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by therealchiggs 1103 days ago
How can we know?

This is part of the challenge with these regulations - by definition we're defining a framework based on existential knowledge.

What about batteries that can also be panes of glass that act as the display? What about ultra low-power devices that are powered kinetically by typical human movement or magnetic perturbations?

None of these currently exist in a commercially viable form, but if we regulate based on our current view of technology do we run the risk of making these innovations more challenging to bring to market? That's the challenging balance that needs to be considered.

1 comments

The regulation gives manufacturers quite a lot of leeway on how easy it is to replace the battery. You could make the display a battery, just make sure users can replace the display with pull tabs, a set of precision screwdrivers and whatever other commercially available tools you want. And from just skimming the regulation, I don't see how devices would be forced to have a battery. It talks about devices with batteries, and batteries in mobile phones, but if your device doesn't have a battery then this regulation simply doesn't apply.