Removable batteries aren't coming back. Good — they sucked

The EU is no stranger to forcing smartphone manufacturers into obeying its rules.

With an eye to reducing e-waste, it was the EU that dictated the USB-C charger would be the universal standard, leading to the modern situation where one cable can comfortably charge almost any device you own.

Now, it's turned its eyes to the role batteries play in e-waste.

After being announced in 2023, the EU is finally due to bring a new set of rules into law. From 2027, it will be mandated that all smartphones and tablets contain easily replaceable batteries.

Stories reminding the public of this have recently been doing the rounds, and it's easy to see why.

"User-replaced batteries" is a strong draw, and reminds everyone of the old days when you could whip off the back of your phone and have the battery out in a moment.

But this legislation isn't going to bring those days back — and even if it was, you don't really want them back.

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Posts 8
By  Ben Khalesi

'Removable battery' means a lot of things

"Removable battery" conjures a specific image in a smartphone fan's head. Pop the back casing off, lever the battery out, slap in a new one, job done.

This was how most early smartphones functioned. The back panel wasn't a decorative piece of glass or somewhere to keep chunky camera modules. It was an easily removable piece of plastic that hid a battery that could be easily removed.

Most of the time, you'd need to pop out the battery to stick in a SIM card. So, most of us were familiar with how easily the battery could be replaced.

It used to be a mainstay, but nothing lasts forever, and it certainly didn't. These days, it's close to impossible to find a mainstream phone with such an easy way to access the battery, and many would love to see a return to those days.

Unfortunately, this legislation won't be doing that.

The legislation does cover smartphone batteries, and pretty much every battery in a device you can think of — but there are some big exceptions there that make most phones you're likely to buy exempt from them.

Devices are exempt if they have batteries that maintain a battery capacity of 80% of their original rating after 1,000 cycles. Devices must also have at least an IP67 rating for water and dust-proofing.

Apple iPhones already meet those standards, and so do Google's Pixel phones. Samsung's phones are allegedly rated to retain 80% at 2,000 cycles, putting them above and beyond the requirements.

So all of those brands are likely to continue being able to glue in their batteries as they like. But even if they didn't meet requirements, there's no need to backtrack 20 years and bring back removable batteries.

All a company needs to do is include tools to remove the battery, and voilà, they're compliant.

A portable battery shall be considered readily removable by the end-user where it can be removed from a product with the use of commercially available tools, without requiring the use of specialised tools, unless provided free of charge with the product, proprietary tools, thermal energy, or solvents to disassemble the product.

That's it, that's all they need to do.

Alright, it would change how some batteries are inserted. There would likely be no glue involved, unless companies fancy including a hairdryer in every phone box, but it's still nowhere close to the old days.

You'd probably get a spudger and a small screwdriver in each phone box, and some basic instructions. It's hardly the removable battery revolution people have been dreaming of.

But you know what? I'm okay with that. Because removable batteries sucked anyway.

Remove the red-tinted spectacles, replaceable batteries kinda sucked

To be entirely clear, removable and replaceable batteries themselves don't suck. But everything that came with them did.

Those easily removed back casings were a bit rubbish. Materials, even on flagship phones, were cheaper then, and plastic was common in almost every smartphone case.

Those removable back panels were flimsy, and when you dropped your phone, it was common for the back to come flying off, along with the battery.

Turning my phone into a claymore mine every time it's dropped isn't normally what I expect from a feature, but it definitely happened more than I'm willing to admit.

Even putting a case on the phone only meant your back panel just fell into the case instead, which still wasn't great, especially if the battery had shifted.

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Bringing removable rear plates back doesn't necessarily mean going back to having plastic again, but it doesn't seem likely that glass will be used.

Which pretty much leaves metal as the only real option. And if we're using metal as a back panel, you're going to have to say goodbye to wireless charging and magnets.

Really, that's what it boils down to. The back of a phone used to be free real estate. It wasn't really decorative, and it didn't have chunky camera modules crammed into it.

Now, we have wireless charging coils there, or magnets for Pixel Snap and other magnetic accessories.

Heck, you have a lot of carefully placed adhesive sealing your phone from water and adding an IP rating. Pop the back open, and that protection is gone.

By adding a replaceable battery, you're losing several other features.

Your thoughts on this might differ from mine, but personally, I'd rather keep wireless charging and magnetic accessories.

Replaceable batteries were cool, but the industry has moved on, and we don't need to go back.