A few weeks ago we reported that the European Union wanted to force device makers to make batteries user-replaceable, and today it’s been confirmed and made official.
The regulation provides that by 2027 portable batteries incorporated into appliances should be removable and replaceable by the end-user, leaving sufficient time for operators to adapt the design of their products to this requirement. This is an important provision for consumers. Light means of transport batteries will need to be replaceable by an independent professional.
Excellent.
You mean I can purchase a $4000 gaming laptop without it having a ticking time bomb inside it (the non-replaceable lithium battery that’s slowly being cooked by the high-power electronics)?
Even if you don’t care about battery operation, swollen batteries can seriously damage the device itself (see r/spicypillows for more information).
And of course this legislation will finally make smartphones durable goods again.
Fun fact: The battery in my Nokia N900 got swollen (thanks to a charging bug in Maemo which made me think it had charged while it actually hadn’t about two years ago), and I had already started to plan my trip to the repair shop, until it hit me: It has a replaceable battery! The battery is dead but the phone is ok! The battery didn’t even damage the phone, it just pushed the battery cover out a bit.
(since then I’ve bought a Nokia 5800 to charge the battery to avoid Maemo’s charging bugs)
What is sad is my doc friend has thrown away two perfectly running Macbook airs because of battery swelling and the local Apple store won’t work on anything older than 5 years, meanwhile the 13 year old AMD Bobcat netbook given to me by my late father works great with Q4OS and a whopping $30 spent for a new snap on battery and a cheapo SSD.
If this ruling makes it so I don’t have to throw so many laptops in the dumpster? I’m all for it. Now if they would only outlaw eMMC and require user replaceable storage I’d be in heaven, here we get a ton of what we call at the shop “Walmart Specials” we have to throw in the garbage because the eMMC fails on those super quick, even before the battery. If we could only throw in a cheap SSD or NVME they would be perfectly good for a child that needs a laptop for school but as it is into the dumpster they go.
bassbeast
Totally agree.
A lot of SBCs have replaceable eMMC modules like this one. Although IMHO laptops should all have m.2.
https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/256gb-emmc-module-xu4-android/
Any manufacturer that respects users needs to have replaceable storage. I don’t really like idea of regulations, the government knows swat about designing consumer hardware. However there is no denying that the industry, when left to it’s own vices, has been extremely regressive. Devices are becoming less and less serviceable and the result is just as you say. Many devices can no longer be upgraded or fixed. Now instead we just dispose of the whole damn thing. These incentivizes are perverse and our planet is paying the toll.
Well, my doc friend is given a new personal laptop every other year by his employer, so he has very little incentive to treat his devices well. Although, he was always rough on his devices. Take a laptop on a climbing trip in a backpack full of damp clothes? Of course! Why not? It doesn’t always get destroyed, only sometimes. Like when the backpack is thrown down a cliff and lands on the laptop side. Or he gets stuck in the rain/snow.
I remember in the oughts I could last days on a single battery then swap it out in 10 seconds for a fully charged battery. I could charge the dead battery in an external charger. I never had to plug the phone in or carry around a charger, just the extra battery. I can’t wait to get back to that.
I remember the 90s where you could last weeks on standby. Of course if you actually wanted to use the phone, well then you needed to charge it. Only got 20 mins a month though so it worked out!
Manufacturers will not change, if they can save a buck they will. The battery laws of the EU is too vague, and you will still need a flower torx of a strange size that is not standard, a heat gun for the glue AND will void y0ur warranty. The wording of the ruling is just that weak, they will make them “changeable” but there will never be the 90s again, they will make sure of it. They will make them “changeable” but it will be impratical and VERY troublesome.
EU laws are not as vague as one would think.
https://mezha.media/en/2023/06/21/the-eu-wants-readily-removable-batteries-in-smartphones-but-what-does-that-mean/
“readily removable by the end user without the use of professional tools.”
So strange size torx to access battery would fall under professional tools so against the EU rules. Using a heat gun to melt glue as that done now to get to battery also falls under professional tools so again against the EU rules. Basically hottest heat gun that is not classed as a professional tool is a hair dryer anything hotter than that under EU rules you should be qualified to use it.
Yes the professional tools bit is vague but somethings are clearly professional tools. Safest bet for makers it made the device that it can be opened with a person 2 hands to get to the battery. Next best bet provide screw driver and use screw assembly..
Something people miss the EU rules say user of device. Please remember end user of device can be a child under 14 this does strictly limit your professional tools.
Also that void warranty bit sorry hardware makers when its a legally mandated feature the fact the product could not be opened safely now comes a product defect that the hardware maker is on the hook for. Nokia makes a lot of smartphones with removable batteries with no glue.
Standard size screw driver makers will be able to get away with as a non professional tool. I could see after these EU rules to make sure the tool is not professional and its a torxs or something odd that you get your phone with a screw driver in box. Then in time we have the EU regulate on sizes.
What the EU is after with these rules on removable batteries is you have a dead phone you walk into store to dispose of your phone and there are two bins in front if you one bin the battery goes in the other bin all the other electronics. The Electronics can be crushed up and compacted for transport for recycling so making recycling more cost effective. Also phones having removable batteries make the phone simpler to crush/destroy for data security.
The vague in the EU laws cuts both ways. EU law as very clear to write end user people fail to think this end user include children so a professional tool then comes anything you would not trust a child use by themselves without Adult supervision.
Quoting directly from the directive: “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.”
“… mobile devices …”
I find it a bit weird that everyone seems to concentrate on phones and laptops regarding this. On a first very superficial read, I can’t tell whether it also covers smaller devices, e.g., small earbuds, styluses, trackers (tiles, airtags, etc.), etc. If it does, that would be quite … disrupting. I mean a whole lot more disrupting than for phones, laptops, etc.
https://edps.europa.eu/data-protection/data-protection/reference-library/mobile-devices_en
Past EU rulings mobile devices have not covered those smaller devices.
Styluses modern drawing tablets use battery-less ones. Yes induction charging capacitor.
This is pointless legislation if you ask me (and no one is asking me before anyone points it out).
Phone batteries are replaced so infrequently – I kept my last phone for 5 years and replaced the battery twice. The total cost of my battery replacements, including labour, was under £100. This legislation might / will result in phones that users would otherwise not buy if given a choice being the only phones available. And the user benefits of this are really minimal.
This might also stop other innovations happening. For example, if a phone maker wanted to include lifetime battery service as part of the deal when you buy a phone, having users be able to easily swap out batteries might make that sort of innovation not worthwhile (even if users might prefer that to being able to easily swap batteries).
mkone,
That logic goes both ways though. Nobody asked the rest of us before permanently soldering components either. So while you have a point, it applies to the other side as well. And there is another, perhaps even more pressing matter, this is about more than consumer preferences, it’s about tackling the e-waste problem that our companies have created and exacerbated because their incentive is to make products disposable and short lasting so you buy more. But this has harmful impacts that affect all of us.
The waste problem is more accurately the problem of “virgin” materials being much cheaper than recycled ones.
There are much more direct ways to discourage waste. That would be to mandate that end of life electronic devices are returned to the manufacturer to be appropriately recycled as already happens with some other household goods.
In any case, the goal of ease of recycling is not necessarily the same as being able to easily remove batteries. And for the most part, for recycling purposes, the ability to do it without tools is unnecessary. At that point, all you need to do is to separate the components without a need to maintain the ability to put them together. They could have created a recycling “score” and mandated that all devices sold in the EU meet a minimum score which takes into account how easy the device is to disassemble and recycle. Having to create new packaging for batteries might mean the batteries themselves become harder to recycle as they now need to be resilient to handling in a way they didn’t need to be if the manufacturer could design an outer case that appropriately protected the batteries.
mkone,
Sure improving recycling is important too, but we need to be honest that recycling alone is still not substitute for durable reusable products. Short product lifecycles are extremely harmful regardless of recycling and legitimately reusing parts needs to be a priority. I know some people don’t want to hear it, they have become accustomed to waste and feel entitled to be wasteful; it’s part of our culture now. This needs to change but it’s realistically going to take a generation to thoroughly change our bad consumer & manufacturing habits. I think the EU is taking hard but necessary steps towards that. I understand some people will protest, but by failing to take action leaves the environment getting worse for future generations.
I’m not sure this will actually reduce ewaste that much. Obviously phone cases are freely made and are replicable, but try finding one for a non flagship a couple years old. Its not easy. If this causes manufacturers to standardize on specific battery sizes, then yes it will help a great deal. I’m just not convinced this will really make that much of a difference.
Bill Shooter of Bul,
I agree that standardization could help a lot too. We have thousands of phones and laptops, but it doesn’t follow we need so many proprietary batteries. There’s tons of functional and form factor overlap, the problem is that modern manufacturers seem to shun standards and serviceable products. Given two otherwise equivalent design choices and costs, the one that’s less serviceable is deemed better for future profits 🙁
I find it unfortunate that capitalism creates this dynamic. Can this be fixed in a capitalistic way without resorting to industry regulation? I’d prefer no regulation, but whenever we leave manufactures to do what they want they’ve been leading us down the path of proprietary vendor locked solutions, aka the apple and john deer model.
Bring the industry together around a standards body, which will design some standard battery sizes comparable to AA-AAA-C et al., but with the new use cases in mind.
Then introduce a tax on devices which use a non-standard battery.
Wifey’s blender is designed to kill its battery in 3-4 years, requiring replacement of the device, because the charge port is under the blender, not on top of it. So, KitchenAid made sure that when the battery is dead, we can’t just continue using the device as a normal blender instead of a cordless one. Ingenious.
Click on the EU link and read the title.
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2023/07/10/council-adopts-new-regulation-on-batteries-and-waste-batteries/
“Council adopts new regulation on batteries and waste batteries ”
At this point it clear mkone your personal point of view has absolutely nothing todo with what you are talking about.
EU cares about device end of life. The reality is if you can simply split battery from electronics part of devices recycling the device is simpler and more cost effective.
mkone there was another way the EU could have gone. Charge you like extra 600/800 dollars for your phone up front that you get back at end of life when you return it to be recycled if your phone simply comes apart so is not a recycling problem.
This regulation is not pointless. EU has a very strict reason for what they are doing. Manufactures better brace themselves EU is sick of having stacks of costly/hard to process electronic waste.
.Scary as it sounds the processing cost of e-waste goes down by factor of 10000 by being able to split batteries and electronics core. Think about it 1000000 dollars of e-waste processing of the existing configuration comes 100 dollars. That not allowing for how devices with dead batteries may be reused after the batteries are removed for other things.
EU regulators motivation is e-waste. Governments are the ones people normally put the bill for dealing with garbage on and we should not be surprised when governments start thinking how can we make this cheaper for us and notice simple regulator things they can do.
It also applies to electric scooters, I’m wondering if it will change anything. While there are scooters with specifically removable battery, in most cases (like mine Joyor) one have to remove 3-5 phillips screws and disconnect bunch of cables. Is it end-user friendly enough?
This is nice, but you still have to make sure there’s a supply of safe batteries. For that reason I would go one step further and come up with standardized sizes for phones, laptops, tablets and such. You know, analogous to classic AA’s, C’s, and D’s. That’s because if there are standardized battery sizes, it is easier for more battery manufacturers to compete (leading to lower prices), and for regulators to ensure a high degree of safety.
Ah, yes sorry didn’t read till the end until I found your comment. Absolutely agree. Without standardization, this will have little impact.
https://bgr.com/tech/eu-might-not-force-apple-to-make-iphones-with-user-replaceable-batteries-after-all/
I know this will not be a popular view among the majority of this group, but I am fine with the above as far the implications for US or other users. The Apple walled garden is just I need for my iPhone, Mac and iPad. Besides Apple, there are numerous third party companies here that will replace the battery for any these for what I consider a reasonable cost given what I spent to acquire these in the first place. My professional opinion is that removable batteries will degrade their reliability and my experience over time. If the other ecosystems want to do otherwise that their choice as well. But if Apple can meet the EU requirement as suggested above, they should be allowed to offer products that differ in this regard.
Don’t read the second hand without checking.
https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/PE-2-2023-INIT/en/pdf
The proposed bill is in English.
Water proof rule the device still has hold this rating over it full life time including after battery replacement in the EU . Sorry glue based assemble does not pass this.
The battery quality one also still has a catch. This is likely to result in higher costs for apple devices. Why apple will have to pay for the labor of the recycles and supply the specialist tools to dissemble their device.
“My professional opinion is that removable batteries will degrade their reliability and my experience over time. ”
What experience and opinion serous-ally. I would say nothing more than personal bias All studies on removable batteries not effected by personal bias has not found that removable batteries degrade reliability in fact its the exact other way. In fact this EU rule says clearly all smart phone batteries must be removable and replaceable either by user or professional that includes the water proof ones. Yes professional removing the battery must not find excess danger with this new rule so no more gluing the battery to the case phone makers(Apple has done this in some models). Apple could be in trouble here on this danger one with their laptops where different connectors unplugging them can cause power lines to short so excess power draw on battery.
Phones with user replaceable batteries have higher resale value. EU rules on water proof is higher than IPXX ratings in this regulation. IPXX ratings don’t mandate that the rating must be maintained after the device is reassembled.
The reality apple might be able to avoid user replaceable batteries but they will not be able to avoid professional replaceable batteries. wa2flg something to look at is the one wheel where you attempt to replace the battery you brick the device it is possible to serial lock the battery to the main-board this EU rule forbids this from happening.
Yes there are numerous third parties companies that have been able to replace apple batteries. There is a good recent example lthere have been numerous companies able to replace Xbox series X ssds after they die after a particular firmware update the ssd is now serial locked to the device with a key that changes per firmware update so breaking means to replace the ssd when it fails. Something could happen to your means to go to a third party company and replace apple batteries at a min this EU law prevents this form of rug pull.
wa2flg basically you need to accept that replaceable batteries need to be a requirement. User replaceable apple may be able to weasel around but this law says professional replacement has to be possible and safe todo and this is the min bar of this law. Do be aware if the battery is not user replaceable and its only replaceable by professional the maker/supply of device will be on the hook for the recycling costs in the EU. User replaceable equals low skilled workers being able to sort device into two piles of electronics and batteries. Recycles can profit using low skilled workers from the materials contained in a phone. Needing special training to disassemble and tools has created a growing stored ewaste problem where the labor cost to disable device is more than the materials the device contains part of this EU law is fixing this problem.
So I would say any smartphone maker who decides not to provide user removable battery expect to be paying even more of their device in the EU.
HI Oiaohm.
I don’t disagree what the EU proposal has many very excellent benefits. In the US/Illinois the batteries and most electronics devices are not allowed in our waste stream. There are places that accept them for recycling. I regularly drop off a my share, including the occasional bloated MacBook battery.
I work with medical devices that have the same engineering challenges when it comes to removable power packs. Granted the regulatory rigor is a order of (or two) magnitudes higher. No design/implementation is perfect and I am sure you would understand that defects from unexpected sources arise all the time. I’ve also seen “users” mess up battery swaps in all sorts of consumer devices. That said, I like being in the walled garden and accept to pay a a premium/penalty or other limitations though the lifecycle of their products. Choice in this area can be a good thing if drives battery lifecycle or device power consumption (e.g. M1/M2) improvements and perhaps decrease the need to replacement.
wa2flq,
You’ve said this twice now, but eliminating the walled garden doesn’t obligate you to use alternative stores if you don’t want to, it gives owners the freedom to make this choice for themselves. Consumer freedom is a good thing!
As for paying a premium/penalty, does that really solve anything? If manufacturers opt to pay penalties because they prefer to pay rather than complying, isn’t that regressive?
Indeed, all these things are important to make a positive impact for future generations.
“I work with medical devices that have the same engineering challenges when it comes to removable power packs. Granted the regulatory rigor is a order of (or two) magnitudes higher. No design/implementation is perfect and I am sure you would understand that defects from unexpected sources arise all the time. I’ve also seen “users” mess up battery swaps in all sorts of consumer devices.”
Lot of the studies into the reliability of removable battery is medical devices. Something you did not consider you said engineering challenges. This is important when the battery is user/professional removable more effort has to be put into the design stage of the device. This extra time in design and protection on the battery for human handling does in fact pay off from real world studies into higher reliability of the device long term.
User mess up a battery swap destroying a device vs user successfully replacing the battery so extending life. To a waste stream every time user extends a device life this equals less new devices to deal with in future.
Another thing to consider engineering cost is a one time fee. Recycling disassembly is a per number of device fee. Think about it old school phone under 5 mins you can put a battery in one pile and electronics in another and the user of the phone can do this so the recycle company does not have to pay someone to do this. Some modern phones to split the battery from electronics is going to take a skilled person 1+ hour per phone. Yes skilled person has to be paid higher wage, has to use more safety equipment due to part of the EU rule restrictions on where recycling can be done to prevent waste dumping in other countries. You make 100,000 devices with non user removable battery but then have to pay 50 dollars each for end of life costs under the EU rules now that engineering cost doing a user removable battery is kind of cheap so is the extra materials so user can safely change the battery..
Basically make the device maker pick up the recycling bill for making there device hard to replace battery end up making it not cost effective very quickly not providing user replaceable batteries. Yes 50 dollars per device end of life charge is cheap compared to what some devices should have worst you would be getting to 200 dollars per device and this can be for 200 dollar phone.(say hello massive loss).
Something else to consider number of phones on the market with a high IP rating peaked in 2017. As IP rating tests are getting more complete its coming more and more impossible for a adhesive assembled device to hold IP rating as the assessment requirements for IP rating have started taking the weakness of Adhesive into account. Adhesive happens to degrade over time same thing that did in the titan sub going to the titanic and IP ratings are starting to check for this. Yes some of the old devices with high IP ratings if they had to apply for their rating today even as a new device would not get the IP rating because they are adhesive assembled and the adhesive degraded is going to allow ingress.
I am going to end out my comments on this topic with the following. As these regulations role out one hopes that we can collect quantitative and qualitative data on their implementation. Measuring their effectiveness or impact should be part of this process.
In the US and its litigious nature, I would expect at some point a party will be sued or indicted for some perceived or actual defect in any approach. E.g. broken phone, cost, performance etc. Lots of money or resources will be flung around, to what effect I cannot predict. It may just be an opportunity to grab a bag of popcorn or prawn chips and be entertained along the way.