All phones sold in the EU to have replaceable batteries from 2027

While your reasoning has _some_ merit, it reads as an apologia for the status quo .. rather than an example of why we should prevent easy battery replacement.

Give these phone batteries a standard geometry and interface and pretty much all these problems immediately go away. 3 prongs on the battery (ground, positive, data). A standard protocol so the battery can communicate things like SOC or acceptable charge rate with the charger. And viola, you are off to the races.

Yes, this will mean manufacturers will have a hard limit on how thin they can make their phones and a constraint on what designs they can employ.

alternatively, i can trade more bulk for more battery. if its got a connector, why cant i put a bigger batter in the slot that sticks out?

We don't need to fast charge anything, phones or EVs. Slow charging preserves battery life and smart charging will charge whenever it is cheapest.

https://www.fairphone.com/the-fairphone-gen-6-e-operating-sy...

2. There's a lot of tech on the back: NFC, wireless charging, structurally important [magnetic] attachment points. Ensuring electric contact and physical strength on a door is again hard and expensive or all that tech has to live on the battery.

3. Design. A glass-like openable door is going to be extremely failure prone.

4. Compatibility. You can't guarantee quality of 3rd party batteries, even more so if the tech is in the battery pack.

5. Planned obsolescence. Let's not kid ourselves, encouraging replacing the whole phone is good for business.

Just like 3.5mm headphone jacks and MicroSD card expandable storage.

They're hard to find even on lower end devices any more, despite more ports being a premium/pro feature in other market segments.

Because legislation is direct and gives better results to consumers. Thank god the EU standardized on USB-C.

There's no reason to jump through extra hoops and rely on the whims of investors to do something good for the people.

It's an interesting theory. I'm going to call it capitalist-optimism. It's roughly oppositional to Doctorow's theory of enshittification.

> but everyone came to the conclusion that the trade off is just not worth it

The trade-off here being profit margin versus customer convenience. They've calculated that they'd make more cash with non-changeable batteries (e.g. by encouraging more buying of new devices rather than changing batteries) would make them more cash than selling a phone with a replaceable battery. And they might well be right, but that doesn't make it a good thing for civilisation.

> And now the EU, in its infinite wisdom has decided it knows whats best.

Before the EU mandated USB-c chargers pretty much every phone had their own charger. It was awful. You couldn't easily borrow a charger because everyone had a different configuration.

Now things are far better. It turned out that the EU did know best. It maybe wasn't best for phone manufacturers in the short term, but it was better for customers.

> why don't they just fund a company to create such a phone? Why doesn't anyone?

Is this a serious question? In order to create a competitor to the major smartphone operators you'd need a huge amount of capital. I don't think I could convince a venture capitalist or bank to give me that kind of investment just to start a company selling a phone with a replaceable battery.

That wont solve the problem of carbon footprint this is trying to solve? There is still going to be iPhones and samsung phones of the world in EU. And people will buy it. Unless you want EU to go full autocratic and enforce people to use just 1 phone manufacturer!

Last 4 phones I had, 3 was replaced cos of old battery and 1 was due to broken display.

Imagine you not being able to replace the SMPS (Power) in your custom PC even though your ~$2000 worth of hardware which includes GPU, CPU and motherboard is working perfectly fine.

Perhaps consider that what companies are optimizing for isn’t what is best for consumers, or humanity, or the earth.

Fairphone 6, recent with replaceable battery: 9.6 mm

Galaxy S5, has a replaceable battery, released _12 years ago_ - battery tech has improved a lot since then: 8.1 mm

iPhone 17 Pro Max: 8.8 mm

iPhone 12 Pro Max: 7.4 mm

We want to make phones as thin as possible so the latest flagship iPhone is 1.4 mm thicker than the one from 5 years ago? A whole 0.8 mm thinner than a recent one with a replaceable battery with maybe 0.1% of the iPhone's R&D budget, and 0.8 mm thicker than one with a replaceable battery made 12 years ago?

Works just as well.

It is a lot of fun to pick up and use nice old glass from garage sales and such. They tend to require manual control, but that is the fun part of taking pictures anyway.

PS. Consumer surveillance cameras, on the other hand, don't have replaceable batteries in general, as they can operate indefinitely off a small solar panel or for months on a charge.

Manufacturers only have to make it possible for users to open and close the phone to replace the battery without damage, using common tools.

When was the last time you kept a phone longer than 2-3 years? That’d explain why you haven’t had one die.

Assuming you do get a new phone regularly, easy battery replacement will probably help the resale value of your own a fair bit - the labour cost of a battery replacement is priced into most older phones on the second hand market.

When I bought my first smartpone, a Moto G (1st gen) it was as flat as any phone most people carried around at the time (2014, I think). And the battery was replaceable.

I think also Samsung phones had replaceable batteries then. And this was the case for a few years after. Until it wasn't.

Devices didn't suddenly get thin when batteries were glued in. Why would they?

Batteries also don't really die, but you get shorter and shorter life. When a device that barely could make it through 2 days of use now survives for less than one, an "upgrade" seems nicer than it really would've been if you could just swap the battery.

Cameras also need to withstand drops for similar reasons to phones, it’s in you hand and you could drop it, also tripods can fall over, car mounts fall off etc.

I think you mean thickness?

Extra width is sold as a feature.

I don’t understand the obsession with reducing thickness.

Why is a thinner phone more desirable than a thicken one?

I had multiple android phones with replaceable batteries and many were no thicker than modern phones, especially once you've added the protective case.

For example, good luck finding good apple batteries in regions where there is no official apple service.

Most Chinese parts are inferior: for example rates for max 500 cycles instead of 1000

Nokia actually did an Android phone just before MS acquired them which they then promptly killed. And then of course they pulled the plug on the whole business unit. HMD apparently still makes feature phones based on Series 30. That's the pre-smart phone platform that a lot of Nokia fans remember fondly. The famously indestructible phones.

I came across them in portable radios (portable FM radios, small global radios, plane listening radios and similar).

Also interesting to know is that BYD was supplying a lot of phone batteries back then. I think they also supplied to Nokia. Phone batteries is what made them big.

(a) From 20 June 2025, manufacturers, importers or authorised representatives shall ensure that the process for replacement of the display assembly and of parts referred to in point 1(a), with the exception of the battery or batteries, meets the following criteria: [...]

[...]

(c) From 20 June 2025, manufacturers, importers or authorised representatives shall ensure that the process for battery replacement:

(i) meets the following criteria:

— fasteners shall be resupplied or reusable;

- the process for replacement shall be feasible with no tool, a tool or set of tools that is supplied with the product or spare part, or basic tools;

— the process for replacement shall be able to be carried out in a use environment;

— the process for replacement shall be able to be carried out by a layman.

(ii) or, as an alternative to point (i), ensure that:

— the process for battery replacement meets the criteria set out in (a);

— after 500 full charge cycles the battery must, in addition, have in a fully charged state, a remaining capacity of at least 83 % of the rated capacity;

— the battery endurance in cycles achieves a minimum of 1 000 full charge cycles, and after 1 000 full charge cycles the battery must, in addition, have in a fully charged state, a remaining capacity of at least 80 % of the rated capacity;

— the device is at least dust tight and protected against immersion in water up to one meter depth for a minimum of 30 minutes.

---

So manufacturers must make the battery replaceable, or meet all the conditions from (a) for replacing non-battery components, and meet the 1000 cycle / 80% capacity requirement.

It was not said that Apple was exempted. What was said is that Apple complied with the exemption rules.

It appears what you're looking for is in B(5)(c)(ii).

> (c) From 20 June 2025, manufacturers, importers or authorised representatives shall ensure that the process for battery replacement:

> (i) meets the following criteria:

> — fasteners shall be resupplied or reusable;

> — the process for replacement shall be feasible with no tool, a tool or set of tools that is supplied with the product or spare part, or basic tools;

> — the process for replacement shall be able to be carried out in a use environment;

> — the process for replacement shall be able to be carried out by a layman.

> (ii) or, as an alternative to point (i), ensure that

> — the process for battery replacement meets the criteria set out in (a);

> — after 500 full charge cycles the battery must have in a fully charged state, a remaining capacity of at least 83 % of the rated capacity;

> — the battery endurance in cycles achieves a minimum of 1 000 full charge cycles, and after 1 000 full charge cycles the battery must, in addition, have in a fully charged state, a remaining capacity of at least 80 % of the rated capacity;

> — the device is at least dust tight and protected against immersion in water up to one meter depth for a minimum of 30 minutes.

P.S. I had posted same link twice.

Written by the sub-sub-sub subcommittee…

Europe will fall to the Russians, if the Russians can ever find it under all the piles of disused regulations.

Psychologically, people understand charging a battery to "125%" (or whatever) a lot better: Do it when you really need to but if you do it all the time it wears down the battery a lot faster.

Just looking in maps, there are three Apple Stores within a 45 minute drive from where I live in central Florida.

The situation is worse in my hometown in South GA admittedly, you have to drive 70 miles for same day service for an authorized repair place - mostly Best Buy.

This sounds like the exact opposite of real life. Every battery ages to the point of uselessness, not every phone gets to take a dive. It's not a stretch to say most phones never see more than some rain or a spilled drink. But the worst part of every discussion on this topic is this false (uninformed) dichotomy that water resistance and easily replaceable battery are mutually exclusive.

In 3-4 years yes, but how about in 10-15 years? Apple will refuse to take your money then.

> Apple will send you the entire toolkit if you want complete with a return label.

Which is malicious compliance. They should allow the friendly neighborhood repair shop to purchase a toolkit so you can choose who does the repairs for you.

Typically that's subject to some sort of recall or remediation through a service centre?

It isn't quite that linear in practice but realistically it will still be at least 5+ years.

I’m pretty sure that’s more or less already the case, so…

He's right - the market wants embedded batteries, although perhaps not directly. Embedded batteries have improved price, battery capacity, water proofing, size, and strength. If the consumer really wanted a removable battery and all that that entails then there would be more phones that offered that. The reality is people misjudge what all that entails. By all means, I would love to just make the iPhone battery directly replaceable without any compromises but that's not reality.

What about wearable devices like a smartwatch, headphones, smart glasses?

Should all these be consumer-replaceable without tools, regardless of the effect on the other things people value in these devices (waterproofing, size and weight, battery life, etc.)?

FYI I do not work for anything close to the consumer tech industry.

Your next phone will be heavier, bulkier, more expensive, and less reliable as a result of these regulations. It will also probably not run as long between charges.

If bureaucrats in Brussels were better at designing phones than Apple, wouldn't they be doing just that?

The updates for ios 12 are all security updates, not feature updates, so your comparison to "connect to the internet using ADSL in Jan 2000 with your IBM PS/2 rocking in intel 8086" doesn't really make sense. The phones stuck on ios 15 are basically unusable because many apps don't support it anymore. At best you can download an older version from a few years ago, but that depends on whether the backend servers were updated. Apps that insist you use the latest version (eg. banking/finance apps) basically unusable.

BTW: DOS was supported until 2001, and Win95 could boot DOS standalone.

Nowadays they are doubling in performance every... 5 years?

1) battery dying / not lasting enough

2) shattered glasses whose replacement costs 35-40% of the cost of the phone new (for budget/mid-range phones, not everybody has iPhones)

distant 3rd) not enough free internal storage

This is also reflected in the increasing support durations from major manufacturers.

Secondly, what you said may have been true in the past, when smartphones were rapidly evolving and upgrade cycles were short, but people are holding on to their devices for longer now, so its possible its becoming a problem again.

Now that this doesn't happen, the driver of obsolescence is the battery, which is much less defensible because you can swap it much more easily than "the whole internals of the phone".

Phones are definitely a more difficult use case.

What kind of rash response is that? No one here is making a blanket claim that the market solution is categorically suboptimal.

> I mean, who told us that smartphones with user-replaceable batteries are better...

Let me repeat: you have to FIRST define what you mean by “better” and then ask that question. I want a phone with a removable battery, and it’s immediately clear to me that making this a requirement is a measure that removes a lower limit on the devices’ lifespan.

> Regulatory processes are shaped by the same incentives as market ones.

That’s just another one of those market-driven circular arguments. There’s no alternative to market logic, because in the end, everything follows the same incentives. You should be able to see that this is nonsense just by driving down a public street or standing under a streetlight at night.

> opposite direction from "help the market"

I would rephrase that as: “help the market move in a desired direction for the benefit of people” and I do believe that regulation can achieve exactly that.

> It's simply better than when a regulatory body implements its "quirky, special requests" at the expense of everyone else.

At whose expense, then? People who are upset that batteries are replaceable again? People who now find their smartphones a few millimeters too thick or a few grams too heavy? Are these people also upset about safety and environmental standards for cars because they make cars a little heavier, more expensive, or more complex?

All of those can be achieved with replaceable batteries.

It's a genuinely hard problem to measure battery capacity with existing smartphone hardware, also because it's a matter of opinion how much to factor in the peak load capacity (how do you count the bottom 40%, where it can't handle peak draw anymore? Should one include half of it because the phone is still usable but in a degraded state?), so I'm not faulting Apple here at all. They choose to display this estimate and it's better than nothing / better than most manufacturers. Just that you can't take it at face value, even if you charged your phone from 0% to 100% for >=1000 days

If Apple resorts to those tactics, then there is no limit in moving the goalposts.

I'd rather force larger companies to offer battery replacement at cost + shipping.

I have no real interest and opening up my own devices and messing with batteries, but I have no problem paying the manufacturer $100 for service.

I don't disagree with this, but I also think it's because the battery often dies around the time most people would consider upgrading anyway. The battery isn't the only reason people upgrade, it's just a forcing factor.

If batteries normally last 3-5 years, I don't think we're going to start seeing most people keep their phones for 7-10 years. I still think we're going to see people upgrading around the 3-5 year mark. I would point to the current market as evidence of this. An iPhone battery replacement is somewhere between $50-$100 right now which is drastically cheaper than a new iPhone and yet we still see the 3-5 year upgrade cycle. Maybe making it something you can do at home in a few minutes will result in a few more people just choosing to replace the battery vs the entire phone, but I don't see it drastically changing things since a cheap alternative to replacing the phone already exists and yet we still see the 3-5 year replacement cycle.

https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-replacement

Most people I know get a new phone when they can't take the cracked screen anymore, or when they completely lose the phone. Or because a pretty new one came out and they upgraded two years ago so it's "time". That's most people.

Getting the battery replaced is already trivial and cheap. Revealed preference is that most people say they want it, but don't. This won't even decrease the cost or difficulty (you'll still need a screwdriver).

That is why I have the battery replaced every few years.

They all know about Apple's battery replacement programme that's been around for years now

And iCloud backups makes setting up a new phone trivial

I am not sure if your statistic is correct or people giving you excuses to get the latest model. If we speak iphones, flipping the battery is cheap and fast process, incomparable with the hassle of doing re-setup.

I am not sure if the process is equally or more simple with android phones though, but in my circle noone buys new phone because of the battery (often the battery is used as excuse to get a newer model).

They’re winning.

I'm not sure about the rules around required ability but I'd like that too

Doubt. They have already switched over every other line they had.

I believe it was more of a marketing stunt, they calculated that n% of customers will be upset with the change, so they waited for the EU ruling so now they can just point these n% to blame the EU who will take the blame instead of them.

Anyways, Apple was working on an iPhone with usb C in 2022 and said they were going to do it anyways* so I don’t see it as some massive win that shows the prowess of the EU legislative body.

Granted this may have shaved a couple of years off of the timeline but at what cost of legislation (monetary, attention, and time cost)!?

# https://www.reuters.com/article/technology/apple-pushes-back...

Everyone moving to "battery must be replaceable without tools" doesn't do anything useful for most users. Yeah, now you can carry an extra battery on a camping trip, I guess, though you could also carry a portable USB-C charger and use it for more than just your phone. It isn't particularly useful that it doesn't take tools to replace the battery when it starts failing, five years after your phone was discontinued, if you can't find a replacement battery for that exact model.

Speak for yourself, I've gained nothing but annoyance. (I'm willing to accept a theoretical greater good argument - but I'm not precisely sold)

Still no real upgrade for hexbright, which is a shame.

I wish they were still being made. Fortunately, mine are still fine, and I expect to be able to repair them should they break. (xtal is a common failure point apparently)

Standard battery type is nice, but also has microusb charging port, the part that didn't age well.

Perhaps new circuit boards (with usb-pd charging, usb-c connector and mems oscillator) will be the way forward. It's definitely easier to order a pcb than the housing.

I think if the EU really wanted to reduce phone waste they'd make it easier or cheaper to fix screens. Still, this doesn't seem like a terrible move. I bet you can make it relatively easy to replace batteries without compromising much. Look at the Macbook Neo for example.