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Comment by poisonborz | Hacker News Reader

Why is it so hard to add a removeable back cover to have swappable battery?

Seemingly battery replacement can still be done "in 5 minutes" but this still makes pop-out/on the road battery swapping unpractical. https://www.trustedreviews.com/reviews/nokia-g22

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Waterproofing is the main reason.

But then thickness and aesthetic "cheapness" is a secondary one.

A removeable cover and battery is always going to introduce a little bit of thickness, which on a thin phone is noticeable even if not major.

And then whether you have screws or the ridges for removing the cover, it just always feels a little "cheap". You can't get the same kind of rounded smooth glass or aluminum backing that wraps seamlessly around the edges.

And when people are comparing two phones in their hands, the one that feels more "premium" is often the one they'll go with if they feel they're already paying a premium price. This is an object they hold in their hand all day long. And if you live in a major city, it's really not a big deal to get your battery replaced after 2 years at an Apple Store.

> Waterproofing is the main reason.

Samsung Galaxy S5

Huh, guess I am just that gullible to buy the marketing to the point where I now wonder: how the heck can you have a removable battery and also survive being held under water? (It has an IP67 rating.) I guess waterproof everything except the battery contacts and trust that the salinity is low enough that the 5V doesn't jump between the poles, plus it not being wet for long enough to start rusting (IP67 afaik doesn't require it to work a week later still)?

Older devices I used had gaskets around the battery contacts and a tight fastener. That seems to work well until the gasket eventually degrades over time.

S5 checking in here - there's a rubber gasket all around the back cover.

Thanks! Seems so simple after all.

It's definitely not something I would trust. Just watch yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1MDGQzNMYI

It's a thin, twisty rubber gasket held in place by a flimsy plastic back.

And in my experience with anything involving thin rubber gaskets, they degrade and just flat-out break incredibly easily.

E.g. with wristwatches, it's common knowledge that as soon as you replace the battery in a water-resistant watch, you shouldn't consider it water-resistant anymore. You might get lucky once or twice in recreating the same seal it had at the factory, but you should probably assume you didn't.

That's how my Pebble watch died. It's a shame since it was a hackable device with good battery, but I misjudged resealing the device.

As long as you don’t forget to close the flap.

Look up the Jiayu G5, from around a decade ago. They basically cloned the iPhone 5 and gave it a removable battery with a latching metal back cover.

https://3dnews.ru/assets/external/illustrations/2014/03/25/8...

https://mobi-center.com.ua/image/cache/data/Jiayu-G5S-MTK659...

Wrong. There are plenty of waterproof devices with removable batteries. That's the excuse given to take away your freedom.

The tradeoff is "back cover that comes off in an instant, whenever you want it to" versus "back cover that comes off in an instant, even when you don't want it to."

I never had a problem with a Note 4.

The way you could buy cases that replaced the back cover meant for a much thinner profile phone than the typical metal case wrapped in silicone.

Replaceable batteries are glorious. I never plugged-in my phone, just flipped the battery with one from the charger when I left the house. Instant 100% battery. Travelling? Just take a few charged batteries at a fraction of the weight of a power-bank and much more convenient.

Somehow this very important use case is lost on modern phone makers.

My decades of experience with easily removable back covers tells me this is a complete non-issue.

The back cover coming off accidentally has never happened to me.

It happened to me repeatedly with two different phones, but never when I had a protective case on the phone -- and I always buy one.

For me, it's more of a fidget-spinner. I keep popping it off and on when bored.

Moreover, the battery coming out seemed to act as a shock absorber. If you do throw it hard enough for it to come out, and that was rare for me, at least something gives instead of breaks.

Ah, the memories of classmates playing soccer with phones in high school... phones could run MSN, browse websites (without JS! The .mobi site owners were just forced to make sites lightweight), play Java-based games, had replaceable screen covers, honestly what more should we want? That it's now open source Android instead of proprietary Symbian is great, but slap a touchscreen on it for web browsing and upgrade it from GPRS to 4G or so, and theoretically we could just have nice things.

It has for me, and that was a Caterpillar ruggedized phone.

Why can't the back cover just screw on and off?

How often do you need to replace your battery? Maybe twice in 4 years? What percentage of people keep a phone for more than 4 years? 5%?

Not so much replacing as swapping for a spare to double life without recharging.

Samsung even made an ad about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hIoyb9L5g0

...but then stopped making removable batteries after that.

Like Google teasing Apple for removing the headphone jack and then following that anti-usability trend on next year's model.

I had a dumb phone back in the days that ran on 4 conventional AA batteries. Opening the lid and swapping 4 batteries is less convenient than swapping a single flat cell but its so much better than being wired to the wall or using a clumsy power bank with a cable that is always to short and to long at the same time. The whole charging ritual is far more absurd than it seems. The screen needs to power down, there has to be a power savings mode. With intense use (normal?) and erratic charging patterns batteries degrade much faster than advertised. I mean, I read "lifespan is 2 – 3 years, which is about 300 – 500 charge cycles" when actually used you get about 5 hours out of a charge. real use say 3 months, running from socket to socket. LOL

Cant stop laughing thinking about it, luxurious homes with all the trimmings then have the whole family gather around the extension cord. Like on a construction site. Imagine guns worked like this. We can glue in the cartridge and you'd be able to shoot people for many years? 6 shots should be enough for 3 years when the software expires.

Nowadays? Never, obviously. The odds of me breaking the phone are so large, and the tools I need specialized enough, that I need a new phone on stand-by anyway. No point replacing the battery if I already bought a new one just in case I break the old one by trying to do something as weird as replacing a wear-heavy part.

So it has fallen out of style. There is no market for spare batteries and using them as range extenders is not common use. It seems like an outlandish thing to do now.

I think I went through three batteries on my Galaxy Note 2 (first Android phone) before upgrading. Apps dropping support became a problem... nothing wrong with the hardware at the time where I felt forced to trash it. Anyway, carrying an extra battery for long travel days was not a weird thing to do. I also remember non-tech people having spare batteries for Nokias (when they became more capable; not when the only use was calling your mom to say you were going to a friend's after school).

Could be wrong (please correct me) but i recall hearing that allowing a customer to change a battery (e.g, 3rd party) on a chargable device can change the safety of the product/UL rating or whatever, so it could simply be a certification thing.

Not exactly the same thing, but I have a Garmin heartrate chest strap with a replaceable battery (no charging) -- in the US the cover swivels open to change, but in Australia it requries a screw, for child safety rules. I Thought that was interesting

There's a specific issue with young children eating button-cell lithium batteries, which I'm guessing is what your Garmin device uses. Australia appears to have a law requiring the battery compartments of such devices to be child-resistant.

I'm not sure if any countries have similar regulations related to larger Li-ion rechargeable batteries.

https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2022C00445

I suspect waterproof-ness is one issue.

With the Samsung S5, I’d take a couple extra batteries with me when traveling. Never had to worry about a dead battery or bother with a power bank.

That phone was waterproof but had a special ridge around the back panel.

I actually prefer power bank to spare batteries.

Spare batteries can only be used with the phone, whereas power banks are standard and usable with many other devices if needed.

Also, small phone batteries usually don't come with a carrying case. They're fragile and you could accidentally short them.

>Why is it so hard to add a removeable back cover to have swappable battery?

This is one of the delights of the Moto z series phones because they have magnetic batteries that can be swapped on and off with your bare hands without even having to open up a battery cover or power off the phone.

Check out the Samsung XCover phones if you want that kind of battery swap.

Only forced obsoleting by the company. No other reasons exist.

I and tens of millions other people used removable back cover phones for years before the sealed phone became the norm.

Edit: Can anyone explain why they think that this is wrong? I am genuinely interested.

I really used user-removable battery phones for close to a decade. I found no issues.

> Can anyone explain why they think that this is wrong?

I suspect it is this: > Only forced obsoleting by the company. No other reasons exist.

While companies do want you to buy the newest version every year or two, it is more likely that cost-benefit analysis tells them to build the way they build; they know they must release newer better phones periodically because the competition will do this also. But to support older phones has a cost, and at some point those old phones don't generate enough revenue to justify the cost of supporting them.

You can’t think of another reason? Not maybe any of those mentioned in the thread?

And then you can’t think of reasons for the downvotes?

I see a pattern, maybe?

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