What's the real reason that laptop batteries are made not-accessible?

[cortex_m0]

That is not planned obsolescence, that is cost engineering.

Planned obsolescence is a special case of cost engineering.

Planned obsolescence is engineering that has no other function than to deliberately limit lifespan, for example a timer that bricks something after a specified number of uses,

No, that is fraud (unless it is advertised as being time limited).

or a system that is tied to a remote server for no reason than to be able to disable it.

No, that's a time-limited license. So long as I can continue paying the subscription fee to keep using my gizmo, nothing is being made obsolete.

They're making them as cheap as they can while still lasting long enough.

I'd consider this a concise definition of planned obsolescence. 

[ogden]

  To answer the OP's question and not speculate as most here are doing; part of the reason for not making batteries accessible is planned obsolescence pure and simple.

Hmmm... For some unknown reason no company can come-up with phone having user-replaceable battery to dominate market? Most likely it's because Lizard People are programming whole humanity through chemtrails to buy products manufactured in their factories and earth obviously is flat? 

[IanB]

Planned obsolescence is engineering that has no other function than to deliberately limit lifespan, for example a timer that bricks something after a specified number of uses,

No, that is fraud (unless it is advertised as being time limited).

There are a many users of various inkjet printers and multi-function devices that would like a word with you.

We have ink cartridges that stop working after a certain number of hours, whether they still contain ink or not.

We have scanners that stop working unless full ink cartridges are installed.

We even have printers that stop working after a certain number of hours because "the waste ink sump is full".

I quickly stopped using an inkjet printer I owned when every time I switched it on it would squirt large amounts of valuable ink into the "head cleaning sump" before being ready for use. I paid for that ink. Why is the printer deliberately wasting it?

[cgroen]

.
.
Why is the printer deliberately wasting it?
.

To get you to buy more ink 
(I abandoned ink printers too, nothing beats a laser in "cost pr sheet" )

[ogden]

Why is the printer deliberately wasting it?

To get you to buy more ink 
(I abandoned ink printers too, nothing beats a laser in "cost pr sheet" )

Let me guess - you abandoned color inkjet for monochrome laser printer and call it achievement? For those who power-on their printer one page per week no matter what color it is, most likely cheap laser printer is best choice. Others would want to do their decision wisely. FYI volume printing is clearly inkjet business.

[cgroen]

Why is the printer deliberately wasting it?

To get you to buy more ink 
(I abandoned ink printers too, nothing beats a laser in "cost pr sheet" )

Let me guess - you abandoned color inkjet for monochrome laser printer and call it achievement? For those who power-on their printer one page per week no matter what color it is, most likely cheap laser printer is best choice. Others would want to do their decision wisely. FYI volume printing is clearly inkjet business.

Nope, I abandoned inkjet for a full color laser with 4 cartridges, the black one gives me around 8 to 10.000 pages.

[coromonadalix]

Planned obsolescence is engineering that has no other function than to deliberately limit lifespan, for example a timer that bricks something after a specified number of uses,

No, that is fraud (unless it is advertised as being time limited).

There are a many users of various inkjet printers and multi-function devices that would like a word with you.

We have ink cartridges that stop working after a certain number of hours, whether they still contain ink or not.

We have scanners that stop working unless full ink cartridges are installed.

We even have printers that stop working after a certain number of hours because "the waste ink sump is full".

I quickly stopped using an inkjet printer I owned when every time I switched it on it would squirt large amounts of valuable ink into the "head cleaning sump" before being ready for use. I paid for that ink. Why is the printer deliberately wasting it?

you have some samsung printer who will blow a fuse resistor in the fuser unit  to make you buy a new one, even if you change the part the printer count will redo that .... if not resetted properly

[ogden]

Nope, I abandoned inkjet for a full color laser with 4 cartridges, the black one gives me around 8 to 10.000 pages.

Funny you do not mention any models. Please be more informative.

[james_s]

That is not planned obsolescence, that is cost engineering.

Planned obsolescence is a special case of cost engineering.

Planned obsolescence is engineering that has no other function than to deliberately limit lifespan, for example a timer that bricks something after a specified number of uses,

No, that is fraud (unless it is advertised as being time limited).

or a system that is tied to a remote server for no reason than to be able to disable it.

No, that's a time-limited license. So long as I can continue paying the subscription fee to keep using my gizmo, nothing is being made obsolete.

They're making them as cheap as they can while still lasting long enough.

I'd consider this a concise definition of planned obsolescence. 

You don't get to redefine a word to mean what you want it to mean, regardless of what you consider, you are just wrong. Planned obsolescence is planning obsolescence, period, designing something to fail with the express purpose of spurring people to buy a new one, not making something as cheap as possible in order to compete with all the other stuff that is made as cheap as possible. My comment about being tied to the licensing server refers to the fact that that server will be shut off at some point and the device will then stop working.

[james_s]

Nope, I abandoned inkjet for a full color laser with 4 cartridges, the black one gives me around 8 to 10.000 pages.

Funny you do not mention any models. Please be more informative.

I did the same thing, originally I got a used Xerox Phaser 6100, then about 14 years later I replaced it with a HP M254W. It's brilliant, it prints superb text and very nice color photos too, not quite as nice photos as a good inkjet but good enough and on ordinary paper, not that expensive coated stuff. An added bonus is they don't run and smear if they get wet. It has a built in duplexer so it can print both sides without manual intervention and it can sit for months without use and then print a perfect page on the first go. I paid about $250 for it a couple years ago and I'm still using the toner cartridges that came with it. I would never even consider going back to inkjet.

[cgroen]

Nope, I abandoned inkjet for a full color laser with 4 cartridges, the black one gives me around 8 to 10.000 pages.

Funny you do not mention any models. Please be more informative.

Oh, I'm very sorry, I hope my answer comes quick enough for you
Inkjet was some Epson one (can't remember which one), laser is a  Canon MF720C

[Rick Law]

...
One thing it seems criminals learned was that a computer or phone that you powered down from a menu option in the Windows start menu (or equivalent action for a cellphone) isn't actually shut down. It's simply put into a very low power mode in which even the OS isn't running, but it's not completely shut down. This means RAM memory is maintained in a powered on state so the physical RAM chips still store data from what you did while actually using the device, and some things I've read indicate that possibly even the GPS mode is enabled when the phone is supposedly powered down so it can still be tracked. As a result smart criminals started to remove the batteries from their phones when not in use. This keeps the GPS (in phones) from tracking them, and in about a minute (possibly less) the binary state of the transistors in the RAM chips is completely reset to 0, so no usable data left for the authorities to see what you had been doing on the computer.

As a result, civic minded computer and phone companies realized this was a problem so they started making it harder for badguys to power down their devices so as to make it easier for law enforcement to catch badguys. Or possibly, law enforcement realized it first and went to computer and phone companies and asked (or even demanded, under threat of prosecution for the crime of "obstruction") that these companies change their hardware to make it harder for badguys to hide their crimes by simply removing the battery from their device.

I really take issue with what you said there...

Perhaps criminal use that, may be.  Criminals eat too - that doesn't mean we should stop selling food.

Today's phone/pc has become a tracking device and spying device.  They (big tech and government) already know who knows whom, and who your relatives and friends are.  They know where you go, what you buy and where you buy, they know what church you donate to, and who your doctors are.

For those privacy minded people, and I consider myself one, I shut down my stuff and I remove the batteries whenever possible.  I am no criminal.  Last time I broke the law was more than 10 years ago for snow-route parking as I was not expecting snow that day.  Before that was a speeding ticket about 30 years ago.

If phone/technology companies are indeed civic minded and do care about the well being of their customers, they would make machines not just with hardware off switches for the entire machine, but also individual hardware off-switches for WiFi, Bluetooth, Microphone and Camera.

One need to prepare for what they say they would do, but prepare for what they could do as well.  Think about Amazon Side walk, that is a known one.  They are using your private broadband as there own, fully funded by you.  At least Amazon made it known.  I am pretty sure Microsoft and Google probably are doing or thinking about doing the same thing, that we don't know (yet)...

[SilverSolder]

[...]
Planned obsolescence means what exactly?
[...]

In practice it means, "Manage the service life of the device".

There isn't a product in the world that doesn't have some kind of expected service life...   ranging from one-time use to decades or centuries!

In the case of phones,  you can expect 2 OS updates and security updates for 3 or 4 years.   The battery is designed to (just about) cope with this.   Most phones are definitely expected to be obsolete/junk by the end of that kind of time frame...

[ogden]

Oh, I'm very sorry, I hope my answer comes quick enough for you
Inkjet was some Epson one (can't remember which one), laser is a Canon MF720C

You managed No doubt laser printers are much more dependable, must be default choice for business/office. Inkjets are cheaper, thou may clog and surprise you when least expected, they need more care, regular printing. 2100-page black cartridge for Canon MF720C cost as much as Epson Ecotank CMYK refill 6500 4000 page set *and* brand new replacement head.

[SilverSolder]

[...] Planned obsolescence is engineering that has no other function than to deliberately limit lifespan [...]

Doing planned obsolescence by making the battery uneconomical to replace has an element of 'plausible deniability' about it...  the consumer cannot easily identify who is to blame for his/her predicament, and will generally just pony up for a new device.

A select few will choose the more economical choices that still exist (i.e. phones with headphone ports, SD card support, replaceable batteries) but these models are not marketed as high end phones!  There is a big target market of consumers that are willing to overpay for "renting" a device for a few years, as long as they get to feel they are on the leading edge...

[cgroen]

Oh, I'm very sorry, I hope my answer comes quick enough for you
Inkjet was some Epson one (can't remember which one), laser is a Canon MF720C

You managed No doubt laser printers are much more dependable, must be default choice for business/office. Inkjets are cheaper, thou may clog and surprise you when least expected, they need more care, regular printing. 2100-page black cartridge for Canon MF720C cost as much as Epson Ecotank CMYK refill 6500 4000 page set *and* brand new replacement head.

Phew
True, I had a "not too cheap" (around $1300) EPSON inkjet, one of the really PITA features of it was exactly that if not used often, it would "dry out" and clog, so when you had to use it, you could see some "multi million dollar" drops of ink going to waste just to clean it. To be fair, the EPSON did (much) better pictures, but I used that maybe only 10% of the time, else it was "the usual stuff", schematics etc. Oh, it also did A3 which I sometimes miss on the laser. But not the cost of the ink, I don't miss that

[ogden]

I had a "not too cheap" (around $1300) EPSON inkjet, one of the really PITA features of it was exactly that if not used often, it would "dry out" and clog

Right. I learned it hard way long ago when left my UltraChrome pigment ink Epson photo printer unattended for few months. Now when I know that *pigment* heads needs care/maintenance - I can live with that. You just include inkjet head replacement into your planned operational costs same way you do with laser printer waste toner tank replacement expenses. Yes, not only inkjets do waste ink, laserjets waste their toner as well (rolf).

[james_s]

In practice it means, "Manage the service life of the device".

There isn't a product in the world that doesn't have some kind of expected service life...   ranging from one-time use to decades or centuries!

In the case of phones,  you can expect 2 OS updates and security updates for 3 or 4 years.   The battery is designed to (just about) cope with this.   Most phones are definitely expected to be obsolete/junk by the end of that kind of time frame...

Well it is impossible to make something that lasts forever, and to some degree engineering for longer useful life is going to cost more money. Planned obsolescence is "Let's try to ensure the product stops working by this point in time", normal engineering is "Let's make sure the product lasts at least this long." The difference may seem subtle but there is definitely a difference. Most engineers are not going to go out of their way to make sure something fails. They may design something assuming a useful life of x years, but they will not be upset if it actually lasts 10 times as long. A design can be optimized for cost, lifespan, capabilities or other factors and it's always a compromise. It may be possible to build a mobile phone to last 100 years but it would cost so much that nobody would buy it, and they would end up getting replaced long before failing due to other factors anyway.

[IanB]

It's not always the vendor to blame.

Case in point: I have an iPhone 6 (2014), perfect condition, battery still at 92% capacity, nice slim form factor, decent display, just as good as when it was new.

Unfortunately, it stopped getting new iOS versions because the processor isn't powerful enough to support all the latest whizz-bang features that have been introduced lately. That in itself is not a showstopper, but then app vendors started refusing to install their apps on older versions of the OS. That is the thing that actually makes the phone obsolete, the lack of support by app creators, not the lack of support by Apple.

Also, consumers and the market are partly to blame for this, by demanding never-ending new features. Take iOS 15 for example. Compared to iOS 14, it is more complex, fiddly, and annoying to use, because it is starting to suffer from feature bloat. Things that in iOS 14 needed one tap, now start popping up menus and requiring many taps (I'm looking at you, "Do Not Disturb" mode). Life is too short to spend time configuring and organizing complex settings. OK if they are optional and hidden until you want them, but not when they force themselves on you.

Oh well, rant over.

[james_s]

Unfortunately, it stopped getting new iOS versions because the processor isn't powerful enough to support all the latest whizz-bang features that have been introduced lately. That in itself is not a showstopper, but then app vendors started refusing to install their apps on older versions of the OS. That is the thing that actually makes the phone obsolete, the lack of support by app creators, not the lack of support by Apple.

I hate OS updates and the sooner they stop trying to push a new version every year the better. The problem is as you mention apps requiring the latest version. It drives me crazy that the app store will not let you install the last supported version of an app. I also really hate the fact that you cannot roll back. Several times I have been burned by a new version of an app that had a serious bug that I then had to wait for them to fix and release another new version. After that happened a few times I stopped updating anything at all. Now I check once or twice a year and see if any of the updates have anything I care about and then try to research what they may have broken or removed. In most cases I'd rather stick with the version I have than risk an update I can't roll back if I don't like it. I don't care about new features, smartphones are mature products, I really struggle to think of any feature I care about at all that has gone in since iOS 5 or 6.

I also share your disdain for taking things that required a single click/tap and adding additional steps. It may not seem like a big deal to click one more time, but when you have to do it numerous times a day it really starts to drive me crazy. I resent companies doing things that make my life harder and/or take additional time from me.

[SilverSolder]

[...]
Planned obsolescence is "Let's try to ensure the product stops working by this point in time", normal engineering is "Let's make sure the product lasts at least this long." The difference may seem subtle but there is definitely a difference. Most engineers are not going to go out of their way to make sure something fails.
[...]

Agreed, and in the case of sealed-in batteries, they aren't actually going out of their way to make sure the device fails...   they are, however, creating a barrier to replacing the battery that is sufficient to make it uneconomical to do so in many/most cases.

Maybe we should think in terms of different flavors of planned obsolescence...

PO Type 1:  Device is coded / designed to become totally useless on a certain date or other terminating condition not controlled by the user/"owner", the only remedy is to purchase a new device when that condition is triggered.

PO Type 2:  Device is designed to be difficult/impossible to repair by anyone other than the manufacturer,  the only remedy is to purchase a new device once out of warranty.

PO Type 3: Device is designed to be difficult/impossible to repair by anyone other than the manufacturer, but the manufacturer does have reasonably priced remediation options (repair and/or replacement)

[SilverSolder]

It's not always the vendor to blame.

[...] but then app vendors started refusing to install their apps on older versions of the OS. [...]

Sadly, it is still the vendors to blame...  I had an email exchange with an app author when the latest version of his app refused to install on the older (but perfectly usable) Android tablet I had laying about in the car.

He explained that he would love to be able to support older versions of the OS, but that unfortunately developers like him have to agree to Google terms and conditions which includes NOT supporting OS versions over a certain age...    he is outright prohibited from supporting older OS versions.

Another issue with Android apps is that they stop working if the tablet is not connected to the Internet for a while.  You get an error message, "App not owned" when you try to start it.  Basically, it seems all the apps you buy on Android need to check in with the mother ship every so often, even after they have been installed!  So I had to drag the tablet into the house and let it nuzzle up to Mother every so often, to keep the purchased apps working.

This kind of stuff all makes me want to puke...  -   Basically, I have gone back to using a Windows tablet in my car, since - much as people hate on MS - they are nowhere near as bad as Google (just yet, at least).

[tooki]

That is not planned obsolescence, that is cost engineering.

Planned obsolescence is a special case of cost engineering.

Planned obsolescence is engineering that has no other function than to deliberately limit lifespan, for example a timer that bricks something after a specified number of uses,

No, that is fraud (unless it is advertised as being time limited).

or a system that is tied to a remote server for no reason than to be able to disable it.

No, that's a time-limited license. So long as I can continue paying the subscription fee to keep using my gizmo, nothing is being made obsolete.

They're making them as cheap as they can while still lasting long enough.

I'd consider this a concise definition of planned obsolescence. 

And you’d be wrong. james_s is exactly right about what planned obsolescence is and is not. His last sentence above is cost engineering.

What you’re calling “fraud” is literally what planned obsolescence actually means. Probably 99% of the times people cry “planned obsolescence!” do not actually meet the actual meaning, because true planned obsolescence is astoundingly rare. Cost engineering is NOT planned obsolescence!!

[tooki]

One issue, specific to smartphones and some accessories, is waterproofing. I think it’s a great thing that so many phones now are seriously IP rated, since the number of phones that succumbed to water ingress in the past was huge, generating tons of e-waste. But it’s exceedingly difficult, to the extent of being practically impossible, to make a user-replaceable battery compartment that maintains waterproofing properly. (Look at the maintenance instructions for underwater camera housings and you'll see what I mean.)
And it’s categorically impossible to do that while maintaining the sleekness expected today. Even non-waterproof battery compartments are hard to do with such space constraints, but waterproof ones? Forget it, no way.

So we are left with adhesive seals. But at least on iPhones, they’re fairly easy to replace. Apple stores, and authorized and unauthorized repair shops alike can perform an iPhone battery swap in 10 minutes, including replacing the sealing adhesive, so I don’t think it’s in any way reasonable to claim adhesive as justification for accusations of planned obsolescence.

[tooki]

[...] Planned obsolescence is engineering that has no other function than to deliberately limit lifespan [...]

Doing planned obsolescence by making the battery uneconomical to replace has an element of 'plausible deniability' about it...  the consumer cannot easily identify who is to blame for his/her predicament, and will generally just pony up for a new device.

But the company most commonly cited in such situations, Apple, actually offers perfectly economical battery replacements. Go online, schedule a service appointment, bring in the phone or computer, and 15 minutes later you walk out with your device with a fresh battery installed (and a cleaning inside and out), for the same price of a battery for the models years ago whose batteries were user replaceable. (So considering inflation, the laptop batteries are actually cheaper now than years ago.)