I am very much wondering how Oura (the smart ring company) will handle this as the thing is very small. Their current design is fully casted, and practically impossible to do any kind of repairs.
Pacemakers at least should be a non-issue since the law specifically exempts devices where continuous power is required for the safety of the user. I think an unpowered pacemaker would definitely jeopardize ones safety. But yeah my mind also immediately went to very small devices like hearing aids.
Maybe this is why Apple is focusing so much on health sensors. It's a bit of a stretch but it could be argued that Apple's fall detection and heart rate monitoring is required for the safety of the user.
Hearing aids already have replaceable batteries, don't they? I guess I don't know the whole market, but you can buy batteries for my brother's heading aids at Walmart. They take a minute or less to replace. Same with my friend's hearing aids.
> Companies like Samsung, Google, Apple, etc., don’t design devices specific to Europe.
I think they actually will do just that. Look at the Wikipedia page for any iPhone and you’ll see that each model has multiple regional SKUs. China has a SIM card tray while the US doesn’t.
I think smartphone makers will make the battery rectangular and put it in a convenient spot and then make a different rear case part just for Europe.
The rest of the world phones will have perhaps the exact same “removable” battery but it will be behind a case that has no door.
The waterproofing in particular makes me think this is likely. Many average consumers care way more about having a device that will survive being dropped in the sink now than they do about replacing an 80% capacity battery in two years.
Samsung S5 was waterproof while having replaceable battery. Technology is certainly there.
But I also question your premise, I don't think it's as clear. I've never dropped my phone in a sink, but had battery issues with basically every phone. Often the battery starts failing much earlier than 80% in two years.
What I've never understood is why all this waterproofing effort is going into making perfectly sealed little boxes when I imagine that a factory applied conformal coating would do a similar job. It seems like they're focused on making the box the electronics are in water proof instead of making the electronics themselves waterproof. Sure, the screen might be a bit harder and you'd need to pay special attention to any connector, maybe re-applying the coating if you remove a connector, but I just don't get it. Does conformal coating not work as well as I imagine it does? Is it too expensive to apply? Does it have some kind of heat dissipation drawback I'm not aware of?
To me it looks like water proofing is being used as an excuse to add built-in obsolescence to products, since I imagine that conformal coating would do the job better. What am I missing?
This is about replacing, and thus having access to, the battery and it's terminals. Water is a conductor. I imagine shorting the battery terminals with water will have disastrous consequences, regardless of if the RAM is encased in epoxy.
Why do people keep mentioning waterproofing? There is exactly nothing preventing a waterproof phone from having a replaceable battery. It's not even hard to do.
The main faucet to your house sits under 60psi water pressure all day, and the moving parts are removable. This is 100 year old technology.
It heavily depends on the usage pattern. If you charge in the evening to 100%, let it on the charger overnight and then during the day discharge to 0%, that might kill the battery completely within 2 years.
Keeping it within 20-80% most of the time might keep the battery healthier.
I bought my iPhone XS at launch and it just reached 80%, although on the latest version of iOS 80% doesn't get you as far as it once did. I'm not a super heavy smartphone user though.
> I think smartphone makers will make the battery rectangular
They are still rectangular. I actually thought they are more irregular, trying to use the available space more efficiently, but e.g. Samsung S23 Ultra battery looks like a normal rectangle.
Their casing is much thinner, though, since they don't have to assume rougher handling by an end consumer.
I wonder if perhaps there will be two batteries of the same shape - the non-replaceable will have a thinner casing, but with a somewhat higher capacity.
At the volumes of those manufacturers, if there's a design they consider somewhat suboptimal that's needed to meet EU requirements, they can pretty much trivially offer a variant for the EU that meets those requirements.
A problem with this idea is that batteries became removable to make thinner/smaller/waterproof phones.
Regardless of whether or not you think that's an important thing to design for, these smartphone designers' product orgs. do.
So realistically, given Europe is <10% of the global population (and an increasingly small share of Wealth/GDP), this will just result in EU SKUs that don't get updated very often and are thicker.
Will be interesting to see if this just causes a grey market in less eco-conscious markets, while other places that conform just get known for having bulky phones (a la Japan and faxes).
The EU is home to 447 million rich people who buy lots of smartphones. It's easily the biggest market for high-end smartphones in the world.
Also as a tangent GDP is pretty useless when talking about how much money individuals have to spend on smartphones.
Apple and Samsung each sold 16M devices in 2020 in the EU, and apparently even 40%-50% more in 2022. That's well over $5B. They're not going to walk away from such a market.
Plus, if I understood it properly, India is contemplating a similar law.
Apple is 45% of the US smartphone market, and something like 20% of Europe's. So Apple's sales will not be the best indicator of anything generalizable to all smartphones.
Apple is 33% of Europe's smartphone market, almost the exact same size as Samsung, the #1 player.
Knowing that almost all of Apple's phones are >$800, the fact that 41% of all sales in the EU were >$800 implies that Android isn't some hidden variable here.
I'd also like to point out that unit shipments have been in decline (on a y/y basis) for 10 the last 13 quarters. [0]
How is this going to affect devices like Airpods, where having replaceable anything would mean increasing the size of the device itself to allow for the physical moving parts for that? Or will companies just stop selling those in Europe?
> Any natural or legal person that places on the market products incorporating portable batteries shall ensure that those batteries are readily removable and replaceable by the end-user at any time during the lifetime of the product. That obligation shall only apply to entire batteries and not to individual cells or other parts included in such batteries.
> A portable battery shall be considered readily removable by the end-user where it can be removed from a product with the use of commercially available tools, without requiring the use of specialised tools, unless provided free of charge with the product, proprietary tools, thermal energy, or solvents to disassemble the product.
> The obligations laid down in paragraph 1 shall not apply where continuity of power supply is necessary and a permanent connection between the product and the respective portable battery is required to ensure the safety of the user and the appliance or, for products that collect and supply data as their main function, for data integrity reasons.
>That obligation shall only apply to entire batteries and not to individual cells or other parts included in such batteries.
2024 will be the year that Apple stops selling the iPhone and releases the all new iBattery. It's a special battery that's also a revolutionary communications device!
By 2027 our smartphones will be even more data sucking surveillance monsters so that your last paragraph will save them from having their batteries made replaceable.
Hallelujah. I take very good care of my phones, and 4 years in, I have to put a very pristine phone in the drawer, because it can't hold a charge any more.
Wouldn't "user replaceable" make it more expensive? Besides I can't even imagine an iPhone that can be easily opened by anyone, stay water resistant and "Apple-y" at the same time...
Ah no they have the design chops to build something where the batteries can be easily replaced but that would make phone replacement slower so was not prioritised this will force the hands of manufacturers. I hope it results in something like the nokia 3310 battery where we get a battery that is designed to be used in multiple devices. And because the phone was so popular the battery was easily available many manufacturers of product like eink readers etc starting using them in own devices.
> Wouldn't "user replaceable" make it more expensive?
Yes, in $1 worth of screws.
> Besides I can't even imagine an iPhone that can be easily opened by anyone, stay water resistant and "Apple-y" at the same time...
Trying to do water-proofness without whole "slather it in glue" would probably add tiny bit of thickness to the thing as you'd need to have some oiled seals across the edge.
And considering some phones already need a case just so I can hold one comfortably I'm not complaining about thicker edge coming back..
There are so many things we couldn't imagine with iPhone. But the clever engineer, when motivated, will figure out how to do it. Let's leave it to them.
> By 2027, all phones released in the EU must have a battery the user can easily replace with no tools or expertise
Hmm. I wish this were worded a bit differently, in that I wouldn't mind having a screwed in compartment if the phone came with a tool that could be used to open the battery compartment. Being able to replace by hand excludes even operations like the sim tray's mechanism. EDIT: This is actually the case. I was quibbling over nothing
I think the rest of the regulation to require recycling seems a good move on the surface.
> A portable battery shall be considered readily removable by the end-user where it can be removed from a product with the use of commercially available tools, without requiring the use of specialised tools, unless provided free of charge with the product, proprietary tools, thermal energy, or solvents to disassemble the product.
What about AirPods and the like? I'm all for it with phones and everything else, but some devices are small enough that non-replaceable batteries might well be justified.
So what? Honestly the only thing this will change is that after X months/years your phone will no longer receive security updates, and the carriers will require a phone that receives security updates to join their network. Thus, the same cycle.
It's actually going to make things much worse in my opinion.
I wouldn't think too much cost, since targeting 2027 means it should only affect phones that aren't even designed yet? (At least, I don't think anyone is taking 3-4 years to get a phone to market)
I don't know about Apple, but Samsung seems to have figured that going the other way, from replaceable battery to non-replaceable, made sense. I doubt it would cost them that much in engineering to go back to that.
This will likely make phones bigger and/or available power (mAh) worse as the battery will need more material surrounding it to make it replaceable. Good intentions but makes the customer worse off IMO
I bet the smart phone manufacturers will botch this in other ways, batteries will be replaceable yet they’ll find ways to make phones obsolete just like before. We’ll go back to having drawers of old phones and batteries.
I have a ten year old laptop - bought a replacement battery, good as new - for 15 minutes. Now it dies in 2 minutes when unplugged. Maybe a trustworthy brand will emerge to handle the different battery sizes available.
Can't wait for Apple to start requiring you buy a new iBattery for the low low cost of $599.99 once a year when the old one is rejected by the phone for being unable to hold sufficient charge.
I'm not sure this is a good idea. I had to replace my iPhone batteries only twice since iPhone 3. Price was reasonable considering the price of the iPhone itself. Waste was managed and hopefully recycled by Apple. How many people would buy more cheaper batteries and not properly dispose the old ones? I know the article mentions recovery of waste etc. but it's up to the governments to be compliant and, as bad as it sounds, I tend to trust private companies more than governments.
This is so overdue. Hopefully this will not affect water resistance and shock resistance too much, but I am sure there will be innovations until 2027 in this field.
* this turns out a lot less exiting than people want it to be
* a lot of companies are just going to leave the EU market
I don’t think Apple is going to produce a Fairphone, and combined with the charger meddling and the App Store meddling I expect them to draw a line in the sand sooner or later.
And then we will just all import them from the UK, just like before the iPhone was even sold in mainland Europe.
The EU market is one of the biggest in the world, and the second largest 1st world market after the US. Not even Apple can afford to drop that market, they are beholden to shareholders after all.
Also, comparing this to 2007, when basically no-one had a smartphone, to now where every one and their dog have a smartphone in their pocket doesn't make a lot of sense.
If you consider Europe (not the EU by the way) a market, and China, Japan and the rest of Asia separate markets, yes.
But Apple can definitely afford to drop that market, they make their own rules and everyone that invests in them knows it and has been reaping the rewards for decades. And if everyone imports the phones through the UK it’s not like they are completely dropping it anyway.
They’ve threatened to leave a market before, if conditions are such they can’t work:
There is a zero percent chance Apple shareholders would allow dropping the second most important market, that's just delusional. Apple is a public company, what argument would they bring during the shareholder call? "We don't like that the EU forces us to make batteries replaceable, so we only sell via the UK now" - does that seem like something that would go over well to you?
And in regards to your link: as much as some of the UK would like to believe otherwise, the EU is a significantly more massive market.
No the argument would be: ‘we can’t sell the products we want to make in this market, so we’re not going to.’ This isn’t some kindergarten ego fight, it’s about Apple making the products they make and not being forced into making products that are not Apple.
If Apple shareholder calls worked like you think we would have all these things every know it all pundit has been demanding for a decade. But we don’t. Because shareholders know and trust that generally Apple does know better.
In reality however, Apple complies with a variety of government regulations already, around radio, power consumption, safety, and so on. This new battery regulation is just one more of those, and just like before, Apple will adhere to it. Why? Because Apple and the shareholders like making money a whole lot more than not making money.
a lot of people seem to get this wrong so let me reiterate: whether a phone has removable battery or headphone jack, etc. or not has almost zero relations to its thickness, waterproofing, etc. it's simply a choice that manufacturers made. they know how to make it fit into their devices, they just don't wanna try. of course there will be non-zero costs involved but so is shoving in multiple cameras, motorized parts or even a fragile folding display with a water-resistant hinge. again, it's not even something they haven't tried before, and they know it. every manufacturers mocked apple for removing the headphone jack before doing it themselves because selling wireless earbuds was more profitable than saving their face.
I will throw another hot take: Most people don't want or need "waterproof" (read: IP-rated) phones. I haven't seen people washing phones in the sink, or using it out on the beach, (of course there will be some outliers, but they aren't designed for seawater anyway) nor is it that useful to have in our day-to-day lives.
In my experience, most smartphones, even without water-resistant ratings, do survive accidental spills or even drops. And for cases where it won't, splash resistance would suffice. Claim of water resistance is already kind of misleading, because it's only temporary and only applies to fresh water (river is not "fresh water" in this case). So it's more limited than what companies want you to believe, and people's habits haven't changed anyway. Unless you live in Japan, or you frequently expose your phone in non-fresh water (for which you would need a different kind of accessory anyway), there's practically no reason you should have a IP rated phone.
sorry, i tend to leave my phone out of my bathroom. not that IP rating is applicable for hot water (or extra chemicals like soap for that matter) anyway.
The focus was "most people," not you. And the iphone's water resistance works just fine in a warm tub. If you're generalizing for what most people need, you should at least understand how people use the devices. Made up constraints like the soap and temperature are irrelevant to common usage and their needs in a device.
> An IP68 rating would be very difficult to obtain while still offering a premium-feeling device with an easily replaceable battery, for example. These are hurdles OEMs will need to get over to be in compliance.
It doesn’t concern anyone that regulators in the EU who know nothing about tech are forcing companies to have worse designs?
I'd rather have a 10-year lithium iron phosphate battery, no connectors, no memory cards, no sim cards, inductive charging, unbreakable glass, and a hermetically sealed case that doesn't require another case around it. Just build it for a reliable 10 year life with a 10 year warranty. No user serviceable parts inside.
> Any natural or legal person that places on the market products incorporating portable batteries or LMT batteries shall ensure that those batteries are available as spare parts of the equipment that they power for a minimum of five years after placing the last unit of the equipment model on the market, with a reasonable and non-discriminatory price for independent professionals and end-users.
That seems like a big loop hole: have all repairs done by TimWillFix, which charges the same cost to everybody, including Apple. Apple owns TimWillFix. Done. Prices are non-discriminary and independents get shafted.
It's not about repairs in general and not about independents, it's about replacement batteries. It requires that replacement batteries be easy to replace by the user, and replacement batteries be sold for a reasonable price for at least 5 years. If Apple creates a subsidiary that keeps their batteries in production, more power to them.
The law does not allow that. They must be available at a reasonable price for "for independent professionals and end-users". Several of relatively small number of exceptions to user replaceable batteries still require that independent professionals be able to replace the battery.
Will iPhones no longer be waterproof? I've actually dropped my iPhone in the ocean a number of times (just in tidal zones, never in deep water) and have washed it off with tap water. It stills works perfectly fine a few years later.
You do realize we've been making waterproof compact electronic devices for ages, right? I had 50 meter digital watch in 1986 with an easily replaced battery. Why is it so hard for you youngins to imagine modern companies making this work? There are zero tech or material hurdles here. None. Haven't been for 40 or 50 years at least. Jesus.
Only is Apple chooses to quit making them waterproof. Plenty of existing devices have user replaceable batteries and are waterproof, for example GoPros.
My iPhone was also bought in 2018 (iPhone X) but it will be obsolete with the new iOS release.
The iPhone X seems to have aged a lot better than the iPhone 8, which it was released alongside, but it looks like Apple's decided to kill both off at the same time.
Now they need replaceable operating systems. Once the manufacturer ends support, they need to be required to release the information necessary for others to support it.
I liked my old Samsung Galaxy 2 where you could flip the back off and swap the battery. I had 2 batteries and a stand alone charger which was AMAZING for trips away.
User-replaceable batteries always have a negative effect on the design of a product. I’d rather see free battery replacements every X years be offered from authorized techs.
On the surface this is probably a good thing but I wonder how we are going to keep features like waterproofing when it’s easy for consumers to pry open the device. I kinda like that I can lark around with my phone near a pool on holiday without the fear of bricking my device.
This leaves me with similar feelings to the incoming usb-c requirement for iPhone too. I love lightning. Its only weakness is where the head meets the cable but there’s plenty of aftermarket cables with strength in this area. USB-C heads are prone to damage and breaking.
I love the idea of USB-C everything, but the USB-C port seems much more prone to breakage. I have a graveyard of Nintendo Switch devices with bad USB-C ports. First they start as fickle about charging, then progress, and then eventually stop charging.
If I’m lucky, I’ll have the foresight to wipe them before they completely die.
Yes: "Software shall not be used to impede the replacement of a portable battery or LMT battery, or of their key components, with another compatible battery or key components."
Because "time to market" is not zero. Manufacturers need time to develop and produce new devices. Plus sell the ones already in the release chain. That's a quite reasonable time frame.
The key is to not store it on the charger. Only charge it when it is low - that dramatically increases the battery life. I have had sonicare brushes that failed due to metal fatigue with a battery that could still do ~2 weeks between charges.
This feels like over-regulation to me. I would rather see the free market work this out on its own. If customers want a phone with a replaceable battery and Samsung refuses to make one, customers will switch away from Samsung and to a new manufacturer. Capitalism at work.
The issue is externalities. It's not a 100% free market because actors are not paying for Co2 emissions and pollution. If we had a carbon tax and that cost was part of the price of smartphones, I would be close to agreeing with you.
I have a hard time trusting that this is for environmental or user friendly reasons. Those may certainly be outcomes, barring better battery tech that obviates needing to care about a removable battery once batteries last decades, but I don't think they're the intended reason for this. I think it's just what they're saying to make it sound more appealing to the end user who may not realize what's actually happening.
The reason I'm skeptical is because this is not happening in isolation from other related things happening in Europe. Consider how France is pushing for authorities to have unprecedented direct access to people's devices in this dystopian push:
This reminds me of when I visited France not long ago. At the airport they started opening my laptop to check it out. I never had that happen at any other airport before. They took it out in front of me and opened it up to look inside it. It was a bizarre experience because that held up the entire flight's departure for no reason. It was an unpleasant and uncomfortable experience. Their general tendency towards authoritarian dystopian types of ideas since then is palpable.
So all of this suggests to me they want to have easy access to consumer hardware for interdiction reasons. It'll be way easier for them to get into devices that are otherwise behind proprietary or less common enclosure mechanisms. It's strange how with the EU it's one step forward for protecting users (I like the spirit of GDPR for example) and then just a giant step backwards with these types of moves. Unless the EU adopts strict user privacy laws at the constitutional level, I don't see why this confluence of variables isn't suggesting an anti user mindset.
If someone with an expertise in these things can offer guidance on why interdiction doesn't work this way and what I'm missing about the risks here, I'd greatly appreciate it!
This is just baseless speculation mixed with personal anecdotes (as if there weren't countless anecdotes about the United States TSA requesting access to personal computing devices). Europe is a big place and it should be no surprise that there are multiple things happening at once.
The push for user replaceable batteries has been ongoing for years now and is not related to whatever Macron's trying to do unilaterally in his own country, which is only one member state of the EU.
Battery replacement for surveillance reasons only makes sense if someone manages to put some kind of tracker in a battery.
Airport authorities can certainly have the tools to open up computers especially, as you mention, because they have the power to delay people's flights. They certainly don't need to do that "without proprietary tools" or in a rush.
On that note, airport security simply opening a computer is usually not a way to hack it, it happens more likely if they want to double check for explosives or other hidden compartments they cannot see on X-Ray (because heavy metals turn black on X-Ray and you can't see what's on the other side).
If the authorities wanted to actually get the contents on your phone or computer, they can (in some places) simply take the phone or computer from you, ask you to give them the password or passcode and then give back the device when they're done cloning it. This has actually happened multiple times in the US (example: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/ill-never-bring-my-phone-o...).
Having access to the hardware without you knowing it only makes sense if the government had to rely on a secret hardware backdoor, but there are easier ways to track you via software, ISP data or simply by forcing you to hand over your device and revealing your password.
On the other hand, this battery replacement argument follows a long history of courts and regulatory authorities around the world slapping vendors for doing what they have been doing for the last decade or so: proprietary connectors, non-replaceable batteries, and so on.
It's not just a European thing. Last year, a Brazilian court fined Apple 19 million USD because they sell phones without chargers, especially given that Apple uses non-standard connectors.
Great, except it's likely only because your ID will be hardcoded to that device, making this a necessity for their grid. People can barely ever be pessimistic enough to overcome their delusions, but one needs only to be stepped on once or twice to start noticing the trend…
Law of unintended consequences makes me think this will result in more e-waste as devices with readily removable batteries are more likely to be damaged by drops and liquids. They will also use more materials than devices with permanent batteries. Everything is tradeoffs, and I don't think this law is making the right ones.
you're just making excuses for corporations. casio gave me a water proof digital watch with replaceable batteries almost four decades ago and it had no issues with shock or water damage, ever. this is the silliest argument I've ever heard in defense of megacorps. what a joke.
I've had phones with replaceable batteries and those without. If my current phone were available with and without a replaceable battery (and the related reliability/cost tradeoffs), I'd probably pick the permanent battery.
what tradeoff - like you dont get to choose that replacable battery are just worse because it fits your world view.
You can design replaceable solutions to be as reliable as "permanent" ones. Have it cost 10$ more for the same reliability, you would pick the replacable battery one in a heartbeat.
