AirPods' Dirty Secret
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I suspect the best answer would just be to use 2.4v LTO batteries, which last long enough that non-replacability is acceptable. You lose some runtime, but make up for it with faster charging.
For everything else, we just need a better battery standard. Companies would use it, and if they didn't, you could just mandate that anyone making a device above a certain size had to use some open standard.
At the moment, 18650s and other cylindrical lithiums are the only reasonable choice, but they aren't really safe, and they are tied to Li-Ion, a chemistry we will hopefully move on from someday.
We could instead have an open version of what power tool companies have: smart batteries with i2c communication and protection built in.
Planned obsolescence is dirty. Why is it such a struggle for a companies to be both successful and offer repairable devices?
The problem is big public corporations always have to grow, they can completely shatter all expectations for profit then two years later earn a little bit less than they did before, by any normal measure of success, you'd take that, you'd say the company was a run away success and if this was you personally you'd understand that overall you'd done fantastic, but the market doesn't like that. It needs endless growth.
The problem you have, the better you do, eventually you run out of customers, so the things you can do to keep growing mean 1) releasing new product lines, 2) adding subscription services 3) Getting current customers to upgrade / replace there devices.
There is little incentive to make headphones that last longer, although I'm not sure we even have the battery tech at the moment anyway. I love my airpods, but it is somewhat annoying that headphones have now become an item you have to replace every few years, just like everything else now.
The one saving grace in this market, which is the built-in protection in capitalism for this kind of thing, is the market is flooded with so many brands, so once this is technically solved, hopefully others will come to market without this problem, hopefully forcing apple to follow suit.
I have a series of dumb/smart Sennheiser HD 650 cans. They have lasted twenty years. That is much better for the environment.
Planned obscelence. Yes its a real thing!
You can refuse it, but airpods business is close to Tesla sales.
My prediction is that in the majority of cases we'd have slightly bulkier, slightly costlier devices, many likely a bit more prone to damage because of things like less effective seals or connectors failing, and that 1% of users would actually repair them. Probably a net negative in terms of environmental impact.
Years ago there was a push especially in Europe to install dual flush toilets that allow you to perform either a less-water flush. Many years later we find that due to these more complicated mechanisms being just slightly more prone to malfunction, the net impact is actually more water being wasted. (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/29/dual-flu...)
I'd suspect a similar sort of situation here.
When you're talking about doing "repairs" on modern electronics, almost always you're really talking about replacing entire modules containing hundreds/thousands/millions of these "components" with a replacement either directly from the manufacturer or designed to be compatible it. These modules need to be intentionally designed to a much greater degree, the manufacturer then needs to allocate extra space for this, decide what components will be located on each module, how many modules to break the design into, provide connectors that are both secure during normal use while also being easily connected/disconnect by users, and maintain a supply chain for each replaceable module long after the design is no longer being manufactured. It's a lot more work than the vast majority manufacturers have ever done (with the exception of auto manufacturers).
I brought first gen AirPod [1] but then quickly discovered AirPod is actually a consumable devices. You have to keep buying it. And I know a lot of people do that. Their fourth or fifth pair of AirPods.
Normally I dont have a problem with this as a design decision. ( I would just stop buying after my first pair ) But this is coming from Apple, the company that claims, whether it was themselves or through PR submarine articles how they care about the world. Getting rid of headphones or charger because it was environmental friendly.
[1] I bought the first gen, mostly because to vote with my wallet, my middle finger to the whole god damn stupid Bluetooth industry, AirPod was how a half decent bluetooth connection should work. I say half decent because AirPod isn't perfect, far from it. But it was finally touching my bar of good enough. Or may be all the other Bluetooth peripheral were crap that my expectation of AirPods were lowered.