I assume a lot of us know that the glued in irreplaceable batteries in our technology products have only a certain number of charges… and a lot of us charge more things than ever. Laptop, phone, tablet, headphones, etc… I never heard the term “death date” but it makes sense. The Washington Post had an article about it today:
Here’s a dirty little secret of the tech industry: “Almost every device these days has a battery that’s going to wear out, and it’s a built-in death clock,” says Kyle Wiens, the CEO of repair community iFixit. Today, there are batteries in everything from your toothbrush to your vacuum cleaner. They are consumable products, like printer ink or tires.
Great article, thanks for putting that up. Kind of shocking that Logi hasn’t jumped on this, given their ‘sustainability’ pushes elsewhere.
Apple etc will make claims like “its not safe for consumers to access the battery” or “its not the experience we want for our brand”.
Yup, and even those were a bit specialized in the manner in which iFixit advocates.
My original TiBook had a customized battery module, near seamless fit into the bottom shell. Ditto for my first cellphone, some Nokia candy bar. So a company would need to continue support for both the battery and the form factor.
Too many people just throw old batteries in the bin. a few weeks ago we had a refuse truck catch fire due to a discarded battery.
I wonder if people are less likely to bin a whole phone?