Summer Jo   ☀️Apr 26

The EU is introducing an energy label for phones, together with mandatory requirements for phones sold in the EU;

- 5 years of software updates (AFTER they stop selling the device in the EU)

- providing important hardware parts (during sale and for 7 years after), including free software (if needed), to every repair shop, within 5-10 business days

- batteries have to make 800 charging cycles and still be above 80% original capacity

And on top of that, phones and tablets need this energy label (which also includes a fall damage durability and repairability score), and abide by the above requirements, from 20 June 2025.

(https://energy-efficient-products.ec.europa.eu/product-list/smartphones-and-tablets_en)

Smartphones and Tablets

Product Energy Efficiency - Smartphones and Tablets. The 2023 regulations cover smartphones, feature phones, cordless phones and slate tablets. They do not apply to tablet computers, to products with flexible main display (roll-up), and to smartphones for high security communication. Energy labelling is foreseen only for smartphones and slate tablets.

Energy Efficient Products
Show threadDragonApr 26
@ShadowJonathan I wonder if that will hurt availability of the Lower end handsets, esp as a lot of the oems are at the mercy of if the chipset vendor can be bothered to support the soc
Show threadprexApr 26
@Dragon I think prices in general will go up as these rules imply less sales (as individual phones last longer)
@ShadowJonathan
Show threadDragon
@prex @ShadowJonathan that and there’s a cost to supporting it for that long
Apr 26 at 12:05pmWeb
Show threadAbazigalApr 26
@Dragon Possible that the smartphone market might just shrink to Apple, Samsung and Google? Not many companies have the resources to support their devices for that long, much less remain profitable while doing so.
Show threadNatasha Nox 🇺🇦🇵🇸Apr 26
@Abazigal @Dragon Very unlikely. People often forget that selling individual parts, access to schematics, extended warranties (which make more sense if the device has a long lifetime) etc. also adds revenue. It's more of a shift in how to make business, not how much.
Additionally stuff like this strengthens the second-hand market, which in turn causes more sales in repair parts, and so on… a lot of positive dynamics.
Show threadHenk LangeveldApr 26

@Abazigal @Dragon

I suspect my #Fairphone4 already complies with most of these requirements.

And they just lowered the price of the #fairphone5 model.

Show threadJohn McFarlaneMay 1
@hlangeveld @Abazigal @Dragon Which I'm pretty sure complies with all of it.
Show threadprexApr 26
@Abazigal fairphone has been in business for a decade iirc selling long lasting phones, so I'm hopeful others will find a way. Easier when you're in a niche I'd say, but maybe it can be imitated
@Dragon
Show threadXCMApr 26
@Abazigal @Dragon
I think the reduced competition, higher prices, and less cheap options are all possible scenarios. One concern is that the most financially vulnerable will be exposed to risky tech on the grey market.
For everyone else, phones won’t be ‘more expensive’. They will have the right price tag for a more sustainable product. The way it should always have been.
Show threadmxkMay 1
@Abazigal @Dragon I don't really have a grasp on the hardware side, but the software requirements are trivial to fulfill with modern Android, if you take part in Google's Vendor Stable program.
95% of the work is then done by Google, without you having to do anything.
Show threadDragonMay 1

@mxk @Abazigal assuming you don’t have a binary blob from the soc vendor that they refuse to update to make compatible with newer software.

There’s already other non mobile devices such as routers that ship on older software versions due to sdk availability

Show threadmxkMay 1
@Dragon @Abazigal I work in the industry, I am dealing with ARM vendors and am painfully aware of the situation.
But the way Android today works already means that you need to use a Kernel image built by Google and that hardware support is done using vendor modules that use a stable API, not the plain Linux Kernel module API.
That way the base Kernel Image and the /system partition can be updated directly through Google and don't even need additional effort from the Manufacturer and this can't really be blocked by SOC manufacturers either.