As much as I like my thin devices, all batteries should be user replaceable without the need for disassembly of any kind.
I mentioned this in another thread about the same thing. The Samsung Galaxy S3 was great for that. It was a 10 second job to pop off the back cover and swap out the battery. No risk of breaking the screen, no glue, no miniature cables to unplug and replug. That really should be the norm. It would be even better if we also didn't have to buy expensive branded batteries to replace them.
It also had an official extended battery, which came along with a special backplate. It made the phone a bit bulkier, but I didn't care. Battery went from 2100mah to 3000mah and it was great. I miss these types of accessories. I don't care about glass back or waterproof phones.
Waterproofing _is_an important factor for sustainability for phones though. Water damage was THE cause of death of smartphones for a very long time until waterproofing became the standard for phones.
Yeah but you can have waterproofing AND swappable batteries
How? Currently, waterproofing works by slathering every crack and crevice in a sea of glue. Glue and easily replaceable batteries don’t mix.
The S5 had waterproofing with a removable back using gaskets. (Granted, the design was fugly, but that wasn't the fault of the waterproofing measures. Someone at Samsung loved bandaids) If the S5 could do it, I suppose other manufacturers could achieve the same thing with rubber gaskets. I mean, other waterproof gadgets like dive computers use gaskets on their port covers and what not, so I fail to see why it wouldn't work with battery compartments.
Huh, that could work pretty well! Gaskets would need to be secured and sealed well though, and I fail to imagine what an iPhone or any other modern device would look like with a removable battery lol.
This. My sister killed multiple phones per year until she went to phones with good waterproof ratings and subsequently were better sealed.
She hasn’t killed one since. That’s a lot less waste overall than before.
I’m not saying this is bad because of that, but I think it’s something people overlook.
My first iPhone was in my coat pocket at work. I picked up a bottle of beer that was juuuuust cracked enough that it would split around the middle from the slightest bump but not enough that the liquid would leak.
I stuck it under my arm to carry it and it split and spilled into my pocket. Not a lot made it in there but the phone never powered on again.
My Nextel back in the 90s had the same type of extended battery. Thick as hell by today's standards but it didn't actually fit better or worse in my pocket or my hand. Also didn't feel like I needed an external case just because it might slip out of my hand at any second.
I'm ok with having standard screws holding it together. But no glue!
I’ll 100% prefer a thin but still repairable device that requires disassembly and common tools to replace the battery. Its not something that needs frequent changes any more, most devices can go 2 years plus and before the battery really needs changing, more if you take care of them.
For the Steamdeck it makes sense to have “old school” battery packs so people can choose. But for that same reason, it would be stupid to require by law for all devices to support hot swapping batteries.
Why not both?
If anyone had the sense to make a law forcing the modem processor and peripherals to be fully documented with all registers, protocols, API, architecture, and a reproducible toolchain for compiling the software, we might just have a sustainable future. Governments and large corporations already require this level of accountability for what they purchase and use. Anything less than this level of support and transparency is exploitive theft of ownership. Retaining any digital rights for any products sold is criminal theft.
Lol, as if any of those people have an idea of what these words even mean.
As long as tools to unclip the shell aren't consider specialized, I think almost all existing handhelds are gonna meet the actual requirements here - they just have to be user replaceable, not use swappable, without the use of specialized tools or thermal energy. If you can unscrew it, disconnect the old battery and connect the new one, it complies. It's really only an issue in waterproof devices, where they have to glue everything to seal it.
I read a lot of people claiming that waterproofing technology has come to a point where this isn't too much of an issue, but that's as far as my knowledge goes
It's true. If you put a little gasket around the edges and make sure it's held down tightly (clips, screws etc) it's fine. Glue is cheaper and faster to manufacture, that's why companies claim it's necessary
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What’s the difference between swappable and replaceable
Swappable as in “let’s just put a spare battery in so my phone is at 100% again and I can continue doing whatever” (like with cameras for example)
Replaceable as in “my phone only lasts 2 hours instead of a day because after 3 years the battery has degraded, time to replace it with a new one”
Needing disassembly or not, at least colloquially
Steam deck already supports this
Phones used to have replaceable batteries until they didn't. And they still won't in the next couple of years, until the law is in effect.
Game consoles could go the same way, but this law can prevent it.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=4T0RZ6ustKQ&feature=share8
ifixit: "Battery replacements definitely seem to be the steam deck's achilles heel"
Easy to open yes, but still very challenging to replace the battery. Doesn't seem to comply to the new rules to me.
I read it differently:
Further documentation stated "a portable battery shall be considered readily removable by the end-user where it can be removed from a product with the use of commercially available tools, without requiring the use of specialised tools, unless provided free of charge with the product".
I take specialized tool to mean for example, a screw than you can’t find a driver for at a hardware store. Since all you need to replace the battery are some Phillips heads and a blow dryer or heat gun, it seems fully possible for a consumer to replace the battery using commercially available tools. Difficult sure, but should comply as-is.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=4T0RZ6ustKQ&feature=share8
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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Honestly it is so dystopian that we even have to have laws to require this kind of thing. It only makes sense to be able to replace failed parts instead of throwing out entire units or being required to have the manufacturer handle it.
In reality what happens is that devices with difficult or impossible to replace batteries end up getting thrown in the trash more often than anyone does anything else with them.
Add a counterpoint though, hasn’t the market pretty clearly indicated that this isn’t actually prioritized in a meaningful way, at least over other features, such as form factor or weight (likely the two features most impacted by more easily replaceable batteries). Other than the screen, the battery tends to be the largest and heaviest component of a handheld, so designing it to be swappable isn’t negligible.
Repairable doesn’t necessarily mean swapping though. Manufacturers make it artificially complex to repair batteries to boost sales, just because the market moved this way doesn’t mean thats what people want. I agree swapping might require tradeoffs a lot of people wouldn’t want, but there’s small changes that could help it be a reasonable fix with common tools.
It seems to me the steam deck already meets this regulation, or would with very minimal change. It does not say you need to have an access door like gamboys had. It just says the battery needs to be easily replaceable with commonly available tools (or included tools). To replace the steam decks battery you just need a size 0 Phillips screwdriver and something to pop it open like a guitar pick or a credit card. You would easily be able to get all the tools you need at any hardware store.
Oh god, my heart skipped a beat because I thought they meant like AA batteries or something, whew
what's wrong with AA batteries tho? easily swappable, hot spares, rechargable, interchangable with other devices
Only 1.5 volts.
Steam deck would need 10 AA
Let's use 18650 batteries
Well, aside from being super chunky, these batteries have exposed terminals and can deliver massive current, and can catch fire when shorted. That's why they're typically not sold directly to consumers.
As I recall, valve said that they wanted the battery to be more easily replaceable. The issue was that the battery expands and shrinks during use, and they couldn't find a good way to secure it that both kept it easily replaceable and kept it from sliding around during use. Ultimately, they had to use glue to hold the battery in place.
You can work around that, there’s plenty of designs that allow for slight thermal expansion while not using adhesive to hold down the battery. Take for example, old MacBook Air batteries, that had the cells with room for expansion but framed in hard plastic that screwed into the housing, allowing for quick and easily swapping the batteries.
Yeah, my understanding is that it's not an insurmountable issue, it's just one that the steam deck hardware team wasn't able to solve in a cost effective way.
That I can believe. Between the cost of producing cells in custom housings, and the individually minuscule but collectively considerable cost of both mounting hardware and fasteners, a piece of adhesive looks a lot better to manufacturers.
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