Hacker News Reader

Comment by captainmuon | Hacker News Reader

This is a cool project, and I love it when somebody "takes back" their hardware a little bit or keeps them useful through hacking instead of throwing it away.

But it shows how irrationally our society is set up in some aspects. In an ideal world, you could just send the Lenovo engineer a mail and ask for the firmware source. But the incentives are such that they keep it secret, probably because they make a lot of money with batteries. So hackers spend a lot of time reverse engineering stuff. It seems really inefficient.

View on HN

This is why my next laptop will be a MNT Reform, you can change the individual cells yourself:

https://www.crowdsupply.com/mnt/reform

I just received my developer beta MNT Reform, and I've been really enjoying it. They keyboard takes a bit of getting used to, but everything's very cute.

Any chance you could host a 'sosreport' so I could get a look at the hardware config ?

What is irrational? These batteries have been cloned cheaply so they're already reverse engineered. You can find them all over eBay. If this works on the T430 and x230 it will be very impressive.

I don't think this generation had DRM on the batteries. The new ones did and they're not cracked.

> I don't think this generation had DRM on the batteries. The new ones did and they're not cracked.

TIL that there are DRM even on batteries. What a sad state of affairs.

DRM on batteries of expensive electronics seems consumer-friendly to me. Most consumers' experience with battery replacement would be sending it for replacement by a technician. Battery DRM would make it difficult for the consumer to end up with an unsafe battery in their device and pockets.

I've been replacing batteries in electronic gear since I was all of five years old. I think your average consumer would be able to handle it.

It's no different if you replace it yourself, that's tangential to my point. You'd be sourcing a specialized replacement battery online and there's a risk that the battery you get is an unsafe knockoff.

That is a different problem.

I've also been able to buy non-knock off batteries for just about all electronics up to a few years ago when companies decided that soldered in batteries shorten the time-to-landfill of their products improving their revenues.

Seriously: there is no reason why there could not be a standard form factor for battery cells. If we can do hard drives, CPUs and RAM I'm sure we can do batteries too.

You're still talking past me. A standard form factor won't solve the trust problem.

Most people don't know how to choose a proper hard drive compatible with their M.2 adapter or cable for their USB device. Many people also buy counterfeit USB sticks and SSDs that don't have near the capacity they advertise. You and other tech-literate people aren't the only consumers manufacturers are selling to. Nor are people always sufficiently educated, or living among stores with sufficient reputation to source from a reputable aftermarket vendor for their replacements.

Look, I'm really not sure where you are coming from. Batteries are solved problem since 1920. It's just gadget and computer manufacturers that suddenly see a way to make a uick buck and to drive their cycle of planned obsolescence.

If I could do it at 6 and my mom can do it at close to 80 then I really don't see why other people could not. Sometimes there just isn't a problem unless you make one. Standardize the cells, sell them through the supermarket chains at a normal price, just like Duracell and other quality battery manufacturers have been able to do for ages. Problem solved, once and for all. No need to go through AliExpress, Amazon or some other shady online store, if you are that concerned about trust then the only way to solve that is to buy from a reputable vendor.

It would give reputable battery producers with all kind of certificates a thing and not buying dubious compatible batteries from Amazon/EBay/Ali/whatever a thing.

It would also make it easier for people to learn how to replace batteries.

The trust problem is better solved by relevant legislation. The counterfeit problem is better solved by relevant legislation. Intentional incompatibility with generic replacement parts will eventually also be solved by, you guessed it, relevant legislation.

See also: vacuum cleaner consumables, independent car repair

Why not argue for better battery certification and quality control or more tolerant phone designs? You could probably detect low quality batteries with software and sensors and notify the user.

There's an alternate strand of reality where you're arguing for mandated licensing for kitchen utensils.

If the companies where open to repair the technician/end user would say "Hey Apple, i need a battery for the 6S" There's no need for DRM.

It doesn't seem consumer friendly to me. Aside from laptop, phone is five years old, replaced (consumer serviceable) battery twice (<$20), re-soldered USB connector once because of worn-out charging ($5, bought on ebay, don't have a solder, friend did it), replaced screen once due to a crack on screen and heavy rain. SD card of course so 8GB phone boosted by very affordable 64GB. Phone was less than $300, upfront no plan, when new.

Very consumer friendly phone.

When counterfeit batteries can explode and cause serious injury or death, I consider any measures to have the device reject counterfeit batteries consumer-friendly.

Same here. What a wonderful world they've built for us, eh?

While we sat here and watched. :P

Reply on news.ycombinator.com