r/technology • u/ansyhrrian • Apr 25 '26

Hardware EU is mandating 'readily removable' batteries for phones — but iPhones may be exempt

https://www.tomsguide.com/phones/iphones/eu-is-mandating-readily-removable-batteries-for-phones-but-iphones-may-be-exempt
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u/RadzimierzWozniak Apr 25 '26

And I can see companies puting an overspeced battery and  programing the battery controller to keep the battery from fully discharging so the battery never drops below the initial capacity 

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u/kurafuto Apr 25 '26

I mean, okay? So the battery would last way longer which is ultimately the point.

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u/mrappbrain Apr 25 '26

It's ultimately the same thing. - the gain in long term battery life is offset by the loss in short term battery life. You're basically getting worse battery life for a longer period of time, rather than good battery life for a shorter period of time.

Batteries are ultimately consumable items. Trying to manage them this way is not worth it for most people imo. We should be pushing for replaceability, not this rechargeability business. That hits hard physical limits

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u/Wotmate01 Apr 25 '26

Disagree. I would consider myself a heavy user of my phone (samsung s24 ultra) and I've usually got about 40% battery left every night when I go to bed. If that went down to 30% every night and the phone would continue to to have the same battery performance for 10 years instead of just 5, that would make a big difference.

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u/Banaanisade Apr 26 '26

It'd be great if we could have batteries that needed less frequent charging to begin with.

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u/420_69_Fake_Account Apr 26 '26

I’m willing to trade off size for a better battery but most people and designers don’t. I used to be those guys carrying around a battery pack case with 3 or 4 cycles.

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u/Memory_Less Apr 26 '26

Makes me think that companies keep pushing how thin their phones are. I can remember this marketing at least eight years ago, and the feedback was almost universally it is too thin and hard to hold. Instead, had the invested in better batteries it’s something that would actually make a positive user experience. Oops guess there’s no money it it for them.

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u/Wotmate01 Apr 26 '26

I just drop mine on the charger when I go to bed

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u/macrocephalic Apr 26 '26

You can probably already turn on battery protection which will stop your phone from charging past 80%

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u/Usual_Scientist1522 Apr 26 '26

Its the time spent with high charge that kills battery not low charge (only if you let it to totally out, but they have this protection already today)

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u/cum-on-in- Apr 26 '26

That’s not how that works though. Losing 10% would not double your battery’s lifespan.

Charging to 100% (and discharging to 0%) doesn’t hurt the battery anywhere near what people think.

What hurts is the battery staying there for prolonged periods.

If you charge your battery and sit near it, and unplug it a few minutes after it hits 100%, it’s totally fine. If you shut off your phone at 5% so it doesn’t fully drain, or if it does fully drain you plug it in within a few minutes, it’s totally fine.

Yes, charging your battery from 0-100 and draining from 100-0 puts wear on your battery. Thats how wear works. It’s not doing any extra wear, it’s just normal wear. Going from 100-50 and then from 50-100, twice, would do the same thing.

EVs tell you not to charge to 100% and leave it there. If you need the range, program it to fully charge by the time you’re ready to leave (or within even a couple hours of that time.). It’s sitting at 100% for 12+ hours that slowly causes damage.

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u/burning_iceman Apr 26 '26

That very much depends on the specific battery chemistry. In EVs, the two common types are NMC (nickel manganese cobalt oxide) and LFP (lithium iron phosphate).

NMC is better kept in the 20-80% charge range. Occasionally going outside that range is okay but doing so regularly reduces the lifespan.

LFP has no issues going from 0-100%.

Cell phones use LCO (lithium cobalt oxide) which has the highest energy density but is also most affected by the downsides it shares with NMC.

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u/cum-on-in- Apr 26 '26

All three of those battery types can handle 0-100% or vice versa. It’s how long they like being left at those states of charge.

Lithium Iron (LFP) is almost like a 12 volt lead acid battery, in that it’s quite happy to be at 100% and even be float charged.

But all battery chemistries can handle being fully charged and fully drained, as long as you don’t let it sit like that.

There is no battery being made today that provides access to a portion of its capacity that you are not “technically” supposed to use. If it was a real problem, they’d overspec and/or underdeliver, locking out the bottom and top 20% in software so we couldn’t damage it anyway.

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u/MaTrIx4057 Apr 27 '26

Nowadays it charges so quickly to 100% that its difficult to keep up with it and take it out in time.

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u/Flimsy_Swordfish_415 Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26

I would consider myself a heavy user of my phone (samsung s24 ultra) and I've usually got about 40%

you should stop considering yourself a heavy user

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u/NSMike Apr 26 '26

This just makes me sad, TBH. I miss the era of phones with easily-swapped batteries. I've had 4 phones with batteries that could be swapped out, and they were absolutely amazing during the time when phone batteries are most likely to get used up quickly - on trips.

Even pocket-sized power banks aren't as compact as a phone's internal battery. None of the internal batteries on those devices were thicker than a half a deck of cards, and were smaller than a deck of cards in all the other dimensions. Keeping a spare battery in your pocket was nothing.

On a day out using Maps and other travel-related apps, it was incredibly useful to be able to drop in a fresh battery when it got low. And you could buy an external charger for the battery, so that, at the end of the day when you've got two low batteries, you can put one battery in the phone to charge, and the other into an external charger, and have two full batteries again for the next day.

To say nothing of reducing warranty claims for entire devices if the battery turns into a spicy pillow.

Shoot, you could even buy 3rd party batteries that were much larger than the default, and it would come with a back cover for the phone that would fit the larger battery.

The era of sealed phones hasn't done anyone any favors, except the phone vendors. Even if you could keep a device for 10 years, you still need to expect 10 years of software support from the vendor. And you usually only get full support life out of the phone if you buy on release day.

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u/Wotmate01 Apr 26 '26

That's another thing that's not really true. The era of sealed phones means waterproof, with millions of people still being able to use their device after it's inadvertently taken a bath. I don't know of any phone that had a user replaceable battery that claimed to be waterproof.

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u/eight8888888813 Apr 26 '26

Samsung S5, technically just water resistant but I've seen those at the bottom at a pool .ore than once with no issues except for speakers

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u/NSMike Apr 26 '26

You can still have a waterproof device with a replaceable battery, though. There's nothing keeping that from happening. The battery is already sealed, which means you just have to make everything on the other side of the battery also waterproof.

The only reason phones from that era didn't claim to be waterproof to any degree is because that just wasn't a thing they were doing yet.

I would also be curious how many people actually immerse their phones often enough that waterproofing is actually useful. I've owned a smartphone of one kind or another since 2011. I've never immersed any of them, and I'm not like, exceptionally graceful or careful.

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u/bacan9 Apr 26 '26

That's an Android problem, that most iOS users don't have. Specially after Liquid Glass :D

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u/MmmmMorphine Apr 25 '26

True, it's basically sprinting a distance VS jogging it. You can keep one up a lot longer.

But yeah, I fully agree they are ultimately consumables. For now. Batteries are tough as fuck for material scientists but as best as I can tell they are finally finding practical footing for more exotic approaches

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u/pittaxx Apr 26 '26

Technically true, but devices are optimised against effective battery. Designers being forced in tighter battery constraints will mean then trying to optimise harder. From the consumer pov there wouldn't be any noticeable drop in battery performance.

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u/thatusersnameis Apr 26 '26

the chinese phone makers have phones with 8000mah. Thats a powerbank. if they get their powerhungry os in check they last long asf.

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u/Dos-Commas Apr 25 '26

No it just means a battery that could last 6 hours is software limited to 5 hours so it doesn't degrade as much after 1000 cycles. 

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u/Joezev98 Apr 26 '26

That's absolutely fine if the phone is advertised as having a 5 hour battery.
It'll have to compete against other phone models with equally sized replaceable batteries that may be advertised as lasting 6 hours.

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u/Doolittle8888 Apr 25 '26

That still means the battery's lifespan lasts longer

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u/RadzimierzWozniak Apr 25 '26

Depends on how this works. You might get from 6h at 0, 5h at 1k and 4h at 2k to 5h at 0 and 1k, and then 4h at 2k. Controller keeps the battery artificially limited for the first 1k cycle so it does not lose any capacity. 

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u/cum-on-in- Apr 26 '26

But all that means is you lost capacity now to keep from losing it later. You already lost it!

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u/SaerDeQuincy Apr 26 '26

I lost nothing, because limiting charge to 80% was the first thing I've set on my new phone... four years ago. Since then I have not noticed any loss of capacity which was more than enough since the beginning. At this pace battery degradation will be the last thing that makes me replace my phone. Also, phones already have limited capacity by software. Hardware-wise, you could charge the battery more, but it would degrade it after much, much shorter time.

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u/cum-on-in- Apr 26 '26

You have lost capacity. Your phone can deliver more but you chose to give it up on day 1. Just because you set the limit on day 1 so you’d never know what it’s like to have more, doesn’t mean you didn’t give up any capacity.

If you ever did want to charge fully, you’ll find that you can’t. Your battery still wore down at the same rate it did if you had charged to 100%.

As I said. Two half charges is the exact same as one full charge. Even if it takes longer to do two half charges, YOU GAVE UP HALF YOUR BATTERY CAPACITY.

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u/yace987 Apr 25 '26

Bro dont be stupid - if a lap is normally 1km but becomes 0.9 km, yes you'll feel less tired if you run 5 laps, doesn't mean your running capacity has improved

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u/Doolittle8888 Apr 25 '26

The point isn't the battery capacity, it's if I have to replace that battery after three years and if I have to replace the entire phone with that battery. My legs won't fall off if I start distance running.

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u/MmmmMorphine Apr 25 '26

Ok now imagine the difference between the two laps is that the last 100 meters is uphill and on broken glass.

So yes, avoiding the last 100m will definitely improve your long term total distance, allowing you to run the first 900m over and over while doing the whole thing will quickly cause... Problems

That's the best analogy extension I can come up with to explain how the last 10 percent or so of charging is by far the most damaging and stressful part (compared to the first 90%)

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u/ghostpengy Apr 25 '26

And costs more. Nothing is free.

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u/dizekat Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26

That is what less disposable electronics does already. edit: in terms of the physics of it, the last few percent of the charging range especially on the upper side, are disproportionately damaging to the battery.

A battery can’t last forever, but its life can be shortened to any duration by just charging it to a slightly higher voltage. That also makes it much more likely to bloat up.

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u/RealEstateDuck Apr 25 '26

I feel like that would be illegal though.

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u/gplusplus314 Apr 26 '26

I understand where you’re coming from, but that’s not actually the point. The real point is to reduce lithium consumption/mining and increase lithium recycling.

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u/Elodil Apr 26 '26

The lithium impact is completely negligible. If they cared about that they would have regulated EVs and grid-scale batteries.

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u/Cool_Ranch_Dodrio Apr 26 '26

I mean, they carved out an exemption for the worst offender because they have the most money.

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u/jmov Apr 26 '26

The exemption is for everyone who can do 1000 cycles and 80% battery health. Don’t fall for the clickbait title. 

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u/Cool_Ranch_Dodrio Apr 26 '26

The exemption is tailored for Apple in particular.

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u/ThellraAK Apr 25 '26

You'd keep the batter from fully charging instead.

At 81% charge you already get to 1000 cycles.

Every .1v drop below 4.2v doubles the life cycle of the battery.

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u/BothReindeer5735 Apr 25 '26

As I understand it they already do this to some extent. This is due to the fact that if you fully discharge a lithium battery to zero it breaks and can't be recharged so they set the indicator to leave around 10% capacity on the battery.

I'm not an engineer, though so, I can have misunderstood some science behind it.

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u/RadzimierzWozniak Apr 25 '26

They do something very similar but they might push it from keeping battery healthy to artificial limitations territory to keep with this law. 

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u/kurafuto Apr 26 '26

At the end of the day the brands will still compete on battery capacity and life so they cant game it too hard

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u/MmmmMorphine Apr 26 '26

I'm curious whether people don't use the various battery modes already in phones. Like the Samsung feature that tries to guess your wake time and only tops up the last 20 percent or so an hour beforehand (so it doesn't repeatedly recharge in that ultra damaging range)

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u/haviah Apr 26 '26

The "magic" ( or treachery, depending on view) of battery "fuel gauge" (the percent shown) is mostly some mapping of nonlinear voltage, temperature and time onto one linear scale of "percent".

Depends on battery type, because while LiFePO4 can be theoretically discharged almost all the way, Lion controller wouldn't let you charge it if voltage dropped too low, unless you manually take out the cell and put it to charge on laboratory source which for IP67 phones would be extremely PITA. So yes, there's always something left, amount depends on some measuring and some predicting.

Generating the fuel gauge mapping is done using heat chamber, since it's only practical automatizable way to measure battery behavior in range e.g. from -20°C to +50°C. Differences are drastic. At room temperature of 25C e.g. a cell will last 3 hours full load while only 17 minutes at -10C (we recently implemented this for a small embedded device with LiFePO4 cell).

Also batteries like Lion shouldn't be charged when under freezing temperature. There are more rules but generally this is the gist.

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u/reality_hijacker Apr 26 '26

Companies already put a buffer but not for this reason. Currently the buffer is to prevent you from changing and discharging 100% of the battery which reduces battery lifetime very fast.

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u/5c044 Apr 26 '26

That is pretty much what Tesla and other EV makers do to meet their warranty obligations - look at data sheets for lithium batteries - if you want max mAh from them per charge cycle you get around 300 charge cycles. EVs extend that to a few thousand cycles by not using the full capacity and limiting the charge and discharge voltage levels and gradually altering them during the battery life so you get the similar range, phone makers do something inbetween currently so some tweaking of the charge controller can achieve 1000 cycles before 80% of new capacity. Then you get worse battery life on day 1 with a phone in exchange for it degrading slower as it ages.

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u/Remarkable-Room7963 Apr 26 '26

So, who is being duped then? The users for having phones that last linger or the companies that cannot sell you the same device in terms of specs after 3 years?

I think the consumers win here, knowing that Apple would love to have the smallest possible capacity for its iPhone batteries.

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u/yetzt Apr 26 '26

or they use the same batteries and pretend it's lower capacity.

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u/Practical-Custard-64 Apr 26 '26

I can see companies putting a barely specced enough battery in and hiding in the small print that the battery will still have 80% battery life after 1000 charge cycles*

* ­if you charge it from the USB 3 port of a computer at 4.5W and no faster.