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The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
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madires:

--- Quote from: tooki on September 08, 2022, 05:52:20 pm ---But if you were a multinational company with legal exposure worldwide, would you take the risk of getting sued when some family dies in a house fire caused by a crappy third party battery? Or will your lawyers say "lock that shit down"? Liability is a huge, huge issue, and companies have to make sure they avoid anything that could be considered negligence, as well as things that ambulance chasers and the media will twist into the appearance of negligence in the eyes of the public -- or a jury.

--- End quote ---

In this case I wonder why consumers are still allowed to use any charger they like. There have been multiple incidents with cheap and dangerous chargers. Sorry, it's only about profit maximization and design. The liability argument is a red herring. Another example: brake pads for your car. Do you have to get them replaced with new ones from the car manufacturer at a licenced dealership/garage? Or can you go to any garage you like and get brake pads from whatever brand available? Or even swap them yourself?

tooki:

--- Quote from: SilverSolder on September 09, 2022, 11:42:50 pm ---
--- Quote from: tooki on September 08, 2022, 05:52:20 pm ---[...]
I'm not saying that locking it down is always the right answer. But I can absolutely understand why companies do it.

--- End quote ---

Why doesn't the same thinking apply to laptops, or car batteries, or lantern/torch batteries, etc. etc. etc.?   Historically, we are used to be able to replace batteries with any brand we like, in most products.   It seems a stretch to argue that there is any benefit to the consumer for overpaying for wear parts such as batteries, ports, etc.

--- End quote ---
I’d say ubiquity of phones, and risk: we use the highest-density, most unstable lithium batteries in phones due to size and weight. It’s easy to make a lithium cell that’s more robust and can tolerate more abuse, but that makes them hold less energy and makes them physically larger due to armoring. (Like in cylindrical cells or battery packs with hard shells.)

The original manufacturer can carefully design a product around a temperamental lipo battery. Third parties may get it right, but many won’t.

With that said, I don’t think the other products you mention are actually good counterexamples.

Until modern purely-electric cars, car batteries have been simple lead acid affairs, where nothing bad is likely to happen if the battery goes bad. (And in modern all-electric cars, the lithium battery packs are locked down.)
Lantern batteries are historically, again, not lithium rechargeables, but alkaline or carbon zinc cells, again not hazardous. Rechargeable flashlights often don’t have removable batteries.

Laptop batteries generally have been locked down. Third parties either carefully rebuilt original ones, or reverse-engineered the authentication.
tooki:

--- Quote from: madires on September 10, 2022, 10:27:01 am ---In this case I wonder why consumers are still allowed to use any charger they like. There have been multiple incidents with cheap and dangerous chargers.

--- End quote ---
Probably because there’s still a layer of protection (in the charger and power management ICs inside the phone) that will prevent certain charger failures (like overvoltage) from actually reaching the battery.

But yeah, some charger failures (like isolation failure between primary and secondary) have been deadly, and one could argue that it would have been smarter to lock down chargers more.


--- Quote from: madires on September 10, 2022, 10:27:01 am ---Sorry, it's only about profit maximization and design.

--- End quote ---
That’s one factor in the decision, for sure. Never said it wasn’t. But it’s definitely not the only factor.


--- Quote from: madires on September 10, 2022, 10:27:01 am ---The liability argument is a red herring.

--- End quote ---
No, it definitely isn’t. Have you somehow not noticed how litigious people are, e.g. in USA? If someone gets injured or killed, and something exists that the manufacturer could have done but didn’t, they’re open for a lawsuit. It doesn’t mean the plaintiff will win. It doesn’t mean the argument is reasonable. But a lawsuit costs time and money, and in the case of companies, even if they win, it can easily happen that public opinion turns on them. (Like Ford with the Pinto: Ford’s image suffered tremendously from the Pinto lawsuits, even though in the end, it was shown that the Pinto was no more likely to catch fire in a rear-end collision than any competing small car.)

In the end, a company’s lawyers (and the liability insurance companies who will be paying out if damage is awarded) will perform careful risk analyses which will determine which options are even on the table. Other factors will then decide which of those options to go with.


--- Quote from: madires on September 10, 2022, 10:27:01 am ---Another example: brake pads for your car. Do you have to get them replaced with new ones from the car manufacturer at a licenced dealership/garage? Or can you go to any garage you like and get brake pads from whatever brand available? Or even swap them yourself?

--- End quote ---
Have you not noticed that this is exactly the direction car repairs have been going?

But realistically, your car has 4 brakes operated by at least two different mechanisms. So one brake pad failing isn’t likely to cause immediate danger.

The other thing is that in most cases where car parts have been to blame for harm or injury, it’s been clearly obvious who is to blame.

That’s a lot harder in a cellphone that’s been burnt to a crisp in its battery fire.
Miyuki:

--- Quote from: tooki on September 10, 2022, 12:54:48 pm ---
--- Quote from: madires on September 10, 2022, 10:27:01 am ---Another example: brake pads for your car. Do you have to get them replaced with new ones from the car manufacturer at a licenced dealership/garage? Or can you go to any garage you like and get brake pads from whatever brand available? Or even swap them yourself?

--- End quote ---
Have you not noticed that this is exactly the direction car repairs have been going?

But realistically, your car has 4 brakes operated by at least two different mechanisms. So one brake pad failing isn’t likely to cause immediate danger.

The other thing is that in most cases where car parts have been to blame for harm or injury, it’s been clearly obvious who is to blame.

That’s a lot harder in a cellphone that’s been burnt to a crisp in its battery fire.

--- End quote ---
Brake pads are a bad example, they are so simple to manufacture to work. It can be hard to make them be good, but the essential operation is super simple.
But look at the catalytic converters and particular filters. You can clearly see the market full of aftermarket and counterfeited parts that pretend to work but just do not work.
In countries where cars have mandatory checkups and measures, this is to some extent limited (even when in many places a bribe to a measuring technician is cheaper than good catalytic converter plenty of people will choose this alternative)
And in countries without those inspections, plenty of people will just run without them and just harm all the people without any concerns
Electronics have no inspections (and even when they should have some safety standards they are commonly fake because no one bothers with cheap stuff)
People are just irresponsible, they will be happily buying the cheapest batteries from Aliexpress till their house will burn down and they will cry and want the manufacturers of their phones and laptops to pay them for a new house
SilverSolder:

--- Quote from: madires on September 10, 2022, 10:27:01 am ---
--- Quote from: tooki on September 08, 2022, 05:52:20 pm ---But if you were a multinational company with legal exposure worldwide, would you take the risk of getting sued when some family dies in a house fire caused by a crappy third party battery? Or will your lawyers say "lock that shit down"? Liability is a huge, huge issue, and companies have to make sure they avoid anything that could be considered negligence, as well as things that ambulance chasers and the media will twist into the appearance of negligence in the eyes of the public -- or a jury.

--- End quote ---

In this case I wonder why consumers are still allowed to use any charger they like. There have been multiple incidents with cheap and dangerous chargers. Sorry, it's only about profit maximization and design. The liability argument is a red herring. Another example: brake pads for your car. Do you have to get them replaced with new ones from the car manufacturer at a licenced dealership/garage? Or can you go to any garage you like and get brake pads from whatever brand available? Or even swap them yourself?

--- End quote ---


There situation with the batteries is cartel-like...   For example, if one car manufacturer decided to make brake pads non-user-serviceable,  that brand would probably lose sales as word got round.   But if all the manufacturers do the same thing at the same time...    they can claim this is an improvement that they are all doing, and the customer won't have a choice as nobody sells cars with replaceable brake pads!
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