Nice page! I'm extremely happy about efforts like this. You might argue that the EU is a sprawling, wasteful bureaucracy and you would not be wrong, per se, but they made a lot of useful laws that just simply make the world a better place.
Having standardized chargers for phones and laptops is SUPER nice and would never have happened without intervention IMO.
The only equivalent for US "useful, average-citizen friendly legislation" that I recently heard about was the standardization of powertool batteries pursued by doge-- which turned out to be an april hoax when I just looked it up :(
And yet, only US has right-to-repair laws for cars. When is EU going to fix that?
I can't get manuals and software access to fix a new car made in EU.
I don't really care that I can't fix my all-glued-up phone for <1000 EUR but I do care that I have to spend thousands on car repairs that I could do myself.
This law has more to do with the environment/Energy usage than with the consumer. And the US consumer cares a lot less about energy usage since they're much more energy and monetarily rich than the EU.
If they paid German gas and electricity prices for example while having European wages, they'd care a lot more about energy consumption, believe that.
> You might argue that the EU is a sprawling, wasteful bureaucracy and you would not be wrong, per se, but they made a lot of useful laws that just simply make the world a better place.
The EU bureaucracy itself is significantly lighter and more purposeful than any of the underlying individual states' bureaucracy, though that might simply be a function of youth and restricted scope.
> The EU bureaucracy itself is significantly lighter and more purposeful than any of the underlying individual states' bureaucracy
The EU ""states rights"" (subsidiarity) is a lot stronger and more real than the corresponding structures in the US. It also doesn't really do direct enforcement - there's no EU federal police checking tablets, it's all done through national level enforcement.
For Japan, I think allowing income tax redirection to a "home town" is a really good model to keep infrastructure funded in more rural areas that suffer from brain drain/exodus.
Sure. But even if this would be a full tradeoff between product performance and energy use (which it really isn't, you can typically eliminate a lot of power consumption without impacting performance at all in domestic appliances), than that would be already an improvement:
Without any energy labeling, the manufacturer has basically no incentive to provide any comparable information on energy use (especially if his device is subpar at it), and it's impossible for consumers to make informed decisions when buying (and very easy for extremely wasteful trash-products to get sold).
It also would be very appealing to just waste a ton of electricity for marginally better performance, because wasted electricity costs the device manufacturer nothing.
availability of operating system upgrades for longer periods (at least 5 years from the date of the end of placement on the market of the last unit of a product model)
This is so great! A lot of manufacturers were counting from the date of introduction. A lot of phones only had a 3 year support period. If they are on the market for two years, the people buying last would only get one year of support. This swaps to the last date of sale, which is much more consumer-friendly. I still have to read up on what operating system upgrades entails.
rules on disassembly and repair, including obligations for producers to make critical spare parts available within 5-10 working days, and for 7 years after the end of sales of the product model on the EU market
I wonder if we get some malicious workarounds for this, like re-releasing the same phone under different SKUs to pretend they were different models on sale for a short time.
Maybe, but the regulation tries to prevent this by separating "models" from "batches" from "individual items" and defaults to "model" when determining compatibility. Worth noting is that each new model requires a separate filing for both EcoDesign and other certifications like CE which could help reduce workarounds like model number inflation.
On one side, it is good to have consumer friendly regulation like manufacturers to be forced to support right to repair. But on the opposite side, lots of bullshit requirements again like the energy labelling, that will do that we have less products, mostly from big actors only, and more expensive due the then useless regulation barrier.
And the mixed feeling is stronger for things like manufacturers that needs to provide support for the os for 5 years and more. Sure, I'm happy that it applies to big tech like apple, Google and Samsung, when it is what I'm expecting.
But, I, as a consumer, I would like some times to be able to buy other products, cheaper, crappier (for a burner or test devices for example), and to have small actors being able the try innovation without needing a 500 millions backing to be able to see in Europe.
What I would have preferred is a law more oriented on consumer rights than manufacturing regulation:
Forbidding more clearly explicit monopolistic behaviors like what is done with app store; and for right to repair and co, not needing the company to provide support for repair for 5 years but that if they don't, or after 5 years, that they have to release in open source the software, blueprints or tools that are needed to be able to support your own device yourself.
> to have small actors being able the try innovation
Yes. While I'm generally in favor of the EU regulatory approach they need to learn about and understand the concept of "small business", including the fact that you can't get a new large EU business without it going through the small business stage. There should be a lot more de minimis exemptions from the whole CE marking system.
Most regulations are motivated by universal normative prescriptions. People don't want to be served asbestos in their food, structurally unsound homes being built, or data brokers conspiring to raise your insurance, regardless of the violator in question.
Everyone can agree regulation burden exists, but I too often see it invoked in bad faith, like in the case of GDPR. This primes me to ask for concrete proof why any regulation would be especially burdensome for small business.
> that they have to release in open source the software, blueprints or tools that are needed to be able to support your own device yourself.
You can safely bet that there is no end product [you care this regulation to apply to] that has 100% in-house engineering, unencumbered with licenses. This would be either unenforceable or eliminate all but the largest players from EU market.
If you look at a distance, most of these regulations simply mandate managing product lifecycle. Yes, you can enter the market quicker and cheaper if you don't think about eventual recycling or bodger together something that barely works. We take warranties for granted now, but warranties are part of this family of regulations: if you introduce a product to the market, introduce something that is actually functional.
I mean just look at Fairphone they already implemented (most) of this without being forced to. Also even without this regulation its pretty hard to compete in this space anyway.
And I think 5 years of software updates should be achievable if Qualcomm, Google, etc are more supportive of manufacturers.
Agreed, in general I'm disappointed that so many government regulations (on both sides of both ponds, this is one issue that's pretty universal) are just simplistic hard coded numbers. Even with carve outs I think that's much worse vs more focused, thoughtful reactive criteria. Like:
>And the mixed feeling is stronger for things like manufacturers that needs to provide support for the os for 5 years and more.
What I'd have liked to see for this (and still would) is that support is tied to control, ie, as a principle power being intimately linked with responsibility, not some ""big tech"" or not thing either. So maybe have some absolute bare minimum like 3 months unless bankrupt, but then link it to whether product owners are able to install alternate OS, access the source code etc. If a manufacturer wants to throw out some hardware and also give me all the source code and any certificate store access required for me and/or the community of fellow owners to alter and maintain it as we wish, then I'm completely fine with a very short (or possibly even zero) required support period on the software side. Conversely if a company (like Apple) wishes to profit by locking down a device very heavily, then they should also be forced to pay for all support costs for as long as they do. And I'd make that indefinite also, like, Apple would NEVER be able to stop supporting a device that they didn't at least offer alternative OS install capability for. If they wanted to EOL an iPhone after 7-10 years, they'd have to unlock the bootloader as part of that.
IMO that would most properly align all the incentives and then let various players small to large experiment with the best solutions, and for consumers to react in turn. Full open do-anything and walled gardens would both be allowed, but no profiting while externalizing the downsides.
I don’t see why energy labels move the needle for phones and tablets, considering battery life is already a highly maximized and sought after feature.
An appliance plugged into a wall is different as most people have no easy way to discern energy usage. But they are reminded everyday of their mobile’s energy efficiency.
And no one is going to use a black and white mobile to save 100kWh per year.
I'm not sure about energy efficiency and energy class, but information such as battery endurance, repairability class, waterproof rating, structural durability and update support should absolutely be clearly stated on the packaging.
In the shop in my town, they sell televisions. Led ones, oled ones, big screen, the usual stuff. They have about 50 models. All have energy labels C or worse. No A, no A+, no B... Once there was an A one but the picture quality was horrible.
I'm happy to be more conscious, but someone is working against the scheme: I don't have a real choice...
This is actually an example of the regulation working. The original energy labelling had done such a good job that every product was routinely getting A or up ratings. So the EU introduced a new system that was much more stringent, dropping everything down to a C at best but more usually an F. Gradually manufacturers are improving again.
“Working” assumes this new scale is actually based on reality and that an A or B is realistically obtainable without compromises (ie here image quality) that no one wants to make.
There's the law of conservation of energy. If you want a nice bright big screen there's no way around consuming a lot of electricity. If your baseline is a 32 inch LED screen it's not surprising a 65" OLED will have a worse energy label.
Seems most people want that nice TV more than a small, dim picture that uses less energy.
In addition to the laws of physics and the engineering required to build TVs working against this, the EU deliberately changed the energy efficiency scale for things like TVs a few years back to specifically make an A hard to get and something that wouldn't be achieved by products currently on the market. They were probably too optimistic about future improvements too - a lot of TVs had to add special eco modes that aren't really designed to be used to meet the minimum efficiency now required by EU rules.
What does it even mean for a TV to be energy efficient? A TV's job is to convert electricity into... light, I guess? It's not light like a light bulb, nor would you want it to be. You wouldn't light your home with TVs.
So is it something like "only produces light where needed on the screen" or "uses the least energy when turned off" or "does image processing for x format with the least energy" What are they measuring here?
Yes,measuring the energy consumption and efficiency of the conversion from electricity to light is part of the label. The light bulb example is not as unsuitable as you seem to assume. Incandescent light bulbs only convert about 5 percent of the energy consumed to light, the rest is converted to heat. LEDs, in contrast, are 6 to 8 times more efficient.
Your "does image processing..." part is also important. Different processors consume vastly different amounts of energy. A hobbyist example would be trying to run something on a battery powered ESP32 with or without deep sleep.
It's the electricity usage when running the TV. There is e.g. quite a difference between LED and OLED.
TVs is also quite a large part of electricity usage in a household. Maybe 75 - 150W running a few hours a day. You have to keep in mind that not many people have PCs, NAS, etc. running 24/7.
Phones and tablets are already among the most energy efficient devices. A tablet sips power compared to a desktop PC. Isn't energy use totally dominated by lights, cooling and heating of the spaces we inhabit?
Repairability rules I like. Rules about OS updates are good too. But the energy claims look like BS to me:
> In 1990, the annual electricity consumption for (networked) standby of the base stations and charging cradles of cordless landline phones was 37.1 kWh. In 2020, without measures, this would have been 24.5 kWh. Due to the Ecodesign standby regulation, this was reduced to 16.1 kWh in 2020, a 34% saving. Due to the addition of the 2023 Ecodesign regulation on phones, this is expected to further reduce to 8.0 kWh in 2030, a 63% saving versus no measures.
> The regulations focus on measures to extend product lifetime (reparability, upgradability, battery life). The increase in average lifetime, e.g. from 3.0 to 4.1 years for a mid-range smartphone
If only the EU was like "you can save money and our environment by buying Chinese EVs instead of smokey German, Italian & French diesels" in the same spirit. Oh well.
It's pretty easy to regulate things that aren't made by your domestic companies.
Readit News
Having standardized chargers for phones and laptops is SUPER nice and would never have happened without intervention IMO.
The only equivalent for US "useful, average-citizen friendly legislation" that I recently heard about was the standardization of powertool batteries pursued by doge-- which turned out to be an april hoax when I just looked it up :(
I can't get manuals and software access to fix a new car made in EU.
I don't really care that I can't fix my all-glued-up phone for <1000 EUR but I do care that I have to spend thousands on car repairs that I could do myself.
If they paid German gas and electricity prices for example while having European wages, they'd care a lot more about energy consumption, believe that.
The EU bureaucracy itself is significantly lighter and more purposeful than any of the underlying individual states' bureaucracy, though that might simply be a function of youth and restricted scope.
The EU ""states rights"" (subsidiarity) is a lot stronger and more real than the corresponding structures in the US. It also doesn't really do direct enforcement - there's no EU federal police checking tablets, it's all done through national level enforcement.
That's a bizarre starting point to me. Iphone / Android made/make the world a better place. There were no laws mandating creation of them!
We replaced our old tumble dryer with a modern one. The ones we had to choose from all have the energy sticker and fall into a similar band.
Choose a programme, wait a couple of hours, and bam! You can go from wet to still damp, just like that.
In other news, manufacturers game the system.
Without any energy labeling, the manufacturer has basically no incentive to provide any comparable information on energy use (especially if his device is subpar at it), and it's impossible for consumers to make informed decisions when buying (and very easy for extremely wasteful trash-products to get sold).
It also would be very appealing to just waste a ton of electricity for marginally better performance, because wasted electricity costs the device manufacturer nothing.
This is so great! A lot of manufacturers were counting from the date of introduction. A lot of phones only had a 3 year support period. If they are on the market for two years, the people buying last would only get one year of support. This swaps to the last date of sale, which is much more consumer-friendly. I still have to read up on what operating system upgrades entails.
rules on disassembly and repair, including obligations for producers to make critical spare parts available within 5-10 working days, and for 7 years after the end of sales of the product model on the EU market
Awesome!
On one side, it is good to have consumer friendly regulation like manufacturers to be forced to support right to repair. But on the opposite side, lots of bullshit requirements again like the energy labelling, that will do that we have less products, mostly from big actors only, and more expensive due the then useless regulation barrier.
And the mixed feeling is stronger for things like manufacturers that needs to provide support for the os for 5 years and more. Sure, I'm happy that it applies to big tech like apple, Google and Samsung, when it is what I'm expecting. But, I, as a consumer, I would like some times to be able to buy other products, cheaper, crappier (for a burner or test devices for example), and to have small actors being able the try innovation without needing a 500 millions backing to be able to see in Europe.
What I would have preferred is a law more oriented on consumer rights than manufacturing regulation: Forbidding more clearly explicit monopolistic behaviors like what is done with app store; and for right to repair and co, not needing the company to provide support for repair for 5 years but that if they don't, or after 5 years, that they have to release in open source the software, blueprints or tools that are needed to be able to support your own device yourself.
Yes. While I'm generally in favor of the EU regulatory approach they need to learn about and understand the concept of "small business", including the fact that you can't get a new large EU business without it going through the small business stage. There should be a lot more de minimis exemptions from the whole CE marking system.
There are a lot of EU wide requirements that create barriers to entry. Before Altman's scareware campaign to "regulate" "AI", there was:
Exhibit 1:
https://pcengines.ch/recycle.htm
See the blurb about not being able to sell direct to customers in the EU.
[Think the company has shut down or is shutting down, possibly because of that too.]
Everyone can agree regulation burden exists, but I too often see it invoked in bad faith, like in the case of GDPR. This primes me to ask for concrete proof why any regulation would be especially burdensome for small business.
You can safely bet that there is no end product [you care this regulation to apply to] that has 100% in-house engineering, unencumbered with licenses. This would be either unenforceable or eliminate all but the largest players from EU market.
If you look at a distance, most of these regulations simply mandate managing product lifecycle. Yes, you can enter the market quicker and cheaper if you don't think about eventual recycling or bodger together something that barely works. We take warranties for granted now, but warranties are part of this family of regulations: if you introduce a product to the market, introduce something that is actually functional.
“WARNING: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm.”
And I think 5 years of software updates should be achievable if Qualcomm, Google, etc are more supportive of manufacturers.
>And the mixed feeling is stronger for things like manufacturers that needs to provide support for the os for 5 years and more.
What I'd have liked to see for this (and still would) is that support is tied to control, ie, as a principle power being intimately linked with responsibility, not some ""big tech"" or not thing either. So maybe have some absolute bare minimum like 3 months unless bankrupt, but then link it to whether product owners are able to install alternate OS, access the source code etc. If a manufacturer wants to throw out some hardware and also give me all the source code and any certificate store access required for me and/or the community of fellow owners to alter and maintain it as we wish, then I'm completely fine with a very short (or possibly even zero) required support period on the software side. Conversely if a company (like Apple) wishes to profit by locking down a device very heavily, then they should also be forced to pay for all support costs for as long as they do. And I'd make that indefinite also, like, Apple would NEVER be able to stop supporting a device that they didn't at least offer alternative OS install capability for. If they wanted to EOL an iPhone after 7-10 years, they'd have to unlock the bootloader as part of that.
IMO that would most properly align all the incentives and then let various players small to large experiment with the best solutions, and for consumers to react in turn. Full open do-anything and walled gardens would both be allowed, but no profiting while externalizing the downsides.
... I know far less about, say, refrigerators. So last time i needed one i bought the one with the most economic energy label from the ones I liked.
An appliance plugged into a wall is different as most people have no easy way to discern energy usage. But they are reminded everyday of their mobile’s energy efficiency.
And no one is going to use a black and white mobile to save 100kWh per year.
Hopefully online stores will add ability to filter by these criteria.
I'm happy to be more conscious, but someone is working against the scheme: I don't have a real choice...
Seems most people want that nice TV more than a small, dim picture that uses less energy.
But if someone can manufacture a big TV with a third of the energy used for the average big TV, surely there is something that can be improved.
All in the name of not having to place your TV in a shaded corner, and maybe acheiving a higher contrast ratio on paper.
So is it something like "only produces light where needed on the screen" or "uses the least energy when turned off" or "does image processing for x format with the least energy" What are they measuring here?
Your "does image processing..." part is also important. Different processors consume vastly different amounts of energy. A hobbyist example would be trying to run something on a battery powered ESP32 with or without deep sleep.
It's the electricity usage when running the TV. There is e.g. quite a difference between LED and OLED.
TVs is also quite a large part of electricity usage in a household. Maybe 75 - 150W running a few hours a day. You have to keep in mind that not many people have PCs, NAS, etc. running 24/7.
Repairability rules I like. Rules about OS updates are good too. But the energy claims look like BS to me:
> In 1990, the annual electricity consumption for (networked) standby of the base stations and charging cradles of cordless landline phones was 37.1 kWh. In 2020, without measures, this would have been 24.5 kWh. Due to the Ecodesign standby regulation, this was reduced to 16.1 kWh in 2020, a 34% saving. Due to the addition of the 2023 Ecodesign regulation on phones, this is expected to further reduce to 8.0 kWh in 2030, a 63% saving versus no measures.
> The regulations focus on measures to extend product lifetime (reparability, upgradability, battery life). The increase in average lifetime, e.g. from 3.0 to 4.1 years for a mid-range smartphone
It's pretty easy to regulate things that aren't made by your domestic companies.