this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2023
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It had been in the works for a while, but now it has formally been adopted. From the article:

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.

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[–] SharpMaxwell@lemmy.world 80 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (32 children)

I have seen countless videos on tiktok of people being against this move, and my question is why? why wouldn't anyone want to be able to extend the life of their expensive devices, why wouldn't people want easily repairable batteries that take less than 5 minutes to swap out?

the only argument ive seen against this is "OOH BUT BUT BUT THE AESTHETICS OF THE PHONE" who cares? function should always be over looks. and if anything it will end the trend of phones being glassy slabs and bring some innovation and new designs to the table. which will be interesting to see.

[–] BrokenToshy@lemmy.world 56 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"Oh but the aesthetics of the phone" proceeds to put phone in case and never see the actual device it's entire lifespan anyway

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago

I owned a case for my iPhone 1.0 and used it for about two days. I kept taking it off to show people the actual phone and then realized, "Why do I have this stupid thing on the phone?"

I have never used a case since then. My phones have been fine because I take care of them. I've had a few dings over the years, but I've never shattered the display or killed one. I like that my phone is sleek and nice.

This is not a vote against user-serviceable batteries. I can't predict whether this will make my phone shittier until I see how it plays out.

[–] pragma@lemmy.world 40 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What about aesthetics? They used to have removable back covers before and there wasn't any seam visible. This is not even a valid argument imho.

[–] littlecolt@lemm.ee 35 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Battery pull was always a great way to unfuck a frozen phone

[–] cmhe@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What do you have against waiting a day or two, not being able to use the phone, for the battery to run out so that you can reboot it? Simply removing the battery seems like to much effort. /s

[–] XTornado@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Honestly that is mostly solved, all have some mechanism to reset it even if is completely frozen. Plus nowadays is not a that common occurrence.

[–] cmhe@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Sure, it doesn't happen often. Those mechanisms are often just some software running in some microcontroller, which can also fail and manifactorers like to cheapen out where possible.

It did happen to me maybe 2 times in >5 years, where not even long pressing power button helps. I was traveling by rail the last time and luckly had my ticket physically.

[–] Proweruser@feddit.de 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Phones have a hardware interrupt. Just hold the power button for 30 to 45 seconds.

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[–] Nerorero@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 year ago (12 children)

They removed physical buttons and access to batteries and now I can't do shit when an app freezes (other than attempting to turn it off, but even then the "turn off?" Can't pop up)

Why do we love do design things like shit so much? It seems that every fist world struggle I ever had was due to bad design

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[–] Proweruser@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

Phones have a hardware interrupt. Just hold the power button for 30 to 45 seconds.

[–] tallwookie@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

i sure dont miss picking up three pieces and then reassembling my phone when I dropped it. my s2 had that issue for a long time until I ditched it. maybe bad design? havent had a removable battery phone since though.

[–] jantin@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

even fairly modern ones are slick, LG G4 (ok not exactly modern) is light and thin and with replacable battery. Gigaset smartphones are quite the bricks but it's actually quite hard to open the batt compartment, that's how well they're fitted.

[–] beanz@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Aesthetics are the same bogeyman excuse used to justify really any significant change in a phone since IP ratings first came in with. I recall back when USB-C was first showing up in smartphones, there was a time where simultaneously some manufacturers were pushing for the change and others trying to push back on it, with both groups citing aesthetic reasons.

[–] quent1500@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Aesthetics are the same bogeyman excuse used to justify really any significant change Same with laptop when they justify why every component has to be soldered into the main board. Just look at a Framework laptop, same visual result but every thing is upgradeable (as it should be).

[–] vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 year ago

I want a laptop keyboard like ThinkPad T60, and usually the explanation why not is "aesthetics". Because we don't type on keyboards, we bloody look at them all day feeling fancy.

[–] UnstuckinTime@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah besides aesthetic preferences change over time and people just grow to prefer what's ever modern. Or to tolerate it and then that becomes the standard. I don't remember people bitching that phones were too thick back in the day. Obviously their primary motivation is planned obsolescence and increased phone sales.

It's incredibly naive to assume there's any other reason. I'm just absolutely no reason for them to stick glue on the battery or the serialize parts, other than to sell more phones and warranty plans.

[–] daniskarma@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

People are so deep in the corporate drug. They defend anything against their own interests.

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[–] Z4rK@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don’t use TikTok and welcome replaceable batteries, but I also still hope for a waterproof iPhone I can take swimming. Probably be harder to do.

[–] Proweruser@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

There are a few Samsung phones that are water tight and have removable batteries. They just stopped making them since glued in batteries are more profitable.

[–] rikudou@lemmings.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

who cares?

I do. I still think it's a good idea to have swappable batteries, but I indeed do care about how it looks.

[–] SharpMaxwell@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

while yes i do agree that i want my device to look nice, its more of a secondary to me,

I also feel like there's ways companies could make new designs that incorporate a removable battery that dont look ugly or old, hell even if the design is not as easy to take the back door off as some of the older phones thats fine, as long as i dont have to disassemble the entire phone just to swap the battery im happy.

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[–] happyhippo@feddit.it 4 points 1 year ago

TikTok is for the brain dead.

You're smart enough to be on Lemmy, you deserve better.

[–] UnstuckinTime@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Well a lot of it is just people that identify culturally with Apple for some reason and we'll basically oppose anything that they lobby against like right to repair. Side loading...etc ..

Also some people have wrongly interpreted this to assume it means batteries have to literally be hot swappable. I kind of wish that was the requirement but I don't think it's that militant. I think it's just requiring that the end user could remove the battery with one screwdriver as opposed to having to find proprietary screwdrivers and use multiple different tools and remove multiple different parts.

[–] Proweruser@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

The reality is: "oh but Samsung gives me money!"

[–] pumpsnabben@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can tell them that this regulation does not seem to target phones or tablets.

For batteries that are incorporated in mobile phones and tablets it is appropriate to set performance and durability requirements regarding those batteries through a future eco-design regulation addressing phones and tablets

[–] whoami_whereami@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

It doesn't target phones or tablets specifically, but that doesn't mean that they aren't include in "portable devices and appliances". The sentence you quoted simply suggests that there should be additional regulation on top of the currently pending in the future.

[–] Syndic@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago (6 children)

why wouldn’t anyone want to be able to extend the life of their expensive devices, why wouldn’t people want easily repairable batteries that take less than 5 minutes to swap out?

I guess because they're used to the current state of things where they are replacing their phones every 1-2 years for a newer shinier one anyway. Getting the newest shit regulaerly for them is a central point of using their phone status as personal validation.

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[–] jubalvoid@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I don't care hugely about aesthetics, my concern is non-standard form factors. I don't know how a phone like the Z Folds can be made with removable batteries, one of the 2 batteries is literally sandwiched between 2 screens. Implementing this would take it from feeling like a brick to being literally the size of a brick. Hopefully tech improves enough by 2027 to negate my concerns but I don't see how.

[–] UnstuckinTime@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think it's requiring the battery to be hot swappable. Just requires that the user can remove the back with a screwdriver and not have to worry about a bunch of different proprietary screws or absolutely require a third party repair option.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but I don't see any reason why you couldn't make a flip that can have the battery removable with just using universal screws and no glue etc

[–] jubalvoid@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 year ago

The flip is possibly doable, but as someone with a Fold4 there simply isn't room in the device to start incorporating screws in the half with a screen on both sides. Only way I can see it working is putting the whole battery on the side with a normal back, but there isn't enough room for the same size of battery. It'd probably also throw off the balance in the hand when open.

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