First USB-C, now this. The EU is doing the lord's work
this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
287 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
34569 readers
260 users here now
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.
Rules:
1: All Lemmy rules apply
2: Do not post low effort posts
3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff
4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.
5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)
6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist
7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
Yup, they actually care about consumer protection.
I will never get over Brexit. Europe were really looking out for us as consumers. Also supporting so many communities with grants and funding.
The EU does some really good stuff, but they also do some really absolutely stupid shit.
Maybe feddit.uk needs a BrexitAteMyFace sub
Or a BrexitAteMyPolitcalCareer and it's just all the Conservative politicians who've had to quit or been pushed put of the party over the last few years.
That’s nice. Pretty sure it won’t come to us.
Never say never, there is a big right to repair movement going on in this country right now.
Your comment would be more useful if it included the country
America is the only country on the Internet is it not??? s/
The good thing about european union rules is that there's a big enough market that they want to follow their rules, but not big enough that they can make a separate production chain for everything, so it's easier to follow the rules globally. Like iphones and usb c, just using usb c everywhere is easier.
I mean, I like replaceable batteries and I try to repair everything I can that I own so that it lasts longer (I even replaced the battery in my wireless earbuds' case, doubling its lifetime so far), but swappable batteries have major downsides. Waterproofing is one, but a major thing is space. Sealed batteries don't need protection, but replaceable batteries do, and that increases their size by a lot. The last phones I've had probably couldn't even fit a replaceable battery inside of them how slim they are. So you either have to make phones much larger, or you have to reduce battery capacity. You also probably couldn't have metal backs and would have to return to plastic ones.
Some of these problems could be fixed but it'd make phones cost even more.
I don't know the answer to this, we should make phones more easily repairable, but I don't feel like this is the right way. Maybe mandating that phones can be repaired more easily by repair technicians and make the batteries more easily available. But I don't know how you could enforce that.
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it's gonna be easier to achieve than I believe, but I don't see how it's going to be possible without major downsides.
I agree, there are some things which are different for stupid reasons (looking at you lighting port), but others actually make sense. I think forcing companies to provide official support for technicians, and to not block third party spare parts would be good enough. Allow my local technician to use a random chinese battery after the official ones stop being produced, or keep producing batteries for at least 10 years after a phone's release.
Even better, they could standardize batteries and battery sizes, needing to swap out the battery might mean a lot of downsides, but having a set of standard batteries that you build your phone around might not be that bad.
I have a "sealed" phone (gotta use a heatgun to melt glue off to remove the back) and the battery is easily replaceable once it's opened. maybe what you're saying is true for some battery designs, but not for mine (or my last non-replaceable-battery one before that).
A phone with a back that's glued on isn't user repairable by normal standards. User repairable means easy and that anybody can do it, using a heat gun to melt glue is too much to expect from an average Joe. I'd say soldering is easier in some cases and that isn't considered user repairable.
If you had an easily removable back cover then you would have to have a protected battery, else it would be a major safety issue.
But I do agree with you, something like that would be optimal, where you don't need 500 steps just to remove the battery. Having the battery easily removable so that any regular technician can replace it for cheap should be the goal.
But I don't know how you would enforce that.
My phone and laptop have replaceable batteries. It extends the lifetime of these devices by years. Usually the battery is the first part to break.
Yup, two years in and batteries usually have 50% their capacity or less.
EU has been taking major Ws lately
It's a good move but the main issue is the software rather than batteries.
Force them to release an open bootloader and firmware when deprecating devices at least.
Heck yeah! I'm planning on getting a framework laptop when I next need an upgrade and if I get any input on the decision I'll be pushing for the corporate company I work at to adopt them. I'm admittedly not sure I'm ready to jump on the fairphone train yet but I'm open to the idea.
My framework was one of the best buying decisions I made. Mine came with a fan that made weird sounds so they just sent me the replacement part and I fixed it in 10 minutes. No more sending in the whole device and waiting for weeks on end.
While framekworks have virtually no drawback for me, I'm not as happy with my sustainable smartphone. I have a Shift phone (small company from Germany) that is fully user repairable. Unfortunately, the specs are only middle class, especially the camera, and the software updates are sparingly. Aside from the software updates I heard similar things from friends with Fairphones.
Yeah, right now I've got a s23 ultra and I really like it. There is too much of an advantage to the mainstream phones in camera and extra features for me to make that jump yet. I had a OnePlus with lineage before but I can't pretend I haven't enjoyed the Samsung so far. As for my Lenovo X1 Carbon I'd replace it in a second, it's still doing pretty well right now but it's absolutely not repairable and starting to show its age a bit. I've also just been lucky to not need to repair anything.
Thanks be to the euro-gods!
The EU, representing consumers all over the world
if they pull it off in EU, hope we copy them here!
I doubt the FCC cares about this unfortunately
oh, didn't meant the US but here as here in chile, thought my username would made that obvious.
A year ago I would have been absolutely for this. I mean I still had a smartphone with swappable battery (LG G4) 2015-2019 and only changed away from it because of the bootloop issues this phone had.
Though last year i switched to the Zenphone 9 and this phone has a phenomenal battery time in my eyes. I only slow charge it to 80% every 2 days and I could use the phone for more than 48h if i wanted. Fully charged i can use it for 3 days. I don't think i will see battery issues for a long time.
I could see that some future phone designs and technologies (like bendable phones) would have it difficult to include swappable batteries. I wonder if those could still use fixed batteries if they offer a free replacement each year or sth like that, instead. The USB-C changes are good for sure though
batteries never last. 2 years later and it'll be bad.
For most phones I used the batteries were ok for ~2 years, but i still kept using them for 1-2 more years.
But longer usage times of the batteries also means that they need less charge cycles also not fully charging and slow charging will also maintain the battery life better. In total my phone should have half the amount of charge cycles in a year compared to my previous phones.
I do believe that this time my phone battery will probably hold out over the complete device lifetime for once.
Oh no you are one of them people. Slow charging isn’t going to preserve your battery health by any substantial amount. Fast charging isn’t going to kill your battery by any substantial amount.
Just use your phone and stop being worried about useless crap like that.
maybe, don't really care though since i charge it overnight. So might aswell charge it slow. So yeah i am doing what you say and not caring about useless crap like that :)
You clearly aren’t you admitted you don’t let it go above 80% as if we are in some archaic ages again.
I decided to check if Zenphone had a similar thing to apples smart charging and it does. You can set it to steady charge and rather than “smart” charging where it learns your typical sleeping times it has schedule charge so it only hits 100% for you waking up.
You were talking about slow charging before. About that option i don't really care and i only use it cause it makes no difference.
Limiting the max charge below 100% is good for battery life though. Recharging to 100% every 3 days would be possible, but pushing it., Charging every 48h to 80% works quite well and is more relaxed with 15-20% spare charge remaining.
I am just following the phones recommendation anyway.
I think again you're another person that overestimates how much the goldilocks zone helps and underestimates how good/smart battery charging has got. I'm at 95% health and 3 months shy of 2 Years of use with my phone. No special treatment just charging when needed with a fast charger. The current trend/rates for me would mean I hit 80% health in about another 2 and a bit years so 4 years total.
Thats good to hear, every advancement in battery technology is great and much needed. Though no idea why there is a need to categorize me. Am just a regular user, following the advices on the phone regarding battery health. today is the first time i ever heard of the goldilocks zone, so i guess i learned at least that it is not important anymore
Keeping your Li-Ion battery in the "goldilocks zone" (20-80%) does have an impact on the wear. Usually it's charging the top 10-20% of the battery which has the most impact. I replaced my last battery after 4 years, at which point it had an estimated ~70% capacity remaining.
I think you're overestimating how much that helps and underestimating how good/smart batteries and charging has got. 80% after 800 cycles is the current industry standard with some now pushing that to 1600 cycles.
I'm currently at 95% health with the phone being 3 months shy of 2 years old, no care taken just charging with a fast charger when needed. At the current rate/trend for me that's another 4 years to end up at 70% health so 6 years total.
Slow charging might not be so important in new phones which cool down batteries enough while charging (source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpqaQR4ikig), but keeping battery max % for lithium under 80 is actually pretty good (https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/623375)
Eu w