Airpods et al are actually the least shocking case of nonswappable batteries. Any battery would have to be removable while also protected, either electronically or by some mechanism that made accidental unscrewing unlikely, while also guarding against being swallowed as button batteries are. You would need a screw, and that would take a bit of space.
I suspect the best answer would just be to use 2.4v LTO batteries, which last long enough that non-replacability is acceptable. You lose some runtime, but make up for it with faster charging.
For everything else, we just need a better battery standard. Companies would use it, and if they didn't, you could just mandate that anyone making a device above a certain size had to use some open standard.
At the moment, 18650s and other cylindrical lithiums are the only reasonable choice, but they aren't really safe, and they are tied to Li-Ion, a chemistry we will hopefully move on from someday.
We could instead have an open version of what power tool companies have: smart batteries with i2c communication and protection built in.
The problem is big public corporations always have to grow, they can completely shatter all expectations for profit then two years later earn a little bit less than they did before, by any normal measure of success, you'd take that, you'd say the company was a run away success and if this was you personally you'd understand that overall you'd done fantastic, but the market doesn't like that. It needs endless growth.
The problem you have, the better you do, eventually you run out of customers, so the things you can do to keep growing mean 1) releasing new product lines, 2) adding subscription services 3) Getting current customers to upgrade / replace there devices.
There is little incentive to make headphones that last longer, although I'm not sure we even have the battery tech at the moment anyway. I love my airpods, but it is somewhat annoying that headphones have now become an item you have to replace every few years, just like everything else now.
The one saving grace in this market, which is the built-in protection in capitalism for this kind of thing, is the market is flooded with so many brands, so once this is technically solved, hopefully others will come to market without this problem, hopefully forcing apple to follow suit.
Environmetal cost is not in the price, so is interoperability and other user-centric metrics. It requires governments to step in to make that happen, the EU requiring type-C is an example, although I don't neccessarily agree with straight ordering company to do thing, bet ter to simply create incentives via taxes
Hard to imagine that what he did (in order to repair a single copy) doesn't have a massively greater negative environmental impact than obtaining a mass-produced replacement. Unless this were done at scale, it would probably be counter-productive.
I think you’re right, but then again, as an exercise in making the point that the AirPods’ design is deliberately adversarial, it works. Imagine if our electronics were designed consciously with repair in mind.
I think the Video ( in terms of context from https://kenp.io/airpods-dirty-secret/ ) is great. But most people come on HN when they are working. ( LOL ) Hence Video and audio content aren't exactly the best type of information.
I brought first gen AirPod [1] but then quickly discovered AirPod is actually a consumable devices. You have to keep buying it. And I know a lot of people do that. Their fourth or fifth pair of AirPods.
Normally I dont have a problem with this as a design decision. ( I would just stop buying after my first pair ) But this is coming from Apple, the company that claims, whether it was themselves or through PR submarine articles how they care about the world. Getting rid of headphones or charger because it was environmental friendly.
[1] I bought the first gen, mostly because to vote with my wallet, my middle finger to the whole god damn stupid Bluetooth industry, AirPod was how a half decent bluetooth connection should work. I say half decent because AirPod isn't perfect, far from it. But it was finally touching my bar of good enough. Or may be all the other Bluetooth peripheral were crap that my expectation of AirPods were lowered.
[+] [-] eternityforest|3 years ago|reply
I suspect the best answer would just be to use 2.4v LTO batteries, which last long enough that non-replacability is acceptable. You lose some runtime, but make up for it with faster charging.
For everything else, we just need a better battery standard. Companies would use it, and if they didn't, you could just mandate that anyone making a device above a certain size had to use some open standard.
At the moment, 18650s and other cylindrical lithiums are the only reasonable choice, but they aren't really safe, and they are tied to Li-Ion, a chemistry we will hopefully move on from someday.
We could instead have an open version of what power tool companies have: smart batteries with i2c communication and protection built in.
[+] [-] metadat|3 years ago|reply
Planned obsolescence is dirty. Why is it such a struggle for a companies to be both successful and offer repairable devices?
[+] [-] ChildOfChaos|3 years ago|reply
The problem is big public corporations always have to grow, they can completely shatter all expectations for profit then two years later earn a little bit less than they did before, by any normal measure of success, you'd take that, you'd say the company was a run away success and if this was you personally you'd understand that overall you'd done fantastic, but the market doesn't like that. It needs endless growth.
The problem you have, the better you do, eventually you run out of customers, so the things you can do to keep growing mean 1) releasing new product lines, 2) adding subscription services 3) Getting current customers to upgrade / replace there devices.
There is little incentive to make headphones that last longer, although I'm not sure we even have the battery tech at the moment anyway. I love my airpods, but it is somewhat annoying that headphones have now become an item you have to replace every few years, just like everything else now.
The one saving grace in this market, which is the built-in protection in capitalism for this kind of thing, is the market is flooded with so many brands, so once this is technically solved, hopefully others will come to market without this problem, hopefully forcing apple to follow suit.
[+] [-] nsonha|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acd|3 years ago|reply
I have a series of dumb/smart Sennheiser HD 650 cans. They have lasted twenty years. That is much better for the environment.
Planned obscelence. Yes its a real thing!
[+] [-] dzhiurgis|3 years ago|reply
You can refuse it, but airpods business is close to Tesla sales.
[+] [-] prvc|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pawsforthought|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ksec|3 years ago|reply
I brought first gen AirPod [1] but then quickly discovered AirPod is actually a consumable devices. You have to keep buying it. And I know a lot of people do that. Their fourth or fifth pair of AirPods.
Normally I dont have a problem with this as a design decision. ( I would just stop buying after my first pair ) But this is coming from Apple, the company that claims, whether it was themselves or through PR submarine articles how they care about the world. Getting rid of headphones or charger because it was environmental friendly.
[1] I bought the first gen, mostly because to vote with my wallet, my middle finger to the whole god damn stupid Bluetooth industry, AirPod was how a half decent bluetooth connection should work. I say half decent because AirPod isn't perfect, far from it. But it was finally touching my bar of good enough. Or may be all the other Bluetooth peripheral were crap that my expectation of AirPods were lowered.
[+] [-] popcalc|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChrisRR|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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