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Comments (104)

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  KaiserPro
  As its the EU and regulation, its time to trott out your hobby horse.So let me trot out mine: regulation is good so long as it is backed up by even handed, robust, transparent, quick and effective sanctions.the Online safety act is a good example of a bad law, which is enforced badly. The first big test (X producing industrial quantities of minors engaging in sexual activity) was failed. Had a small company produced a service that did they same thing, they would have been fined, servers ceased and owners thrown in jail. X got a letter saying they should stop.An example of good enforcement is the UK's scores on the doors, where the public can see what the standard is, and if they fall below a certain level, the food place is fined/shutdown/other until it improves.Another good example is NCAP ratings.
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  herbst
  Does it really matter this early?What I expect from this is rather that at least a few producers get more repair friendly so I as consumer have the choice again. (Writing this on my first phone without easily changeable battery, I've tried for very long)So I as my families tech guru can give the right signals to my family and in a few years we see the actual change happen. Slowly but steadily
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  CorvusCrypto
  Enforcement can be better, but I'm gonna give grace given how recently it was imposed. It's easy to point at extreme levels of enforcement being a key part of any regulation, but I have seen the breadth of the EU's scope and what needs to be balanced. Quite often I find that nonaction against compliance violations falls into the following:- Lack of resources- Lack of real consumer impact- Awaiting legislation meant to clarify or strengthen impact of enforcement.The article to me doesn't offer enough to justify any shout of doing anything different at the moment, rather it's just that they failed an audit. If they failed an audit and coupled this to swaths of consumer complaints, sure, but every EU member has a clear agency for consumer complaint, and I don't buy it that it is hard for consumers to report violations, it is far more likely in this case that they just don't care for the violations this particular group cares more about (like the links to Temu. I suspect a consumer doesn't care if it actually works still in practice, but we'd need surveys to confirm).Consumer-replaceable batteries will be one area that WILL be a hot issue for consumers, so I would bet we will see much stronger reaction once that rule comes into effect.
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  crote
  Contrary to popular belief, the EU is not very fast when it comes to enforcement on requirements like these. We already saw this with the ePrivacy Directive and GDPR: those scary hundreds-of-millions-of-euros fines are only handed out after ongoing and deliberate violation, where you've already received plenty of warnings and smaller fines.18% compliance after one year with zero enforcement is not great, but it's already a massive increase over the near-zero repairable products we had only a few years ago. On top of that it is 18% of models, so there's a decent chance that a huge chunk of the noncompliant ones are obscure brands with near-zero sales: a handful of models by Apple and Samsung already add up to over 60% market share. And the report was literally written by iFixit, so there's a rather clear commercial incentive to underrepresent it and push for the strongest enforcement possible.
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  heisenbit
  I'm wondering whether it is now time for regulators to pressure mobile phone companies to install longer life batteries. There is not really an incentive to prolong device life for manufacturers and when I look at recent progress on the car industry and utility battery side there is imho. potential.
• Danox
  With the thru the roof cost of smartphones and many other computer hardware products because of the current memory crisis I believe the EU should concentrate on making sure customers get satisfaction when something goes wrong from the seller.I’m not interested in fixing the device myself. I’m taking it back to the company Apple, Sony, Nvidia or Audio-Engine and have them fix it, a third-party chop shop or me involved trying to fix it myself is unacceptable.Most of the items sold today-simply cost too much to try a tinker with it myself. That’s utterly ridiculous. I hope the EU or any country for that matter concentrate on making sure companies with strong laws, honor/standby and fix the problem with their product. I have little faith that they will.
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  library8848
  It's going to be cool to get user-replaceable batteries back in new phone releases. Depending how it goes I can see myself keeping a spare instead of a powerbank
• 999900000999
  All you really need are easy to replace batteries. That’s the only part that will wear out within a reasonable lifecycle.Aside from FairPhone no one offers that
• alsetmusic
  I appreciate the intent to hold large corporations accountable, but I've lost faith in the EU being competent at doing so. Not as if I see anyone doing it better, but at least others aren't doing it so poorly.
• nicman23
  chill out it has not been a month.
• dude250711
  They need to start fining.
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  m00dy
  I don't want to get down-voted but I like this regulation, good job EU!
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  cdmckay
  I suspect it’s something similar to the GDPR where the EU passes a law but has very few resources on how to check if you’re actually compliant.
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  p-e-w
  Why would they? The worst thing that can realistically happen is a $1-$5 billion fine a few years from now, which they only need to pay a few years after that when they have exhausted their legal remedies.That’s easy to calculate with, and almost certainly cheaper than compliance.
• pluc
  Cheat until caught then lie.
• aidio
  [flagged]
• anon
  undefined
• herbst
  There seems to be a strong sentiment in a specific direction, with everyone saying more or less the same weird arguments.Maybe non EU people shouldn't judge this much? Its generally Very welcomed around here