TL;DR
- The European Council has ended its adoption procedure for rules related to phones with replaceable batteries.
- By 2027, all phones released in the EU must have a battery the user can easily replace with no tools or expertise.
- The regulation intends to introduce a circular economy for batteries.
Part of the current designs being thinner is the fact batteries aren’t replaceable.
Thinness is not necessarily something that’s super important to most people.
Also, even if it was, my LG V20 is basically the same thickness as my iPhone 13. I say “basically” because the phone with a replaceable battery is actually slightly thinner in this comparison.
I mean a current iPhone has way more horsepower than a Lg V20. And a lot more features inside as well. Also many phones have multi-cell batteries in order to improve charging time and durability, how you plan to do that swappable?
Having the UE telling brands how to design phones is already over-regulating.
@traveler01 @ethd I think you may have a point buuut.
If you can replace a battery super easy your probably more likely to have the same device for longer thus reducing e waste.
Also it would have been better to force fully repairable phones I’m sure this is step 1 we are seeing now.
They should make less expensive to repair in my opinion. Also, if EU want so bad to reduce e-waste it should make repair shops tax exempt, plus the parts. It’s already mandatory for brands to supply parts for about 10 years as far as I know, the repair price just needs to get cheaper.