It had been in the works for a while, but now it has formally been adopted. From the article:
The regulation provides that by 2027 portable batteries incorporated into appliances should be removable and replaceable by the end-user, leaving sufficient time for operators to adapt the design of their products to this requirement.
Not sure how removable batteries make a phone more flimsy. The back might pop off when you drop it, sure, but isn’t that preferable to having it crack?
The usual argument manufacturers present is that water-proofing a phone involves having its interior be as completely sealed as possible, whereas a removable battery obviously requires that its interior be at least vaguely accessible, so it makes water-proofing substantially more challenging. Additionally, they can’t be as efficient with packing the internals tightly since the battery has to be accessible without completely disassembling the entire phone, so devices have to be a bit thicker.
I won’t pretend to have enough knowledge about device manufacturing to known just how sound those arguments are, but that’s what they say.
What about water proofing? To make it popoff I guess they have to make it thicker. No expert here though.
Samsung xcover phones have removable batteries while retaining IP68 rating.
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Waterproofing is what came to my mind.
I mean rubber seals and o-rings exist. If I remember correctly the law doesn’t demand easily swappable batteries, but rather them to be replaceable at all. So just use screws to hold the backplate in place, it could even look somewhat cool like on a Royal Oak Watch.
Samsung used to make the “Active” lne of Galaxy phones which were waterproof shock resistent and had removable backs and batteries and a way for the phone to detect if the back was properly sealed.
Most phones today are less waterproof than when they had replaceable batteries. There’s no connection between the two, it’s a red herring.