European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

European Union is doing the work the U.S. government should be.
U.S. government is too busy worrying about what people are doing in their bedrooms, libraries and doctor's offices.

Beyond being good for right-to-repair, this used to be the one way to be sure that your phone is off and is not listening to you. It's a stride on the privacy side as well.

Yes! mandatory usb C and replaceable battery, and i'd like the 3mm headphonr jack to also be a standard 😁

I don't mind that my phone battery is sealed up. I do mind that I have to bring it to a specialist that might screw it up and make me pay for the privilege.

Actually, this bothers me way more with laptops than with phones. With laptops, there's no water resistance or any other reason besides thinness to seal the battery up. Particularly with business machines, the computing power will be more-than-sufficient for many years to come, yet many will end up in the trash because the battery's no longer doing its job. It's ridiculously wasteful.

Great news! No point in 5 or 6 years of software updates when the battery gives out after 3 years.

I don't even want to replace my battery. I want it to last. At least 5 years.

Bring legislation that enforces a 5 year warranty on batteries that are built-in. That would help the environment much more than being able to replace a battery every year that shouldn't fail in the first place. And yes, it's possible to build batteries that last longer. It's more effort, true. But so is building exchangeable batteries or doing an exchange. I rather shell off 50 € more for my phone when I know that the battery will make it 5 years.

The EU has been good at holding phone manufacturers to account on this kind of thing, glad it's gone through. I've had at least two phones die on me through the battery breaking, it shouldn't be cheaper to just buy a new phone than get the battery replaced. So much waste.

Hoping us UK folk will see the benefit of this as I imagine it's less effort to just bring the change about across the board than to be specific about geography.

Good, now add SD card please.

Back in the day I used to just keep 2-3 fully charged spare batteries if I went out. No need for a battery pack to recharge if I can just quickly swap battery and get a days worth of charge instantly.

It must be nice to have leaders that actually do useful things.

Any battery is replaceable if you pry it hard enough

This is why I got a Fairphone. I was done complaining about the direction of the mobile market and decided to buy a phone which lets me do all of this and has longer support for software and hardware. It's the best phone I've had since the S3.

It only works for me because I like Android, live in Europe and have big enough pockets, though... the thing is a brick.

I used to have a phone with a replaceable battery and it was awesome. I would charge the other battery while using the phone all day, carefree. When it was about to die, I'd swap out the battery. It was basically like I had an instant charge of 100% on my phone. Those were good days.

Laughing in Fairphone

I'm fine with internal batteries, but please use some form of standard cell size and connector.

I don't really see the benefit anymore. My current device lasts ~40 hours on a charge, so I seldom find the need to swap anything out. Even if I did, those little USB battery packs that charge multiple devices are more practical. On a long flight, my wife and I just share one and it works on the Switch and tablet too.

Sealed devices have way better water resistance, less plastic makes the batteries themselves bigger, and wireless charging (especially with magnets) will be challenging to add to a battery that's also the back cover.

I'm sure I'll be in the minority on this, but, I don't really have any interest in a removable battery, especially if it involves other compromises on size, capacity, and features.

The language in the article does seem to forget that plenty of early smartphones had replaceable batteries... Yeah, it might add some bulk, but it's not exactly going to be a major hardship.

... but it seems like a good reverse step to me. Any consumer replaceable part is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

I wouldn't even care about it being super easily replaceable. It would just be nice if the phone wasn't basically filled with glue...

Anyone remember the LG V10? Mine came with an extra battery and a charging dock for the external batteries. Never plugged that phone up once in 2.5 years, just took 10 seconds to swap in a full battery.

At long last. I really miss being able to swap phone batteries. Phone batteries are light, compared to external batteries.

Now require manufacturers to provide like 5 years of OS updates so devices aren't insecure bricks once you get updates.

OR disallow banking apps from blocking custom ROMs/root, so you can just install your own updates ROM without losing updates.

Holy Shit if that holds up it will have massive consequences

This is a much bigger demand than the usbc charging. I wonder if they can actually pull it off. I’d be happy with simply the right to be able to use a fully independent 3rd party to replace a battery.

All for this. The amount of times I've needed to do a full reset that would've been so much easier with a removable battery is wild. Waiting 10 hours for it to discharge is nuts

Hell yes! This has been a big sticking point for me since they started being removed around 2016. I hung on to my Note 4 until it was tired around 2019/2020, bought an LG V20 as it was the most recent 'flagship' still using a removable battery, then I finally crossed over to the darkside with the S21 Ultra.

Hopefully options will open up over the next few years as even if you don't want a removable battery, your preference shouldn't dictate the entire market. The smart phone market is way too homogeneous where every phone is essentially the same in a mildly different brick shape with a different logo.

The motherboard is so freakin' tiny compared to the actual battery, there really is no reason for it not to be swappable.

Good. With this, my next phone might also last 6 years, as my last one did. I'm not so confident with my current phone, as it's exactly one of these glued shut types where replacing the battery is extremely difficult.

I had the battery for my OnePlus 6T replaced, extending the phone lifetime for probably 2 years. It cost me about $100.

Forcing manufacturers to make batteries easily replaceable by the user without special tools and skills seems like it could make phones less lightweight and less waterproof. I would be fine if they just require manufactures to make it available as a reasonably priced service.

I wish this would and bring replaceable phone batteries back to the US as well, since it would theoretically be easier for brands to just have a single model for all countries, but unfortunately I highly doubt that we'll be the case, as demonstrated by Apple taking extra effort to put geolocation code in their phones that unlocks "sideloading" when you are in Europe but then locks it again when you're outside of your Europe. As it turns out the extra effort it takes to create an exception to your hardware and software for Europe is far outweighed by the extra profit of being able to keep giving a more locked down products to everyone else.

I like replaceable batteries but there is no doubt that the simplified unibody designs have other benefits besides the planned obsolescence companies seek. Battery life or thickeness will certainly take a hit. I feel like having some form of incentives for more repairable phones would work better to bring better, more renuable options without blockingotherr designs

I wonder how something like this could affect waterproofing.

This is great news! Even better than the USB-C regulation. Changing a battery on a modern phone is a huge pita… And it’s definitely getting worse since some companies are trying everything to prevent you from doing so…

I would absolutely buy a phone twice as thick as my iPhone SE 2020 if it has an easily swappable battery. Bonus points if it is able to be used as an actual phone without a case to prevent it from dying instantly from a light breeze or some evil look by a person…

Good!

Would this affect the waterproof ratings of phones? It would make the phone less sealed.

I'll admit that I haven't had battery problems for a long time, but I still think that this is a great idea if it can prolong the usage of other hardware.

Usually the software bugs down before the battery, and even with replacement batteries there will still be an issue of what to do with the spent batteries. Can they be revived for clustered for other purposes etc.?

I know that used batteries from cars are still valuable as storage even when they are at half capacity or less, but phone batteries are so small that it isn't feasible.

Hopefully this will push the manufactures into a different direction than the current use and discard strategy. European companies will soon have to file environmental reports, but with batteries coming from Asia, I'm not sure what effect EU will have. Chain responsibility isn't really there yet.

This is a step in the right direction, but because phones are now extremely sophisticated they frequent need security updates, but phone manufacturers only support a phone for about 3 years that also needs tackling because that will also help reduce ewaste.

Yes! 🥳

About time. I got two batteries on my Samsung Omnia i900. Is faster than carrying a clumsy external battery. Instantaneous 100%

Man I wish the US regulatory body would throw some wrenches like this at the tech companies here. They need a wake up call, start with breaking up Meta. Right to repair is also often gutted

Wouldn’t this affect water resistance? One argument for “sealed” devices is better protection against water/dust/debris.

I’m all for allowing easier replacements and repairs for the consumer (No reason a device should be unusable after a few years due to a battery), but I can see this issue being brought up.

Yes please! That would seriously be a dream come true. At this point, battery packs are super small, but they still need to come with a wire even if it's just like a 1 inch wire, being able to care one or two spare batteries I can swap out would be amazing.

While that's great, what I'm more concerned about is pricing for original replacement batteries. I don't really care if I have to send my phone in for 2 to 3 days (which is what it took last time I sent an iPhone 11 Pro to Apple), what concerns me more is pricing. Especially with older phones, having to pay $69 to $89 for battery repair (plus shipping) is quite a lot. Self-service parts cost the exact same price from Apple currently.

The EU should forbid charging more for replacement or repair parts than the cost to manufacture them plus a small (!) markup.

Also, please extend this law to include all kinds of electronics (smartwatches, laptops, tablets etc.).

Especially AirPods and other true wireless earbuds should have replaceable batteries, as they are basically dead after 3 to 5 years, which just feels wrong considering everything except the batteries probably lasts a lot longer and when you get an expensive "battery repair" they just give you new AirPods.

Now let's hope that the batteries aren't provided in overpriced proprietary formats with a software lock attached to them like Apple's iPhone screens.

I recommend checking out Fairphone. The phone is completely modular so when something breaks, you can buy a new part and replace it yourself.

This is great. I have the Fairphone 4, which does have a couple of issues, but the fact that the battery can be replaced will increase the usable lifespan of the phone.

I have a Pixel 2 used for messing about with Lineage, but the battery only lasts fifteen minutes, but is otherwise still a great phone. If it was easy enough to swap out that battery, I'd probably still be using it as my main.

Accidental double comment amd 503 error when trying to delete..

Oh yeah! this is more than welcome imo, honestly

non-replaceable batterys are also safety hazard. what if one starts swelling up due to age or fault? Only reason why they started doing that is so phones would become unusable faster.

The big issue for me is waterproofing. It seems that this would present a significant opportunity for fluid ingress. Personally, that is a design trade I would be unwilling to make.