Non-Replaceable Battery? Not If This Proposed EU Law Passes!

A disturbing trend in consumer electronics has been a steady disappearance of replaceable batteries on our devices. Finding a mobile phone with a swapable battery is a struggle, and many other devices follow the trend by sealing in a Li-Po cell. The result is an ever-shorter life for electronics, and a greater problem with devices going to recycling or worse still, landfill. Hope is at hand though, thanks to a proposed European Union law that would if passed make batteries in appliances “designed so that consumers can easily remove and replace them themselves“.

In case any readers in the rest of the world wonder what it has to do with them, the EU represents such a huge market that manufacturers can neither ignore it, nor in most cases afford to make separate EU and rest-of-world versions of their products. Thus if the EU requires something for sale in its territories, in most cases it becomes the de facto norm for anything designed to be sold worldwide. We’ve already seen this with the EU’s right to repair legislation, and while we have not doubt that manufacturers will do their best to impede this new law we don’t think they will ultimately prevail.

Via 9to5Mac.

104 thoughts on “Non-Replaceable Battery? Not If This Proposed EU Law Passes!

  1. I am of mixed feelings on this one. Sure it would be nice to be able to swap my iPhone battery, but there would be a cost both in terms of the bulkiness of the case and the water-proof-worthiness of the seals. I also wonder what percent of the general public currently replaces the batteries in their non-smart watches versus those who go to a shop to have it done while they wait. Yes, I think replacing phone batteries should be easier, but not so much easier that even a mechanical doofus could do it. At the same time, there is no way to replace the battery in my electric toothbrush. There clearly needs to be some kind of law regarding replaceability, as long as it doesn’t go too far defining what “easily replaceable” actually means.

      1. It doesn’t really solve anything. I have a phone with a replaceable battery; good luck finding a genuine replacement battery after the phone has gone EOL. I’ve done it once, it was expesive and difficult to find anyone who still had one on the shelf.

        Sure, I can order low quality fakes from China, but they take two months to arrive and the capacity is never what it used to be, or it breaks in another year.

        1. Actually that is where you are wrong, It does solve a lot of issues.
          Instead of a whole new phone which can go in the landfil, cause not everyone recycles them, even the with the batteries, only the battery is changed. and EOL means nothing not unless it is way past and not updating, and accepting new APPs or Updates. As I have old 5-10 year phones, that still update and still work(with replaceable battery), this is a big thing. I also have 5-10 year old non removeable still wortk fine…EOL is subjective…and usually results in from you personally damaging your phne to make it get faster to EOL, as well you wanting the new and better thing out there, which is NOT EOL.

          2…having a removeable battery when the build in batteries are crud most of the time, even the legit oem ones, making a removeable one makes sense, saves the phone, and there are more battery recycling places than phone recycling out there.
          3… you keep what you know and you know your phone. this solves having issues transfering, your phone contacts, pics, data to a new phone, which always results in at a loss. Also results in you having to download ALL your APPs again, which you were using before, also solves the issue in having to register your phone with 2FA which can be a pita when it is tied to your phone.
          4…I dont know where you live or what, but anywhere where I was able to replace my battery were always cheap, like 3-5$ a battery, laster good solid 2 years usually before they died which is a good long time, even if they last 1 year intervals, 3-5$ for a battery every 1-2 years, well worth it. And you can get them everywhere, even off the wall ones, yes they came from china and places that are subject to the toxic laws that the USA here has…but still worth it when it paves ways for people to have jobs as well, either in USA or OUT. As well, you normally never bought your batteries ‘off the shelf’ it was normally always online. Where they ‘genuine’ nokia , ‘apple’ batteries no, but they lasted the 1-2 years and were cheap. I do admit once they went away with the replaceables then YES it was a PITA to find a replacement, but that is because they went away with the replaceables in phone…not cause they were replaceable…there is a difference there.
          If they brought them back full force, there will be a change. But the fact being, as you stated china…idk HOW or WHERE you get your batteries from over there(Or where you live), but never 2 months to deliv here in the USA., 2 weeks maybe, but never 2months. AND with that fact withstanding, once it goes to removeable, there WILL be batteries being made, and MORE THAN LIKELY there will be STOCK where ever you live, cause the batteries will be stocked in the country you are in, making it cheaper and more afforadable.
          5…As Ono said above, it can possibly drive manuf to make better batteries over all for internal ‘non-removeable’ to removeable. This can also lead to innovations.

          You are obviously too young to remember when there was never a non replaceable battery back in the 80 and early mid 90s, (Yes Iam old…I am 42…I was around before computers were a norm in houses, and before cellphones, and pagers and the only way to make a phone call when you were out cause you got a page, was what was called a phone booth, or a pay phone look them up) you could get them everywhere, cause they were being made everywhere….so if they bring that back, it can solve a lot of issues with, device replacements, and issues with toxic elements, etc, and jobs to sell said batteries, cause there will be a force beyond force needing said batteries for everything.

          So no Over all no you are wrong, about it ‘doesn’t really solve anything’ you are too young to realize this obviously.

    1. The issue of waterproof ability is a non-issue. Around the world, there are hundreds, thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of items and devices that are built to IP66, 7, 8, even IP69 standards, AND also are serviceable designs. Part of the reason behind non-removable batteries in cell phones was to spawn more sales. Apple started the trend and others soon followed. Using Water and Dust proofing is just an easy excuse.

    2. No, the “cost of bulkiness” is a myth, which can be verified by comparing the thickness of various generations of Samsung phones rather well. And frankly I think that the waterproofing concern for the most part is BS as well. Cases in point: while the IP67 rated Samsung Galaxy phones with their removable backplates worked rather well the Sony Xperia phones’ IP68 ratings were a big fat lie despite their sealed design.

      1. And don’t forget the obligatory giant case that nearly everybody put on their phones because they’re too delicate from the start.

        Start with a design goal of a phone that’s the same size and as tough as the average be-cased phone, try to make it look nice, and see what miracles can occur.

        But alas, that phone wouldn’t look very good on a chic white background on a 100x larger than life print in front of the apple store…

      1. While I agree with the sentiment, watches are a poor example. Modern quartz watches use so little power they can be charged for weeks of operation via a small solar cell hidden under the face. In addition, the size of the case has more to do with the aesthetics of the watch than containing the movement and power source – there’ s tons of “wasted” space in the average sized men’s watch compared to modern cell phones there every cubic millimeter is accounted for, mostly to power the ever growing need for more processing.

    3. As the battery in your normal watch should last years, if not decades going to your local handyman who has the case opening tools you won’t need makes sense. Its also a much much smaller device – the EU doesn’t seem like it is targeting everything with a battery with a ‘must have trivial to swap, tooless, powertool style battery’ rule, just a battery that is actually replaceable reliably.

      Which the extra well stuck together phones fail at massively, as even a practised phone fixer with all the special glue softening heatpad and suction tools will sometimes ruin the rest of the device trying to get at the battery or get it unstuck. So the layperson has very little chance of success. But add say a few tiny screws rather than that heap of glue the device is practically unchanged design wise, really won’t cost much more to make but suddenly its trivial to replace with simple tools.

      1. As a layperson, I’ve replaced about 5 iPhone batteries and 3 iPhone screens for family members, using only a hair dryer, knockoff screwdrivers, and one of those pliers style suction cup openers (so ~$20 in tools other than the hair dryer).

        It’s not difficult and my success rate is 100%.

        1. We cracked an iphone 5 screen replacing the battery. There is no fcking reason on earth why apple cannot make a battery that swaps in 60s and that is what European law should require since americans are too environmentally careless to require it themselves …

        2. You are reading this webpage I think that largely excludes you from being a real lay-person…

          And while you have done a few you really haven’t done enough to say anything other than I’ve been lucky enough that its not gone wrong yet – and with a hairdrier I’d not be surprised if you can’t actually get the right temperature across the whole thing, so you have overheated other parts OR not actually softened all the glue enough everywhere that the prying can cause damage. Not saying it can’t be done that way, as obviously it can but with how delicate the other parts inside can be and the shear quantity of glue in some of these things it doesn’t take doing anything much wrong to have a failure…

          1. Ah but Jim lets say even the very best tools and highly practised splitter of glued phones has a failure in every 100 (I don’t know what the actually rate is, just that they do still have failures and bemoan the excessively glued phone), you a reader of HAD therefore are likely good enough at this sort of thing for having a proper understanding and practice at similar tasks to have a failure maybe 1 in 20 times despite more primitive tools. The general population with no great understanding of how it works just following the first ticktok guide they come across on the other hand… I’d think failure may even outweigh successes.

            So you really have not done enough of them to really expect to have your failure yet anyway, and have a leg up on huge portions of the population who don’t have the background knowledge and experience. Also if those 8 attempts are on the same device(s) it doesn’t really count – it is definitely on that first opening when you are going to break something more often than not…

    4. “At the same time, there is no way to replace the battery in my electric toothbrush.”

      Are you saying this out of experience or assumption?

      On Braun/OralB toothbrushes, the tang on the charging dock , is the battery removal tool, and its actually really easy, and uses a standard battery. On other toothbrushes, its the body thats threaded and you unscrew it.

      1. Sonicare toothbrushes are built in such a way that they have a removable battery, but not replaceable. Opening the case to remove the battery, per the instructions, destroys some latching part and prevents reassembly (absent some serious creativity). I was appalled at the instructions included with my new one!

    5. Why does it have to be so damn thin though? I lived through the era of brick phones just fine!
      As for waterproofing, just don’t drop it in the toilette. Seriously, I always had phones with removeable batteries and I usually bought extra-thick extended-life batteries that made the phone even thicker. It never broke my back to carry it nor did I ever kill a phone with water. But my phones lasted a long time on a charge with those batteries and I could always carry a second to swap. External charger plus second battery for the win!

  2. It’s more complex than this.

    I like having my devices being waterproof. Looks like that’s going away.

    On the other hand I will be able to replace the battery in my s27 phone, so I will get three years out of it rather than two.

      1. I don’t trust any gasket unless it’s screwed down all around. Samsung phone went belly up in 2 feet of water even though it was supposed to be waterproof. The back cover got bumped when it fell, so the gasket leaked.

    1. Is perfectly possible to make device water proof even replaceable battery. Its just matter of having proper seal and few screws. Current trend of glued bricks promote unnecessary environmental load by artificially having expire date on device do to battery going bad by age.

        1. May be an unintended consequence of this, but that is still a win for the EU’s goals in bringing these rules in – as less tech will be written off as waste after water damage.

    2. “I like having my devices being waterproof. Looks like that’s going away.”

      IP67 and IP68 in mobile market was available at times when all mobiles had headphone jacks. And those times are not so distant.

        1. It was a feature deleted by smartphone manufacturers to save money and sell accessories. The manufacturers claimed that is was to aid waterproofing. This is incorrect, just as replaceable batteries also don’t prevent a phone from being waterproof.

    3. “I like having my devices being waterproof. Looks like that’s going away.”

      O-ring gaskets be like “am I a joke to you?”

      And if it does happen, it’s because manufacturers are being skinflints now that they’re gonna find out after fucking around with making battery replacements a bitch for so long since that’s one of many steps to introduce planned obsolescence.

    4. I can’t imagine a well paid engineer can’t figure this one out… Phones price have been rising just based on chip innovation, it’s a good time to improve on casing too. Are we going to be looking for excuses to argument in favor of multi million dollar companies now? I’m so sad about Apple and the rest…

    5. Not at all true. I have a 10 year old dive computer with replaceable batteries (Suunto). We aren’t talking about “water resistant”, but water proof such that you can trust your life on it.

      It is just easier and cheaper to make things waterproof by sealing the batteries inside. Now whether the manufacturers will go the extra mile (or kilometer) to make them both replaceable AND waterproof is yet another question.

    6. Electric watches are waterproof. Like most of the things that Apple does they do this in order to screw their customers out of extra money that’s the motivation for 90% of what they do!

  3. My past few phones have been made obsolete by lack of security updates, not by battery wearing out. Laptops are a different thing, often the battery is replaceable but it is hard to find reputable replacement batteries after a few years.

      1. iPhones seem to get security updates for at least 5 years – the 2015 6SAs still gets security updates according to Wikipedia. Do other big brands like Samsung not?

        And I find battery life is fine for at least 3 years. It’s the performance that hurts most on older devices as newer software needs more and more resources.

        I’ve replaced batteries in several MacBooks, and I’ve been very disappointed. It’s very hard to get a good quality replacement battery. Even ones from very legitimate looking sellers with good reviews don’t last anywhere near as long as the originals – they’re fine for a few months but the capacity drops. Next time I’ll get Apple to do the replacement. When I’ve had them replace a battery in an iPhone it’s been good as new and lasted years like the original.

        So whilst I’m all for repairability, I think the EU is in the wrong here. This won’t help consumers.

        If they want to mandate for repairability, they should look at non-portable stuff – toasters and kettles, vacuums, washing machines, and TVs. But no, they’ve got some grudge against Apple and Google.

          1. Protip: they don’t need to supply parts to devices that are out of production. The program is just smoke and mirrors when the manufacturer changes models faster than the old ones break, so you end up with no spare parts available anyhow.

    1. My 10+ year old galaxy note2 which I am typing this on, running lineages 19.1 begs to differ. It was exactly because of replace a me batteries.

      Yes, we absolutely need to deal better with software, shouldn’t be on the plate of voulenteers, but that is a different discussion

  4. Despite what cell phone companies would like consumers to believe, waterproofing and replaceable batteries are not mutually exclusive. It’s just ever so slightly more expensive to have both.

  5. The big problem isn’t the replacing (90%of the time) it’s sourcing good genuine quality parts. What’s the point being able to change a battery if all you can buy is seconds, rejects or fakes.

    1. This is 100% my experience when replacing batteries in laptops. Even claimed “OEM” stuff is junk. You can pay as much as to have Apple replace it themselves and all you get is junk with a higher markup.

  6. Where is the online list that shows the ones of the brands
    with replaceable batteries and the ones that are not. So we have an easier choice.
    There are so many social media where this could be placed.
    Why do we add unnecessary waste to our planet?
    It seems the EU tries to keep the world a bit cleaner.
    Which as well means that the rest of the world gives a shit about the same.
    And this applies not only to batteries,
    but is exactly the same for a lot of products that are manufactured for waste – no chance to repair.
    OK, manufacture for waste gives a cheaper product and more throughput.
    But then somebody else has to pay for getting rid of this waste.
    In nature (nearly) everything is recycled – including all of us here.
    Have a nice Christmas
    and there might be some time left to think about ideas like this.

  7. This all may pave the way for super capacitors development into the mass market. They are not batteries in a sense that the “chemically” hold the charge, hence they could be build in. An additional advantage is a near unlimited lifespan – at least in the world of consume electronics.

  8. Standardized batteries. Most every phone, flashlight, laptop, power tool has some unique battery. Buy an electric drill and you’re locked into their tool ecosystem. I’m tired of it. Not only require replaceable batteries in every battery-powered device but dictate a small number of standard battery sizes. I don’t care if my phone or watch or laptop is a millimeter smaller/bigger than the next guy. You buy a car it runs on gas or diesel. You don’t have to buy ford or chevy or toyota gas. It’s just gas.

    1. I have no objection to the power tool vendor lock in really, but only if the vendor does the decent thing and keeps interoperability and/or availability for a long long time and don’t jack up their prices on the tools stupidly – Ryobi stand out there to me with the ‘One’ range being compatible for a very very long time now, with good tool prices. It would be nice if they were all the same across vendors, but that also means you don’t have much scope for new form factors etc so overall IFF the company does it well I don’t object there.

      Similar with DSLR, phone, laptop battery really – its a small device with potentially very complex and significant volumes of inner workings, with specific voltage and current requirements, that also needs to get its ergonomics correct – force your camera to use the standard ‘small’ battery for instance and it may not have the voltage or current available to run its flash in the ideal way, and that battery may still be rather on the large and heavy side for it making the camera unbalanced or just making changing battery really challenging – it is just too much of a design constraint added on top of the many other constraints that make the device good to use.

      Just as long as you can get new battery, preferably from official reseller or directly at a sane price and they don’t go changing battery shape and size by tiny annoying amounts for no good reason.

      1. All those are obsolete, the voltages are incompatible with lithium cell voltages. Others include N, all the B (+) batteries, those Varta flat packs, and ever smaller button cells that sell for the same price.

  9. Doesn’t this seem like something the market can handle? If people want it then someone can/will make it. Why a mandate? If the people in a country actually want this feature and they think it is worth the extra cost, they can get it.

    There are plenty of comments here about the pros and cons of waterproofing with replaceable batteries and summing up the (inconsequential) effects and benefits and the kinds of laws one needs. In all this political science I don’t see anything about actually building the phones or starting a phone company. Hmmm.

    1. Because the producers of such things DON’T WANT TO make it – it costs them practically nothing extra per device to make them with easy change battery and great waterproofing, but does mean they won’t get to sell as many of their new models every year, so they don’t do it. So until the phone makers manage to figure out how to charge a subscription service for the torch functionality or something stupid like that instead they won’t.

      It takes a mandate to force at least a few of them who value trade in Europe enough to actually produce this stuff, at which point as they tend to then sell the same product name and it is actually at least largely the same device in the Americas and Asia the folks there CAN choose to buy it based on that feature. Can’t do that if it doesn’t exist, and once it exists the rest of the market may have to follow as it turns out they didn’t know what the consumer really wanted afterall.

      1. > it costs them practically nothing

        It costs them the ease of manufacturing OR good quality seals on the device. Tiny screws that the user can access (multiple times without breaking them) are not trivial to design and assemble.

        Remember phones that would fly apart when you drop them? Battery and back cover/shell all popping out? That’s by design: the cover was designed to fly open because if it didn’t, the clips would snap and break. That however meant that any IP rating given was basically bunk.

        1. Tiny screws really are not difficult. They could easily do so. Would not make a blind bit of difference to their seals and it wouldn’t cost them enough to be worth mentioning – that is what giant mass production runs are for, the exact right jigs and tooling for each and every stage to make the process of making millions of the damn things cheaply. Changing the alignment and gluing rig for an alignment with screws jig is a tiny change.

          Heaps and heaps of devices are screwed together, it is still by far the most common method in almost every other sector and it has been the default method to join things needing water tight seals or not for substantially longer than the glue or the 100% chance to break at least one off plastic clips of this one little corner of the market…

          Plus If the end user rather than an authorised repair centre buggers up the seal its not their problem, doesn’t matter if the seal is somewhat annoying to fit without the bespoke jigs used in the factory… But still the real failure mode there is actually likely to be generation of some adult language after dropping a screw…

          1. Talking with ex phone engineers, yes they are difficult. Having been to a factory that makes cellphones, the assembly line to get those little screws aligned, picked up reliably, placed reliably, screwed in reliably, is a technical nightmare.

          2. And it wouldn’t be that difficult if they were making the same phone for years so they could hone the process down – but that’s not the case. Every new phone is different and the process starts all over. Tolerances, dimensional variables, running up the assembly line till it actually works… then six months later the phone model changes.

          3. >its not their problem

            Of course it is their problem; it’s their phone. If the users fumble with it, they’ll go to another company because it’s a “shitty phone”.

          4. >…if they were making the same phone for years so they could hone the process down

            Doesn’t sound like a problem to me – the ‘new’ iphone or any other ‘new’ smartphone has for a long time looked as near as makes no odds identical to the old ones, and often the layout is very copy paste inside too – so at worst it guides the design such that the assembly is the same, but with the new 0.5ghz faster cpu, etc..

            Maybe every few generations your internal space requirements change enough with the more major technical shifts that you must relocate or remove this screw and change the gaskets if present. But it really won’t need to be every generation as nothing much changes in the rapid generation cycles, and the amount of extra effort required to use screws over glue probably means the generational cycles go back to something slightly less insane than entirely new range from every major player on such a short time scale. And the good news is it can – as the crappy practice of design such that odds are great it breaks in short order in hard to repair ways and definately becomes e-waste for lack of viable battery is largely gone – make profits from supporting repairs and supplying the parts – quite possibly larger profits, as you don’t have to do all the R&D again…

  10. This is super dumb. You’re forcing the manufacturer to make a thicker phone for everyone where the market CLEARLY doesn’t care. Current iPhone is 7.65mm thick. The pocket for a battery will require AT MINIMUM a wall of 1.2mm or more. Add in the screws/clips/retainers and you’re probably looking at an additional claim of ~0.2mm. So you’ve added 18% to the thickness for a benefit that current consumers don’t care about.

    1. I totally care. Wouldn’t touch Apple. I buy decent Chinese phones that are thick enough to hold, rugged, have a thermal camera. GPS performance is fantastic. Battery life is good – they just have a big battery. You can delete all the preinstalled apps, and they work globally without any region locking bullshit. The western brand name companies have totally lost my business, across almost all product classes now, as I see their products as flimsy, misleading and customer hostile. Overall, when I buy Asian, I get what I paid for, and usually it’s better than what I expect, not worse, without a bunch of borderline fraudulent gotchas hidden inside.

    1. Just out of curiosity, do you currently own a phone with a user replaceable battery? If not, doesn’t that mean that, in terms of that tradeoff, you actually prefer the thinner phone?

  11. That would be the best thing since (China?) standardized the charging requirement to 5V USB. I am sure there is a way to make phone with replaceable battery yet remains waterproof.

  12. Having followed the link to the law proposal. I don’t think it is majorly important and it won’t be something phone and laptop manufacture’s will argue against in the slightest.

    The whole law proposal is about batteries in industrial applications, as well as Electric vehicles, light means of transport (ie, scooters, e-bikes and such). The minimum required battery capacity to be applicable to this law proposal is 2 kWh. And last I checked, the majority of laptops, nor any phone comes close to 5% of that.

    So no.
    This law proposal doesn’t in the slightest have to do with your phone battery.

    1. Actually it will hit the phone market, just not yet,
      ‘Three and a half years after the entry into force of the legislation, portable batteries in appliances must be designed so that consumers can easily remove and replace them themselves.’

  13. Easiest solution is the ability to restrict maximum charging level. I have bluetooth enabled charger which is controlled by termux-battery-status. When maximum charging level is kept at 70% there has been no erosion of battery capacity in 3 years. Only when truly needed I charge to 100%

  14. Many of these “integrated” batteries are, in fact, replaceable, but require specialized knowledge, and often tools(physical and software) in order to make it happen. Also, in order to get the parts themselves, some manufacturers require the repairer to be a registered/licensed distributor of the brand. Louis Rossman on YouTube can tell you all about it.

  15. It would be great to have replaceable batteries back, but it would be even greater if manufacturers were forced to release documentation so that software could be written for end-of-service devices (capped at max. 10 years or so).

  16. I think it is a controversial topic that nobody knows what they are talking about nor each other is talking about. It seems a trival proposal but unpractical. Similar to built in or replaceable batterypack for laptop. To make end user or easily replaceable battery seems simple but will caused a lot of unexpected trouble. I guess these issues will let the corresponding parties to find out. We could do a professional priced product or a fmcg. The manufacturers or end users will decide what they needed and what they afford to pay for.

    1. Really can’t see it making anything problematic at all – we used to have trivial to change battery in phone and laptop, heck the on the road professionals would often have extra battery and even hotswappable batteries with in car chargers for their portables!

      It was never hard to make ’em that way, not even hard to make them rather thin and waterproof that way. It only stopped because it didn’t help the manufacturers profit margins, as they can’t know they will be able to sell everyone a new device in 2-5 years time when the battery is dead…

        1. Portables being twice as expensive vs today’s models when accounting for inflation hasn’t been true in so very very long, if it ever really was true – way back when portables were something only the trust fund babies and wealthy professional x’s would ever have or really have any use for, as heck the rest of us were lucky to have a PC – when they were the super premium product you expect it to be sell your kidney for everyone else… And the top end super premium end of premium laptop and phone are still very much in the same ballpark of cost today…

          Like any new product that eventually makes it way to the masses it started out ruinously expensive for normal folk at the start, but then the low end models and old second hand ones that only cost some days-weeks rather years wages start to become available as the tech matures and the producers realise there is a market for the things… And long before the period of glue everything together construction phones and laptops became very very affordable… Glue has not done anything meaningful there, if anything its hurt affordability as repairs are practically impossible in comparison now, where go back to say ye ol’ nokia bricks there were spare parts, lots of them and it was possible to cannibalise one to replace parts in another without penalty – So you could get a lower end phone effectively for free when buying a little bit of credit!

  17. Can’t come soon enough. It’s not like making the battery compartment waterproof is an impossibility — it has been done before with mobile phones before they decided to glue everything together.

    Whilst they’re at it, maybe they could consider:

    * RF connectors for the LTE antenna — not everybody spends 100% of their lives next to (or in good LoS of) a cell tower
    * Releasing design docs and firmware when the phone goes out of support so that third parties can take on the role — replacing a perfectly serviceable phone due to software limitations every two years is utter nonsense
    * Aim for 5-10 year product life-span to reduce e-waste and reliance on raw materials (particularly conflict materials!)

  18. This would be good, but in a good engineered phone the battery is replaceable todays also.
    Take any Samsung after A5 2017, A50, A2x…A8x, although the back is glued, you remove the back, and after it, it’s screws and connectors. For back cover, you need a hairdryer. I described here : http://kilatas.great-site.net/diy.html (Have to say that some Chinese phones can be pryed apart simply.)
    And the mid-class phones are not waterproof! Even they have glued parts.

    The larger problem is that people are replacing phones after 1-2 years for nothing and they toss them into trash. Companies also are doing this. This must be changed.

  19. Thiw would also be a good thing from a privacy standpoint; you can ensure that it’s really off and not, say, logging GPS location, ambient audio, or other sensor input.
    Back when phones had removable batteries and sometimes real mechanical power switches that put an open circuit between the battery and load you could be sure it was off (so even if it’d been compromised via a malicious OTA firmware load targeting the radio SoC or whatever to function as a bug or tracker you could be reasonably certain it wasn’t doing somebody else’s bidding when it was truly without a power source — these days there’s no such guarantee).

  20. I’m pretty sure one of the big reasons for non-removable batteries in phones is that you can’t stop the tracking then.
    And I guess the EU knows people can’t any longer switch off their phones even if given the choice, too dependent and addicted, so now we can do removable again.

  21. It is good, but then also will needed that it includes documentation what is the voltage, etc of the battery, that you will be able to do such a thing as test it, recharge it yourself, or make your own battery that will fit.

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