Replaceable batteries are coming back to phones if the EU gets its way | Hacker News Reader

Replaceable batteries are coming back to phones if the EU gets its way

hackaday.com

31 points99990000099914 comments

I guess they have good intentions but you can't simply make a phone have a replaceable battery since phones are tightly packed nowadays, you may have to change the way the phone is packaged quite considerably if the battery is not near the back of the phone.

Also whats the point of replacing the battery of an out-of-support phone? Even excluding Android being out of date some applications will not let you even connect to their servers if your application is too out of date.

2 things, if your a heavy user your battery will be toast before the warranty. My S8 is still supported but the battery is long gone.

Second, what if I want to install a custom ROM which is updated. Not everyone can buy a new phone every year.

I got the impression that it’s not about _user_ replaceable batteries - the article explicitly mentions tools. You don’t need to redesign the phone for this - just don’t use glue and non-standard screws.

If EU regulates things like battery life that make it viable to use a phone for 5+ years and people start doing that, then the industry will start to offer longer support lives as a differentiator.

> Also whats the point of replacing the battery of an out-of-support phone? Even excluding Android being out of date some applications will not let you even connect to their servers if your application is too out of date.

Call me paranoid, but simply having a way to turn a phone definitely off is already a valuable feature, I believe.

Also, the ability to quickly swap out a drained battery for charged one was an extremely useful feature. The whole product segment of power packs basically exists as an inferior replacement for that.

I miss my Samsung Galaxy S3 for regular use. Sure, it felt rather cheap, but it was small and light, had removable storage, and I had a couple spare batteries. I still use it for audiobooks.

While we wait, I chose to use a battery case on a recommendation. You might benefit from one.

Ended up with two of them and keep one charged, ready. The other one powers the phone a lot of the time.

If I need to, I just swap cases to get more, immediate power in a way very similar to using removable batteries. I can also keep the phone battery in good condition by not using it much and or into the full charge / discharge cycles that wear it out quickly.

It makes for a more robust, less easy to damage phone. When I have the phone out, I marvel at how delicate the tech generally is.

Yes and no.

Battery packs are very heavy, often exceeding the weight of the phone.

I had one for my S8, but it was so heavy I eventually gave up and brought a new phone. Replaceable batteries are definitely a positive step, since no matter how well you take care of your tech, batteries die.

I think LG had a cool slide out battery for one of their phones.

I like the weight frankly. And I really like the phone being more robust. Can really take a beating with few worries.

That said, yeah I would love replicable batteries. The Note 4 I had was a fantastic phone. Had lots of sensors and features, the CPU was respectable, and the case featured a plastic back and a sturdy frame, better plastic with metal bolstering it.

A battery swap was trivial.

IMHO, making the battery removable will probably come with improvements in the phone durability.

Until then I don't mind a beefy phone. I know where the damn thing is, and it's always working.

Sounds like a bunch of extra batteries and a sort of battery shuffle. Its not uncommon though. The thinkpad battery slice is effectively the same idea.

I have two batteries in my ThinkPad. One went where the optical drive would go.

Re: Phone battery swap

I typically have a fully charged one in my backpack. I use it every so often just to keep it healthy.

The one on the phone gets charged when the phone does and it basically delivers 2X battery time, and can discharge first.

My experience with these lithium batteries is they will degrade very slowly when kept out of extremes at the bottom and constant charge at the top.

A deep discharge degrades the battery the worst, so basically do not do that. Same goes for laptops.

Batteries then perform for years.

There is lost power when one battery charges another. It's not 100% efficient.

You are right about that.

Honestly, I don't care.

I've got two of them. The key thing is avoiding device downtime and supporting high demand uses. I get plenty of power into doing the task at hand to basically not worry.

I just had the battery replaced in my iPhone 7 after nearly five years. Total cost was £50 from Apple. That's good enough for me.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com