Upcoming law change could see smartphones fitted with removable batteries

Many of the leading smartphones could be impacted by a major new ruling from the European Union (EU), as phones will be forced into providing owners with the means to replace their battery.

The battery within your smartphone is arguably its most important component, as it could have all the bells and whistles of a leading gadget on the market, but if the battery isn't good enough you won't be able to take advantage of that.

There are some things you can do right now to enhance the battery life of your phone – and iPhones offer a number of ways to preserve and check its health over time – but you will eventually reach a point where replacing it is the best thing to do.

This has become far more difficult to do over time, however, with modern devices ditching the repairability of old which many have viewed as a cynical tactic to sell more phones.

That could soon chance thanks to a new ruling from the European Union though, as from next year onwards phones and other gadgets from the biggest companies could come with replaceable batteries.

What is the new law?

As shared by TechRadar, new EU laws indicate that manufacturers are required to make it easy for consumers to remove and replace the batteries within mobile devices, applying to smartphones, smart glasses or other forms of wearable tech, and even some games consoles like the Nintendo Switch.

Phones will soon be required to have replaceable batteries thanks to new EU regulation (Michel Porro/Getty Images)

These regulations apply to batteries that are "readily removable and replaceable" by owners that can be handled without the use of "specialized tools unless provided free of charge with the product."

So, companies could either adapt their devices to abide by these rules or simply provide the means to do it yourself at the point of sale — although there's pros and cons to either direction.

While the regulations will only apply to phones sold within EU member states, the likelihood that design decisions would have to be made could mean that everyone around the world sees the impact — like the implementation of USB-C charging as standard on all smartphones.

Would Apple be forced to change the iPhone?

While Apple was forced to switch from Lightning ports to USB-C following the EU regulation, there's a good chance that a small but consequential 'loophole' could let the company escape this particular ruling going forward.

Any batteries that can maintain a capacity level of at least 80 per cent after 1,000 cycles are exempt from the replacement requirements, and this has been a standard for Apple since the iPhone 15 was released.

iPhones will likely be exempt thanks to a 'loophole' relating to the battery's health after 1,000 cycles (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

As the ruling states: "Manufacturers, importers or authorized representatives may provide the battery or batteries referred to in point (i)(a) only to professional repairers if manufactuers, importers or authorized representatives ensure that the following measurements are met [...] the battery endurance in cycles achieves a minimum of 1,000 full charge cycles and after 1,000 full charge cycles the battery has, in a fully charged state, a remaining capacity of at least 80% of the rated capacity."

So, the iPhone 17, for example, would need to have a remaining capacity of at least 2,953.60 mAh in order to qualify for this exemption, which is 80 per cent of its rated 3,692 mAh capacity.

This requirement might change in the future, so Apple could be forced to adapt to the regulations, yet for the time being it looks like nothing will change which isn't necessarily the best news for fans across the globe.