EU implements "Requirements for environmental friendly design" for electronics, part of "green act"

[kladzen]

Summary

The EU implements a new set of rules called "requirements for environmental friendly design" for electronics (phones, tables and such). 

 

Key new environmental requirements for smartphones, tablets, and similar products:

• Resistance to accidental drops, scratches, dust, and water.
• Battery durability: Batteries must withstand at least 800 charge-discharge cycles while retaining at least 80% of original capacity.
• Disassembly and repair: Manufacturers must provide key spare parts to repairers within 5-10 working days and for seven years after the product model is discontinued in the EU.
• Operating system must be upgradeable for at least five years after market launch.
• Professional repairers must have non-discriminatory access to all necessary software or firmware for replacements.

 

Quotes

Quote

The new rules aim to prevent consumers from discarding devices and buying new ones. Instead, the regulation encourages device repairs.

As these legal requirements fall under the EU's Green Deal, they collectively aim to give smartphones, tablets, and similar devices a greener design.

 

My thoughts

I think this is great!  I'm thinking this is going to be really useful for people related to repairs for screens and batteries, as we have seen over the years how companies resists to provide repairshops the tools needed without a fight about it. Not to mention the quality of products is going to be better...

 

Sources

Article is in DANISH!

https://www.computerworld.dk/art/291953/derfor-vil-batteriet-i-din-smartphone-fremover-holde-laengere

[Thomas53]

Linux has been doing major upgrades to it's OS twice a year for over a decade, while also having minor upgrades and bug fixes at least once a month for the same period of time.

[emosun]

the idea = solid

the enforcement of that idea = lame

companies will either become short lived on purpose to just get non compliant devices sold before the hammer drops. Or if the company is big enough they'll just pay whatever the fine ends up being to keep selling garbage.

[Donut417]

31 minutes ago, emosun said:

big enough they'll just pay whatever the fine ends up being to keep selling garbage.

Unlike the US. The EU has a solution for that. They charge fines based on a percentage of Global Revenue I believe, so fines will HURT. 

[TempestCatto]

Apple on their knees right now. 

[MC.Morrado]

I mean, I've had my phone for 5+ years and its manufacturer (Kyocera) stopped making phones for the consumer market in 2023. It only has an old 32-bit 1.1Ghz chip with like 2GB of RAM. I've never owned a phone with a 64-bit processor now that I think about it.

[Why_Me]

The EU summed up in a meme.

 

[Sauron]

7 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Unlike the US. The EU has a solution for that. They charge fines based on a percentage of Global Revenue I believe, so fines will HURT. 

Plus they could have a product pulled from shelves

[Quackers101]

wtf would be an "professional repairer" be in that point?

Disassembly and repair is pretty good?

Encourage the protection of "valuable materials" like in sensitive batteries can be a good thing?

 

hate that some parts only is for "certain devices" and not to better improve the whole tech market and to reduce so much other e-waste.

[Sauron]

4 hours ago, Quackers101 said:

hate that some parts only is for "certain devices" and not to better improve the whole tech market and to reduce so much other e-waste.

I assume the exception would be devices that have a valid technical reason to be harder to repair, for instance something that needs to withstand high pressures... there probably aren't many consumer tech products that fall outside of these requirements

[Doobeedoo]

Looks all great, we'll see how it goes. Battery for sure needs to be easily replaced. 

[starsmine]

17 hours ago, Why_Me said:

The EU summed up in a meme.

 

where do you think ASML is?

[StDragon]

5 hours ago, starsmine said:

where do you think ASML is?

Where do you think ASML products are used at?

[starsmine]

13 minutes ago, StDragon said:

Where do you think ASML products are used at?

Ireland 
https://www.intel.ie/content/www/ie/en/company-overview/intel-leixlip.html

[Mark Kaine]

On 6/23/2025 at 1:14 AM, Donut417 said:

Unlike the US. The EU has a solution for that. They charge fines based on a percentage of Global Revenue I believe, so fines will HURT. 

Yeah... "up to"... but so far fines haven't even been close (looking at Apple specifically)and Microsoft didn't even get one afaik?they still pulling the edge/IE B's that's been illegal since decades... (but you may be able to uninstall it, not sure, lots of conflicting info)

[Hideki Ryuga]

I'm glad for the EU and I hope other countries follow suit.

 

Americans will convince themselves this is a bad move because they accept any and all propaganda about themselves.

[williamcll]

We're going to see a new area of custom european cars.

[Kisai]

On 6/22/2025 at 3:41 PM, emosun said:

the idea = solid

the enforcement of that idea = lame

companies will either become short lived on purpose to just get non compliant devices sold before the hammer drops. Or if the company is big enough they'll just pay whatever the fine ends up being to keep selling garbage.

 

Nah. It just ensures a EU grey market thrives. 

 

There are certain things we can complain about, here in Canada, the US, and Australia and New Zealand, but ultimately if we want to bend the manufacturer to regulations, those regulations have to exist in the country of manufacture, or a high wall to import has to exist.

 

I'm not for tariffs per se, but It think this is one of those situations where the Tariff solves the problem. You incentivize domestic manufacture (eg Nokia) in the EU, and set the tariff at the rate so that even junk imported from Asia either has to comply with the regulation to be imported, or it will cost that much anyway.

 

You do not need a bleeding edge cell phone. Other electronics, like laptops and tablets however would likely just stop being exported to the EU, which would be fine IMO. People who really want them will get people to buy them for christmas gifts, and they are SOL if they ever need warranty service.

 

[hishnash]

On 6/23/2025 at 12:44 PM, TempestCatto said:

Apple on their knees right now. 

No apple is in a rather good position with this law, they (unlike most smart phone vendors) already comply with everything. 

Apple have some of the most repairable smart phones on the market, choices like due entry from front or back means the number of parts you need to remove to do the avg repair is massively reduced as your never required to strip all the way through the phone.  

And apple already have a parts service were consumers can buy parts (tend ot be shipped to you within 1 working day so well within the laws requirements). 
 

The only change they need to do is:

On 6/23/2025 at 10:15 AM, kladzen said:

• Professional repairers must have non-discriminatory access to all necessary software or firmware for replacements.

But apple have already provided this recently in the US, and can provide it in the EU with just a one line change to the terms of service of the parts program they offer.

This law is going to impact other vendors much more than apple.  Apple only produce a small number of SKUs each year so the total number of parts they need to provide is small, but a android OEM that has 20 new model each year is now going to have a much more complex supply china issues when it comes to stocking all the parts they need within the EU, furthermore many of these cheaper android phones do not get parts directly from factories but rather select parts from parts bins using parts that might no longer be in production.  The risk for them now is that after some time they are no longer able to source these parts, so while apple (who tends to own all the tooling for making the parts) can get a factory line to spin up to make a old part these android vendors are going to struggle as there is no promise the parts they are using can ever be re-stoked.  They way they produce such cheap phones is all down to them using left over snaps and the reason they produce so many SKUs is partially due to this as well, they are limited in the number of units they can create in each SKU as they parts it depends on are limited. 

[hishnash]

On 6/23/2025 at 4:15 PM, Why_Me said:

The EU summed up in a meme.

 

where do you think much for the researching Ip used in china and US comes from?  

The tools the do advanced manufacturing, be that chips, metrology, bio tec, pharmaceuticals etc are mostly made in the EU. 

You need an extremely reliably high quality CNC for your factory? you need a fractionation column to split out different chemical compounds or levels of oils etc in you factory? you need some advanced filter? you need a lithography machine? you need something to research basicly anything? 

The thing the EU exports each cost many many millions (or billions in the case of ASML) they the number of units per year might not be high without them non of the factories in the US or China would be producing anything like what they are today. 

[Quackers101]

3 hours ago, hishnash said:

The thing the EU exports each cost many many millions (or billions in the case of ASML) they the number of units per year might not be high without them non of the factories in the US or China would be producing anything like what they are today. 

until china or us do the billion to trillion dollar trick, to buy them. looks at asml news.

[RejZoR]

On 6/23/2025 at 6:15 AM, Why_Me said:

The EU summed up in a meme.

 

Everyone keeps forgetting who sells worlds most advanced lithographic machines to TSMC (and others) without which your Apples and NVIDIAs wouldn't be able to do what they do. It's a Dutch company... People also ignore Siemens and Bosch (both German companies) which are not dragged through news every other day unlike all the US companies and they make so many components for so many tech products it's crazy. We also have Airbus that doesn't fall from the sky every other month for some stupid corporate cost cutting BS like Boeing. And lastly, America's favorite, Ozempic, it's Danish. But yeah, EU also does regulations, because it's the only way to pressure greedy corporations to be tiny bit less greedy and exploitative and EU market is big enough that it can do that.