Do you miss phones with replaceable batteries? By 2027, you won’t anymore because, by law, almost every smartphone will have them again.
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Remember that consumers expect certain things from smartphones nowadays, which will mean that OEMs can’t just go back to the old way of doing things. 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.
this is straight-up BS. there were many phones with ip68 and user-replacable batteries back when sealing the battery in a phone was frowned upon. not all but many.
The term “premium-feeling” does a lot of heavy lifting in that paragraph, one might almost say that it’s a bit subjective.
It’s true though. I’ve become very accustomed to the premium experience of being forced to use premium apps and services that don’t work half the time in a very premium manner.
I think it would be pretty premium if I could have a spare battery on the charger for a quick swap rather than relying on a cable to charge my phone.
Move over 2010. Who uses a cable?
I do? And most people I know?
What they really mean is “very slightly thinner than the previous generation or current rival because we think that’s a super marketable thing still even though we’ve reached the practical limit where it no longer makes sense to go thinner.”
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Solution: add phonecase! Or just have better (and slightly bigger) internals to make backside level…
Yeah, I scuba dive and have multiple pieces of equipment with replacable batteries that are good down to 500+ ft. Not only do some of them get opened frequently, and without replacing seals or anything, but they’re also all way cheaper than my phone! Anyone who says you can’t easily meet an IP68 rating on a phone with replacement batteries is full of shit.
Do those have the same size and weight requirements a phone has? This isn’t about “can this be done”, it is a question about “which compromises do we have to accept to make this happen”.
I had a Galaxy S5 which I think was IP67 (someone fact check me on that), and a removable battery. It definitely didn’t have a premium feel, and it got eviscerated in reviews for that. That didn’t bother me though. Though, the backing cracked and the little plastic clips broke off rather quickly. I think if they had a metal backing that was held on by a regular (albeit tiny) Philips head screw(s), they could have a user replaceable battery on a premium phone with IP68 no problem.
It definitely didn’t have a premium feel, and it got eviscerated in reviews for that. That didn’t bother me though.
Most cellphone covers on these premium phones don’t feel all that premium themselves, so it’s ok if the phone doesn’t, either.
Philips head screw(s)
Nooooooooo
Pretty much all Androids I have taken apart were Phillips head screws. iPhones have like 5 slightly different types in each phone, it’s nonsense
It’s mentioned in this thread here that there is the xCover model series which have user replaceable batteries still. The 6 pro was released just last year So much for manufacturers having to figure things out from ground up bollocks
I have that device. It’s definitely a thick boi but in no way does it not feel “not premium”. I vastly prefer the grippy texturized back cover and sides to slippery glass/aluminium. It’s one of the few devices that feels great in had without a case.
Premium means different things to different people. Plastic is never premium.
Does it really even matter though? Vast majority of people are going to put it in a plastic case anyways.
I had a Galaxy S5 which I think was IP67 (someone fact check me on that)
According to wiki, you remembered right!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S5
Yeah my 2023 XCover 6Pro has a removable battery and ip68 rating. You wouldn’t be able to tell the back cover comes off. The only clue that something’s off is that it’s texturized plastic instead of glass or aluminium.
There still are today. Samsung Xcover series.
I have a two-way radio which floats in water and has a replaceable battery. It’s just excuses. However I do believe they got rid of replaceable batteries to save on space and thickness of the devices.
Thickness is the only concern I have. I’d love to be able to replace the battery in my iPhone safely and easily, but I don’t really want to give up having a phone that’s less than 10mm thick.
The size thing is just another excuse.
There were/are phones with replacable batteries that are thinner than most current phones. Some were 7.5mm and even less.
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And it had completely different innards and battery capacities. Just grabbing that old battery and putting it in a new phone would seriously limit the runtime on a single charge. Which is kinda the point, I really hope we don’t trade replaceable batteries for the need to recharge twice a day or switch batteries to even make it the whole day. Or have a noticeable bulkier phone that won’t fit as comfortably in my pocket. Or that it may not survive the rain shower I got surprised by because they skimped on the water proofing.
Thickness of your phone is now dictated by cameras. Because of focal lengths and what not, they need to be a certain size, that’s why they’re always with an overhang.
The main factor to consider in making an ultrathin phone in 2023 has nothing to do with the battery. It’s the requirement for a certain level of build quality to be suitable for end consumers. At some point we just need to develop new materials, because we can’t make it any more ultrathin without it also becoming ultrafragile using the materials available.
It hasn’t really been a focus since we realised back around the iPhone 5 that making these sweeping compromises for thinness was yielding diminishing returns and causing other problems. Today that’s still the thinnest mainline iPhone, only the SE and 12 Mini are thinner. 13 mini is thicker, and there is no 14 mini.
Ergonomics matter too. At this point going thinner is purely a marketing exercise rather than a practical improvement of any kind. If they were able to businesses would be making them so thin you can’t hold them without risking a paper-cut so long as that allowed them to convince people that meant it was better than their current, designed for human hands, smartphone. Same thing with size. Personally I prefer a larger display and am willing to accept slightly worse ergonomics for it but even with more or less average sized hands I definitely find phones with 6 inch or under screens much more comfortable in the hand than the more typical sizes today and I know plenty of people with smaller than average hands (ie, half of the population) who really hate holding modern gigantic phones (and so often have held off on upgrading to a new model until I’ve steered them to something the same size as their old one.)
I think you’re right. They then quickly learned that it’s in their best interest to have a sealed system. Makes it cheaper to obtain higher IP ratings. Sells more devices. It obviously did nothing that hurt sales. Samsung is making an IP68 rated device with replaceable battery and still takes SD cards right now. It’s only $600 to boot making it handedly cheaper than flagships. So why isn’t it what everyone’s pointing at in these threads? Cause the majority of people, even in these very threads, aren’t buying it. These are not the factors that decided buying a phone. Otherwise removable batteries, SD cards and 3.5mm jacks would still be ubiquitous, but here we are.
The Galaxy Xcover 6 pro is a box full of lies in terms of IP68 rating and associated warranty. I have written about my utterly disappointing experience of getting caught in a storm a couple of months after I bought it quite extensively elsewhere. Save to say I will not be buying another samsung product. It seems they have forgotten how they used to make that design work.
Great phone, just not waterproof at all.
Honestly, I never buy a phone without an audio jack and sd card.
I have an old LG V20 (released in 2016) with a removable battery that’s just 7.6mm thick. By comparison the Iphone 14Max is 7.9mm thick, the Samsung S23 Ultra - 8.9mm and the Oneplus 11 - 8.5mm.
IMO the purpose of non-replaceable batteries is (just like everything else) profit. Companies want to push us to replace the entire phones every two years rather than just the batteries. They’ve been remarkably effective at doing just that.
One of them being the Galaxy S5 (I think)
You’re correct, though the Galaxy S5 is a bad example. Tthe device looked and felt like a Fischer Price toy. It had flaps everywhere, was annoying to use, and even had a billion software notifications to keep reminding you to monitor and close said flaps. Nowadays we can certainly do better.
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However, there is an exemption for high-performing and durable batteries until 2027. This means devices with high quality batteries that retain over 80% of their capacity after 1000 charge cycles do not need to comply with the removable battery requirement until 2027.
So premium phones like the iPhone would be exempt.
I don’t think you said anything differently? The article said ALL batteries must comply by 2027. You appeared to say high performing batteries don’t have to follow the law until 2027. Both of these statements, the original post and your revision, are true – all phones, including high performing batteries, must comply in the EU by 2027.
Its NOT just smartphones
Its damn near everything!
Electric cars, other electronics etc
Some are just not “user replacable” (such as a cars batteries)
this law will change all iPhones. It will also change all tablets, laptops, EVs, e-bikes, and anything else with a rechargeable battery
Headphones, gaming mice, gaminh controllers. Its gonna be great
The big one at the moment - at least in the UK and IMHO - is disposable vapes. I see them everywhere, just tossed on the ground or at the side of the road. The reason I see them is because of their flashing blue LEDs still running, meaning there’s at least a working battery and support circuitry in there. It’s disgusting that something like that is tolerated. I’m hopeful that the requirement to have user-replacable batteries will eliminate them by making them uneconomical compared to standard vapes.
I don’t understand why disposable vapes are even legal at all. I mean we banned friggin’ plastic straws but this thing is fine?! Who even came up with such a terrible product in current times?
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One of my phones battery became swollen and hated not being able to change it without removing the adhesive stuck backing, camera, wireless charging cable, brackets preventing battery cable to be removed normally, battery being adhesive stuck to the battery slot. I hope all phones go back to removable batteries.
I thought there were large exceptions for water proofing etc…?
Tbh, I don’t miss this.
Phone batteries generally last 3-4 years (sometimes longer depending on the size), and by that point it’s usually time to upgrade to a new phone anyway for the latest security updates and such.
There’s abolutely no reason a smartphone couldn’t be designed to last +6 years. My laptop is 7 years old and it still works perfectly fine - even has the original battery in it. My PC on the other hand is almost 15 years old and still in use.
Here’s a thought, what if phones weren’t made to be disposable?
It’s not an original thought, but one that no-one has been able to realize. Turns out tech moves forward, and people want the latest and greatest.
There’s nothing I do on my current phone that I couldn’t do on a phone ten years ago, technologically speaking. When I upgraded my phone recently, it was solely because of battery deterioration and because the previous model was out of service for security updates. I don’t think I’m alone here.
The good news for you is that most 10 year old phones have user serviceable batteries, so you’re free to keep using those if you want.
Not much you can do about software updates, unless you want to pay significantly more for a new phone to cover the cost of OEMs having to pay their engineers to build those updates for the dozens of phones that get released over a 10 year window.
On device ML.
Exactly, every phone doesn’t need to be replaced 3-4 years. Fairphone is doing a great thing with Fairphone 3 getting 7 years of updates.
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I have a ten year old iPad that i pretty much only use to watch TV in the shower. It just became incompatible with Hulu last week due to the iOS and I’m super frustrated by that. I can still use it for Netflix and paramount + but i was in the middle of several Hulu only series!
π🐀.
They don’t?
I’m pretty sure you can install iOS 16 on an iPhone 8, which came out in 2017, almost 6 years ago. And that’s a major system update. If you just need security updates, the latest one was in January and supported phones as far back as the iPhone 5s, released almost 10 years ago today.
But in reality, people want better phones and better cameras every few years, so they buy them. And they tend not to throw out their old ones, but sell/trade them or pass them along to someone else.
Ah, but then they’d have to use an iPhone if they want to keep their device for 10 years, and everyone knows Apple is evil doesn’t let you use old phones. /s
Hilarious that that only phone OEM that meaningfully supports hardware past 5 years is the one that the goofy goobers here love to shit on for checks notes not letting them use older hardware.
Hell, I have a laptop that’s over 10 years old. It isn’t officially supported on Windows 11, but I’m sure I could get it on there in some unsupported way, using Rufus or another tool that removes the TPM requirements and have it be usable and secure. It runs Windows 10 without complaints. I can run an up to date Linux distro on it and be completely up to date and secure. So, like you said, why can’t phones do the same?
I kinda agree. Going back to back panels that fall off and batteries popping out isn’t a win in my book. However, making it so that batteries are replaceable by the consumer with some use of tools is a reasonable compromise.
On a side note I see that the Reddit etiquette of downvoting comments you disagree with is in full effect already.
That’s been true, but I wouldn’t expect the year over year differences of phones to continue indefinitely.
Advances were very rapid when it was a nascent industry, but it’s already slowed down significantly. It will slow more by 2027.
Not it’s not. You should read about throttling down
Security/OS updates: 4 years on typical android at this point (fair phone claiming 7) 5 on an iPhone.
I did a battery replacement on my iPhone 7 at about the 3 year mark and got another 2 years out of it. Full updates from apple and 100% App Store app compatibility that whole time.
iPhones get OS updates for ~6 years, security patches for longer. In 2021, apple updated a 9 year old phone with a security patch.
Apple is objectively the only way to go if you want a device that you’ll be able to use for >5 years.
I wonder how apple will react to this
By designing a model of iphone with replaceable battery, of course.
I think they’re already complying. Tri-tip bits are already bought easily and affordably on Amazon. Same with suction cups, picks and tweezers. Literally $30 or less to get all of the above in one nifty carrying case. If you have suction cups then you can break the screen seal without using heat and let’s be honest, hair dryers are perfectly adequate for these repairs. It’s literally what I use for friends and family repairs that I do at home rather than in my workshop.
I think it’s a step in the right direction but not even remotely strong enough to force change on current cell phones.
Design batteries that can also function independently as a powerbank? That would be useful.
Apple fanboy here… but they’re probably gonna market the feature with some cool new trendy name and make the battery replacements proprietary.
Oh you probably shouldn’t go around admitting that so willingly.
It will be magnetic
Now i hope it says something about availability of the replacement batteries…
Due to unexpectedly high demand, the $300 battery you ordered has 5 months waiting list. Payment in advance, of course, for your convenience.
They’re going to see the battery is replaced and show your phone down. Just to be safe you know.
$300 battery for your iPhone
Screens are now up there for genuine. Oh, and btw Apple very quietly implemented an “alert” when you have an aftermarket screen.
I mean…battery replacements were ALWAYS proprietary. You can’t pop a Galaxy S4 battery in a GS 5.
But you can put up a firmware barrier that keeps the phone from booting up, or at least from operating at full advertised capacity, unless it’s an “authentic” battery that’s been officially registered to that particular phone’s serial number, which can only be done via special tools and software that are only available to official Apple repair shops. They’ve done it with cameras and screens and buttons, why not batteries? It’s just another part.
At that point there’s no way they can argue that the battery is user-serviceable without extra tools. Sure, they could argue that the law doesn’t specify that they can’t sabotage the device if you swap your battery but European courts have traditionally taken a dim view of that kind of tomfoolery.
I’m pretty sure that Apple aren’t going to risk having to suddenly take all of their devices off the shelves. It’s cheaper to comply.
You can buy third party batteries. The batteries are customized to the phone, but they aren’t exclusively sold by the OEM.
It will be built from the ground up 😂
You mean built by some other manufacturer and marketed to seem like it was built from the ground up from Apple themselves.
Overcomplicated, overpriced, and they’re gonna incentive just getting the next gen phone.
“And we think you’re gonna love it”
🙏
Probably voiding warranty for any phone that has its battery replaced by the user instead of having it done at an apple store/apple vertified store. Or some good old planned obsolescence where the phone detects a replacement battery and just stops working as fast as it used to. Anything to get people to buy the next new iphone every year.
I don’t think Apple really want to be caught to do somenthing they are already been condemned for, at least not in EU…
It’s not so much the batteries for me but the USB C port that has been my main issue and that damn humidity/water sensor that thinks that I’ve dipped my phone in water when I haven’t
It’s not a Samsung device is it? Their sensors seem to be super sensitive. Meanwhile my pixel has been used in the shower and not said a word…
It actually is! Second time I’m having the subboard replaced. 3rd time I can request a new phone or a replacement by law. Still not ok for a flagship phone by such a large manufacturer
It’s almost hypersensitive, well beyond what it needs to be. I couldn’t charge it by cable for 3 days. Not ok at all, good luck with it mate!
Try cleaning it. I used to have the same issue, and had to get the subboard replaced multiple times too, until I realized that mechanically cleaning it with something really thin works as well. Felt really dumb after finding out lol. The pocket lint can absorb moisture and then the sensor doesn’t work properly.
I’ll try it out thanks
That’s part of the problem I have with this. Most electronics life cycle is gone before or around the time the battery is gone. Only people that abuse the batteries by over charging / full draining typically benefit from replacement batteries. -And this just mostly needs awareness.
The vast majority of batteries operated devices are stuff that in its use is going to be “abused”. The hell is the harm in letting people switch out a fucking battery if that’s the issue. Companies won’t let people switch batteries out so they are being made. Apple have been fighting tooth and nail over repair shops
You use Apple? lol.
Uhhh no I was just using them as an example of a company that is really against customer repairs
They fucking brick stuff that’s repaired.
Has anyone else always had a spare phone battery in the pocket to swap on the go?
Imagine you could just do that.
Never had that. I used to carry a power bank on longer hikes though. Has a few pros over a replacement battery (multiple recharges, device independent, not as flimsy etc.) at the cost of being bulkier.
Well, there are some significant negatives to a powerbank solution.
- Charging from a powerbank takes a long time. Swapping a battery for fully charged one can be done in half a minute.
- You need to make sure the cables stay connected. How many times did you have phone on charge in a backpack for an hour, only to find out it wasn’t charging because the connection got a little loose?
- Each charge cycle reduces lifetime of the battery. If you have two batteries to swap between, you effectively double the overall lifetime.
And of course, when (not if) the battery dies, you can replace it at your leisure, instead of searching for a repair shop in the case of phone being glued shut. Battery is pretty much the only perishable component in your phone. If you keep your phone safe from falling or drowning, it can work just fine for decades. But the battery will need to be replaced one day, regardless of how careful you are. You also wouldn’t need to pay the extra service fee if you can open the phone and put the new battery in yourself.
You can carry around an external battery pack with any phone. It’s not quiiiite as convenient because you have have your phone plugged in and that can sometimes be awkward to carry (but not bad if you normally carry a purse or backpack). Though it does avoid the need to power cycle your phone and my battery pack can charge my phone several times (and can charge multiple devices).
Honestly, best purchase I’ve ever made. It’s so stressful having a phone die and the battery pack keeps that from happening.
* in Europe
Tim Cook can suck a fat one.
He’d probably just enjoy it.
Oftentimes EU device laws affect other markets because it’s easier to send the same device everywhere than to design and produce a separate one just for Europe.
Yeah I don’t see Apple paying for wildly different phone designs for different markets. But I have no doubts they’ll find some new way to make their phones worthless after 2 or so years.
Updates. That’s all you need to know. They’ve already be caught with the whole slow phone after updates to make you buy a new phone.
I used to say that- but, they did actually have an argument for that- consistent battery life in exchange for lower performance. They thought users would prefer lowering performance of the phone so the battery still lasts just as long- and honestly I don’t think they’re that wrong. 95% of the time as long as it’s usuable I don’t care about the performance of my phone- but I do care about battery life.
Good. I also read appliances (like your electric toothbrush or headphones) will also have to follow this guidance. This should make it easier to repair and recycle electronics.
My toothbrush uses AA for just that reason.
A lot of rechargeable gadgets like Philips Sonicare do not.
Does this mean they’ll mandate SD card slots and headphone ports too?
Don’t worry. Phone manufacturers will appease this in the most frustrating way possible. Kind of like how apple does the at home replacement hardware.
Doubtful since those are not required for the life/longevity of the tech.
Which this isn’t totally solving. Don’t get me wrong this is a good thing. But the real issue with planned obsolescence is OS support.
Very true, limited OS support kills most devices eventually, sadly there is only so much you can mandate as many apps and programs will stop working on old OS as they are updated. What should be criminal is apple patching old OS too purposely slow them down.
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I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again (someone else definitely said this before me) I’m totally fine with a user replaceable battery but I don’t really need a “hot swappable” battery. Don’t you guys remember the old memes where an android phone is dropped and the Lego brick breaking sound effect is used from the Lego video games. I’m ok with a semi sealed device for water resistance and what not. It would just be nice to be able to replace the battery when the time comes
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Some make the argument that batteries are already replaceable if you get the right tools, but it’s not even a matter of making it possible.
I think it’s more about making it so you aren’t voiding your warranty and that the option is there.
Otherwise you replaced your battery and they decide they will never offer any support for your phone because you dared touch it.
Hi there! The links in your response are not clickable for Lemmy users, here are the clickable versions: !technology@lemmy.world
You can do that now with a heat gun and some very basic tools.
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You start a sentence with hyperbole and then go into an outright lie.
$20
$10
You now own every single tool needed to replace an iPhone battery. They are absolutelty not difficult to obtain.
I mean I get it. Most of us here are tech savvy and capable. Would I tell my mom to do this herself? My girlfriend? 75% of people on the street? No to all the above. But don’t come in here and say something as blatantly false as “Apple has made [a lot of tools] difficult to obtain”. That is a bald faced lie and you do a bigger disservice to your argument when you add such a statement to it.
People are gonna hate on this comment but it’s true. I can replace the battery in my iPhone in an hour if I want to, even if it’s not as easy as it used to be with removable plastic covers on the back of phones.
Good luck on waterproofing.
On the Fairphone everyone can do it, without tools in under 30 seconds. That is replaceable, not having to order equipment and asking your family “IT guy”…
You can do that now with a heat gun and some very basic tools.
A heat gun is a specialized tool. That’s the problem.
A hair dryer?
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It’s what I literally have used for multiple repairs now, so don’t tell me it’s not hot enough. iPhone 11, Pixel 5a, and a Samsung Galaxy S21.
It’s really not a specialized tool.l at all, there are a million things you can use a heat gun for. And they’re like $20 at Harbor Freight.
That’s an overstatement. It takes a lot of work for some phones and you risk damaging it. Not everyone is able to do it even with the right tools. We need to have a solution so that anyone can do it
I literally bought an iFixIt kit to open my phone up (for a screen replace rather than a battery swap, but still) and could not get it open after an hour+ of trying. I’d definitely believe it’s because I’m inexperienced in modern phone repair, but I’m not a generally unsavvy person. I build computers and mess around with tech as a hobbyist. I had to take it to a shop and return the kit. It’s definitely not an easy process for some devices.
I can’t really remember if that was an issue for my S4. I’m sure it happened like once or twice but I don’t really drop my phone and I’m sure the majority of people nowadays have a case that will pretty much prohibit the battery cover from opening. What I DO remember is keeping a spare battery in my wallet and anytime my phone was low (I’m terminally addicted and 3 hours of screen on time was the best I got back then) just popping that bad boy in. Was a great feature and took a lot of stress off of me in the days when battery life was terrible. I hope they can revive a feature like that in a modern premium phone.
I had a Galaxy s4! and I remember I bought 2 extended batteries (about 3000mah but they were the same size so who knows) and a wall charger for them from ZeroLemon. I would hot swap the batteries instead of charging my phone. it was such a convenient system I felt so cool 🤓
I really miss hot swappable batteries. Just carry a small spare battery and swap it when needed. So much now convenient than needing to plug it in to top up.
@Raglesnarf @Purplexingg I did the same!
The memes I don’t remember but … I’m old. And…
Reading this gave me an instant flashback of dropping my old Ericsson on a train and it just … lost all its parts! Man that was 😱
Yes I had to hunt for: the battery, the battery cover and the SIM card! In those days the latter was bigger than we have now but very expensive.
To be honest: hot swappable wasn’t all that cool or user friendly at all. You had the dropping issue, the dirt and grime got in the cracks causing it to loose contact. Just like a mouse ball back in the day. All that and … when it was time to change it, never found a replacement and the phone was just outdated anyway.
Now all those different chargers we had? That was the real nightmare. Man! Very glad that is solved, even with the mess usb-c is.
I fear this is again one of those rules politician’s make without any knowledge; or they just ignore reality. Per usual.
just the first one I found but basically this . and I feel that with the move to USB C or even with iphones and the lightning cable. You either have one of those two so it’s pretty nice now compared to back then
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2027 wow they could have taken like 3999 With that. It has to come NOW or it has literally 0 effect.
