As the base camp of environmentalism, the EUROPEAN Union has been "plugging" consumer electronics companies in the past two years, and it is also to unify the specifications of mobile phone chargers and prepare to force mobile phone manufacturers to adopt removable battery designs. Of course, the EU's move has also encountered strong opposition from mobile phone manufacturers, so the EU now seems to have chosen a step-by-step model.
Recently, the European Parliament passed a proposal to ban the use of glue-bonded batteries throughout the eu-wide consumer electronics sector, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, wireless headphones, electric scooters, and other battery-powered products. And the proposal was adopted by 567 votes in favour, 67 against and 40 votes without a vote.
The EU believes that the use of glue-bonded batteries will pose a greater threat to the environment. And they also intend to increase the proportion of recycled raw materials used in batteries, including cobalt, nickel, lithium and lead, with the goal of achieving a 90% recovery rate by 2026. It is reported that the EU will then negotiate with its member states to negotiate specific legislative matters, and it is expected that the bill will be implemented from January 1, 2023.
At present, the mainstream smart phones basically use an integrated design, and there are two schemes for fixing the battery in the battery compartment, one is to use glue to directly glue the battery to the fuselage, and the other is to use a quick-release design with a pull bar, or a pull glue. However, whether it is directly used to glue bonding, or tolaguel to fix the battery, it is extremely troublesome when removing the battery.
I believe that all friends who have had the experience of disassembling the machine should have the same experience, after carefully opening the back cover, if you want to remove the battery, you will often find that it has been firmly fixed. For this reason, there are quite a few friends may use a hot air blower or hair dryer to heat the glue, but in fact, this way is extremely dangerous, once the operation is improper, it is easy to cause the battery bulge or even explode. Therefore, in many disassembly videos, the degummer with turpentine as the main material will be used directly to dissolve the glue that has been cured.
As for the design of the pull-out adhesive, friends who have used their old iPhones for many years may know that this design is also not so reliable. Because the pull-out adhesive also has a service life, it is not uncommon for the pull-to-glue to be directly pulled off when the netizens remove the iPhone battery in the network. However, compared with the practice of directly fixing the battery with glue, the use of a quick-release design such as pull-out adhesive is undoubtedly more friendly for users who want to repair the equipment by themselves.
Is the EU just trying to ban manufacturers from using glue in mobile phones? Of course not, the intentions of the other doors have long been on the table. As early as 2020, a leaked document showed that the EU may force all smartphones sold domestically to adopt a removable battery design in the future. However, after this document was exposed, it was strongly opposed by mobile phone manufacturers represented by Apple.
The mobile phone manufacturers' objection to the EU's decision is based on a very simple reason, the latter is to hope that the design of the smart phone back to the era of functional machines, when the characteristics of the mobile phone is that a mobile phone can be equipped with multiple batteries, a battery is out of power or broken can be directly replaced. The idea of mobile phone manufacturers is that after more than ten years of subtlety, the detachable design is finally "eliminated", so the EU side wants to let everyone "return to the pre-liberation period", naturally it is not supported by mobile phone manufacturers.
Mobile phone manufacturers abandon removable batteries, and there are actually three major reasons on the surface. First, in order to achieve a removable battery, metal contacts and a matching spring structure need to be added inside the fuselage, which requires the consumption of valuable internal space of the mobile phone. At present, after the SoC moves towards high-performance and high-power consumption, the mobile phone equipped with a larger-scale heat dissipation system has become the standard, coupled with the need for more components for 5G communication, the internal space of the mobile phone is already stretched, if the removable battery is used, it means that the mobile phone will basically have no luck with "thin and light", but thin and light is the pain point of consumers.
Second, the detachable battery and the fast charging route bet by the current mobile phone manufacturers are also directly opposed. In the general direction of the integrated design of smart phones, in order to further improve the endurance of mobile phones, major manufacturers have invariably chosen to force fast charging technology, and strive to improve endurance by shortening the charging time. This solution and the removable battery represents the amount of winning, one battery used up for another solution, but also has an essential conflict.
Third, what are the most easily worn out parts of a mobile phone? Putting aside the unexpected situation, the high probability of the first to reach the service life is the battery, after all, aging in the continuous charging and discharging process is an irreversible law, and Apple has also confirmed this with the "battery door" incident of the iPhone 6.
In the current situation, after a mobile phone reaches the end of the battery life, the price of replacing the new battery has almost reached one-third of the residual value of the mobile phone, and the integrated design has greatly increased the difficulty of consumer self-repair, resulting in a significant decrease in the frequency of consumers to obtain a longer service life of the mobile phone by replacing the battery by themselves. The average service life of a mobile phone is three years and two and a half years, and for manufacturers, sales can be almost as poor as 20%, so mobile phone manufacturers will naturally choose integrated design.
But for consumers, if it is not the face value party, the appearance of the mobile phone does not have too high requirements, and the perception that it may become tens of grams heavier is not too strong, but the budget is limited, the removable battery is obviously a good thing. As for the dustproof and waterproof function brought about by the integrated design, in the words of netizens, it is now known that the waterproof mobile phone does not have a warranty, and this function is not as good as nothing.
To be honest, in the current market environment, the mobile phone circle ushered in the "renaissance" of removable batteries, which may really be what consumers want to see.