Vent: Glued-in batteries are the worst thing for repair and the environment

I tried to swap a battery in an old phone last week and found it sealed shut with adhesive. You need special tools and heat guns just to get it out, which most folks don't have. This design choice means perfectly good devices get junked over a simple part failure. It creates so much unnecessary trash that ends up in landfills. Companies know this pushes people to buy new instead of fixing old. My repair bench is full of gadgets killed by cheap, non-replaceable parts. We should be building things to last, not to be thrown away. The environmental cost of this throwaway culture is huge and frustrating.

3 comments

3 Comments

lewis.thomas1mo ago

Actually those glued batteries help make phones thinner and waterproof, which most people really want. It's not always about planned obsolescence. Modern devices need to seal out dust and water, and strong adhesive is part of that. A decent repair shop can still swap them out with the right tools. Isn't it a trade-off between being repairable and having the features customers ask for?

henry_campbell151mo ago

iPhone 14 battery swaps need special heat guns and prying tools, which most people don't have. That isn't about waterproofing, it's about locking out independent repair. When a repair costs almost as much as a new phone, folks just upgrade instead. Companies could design phones that are both waterproof and easy to fix, but they don't. See how many devices get tossed because battery replacement is too hard or expensive. Calling it a trade-off lets them off the hook for creating more e-waste.

matthewf641mo ago

Yeah I used to think the same way as lewis... that it was just a trade-off for better features. But seeing how many perfectly good phones get thrown out over a battery you can't easily swap changed my mind. They could make them waterproof without gluing everything shut if they wanted to.