It's okay to have idiosyncratic preferences (I certainly do), but people should recognize that this law will make phones _worse_ for most people, because this law will force phone manufacturers to compromise the things that most people want in order to provide something that most people don't want.
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, and by the time batteries wear out, most people are going to want a new a phone. 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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
In fact, the only place I would ever expect somebody to claim otherwise is here.
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.
It’s a pretty commonly used canonical example of revealed preferences.
<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?
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.
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.
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.
I don’t understand. If we want to see the data we do need to make batteries replaceable.
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.
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?
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.
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?
Although some of this depends on how you define replaceable.
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.
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.
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.
That remains to be seen. This could accelerate cultural change around desiring shiny new toy being seen as cool
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.
'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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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”
> 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 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.
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?
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.
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.
Mobile phones are totally okay the way they are now. No one needs new ones, and almost no one wants new ones. My previous phone lasted for 5 years. I changed the battery halfway, of course - it took a repair guy in a local shop about an hour.
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.
Very ironic, you almost got it, post.
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.
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.
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.
(and yes, I know that power banks exist)
Hopefully this will help bring the headphone jack back.
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.
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.
... 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.
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! :-)
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
Most people want new phones because of shit software updates and marketing not because out of necessity.
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.
Welcome to democracy and lawmaking in 2026. We know better than you!
I can have two (or more) batteries, if it runs out I just change it. I don’t need walk around with a USB battery pack and cable hanging off the device preventing me from using it properly.
I can put the battery on charge somewhere and leave it, even if not completely secure, because just the battery not the device. This way my expensive device and my data is not at risk.
I can use 40+ year old cameras, because I can just put a new battery in. This is not something you can do with newer device, e.g. and iPod and you can’t even find anyone who will fit them for the older models.
Battery tech moves on. There are now some batteries with charging ports on them. Other batteries offer more capacity than the original ones. Apple even did this once for me, when MacBook Air batteries were fairly easy to replace, I had mine replaced (it wore out) at the shop and they put a slightly bigger one in, which was the standard on the newer models.
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.
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.
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?
Sadly, you can't use modern software on 40+ year old computers. You can't even use most apps in 10 year old smartphones.
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.
Devices all had proprietary batteries. If I had 3 devices on me, I was carrying 3x extra batteries, one+ per device. My Nikon D1H required 5 huge proprietary batteries to cover a day of shooting sports. Plus a battery for my BlackBerry, plus batteries for my headlamp.
Devices were not waterproof except for a few expensive, complicated options. Upsell! My Canon waterproof camera came with a tube of silicon I had to dab on the battery compartment gasket every few times I charged it.
Today devices are lighter, more water resistant, and easier to charge in the field—just bring one power bank. And you often don’t have to power off or stop using the device while it’s charging.
This is not just a phone thing, even headlamps are moving toward a built-in battery for all the reasons above.
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.
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.
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.
Low cost phones will be most affected.
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.
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.
So manufactures might just responds to this by making your phone heavier with a bigger battery that is being under utilized.
Not really. Take a 4000 mAh rated cell, advertise it as "rated for 3500 mAh" and that's it.
This same thing happened to Pixels 6a after 500 cycles.
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.
So it does not seem a big deal
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...
> If a battery can do 1000 cycles and remain above 80% capacity it is exempt
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.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...
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
What a disappointment.
You could argue that the trend towards more energy dense batteries and wireless charging could enable new interesting form factors. Recent phones have magnetic connectors for external wireless chargers/batteries that snap to the back. Most of bulk and weight of a phone is for accommodating batteries. You could make an argument that making a phone with replaceable batteries is easier than ever. Many cameras have a bulge for the camera. The negative space of the rest of the phone could easily hold a swappable battery. How critical are those 3mm really?
I'm arguing that the sealed / glued / tightly packed / irreplaceable battery thing helps keep phones working for longer.
Of course the counterpoint is that often the battery is the first component to go, and this law is intended to make it easier to keep them in working order for longer.
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.
Have more than one and I can chain enough to last me indefinitely
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?
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.
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
An easily swappable battery can be processed separately and hopefully become a source of materials that would otherwise need to be mined somewhere far away.
Ultimately the goal is to have a closed-loop economy:
https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/waste-and-recycling/...
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.
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.
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...
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...
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.
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".
Yes, cameras are better now. But some phones had good cameras years ago. I bought new phones mainly because of battery decline and/or not getting security updates.
If one of these will be solved, that might change my phone buying behaviour.
I don't care whether a display is called "retina" , whether the next edition comes in the colour "space banana grey while lion tiger snail".
And I don't need to impress someone by proving that I'm able to buy a new phone either. Such behaviour gives me a good hint what to think about them though.
A phone that will have the battery situation solved is a killer argument. Then I'd like to have a software distribution on top that it's "mum compatible" and doesn't need nerd knowledge to maintain. Something that allows to use banking apps.
Let's see how it goes. Also I hope that there can be third party batteries without DRM-like behaviour.
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're not. This is a big reason why "tech" went so all-in on AI.
The era of rapid innovation and rapid growth on phones is over. We hit "peak smartphone" in 2019-2020, look at a chart of iphone or Samsung models. Like a lightswitch they locked in on a specific design.
Hell, the more curmudgeon-y will complain that phones have degraded since. Gone is the 3.5mm jack, gone is the SD card slot. "Fuck you, buy our expensive bluetooth junk." "Fuck you buy our cloud storage".
(The reality is that consumers appear to prefer bluetooth audio and cloud storage, phones that do still retain the 3.5mm/sd card slot aren't gaining ground in the market. Sony is likely to close down their phone division in the upcoming years despite being one of the last holdouts.)
Hence all the desire in tech to find "The next iPhone", and the dozens of attempts to make "AI hardware" despite the fact that literally all of it has failed against the simple question of "why can't this be a smartphone/smartwatch app?"
This extends to AI in general. It can't just be a tool with some specific applications, it has to "Change The World", "Be the next iPhone".
Now we can scale up volume, swap them out, be free to purchase from a different manufacturer, and have scaled up recycling services.
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.
So if you want phones to be usable for longer period, you need to standardize batteries.
> 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.
There are plenty of old Dell and HP laptops with replaceable batteries which can only be found on eBay or some random seller that does who knows what under the refurbishing process.
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.
I'm confused why that still isn't the case today given all the EU headlines we've seen over the years.
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.
Most consumers are like pigs who simply eat whatever the market throws into their trough, because ultimately they have better things to do than to get deeply involved in every purchasing decision.
> If replaceable batteries were better, they would already be available.
Developments like those in the smartphone market involve complex path dependencies. That’s why you can’t simply assume that competition will lead to the product offerings converging on the best product. Furthermore, “better” needs to be defined in some way. If we leave that up to the market, it becomes a circular argument: (1) The better product prevails in the market. (2) The product that prevails in the market is the better one. This circular reasoning is the biggest flaw in market ideology. I don't understand why people can't see that. The market moves in a certain direction, and they say, “There it is—progress!”
> Regulation hinders progress.
Perhaps, at times, the opposite is true. Even if we set aside the fact that “better” is defined in a circular manner here, the path-dependence of market development sometimes causes the market to get stuck in a local optimum. Regulatory interventions in the market can then serve as an effective lever to help the market break free from that situation.
> If you want a removable battery, you're simply in the minority as a consumer.
That’s another point where I just don’t get market ideologues: why should I reject regulatory intervention on the one hand, but on the other hand, if the market doesn’t give me what I want, I’m supposed to just shut up and accept that there isn’t enough demand for my quirky, special requests? I’ve been missing removable batteries ever since they disappeared from the market. That must have coincided with the rise of smartphones. Come to think of it, maybe Steve Jobs is to blame. With iPods, there was still a public debate about the issue [1]. With the iPhone, it was just the way it was.
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.
Too often, including in HN comments, those regulations are presented as "obviously" good policies. Well, data are better than assumptions.
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
Now I rely on a few random individuals who, for all I know could be state agents or a ransomware organization to provide unofficial versions of Lineage so I can keep using it.
Battery isn't the only problem to avoid e-waste, but it's a start.
But then I think someone will figure out to make these batteries so expensive, that it won't change a thing.
I own a 2020 Kona EV. The battery cannot be upgraded. Eventually, I'll have to replace the entire car to get a longer range. BEVs should be mandated to have upgradable batteries and modular interfaces so that the shell can continue to be reused, the batteries (and BMS) upgraded, and old batteries easily recycled.
And next, hopefully, replaceable software.
Which will do much more for phone longevity.
- The cheapest phones available in the EU (and purchasable online) all have glued-in batteries, not swappable ones. Forcing consumers to use phones with swappable batteries may just mean that the bottom of the market disappears, and consumers will be left paying more for their phones. And would they rather pay less or have swappable batteries?
- This will cause some cascade of engineering changes, which will make phones thicker or less waterproof. Again, it's not clear to me that the tradeoff is being fairly reflected here.
In order to reduce plastic pollution, they forced manufacturers to make attached bottle caps (terrible idea) but go to the supermarket and there are various fruits and vegetables each unit wrapped in plastic separately.
Now they are targeting phones but I also want my handheld and robot vacuum cleaners, electric toothbrushes, grass cutters, etc to also have batteries that can be removed and replaced without tearing down entire device and even learning soldering in some cases.
This law will be tragic for Google and Apple. What will compel people to upgrade their functional phones?
I thought I did everything right but then the thing wouldn't turn on. Could be a bad battery (ordered on Amazon so zero guarantees). Then when I tried to de-solder and re-solder my new battery the pads came off it. Very annoying.
Now, if I'm lucky, they will mandate both a replaceable battery and that the phones be ip55 or better, after battery replacement.
Lithium batteries in things running 24/7 unsupervised always makes me a bit nervous
Phones have lost so much in a decade.
I use 15 Pro. I don't like the new aluminium iPhones much. So I just went it to Apple service center and had the battery replaced. It costs just 90 euros and I now have a brand new phone, basically.
I very much prefer my phone to be thinner, water resistant, and have a larger battery compared to being able to do it myself.
But it is not super high on my list. Every 2 or 3 years I pay less than $100 to have a new OE battery installed, takes about an hour. There are other features I would put a higher priority on - like a good small phone option now and again.
But laptops? Most 10 year old laptops would be fine for daily use, if only the battery would not be a hazard
Given the drafts vs final version of the bill/policy, looks like the battery now must be more easily replaced vs true camera-like battery hot swap.
Even with an iPhone turned off, NSA can still listen:
It was done because:
* It makes phones massively easier to waterproof
* It allows for larger batteries
* It allows for more compact and lighter phones
Consumers, based on what they buy, have shown again and again that they want these features.
It also simplifies manufacture and lowers costs, which everyone likes.
I like removable batteries. If I had the option, I'd get a phone with that feature. But I know that I am certainly in the minority, as is almost everyone in this thread.
It's also worth pointing out that these days, battery and software have advanced to the point where degradation is quite slow in many cases. The phone will often outlive its useful life due to specs rather than battery.
A proper gasket and screws needs to be the standard solution here.
This is much more important, than batteries.
What's next? Mandating that the screens be "replaceable" as well? Having used a fairphone before, I can tell from experience that easily replaceable parts are more prone to breaking from dust and moisture etc.
on the other hand, mandating easier to repair components is ineffective if the manufacturer does not support the parts sale or use parts otherwise widely available in the market.
this goes beyond for other consumer electronics. in the world of laptops, which are generally more repairable, i've had my own experience with a mid-range one from lenovo, the largest vendor worldwide. [1]
the laptop was from the covid-era and one of the refresh of their popular lineup which has seen minimal changes under the hood. despite that, when i had to replace its fans and battery, i had to look for third-party sellers for the components. they are quite easy to replace but as a regular consumer it is tricky to find the correct parts and not overspend on them.
maybe with the new silicon carbide batteries, we could have a "nokia bl-5c" moment, without the counterfeit explody part.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/267018/global-market-sha...
And they say this will save consumers money, but I will this not also make all new phones way more expensive?
Without security updates, slack, bank software etc. will refuse to install and your phone will be a brick with replaceable batteries in 5-10 years. Or a single utility device.
[edit] didn’t see the fine print with the cycles requirement etc. so it seems Apple etc is still safe.
Removing it is one of the most annoying things ever in a phone. Yes, Bluetooth is getting better, but the jack always works perfectly. Why can't we have both?
*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.
Maybe it's for our own good, maybe we have to suck it up and lose a little capacity to meet sustainability goals. Or maybe this won't do much for the environment.
Batteries that can be popped out and replaced by your average consumer are something beyond that, and have certain consumer benefits like being able to bring along a backup or something, but aren't that important to me.
Since 2020 phone hardware and especially battery has become much better, reliable and long lasting, at least at not dirt cheap ones. It will fail long after the screen brakes or the software updates stop. And a replaceable battery degrades the design.
On the other side a new battery makes an old phone like new. But again it only costs 15-20E to change it in a non-repl phone.
The only real reason to promote battery repl is to reduce e-waste.
if you gonna go about e-waste then go by repairability and part prices and part supply. then let the market sort itself out.
as someone said - either standardize batteries or ensure that device makers can cap the cost of battery replacement from 3rd parties.
most phones these days - the screen gets damaged before batteries.
what about laptops ? other e-devices ?
However, doesn't Apple already provides this? You can go to store and switch your battery for like 60 EUR or so.
No one on this planet should use their phone more than 2 hours per day. Period. More is just plain stupid.
...
> [...] if specialised tools are required, they must be provided free of charge when the phone or tablet is purchased.
So if a family buys several phones and tablets that all use the same specialized tool to change their batteries they end up with several identical specialized tools?
From a reducing waste perspective wouldn't it be better to just require that the tool be available for free for some reasonable amount of time such as however long the manufacturer is required to support the device?
It only took me four or so hours to replace it...
"EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices"
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31652291
And 1 year later: "Apple says iPhones will switch to USB-C chargers to comply with new EU law"
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33358353
It's interesting to see almost all the exact sentiment. I think barring some niches, most people are happy with USB-C transition.
I understand the scepticism but the expectation of "perfection" from regulators (incremental improvement disliked) while fanfare for incremental startup / tech improvement is a weird, cognitive dissonance of HN
We are being gaslighted by Apple. They keep telling us that it's impossible to have a thin and light device with a user-replaceable battery, or even, heaven forbid, an SD card slot. I beg to differ: there are some compromises (it won't be as seamless perhaps and Jony Ive or whoever won't be able to wax poetic about the materials), but it can be done.
I would imagine something similar is true for waterproofing. There are certainly ways to have a separate battery and phone, with a waterproofed connector.
People shouldn't have to pay $$$ for a 128GB upgrade when a 1TB microSDXC card is under $200. It feels like a trick to sell cloud storage and new phones.
Next time I will also by previous generation rather than the newest model.
if anyone can replace the phone, it's much harder to track how it was recycle with phone with battery. same with cars btw.
they trying to change the world by just issuing the order. That usually never works fine.
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.
