EU is going to make replaceable battery in smartphones mandatory

Good news for consumers: the replaceable battery is back. Soon you will be able to remove and replace your battery yourself and you will no longer have to go to an expensive store.

What EU law means

The new EU measure means that it must always be possible to replace the built-in battery in electrical appliances. This applies to smartphones and also other equipment, such as rechargeable tools. It is expected that this will help considerably to reduce the amount of electronic waste. The obligation of the replaceable battery came after a campaign by Right2Repair.

Return to the old situation with the replaceable battery

The first mobile phones had batteries that you could easily replace. Apple, and then other manufacturers, started the trend that batteries are soldered into the phone and that they can only be replaced in an expensive repair shop or with special tools. This made the replaceable battery an exception.

Planned obsolescence

As a result, it became necessary for consumers to buy a new phone after 500-1500 charges (this equates to 1-3 years in practice), because the charging capacity of the battery is then severely reduced, so that the battery runs out much faster. This is of course good news for the manufacturers of smartphones because it generates more turnover.

Less so for people who care about the living environment, because the production of smartphones is one of the most polluting activities we know. If, for example, a replaceable battery makes a smartphone last longer, that is a significant benefit for the environment.

Non-replaceable battery always lets smartphone listen in

And there is another important drawback: if you cannot remove the battery from a phone, it is impossible to switch it off with 100% certainty. A manufacturer can always leave the phone on standby while it seems that the phone is off, and during that time, for example, record conversations or send data from the phone to a server in China, for example.

At the moment, only a handful of phones can replace the battery. One of them is the series of telephones from the Dutch brand Fairphone.