillips-head jeweler's screws back in the '80s, there's no good reason smartphones and laptops can't. And there's a whole host of bad reasons to eschew screws.
Of course you can build a waterproof smartphone with screws (except the screen has to be bonded to the glass for capacitive touch to work and the glass to the frame so there’s still some glueing involved), but it would probably have 1cm bezels around the screen.
I think this was discussed recently on HN. It’s not a bad idea. There’s nothing about this that “ruins” anything else. This is not specific for phones even if everyone focuses on them. The usual arguments are waterproofing and thinness but we can still have them with removable batteries.
...and Apple will be exempt due to a loophole in the law (80% after 1k cycles) making the law utterly pointless.
I keep hearing this over and over, but it's neglected to add that it sets a minimum durability requirement which applies only for a very small niche of ruggedized waterproof devices
Unless your device complies to MIL-STD-810G CN1 and has the certification to back it up your product will be required to add user replaceable batteries
>Unless your device complies to MIL-STD-810G CN1 and has the certification to back it up your product will be required to add user replaceable batteries
Can you provide your source for this? If nothing else, it's very surprising to me that an EU regulation uses a US standard as the baseline!
Edit: Having done a bit of reading on the standard, it also seems like the regulation needs quite a bit of detail if it really does rely on the MIL-STD, since the standard only defines test procedures, not pass/fail criteria?
Yup, that’s a pretty wild loophole. I think they’re targeting the lower end of the market probably to reduce most of the ewaste.
This makes no sense but I still see it mindlessly repeated to exhaustion. That mention is in no way Apple specific, it’s a quality of the battery itself. Any manufacturer is in the same position, not like Apple has a monopoly on batteries that hold 80% charge after 1000 cycles.
I don’t understand how this could be measured fairly though. What kind of cycles? What temperatures was it exposed to? Charged fast or slow? This is an incomplete set of criteria, which seems designed specifically to be meaningless / gameable.
To me this seems like saying you can sell a car with a sealed gas tank as long as it “gets 40 miles per gallon.” And GM gets to decide the test course for measuring MPG, which will be a 2-mile slightly downhill coast with no stopping. Surprise! All our cars get 40-60MPG!
The unspoken implication here is that if your phone still retains 80% after 1000 cycles, then it’s probably so old and obsolete by then that battery replacement would be a silly waste of time, so why burden people with these “onerous rules” in that case.
But in reality, nothing about that metric, even if it’s true, means that customers don’t need to replace their batteries. My iPhone 15 Pro Max is in dire need of a battery replacement, at 82% after only 714 cycles. Aside from the battery, I have literally zero motivation to replace this phone. The phone manufacturers hate the idea that the battery might get replaced, because in this day and age it’s pretty much the only reason a 2 to 3-year-old phone (especially a flagship) isn’t extremely adequate for 99% of the population.
In the US the EPA gets to set the guidelines for mileage testing, which GM has to follow. We've already had a major case in penalties for not following the guidelines via VW and emissions.
It will likely boil down to "typical use" so in the event that someone wants to bring Apple to court over it and demonstrate the issue, it could solidify what's currently a little vague. Laws aren't required to get it perfect out of the gate.
> then it’s probably so old and obsolete by then that battery replacement would be a silly waste of time
obsolescence is a spectrum, if a swappable battery mandate gives a small % of devices a few extra years it would be worth it... I already give old devices to family members and kids on the "free is better than nothing" spectrum and a swappable battery would have extended the life at least a few of said devices, in my personal experience
not really! at the very least it requires more thought around battery quality
the choice for budget devices is now
1. better battery
2. removability (likely more expensive and complicates water-tightness )
The supposed aim of this is to reduce e-waste. But when 90% of smartphones sold are iPhones and Samsung Galaxies which are exempt it makes this bill completely pointless, as the ewaste it will save is a small fraction of a percentage of the total.