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Comment by Zak | Hacker News Reader

Make the battery removable, then you have an off-switch and a repairable device. For bonus points, use a battery in a standardized form factor so I can buy spares.

I know, I know, the industry doesn't want me to keep my device working longer than the lifespan of a Li-ion cell.

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the real problem is the design team doesn't give two shits about neither users nor developers of the product... developers aren't treated as customers by design teams and then everybody is confused why the thing doesn't work. (hint: maybe it's stupid hard to make it work if you are actively prevented to be able to work on it?)

the real problem is that you can't keep all those little features you'd wish for in your head, so while you are making a buying decision they don't factor in as much as the lower price achievable without those features.

That varies a lot based on product type, price point, and target market.

For something long-lived and expensive, I will pay extra and accept a less sleek design for standardized removable batteries. I research most purchases of durable goods. Of course, I may not be the most profitable customer since I don't plan to buy a new widget every six months.

This is the real problem. Otherwise the markets would have solved the crappy products problem a long time ago.

When I use something at my home, I usually have a constant stream of minor annoyances that could easily be fixed by the manufacturer. However, when I'm shopping for a new product, I dont remember any of them.

The odd part is that for many people that's even the case if it's software _and_ they are programmers themselves _and_ it's open source. But they go complain instead of just fixing the minor annoyance.

Perhaps we need government labels like we have on food - little boxes for common things like “battery: removable” or “on/off”.

I've advocated similar as a possible way of countering other consumer-hostile practices in the past but for something like batteries I think we're already past that point.

E-waste is a huge but so far mostly overlooked problem. Built-in obsolescence is great for exploitative businesses and bad for basically everyone and everything else. Unnecessarily restricting hardware repair or replacement might be the largest contributory factor in this problem.

Time to regulate.

I'd love this - simultaneously beneficial to consumers, improving the market (reducing information asymmetry), and not something that laissez-faire-market-types can complain about (because you're not restricting what sellers can do, technically - you're just forcing them to reveal more information about their product, and then it's market forces that actually deal the killing blow).

More ideas: "online account required for use", "collects location data", "phone call required to cancel subscription", "memory use: 350 MB" (just like calorie counts!), and so many others...

We'd need some regulation for the regulations. My son's laptop battery died last week. Today, it is considered non-removable. But, he did remove it, after removing about 20 screws, carefully prying open the case, removing a few more screws and layers of insulation inside. Eventually, he was able to remove it and test that the battery was the fault and order a new one.

If we require labels, without the necessary strictly defined definitions, today's non-removable battery becomes tomorrow's "removable" battery. Because, hey, it is possible to remove it. Good luck getting everything back together if you aren't an engineer or extremely careful in how you disassembled things.

If a battery is "removable", that means replacing the battery is a normal, reasonable use of the device. Ergo, if the device breaks while the customer is replacing the battery, the manufacturer would need to replace it under warranty.

"Field replaceable" might be better way to describe it. If my flashlight runs out of power, I unscrew the tailcap, take out the 14500 cell, and put another one in it. I don't need tools and I can do it in the dark; it would be a major flaw for a flashlight if I could not.

ikr? They have these things now, they call them "AAA" batteries...holy heck, you can take them out, and they even make rechargeable ones. Like, if your thing doesn't work, you can just swap the batteries instead of waiting N hours for it to charge itself....what a concept.

Rechargeable AAAs are crap though. Power density sucks. Voltage level sucks (and voltage regulators will suck the battery dry before your micro does). And the form factor sucks.

I'd sooner have a 18650-family (e.g. 14240 or 14500) become standard than a bunch of AAAs.

> Rechargeable AAAs are crap though.

Not compared to alkalines, not since about 2005. Voltage regulation (i.e. a boost converter) plays well with NiMH rechargeables too, though not with alkalines.

That's assuming one of them is an appropriate size and voltage for the application. If more than one starts to seem like a good idea, consider a larger cell, higher voltage chemistry, or both.

> Rechargeable AAAs are crap though. Power density sucks. Voltage level sucks (and voltage regulators will suck the battery dry before your micro does). And the form factor sucks.

Not in my experience: our main TV is connected to a 2008 computer running Linux Mint that we use for netflix and amz prime. I've been using it in this way since 2016. The remote is an off-the-shelf wireless pointer thingy with a few buttons on it (works like a Wii controller) that takes 2x AAA batteries.

I've been recharging those 2x AAA batteries since 1996, and it still works fine enough that I don't feel compelled to replace them.

Panasonic Eneloops and similar modern low-self-discharge NiMH batteries are really nice. Their capacity is not quite as high as alkalines, but their internal resistance is an order of magnitude lower. At loads over 100mA, they're a far superior battery in both ability to deliver power and effective capacity. They have low self-discharge, so you can charge them after using them instead of discovering you need to charge them before using them. And I've never had one leak, but I assume they can.

I use a lot of rechargeable AAAs and AAs. For AAA, 1100mAh are pretty good, which almost up to the ~1250mAh of an Energizer alkaline. For AA, there are 2800mAh rechargeables available, which is on par with an Energizer alkaline.

Battery hipsterism. Oh HN, you keep giving.

It was a valid point. There's a significant performance/weight reason most of the devices with non-removable batteries and built-in charging are using Li-ion instead of NiMH.

Getting a bunch of consumers used to buying spare Li-ion cells and using external chargers might be a non-starter, but it's possible to have both onboard charging and removable cells so the upgrade path is there for those who want it.

I've had a series of Canon powershot cameras that have all used more-or-less the same Li-ion cell design[1] and I've been able to swap batteries with them. They're big enough that third parties have even offered replacement batteries.

There is probably room for standardization of a compact, rectangular, rechargeable battery of roughly those dimensions. Is someone pushing for it?

[1] https://www.apotelyt.com/camera-power/canon-g7-x-mark-iii-ba...

I don't think anyone is pushing for that, though sometimes a company will design a device around another company's battery design. There's quite a bit of small photo/video lighting that uses Sony NP series camera batteries. Those are just a pair of 18650s in series inside a plastic box.

It seems to me the size of the G7X could have been designed around a 14500 cell instead.

Thank goodness I haven't heard a hipster sing the praises of carbon-zinc "heavy duty" batteries from Harbor Freight and dollar stores... yet.

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