| ▲ | Alupis 9 hours ago |
| Which phones? I ask as someone that's had to replace multiple phones after a trip through the washing machine. Modern phone water resistance is incredible. I've even seen people literally swim with their phones and not even question if it was a bad idea. |
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| ▲ | mattkrause 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Fifteen years ago, I had a Garmin GPS (admittedly not a phone, but similar form factor) that survived a week of knocking around the bottom of a raft. The battery compartment had a rubber gasket and some very tight screws. |
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| ▲ | nine_k 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | How much of the total volume of the device was the case/housing? I suppose the glue-everything approach is partly due to the desire of making a device very thin. There's no room for strong, load-bearing outer case, the internals are load-bearing. | | |
| ▲ | PunchyHamster 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | You just need well designed rubber gasket. Thickness is impact resistance thing in those devices | |
| ▲ | mattkrause 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's been a long time, but the gasket itself was probably a millimetre or two thick, squeezed extremely tightly by the screws in the battery cover. It ran on AA or AAA batteries, and they took about about half or a third of the depth. |
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| ▲ | Groxx 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Honestly I'd expect that to be SIGNIFICANTLY easier to waterproof than a laundry machine. Partly because laundry is sometimes done warm, and warm softens materials (like gaskets), but mostly because laundry has surfactants that considerably reduce surface tension, making it far easier to slip past gaps. There is a good reason waterproofing claims are specific about the kind of liquid (usually just fresh or salt water, usually without significant movement (i.e. jets, like you get in a shower)). |
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| ▲ | wolvoleo 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Samsung still make the rugged Xcover range which has both replaceable batteries and waterproofing. And 3.5mm jacks too. These devices are mostly sold in enterprise environments (eg field use, factories) and as such get a lot of wear and tear. But they hold up well. They're not ultra rugged but a good compromise. We use tons of them in our factories, we replaced DECT handheld phones with the Xcovers loaded with ms teams. Not an ideal setup (teams for mobile kinda sucks) but at least this way they can easily communicate with people in the offices. |
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| ▲ | Sohcahtoa82 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > I've even seen people literally swim with their phones and not even question if it was a bad idea. Which is funny to me, because even with an IP68 phone, I get worried if I even splash a little water on it. |
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| ▲ | tencentshill 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Samsung Galaxy S5 was the last one that attempted it. IP67 with a removable back cover and swappable battery. |
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| ▲ | numpad0 27 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Japan only, but KDDI/Kyocera never stopped IP rated phones with removable battery. TORQUE G07(2026) is IP65/68/69 rated with a coin key locked removable back cover. It also officially support submersion in seawater as well as cleaning with soapy water. Most glued phones support neither. 1: https://k-tai.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/2088291.html | |
| ▲ | Alupis 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yes, but IP67 is not nearly as water resistant as IP68, which all modern phones are for the most part. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if IP68 could be achieved in a phone without glue. There's no clamping mechanism for the backs, they're just press-fit with small clips. | | |
| ▲ | retatop 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | My phone (A Furiphone FLX1, which is kindof a variant of a Gigaset GX6) has a removable back with a gasket and is IP68. One of their promotional videos had them change the battery on video then boot the phone and and unlock it underwater | |
| ▲ | cannonpr 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | From a mechanical perspective ip68 is perfectly achievable mechanically and watches have been achieving it for a long time, however… with what sort of margins for the manufacturer and what sort of cost for the consumer ? Additionally a lot of them require pretty carefully adherence to instructions torques and tolerances to achieve the same waterproof rating.
Personally I’d be very happy to have a phone that says, if you swap the battery you might lose the ip68 rating unless you follow the resealing process within tolerances. | |
| ▲ | seba_dos1 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Who cares though? Sealing the battery in makes the device less drop resistant. I somehow managed to avoid water damage to my phones for decades, while none of my phones managed to avoid being dropped in a way that would most likely be fatal to them if their batteries were sealed in - and yet most of them survived to this day. A phone needs to handle some rain droplets falling on its screen, anything more than that is a gimmick that's not worth the downsides it comes with. | | |
| ▲ | kube-system an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | > A phone needs to handle some rain droplets falling on its screen, anything more than that is a gimmick that's not worth the downsides it comes with. I submerge my phone as a matter of normal use because I can. I take it into pools and hot tubs, and I clean it in the sink -- I personally wouldn't trade that for a battery door. | |
| ▲ | cozzyd 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | quite a few people put their phones in their back pockets... | |
| ▲ | dmitrygr 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Who cares though? a lot of normal people who daily-use their phones near water and even jump into pools with them. I would bet you $100 that if you asked people "replaceable battery of water proofing to the same level you have it now", ~ nobody will puck the former. | | |
| ▲ | seba_dos1 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Not once in my life I had thought "I would like to jump into this pool with my phone", while I did sometimes replace the battery on-the-go which actually made my life easier. It's an absurd take. If anything, I'd be more concerned with beverage spills, but these are still easier to avoid than drops. | | |
| ▲ | 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | jamiek88 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Well you are the exception. Especially if you live in a hot area where a lot of people have backyard pools. Being in and out of the water constantly is a very normal in Florida for example. Most the suburban kids in Houston had wristband attachments to their phones in the pool or would be in a floaty taking stupid pics of each other as kids do. Trying to keep a modern phone dry takes away a lot of utility. | | |
| ▲ | seba_dos1 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Not a lot of people live in hot areas with plenty of backyard pools, but I can understand that waterproof phones could become more popular there than in the rest of the world based on this property alone (right now they're popular because there's not much choice). |
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| ▲ | bigstrat2003 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Those people are doing a very stupid thing. I don't think that the world should be ordered around "let's make it so people can do stupid things without consequence". | | |
| ▲ | dmitrygr 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Those people are the public buying the phones. Companies make phones that more people will buy. Turns out your desire for a bulky phone with a replaceable battery is less common than their desire for a phone that does not get destroyed when dropped into a pool. |
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| ▲ | b112 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | A phone needs to handle some rain droplets falling on its screen, anything more than that is a gimmick that's not worth the downsides it comes with Some like to read in the bathtub. Statistics say women prefer the bathtub more than the shower. Therefore your position is sexist. (Yes, I'm being an asshat) | |
| ▲ | jamiek88 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I’ve done it and seen it many times. People throw their phones to each other in pools and the beach for photos all the time. One of the best things about modern phones is the waterproofing. IP68 level is amazing. > A phone needs to handle some rain droplets falling on its screen, anything more than that is a gimmick that's not worth the downsides it comes with It’s actually the opposite - a user replacement battery is a gimmick not worth the downsides. Apple know this, and they know their customers a lot better than you do. Your position is niche at best, anachronistic really. | | |
| ▲ | seba_dos1 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Apple has vested interest in getting their customers to switch to a new phone often, and the average time to upgrade is absurdly low these days (less than 4 years), which is greatly influenced by battery wear and fall damage, so I don't think this argument is very persuasive. | |
| ▲ | gf000 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > user replacement battery It's not really the old kind of replace-ability, though. The only requirement is that you should be able to change it with commercially available tools. |
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| ▲ | VorpalWay 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Nothing stops them from adding a gasket and some screws though. | |
| ▲ | bananamogul 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Maybe as a society it's better for people to have replacement insurance than to have sealed batteries that make phones so disposable. I wonder if we've defined IP68 as a "must have" without considering the alternatives. I'm thinking the percentage of people who actually "use" IP68 over the course of their phone is pretty small...yet that "requirement" drives a huge design choice. I suspect it's a moot point. Makers have every incentive to drive replacement cycles. | | |
| ▲ | kube-system 40 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Spills and drops were traditionally most common causes of mobile device insurance claims. We've only seen that change for phones because of their IP ratings in recent years. While manufacturers do have an incentive to get people to buy new phones, many of them with first party insurance do have an incentive not to pay out as many claims. | |
| ▲ | bananamogul 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Downvoted for daring to speculate. I love this place. |
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| ▲ | wolvoleo 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You forget the Xcover and active lines which do IP68. They stopped making Galaxy active phones but the tabs are still there. The Xcovers too. |
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| ▲ | markus92 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Samsung Galaxy S5 is the first one to cross my mind. |
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| ▲ | e12e 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Not really comparable perhaps - but I had a Ericsson t18s or similar that went through a full 60C cotton wash cycle (being on at the start of the wash) and was fine after drying off. The thing is - if the battery had been destroyed, that could have been replaced... |
