Handheld consoles required to have replaceable batteries by 2027 - Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck
Handheld consoles required to have replaceable batteries by 2027
I really miss replaceable batteries in my phones. It was so good to just swap an empty battery out for a fully charged one. Glad to see that making a return.
I personally don’t. I’m not anti removable battery by any means but my phones battery hasn't annoyed me to the point where I wanted to change it since I got it in 2018.
My old galaxy s7 was getting about a half day on light use by the end. About 1 hour with heavy use. Don't remember how long I had it, but I'm guessing about 4 years.
The USB port wore out too and wasn't repairable individually. Repair would cost more than the phone was worth at that point.
Battery replacement and repairable design is a very important matter. Moores law doesn't hold true anymore, and devices can stay relevant for a long time if manufacturers don't force obsolescence
I wouldn’t worry too much either way. We won’t get back the plastic pop off backs of yesteryear. While “removable batteries” get the most clicks the rules aren’t really regulating phone design, but try to reduce e-waste and force OEMs to plan for recycling batteries. The part about removability is a soft “should”, while there are hard “must” quotas for circular battery usage and recycling. Apple will probably need to stop their practices of DRMing batteries (which they already partially did in the EU, as far as I know, I switched the battery in my old 12M, before gifting it and iOS didn’t raise any warnings about the battery). But implementation of non-binding EU rules into national law is susceptible to interpretation and OEMs will lobby heavily. IP68 rating is here to stay, so is adhesive, I can imagine you don’t need special tools, but still need to release some screws and adhesive before swapping the battery in the end.
Me too, but I also really like the water resistance in our current generation of phones. Is it possible to get water resistance AND a removable battery? I'd sign up for that.
Doesn't the steam deck already support this? It has a user accessible battery and replacements for sale
And it's fucking superglued in. You have to use a heat gun to even have a chance of removing it, and Valve have acknowledged they may change it in the future as right now it is admittedly ridiculous.
So yes but technically no. It is not immediately user serviceable.
To replace the battery in the Steam Deck, you need to heat up the adhesive to allow the battery to be removed, which I believe would violate this directive. That said, it doesn't seem like it would be too difficult for Valve to make it a bit easier in the next Steam Deck and comply.
Not really, changing out the battery takes 2 hours because you need to take out everything else first and it's anything but foolproof.
For the record, you don't have to take "everything else" out first. It's actually quite accessible once removing the Steam Deck back plate, which is easily done with a Phillips head screwdriver. The bulk of the 2-4 hour estimate on iFixit is dealing with the battery adhesive. (source: I've opened my Steam Deck to swap the SSD, and I just opened it to attempt a band-aid fix to the right bumper after dropping the Deck directly on it while waiting for the part to restock)
It's real great on Valve for helping furnish the parts and make it less difficult, the language passed reads as “with no tool, a tool or set of tools that is supplied with the product or spare part, or basic tools.”
Under that, Valve might already be fully compliant given that official parts are sold readily and the Deck can be opened up with basic tools. What's most wonderful about this is how it'll apply to phones.
After looking for a battery for a 3ds, I wonder how long they will have to make them available.
If you're still looking, the switch pro controller uses the same battery as the 3DS
No way! That’s really cool! Mines a New 3DS XL so a little different I think but that explains the godlike battery on the pro controller.
EU on a roll last view years. Wonder if there are going to be European models with replacable batteries and American without. You already see that kind of behaviour with Apple: end of this year you can side load apps in the EU but in America they are stuck with the app store (according to the rumors).
That is easy in software only, in hardware you would neglect economy of scale. It is more likely it gets sold as an innovation in some form to safe money and face.
A guarantee apple trying spin it into their own decision.
Making two separate versions for the US in EU market would be really expensive so I doubt it's gonna happen.
They could use proprietary screws or add glue. Of course I'd just buy the EU model in that in case, but I wouldn't put it past the mega corps to just be trashy because they can.
It's really expensive but they also might make really a lot of money with their current practice that makes it worthwhile to make two seperate versions.
Definitely another reason to hold off buying a handheld for me
'27 is pretty far from now though.
Would be nice if we went back to using the AA, AAA type batteries too. I've got like 20 rechargables still good and only need them for my controllers and remote. Everything else seems to have done away with them. :(
The battery life on a Switch/Steam Deck would be horrific with AA/AAA batteries. Plus the reasoning for this legislation is to reduce e-waste, using AA/AAA batteries just creates more.
Reduce e-waste by... Producing millions of unused batteries.
Fuck it, rechargable lithium-ion AAs. Yes I know the chemistry doesn't let your voltage go that low, didn't stop the few Chinese companies that successfully made them anyways.
...the integrated buck converter does waste a lot of space though
What part of the legislation requires small batteries like AAs?
If the unit has a LIon battery, make it slide out like UPS batteries do. Make it a custom shape if you hate people, or make it a common hi-density cell if you aren't apple.
As much as standard AA,AAA batteries are nice and common. The issue is that they are not that energy dense. So for a 5000MaH battery you would need a larger space if it where AA's than if it's a nice and flat LiPo pack.
Also our modern devices use pretty specialized charging/power needs which require custom batteries.
Can't fast charge an AA with 120W's of power.
Though I remeber the days a low battery on my gameboy didn't have to mean finding a cable but just plopping some fresh AA's. Felt like reloading irl.
They probably could just make some standard Li-Po packs. Some Li-Ion packs did become de-facto standards (see the Nokia battery), so things like that did happen.
Oh god no
I loved the replaceable batteries on my Xbox 360 controllers. Just having a batch of rechargeable batteries ready to go meant near endless gaming.
Now a second controller is nearly mandatory and they’re damn expensive.
Something that should never have gone away to begin with.