TL;DR
- The European Council has ended its adoption procedure for rules related to phones with replaceable batteries.
- By 2027, all phones released in the EU must have a battery the user can easily replace with no tools or expertise.
- The regulation intends to introduce a circular economy for batteries.
FANTASTIC. I’m just disappointed that it’s as far away as 2027 and not 2024 or 2025 :(
Edit: Oh, I just read this part
So…I’m sure us North Americans will still get screwed with nonreplaceable batteries :(
Not really as a design change as drastic as user exchangeable batteries means phone companies would probably rather adopt a unified design (removable batteries) than a region based design
Well some GDPR implementations did make it across the pond for the sake of simplicity so I imagine this might go the same way.
In the case of GDPR it is not just for simplicity. It’s because companies that operate in the EU need to provide those protections to all EU citizens, even those across the pond. You cannot check if someone is an EU citizen so if you operate in the EU you effectively need to treat everyone like an EU citizen.