There's an exception for "appliances specifically designed to operate primarily in an environment that is regularly subject to splashing water, water streams or water immersion, and that are intended to be washable or rinseable". This ring is described as water-resistant, so I wonder if it would be allowed?
"2. By way of derogation from paragraph 1, the following products incorporating portable batteries may be designed in such a way as to *make the battery removable and replaceable only by independent professionals*:
(a) appliances specifically designed to operate primarily in an environment that is regularly subject to splashing water, water streams or water immersion, and that are intended to be washable or rinseable;"
This still does NOT allow non-replaceable batteries. Also note "independent".
From my reading, the conditions seem to apply to the environment it primarily operates in, not the product itself. So the product primarily operates in the environment of the hand, and the hand is definitely "regularly subject to splashing water".
I hate to be the person to break it to you, but you're in the wrong subthread and none of what you wrote matters, the context is specifically about the regulation. There is a bunch of other subthreads where people moan about that this doesn't have any actual market.
I’m fully aware that the context is about the regulation.
But this thread is like pointing out that the cybertruck doesn’t meet EU regulations. It doesn’t matter because the truck is a sales disaster in its most potent market and will probably be discontinued.
Ok, so the discussion isn't interesting to you because you think another thing will make the second thing irrelevant. But obviously discussing the second thing has value, regardless of your personal opinion, so why don't you just stay out of the topic instead of trying to change it to something else?
> so why don't you just stay out of the topic instead of trying to change it to something else?
“Because this thread is currently higher up the page than the threads talking about what they want to talk about, so they'll get less attention” would be my guess.
Now you’ve started the meta-topic of my change in topic. This is illegal because your royal decree said that topics can’t change or evolve at all.
I propose we change the subject to how you’re the king of this website and you alone determine the topic of discussion. Would that be okay with you, Dear Leader?
This issue of replaceable battery is not only irrelevant because the product is going to fail, it’s irrelevant because it clearly complies with EU law. If it doesn’t you have to explain how the Apple Watch is legal in Europe with a battery that Apple themselves don’t replace in their stores, opting instead to users an entirely new watch.
> irrelevant because it clearly complies with EU law
Why is that so clear? Multiple other comments in this submission will point you to the exact parts from coming regulations that it doesn't seem to comply with at all, if I recall correctly it'll start being enforced in 2027. So if Apple wants to continue selling their watches in Europe, they'll have to follow that too, and since they've been aware of it for quite some time already, I'm sure they already have plans and actions in motion for doing just that.
Or Apple will throw a hissy fit¹, stop selling them directly here, but get the sales anyway as people will buy them elsewhere and import to sell on the grey market.
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[1] Though last time they did that, disabling existing features in response to the app stores decision, they backed down PDQ, so maybe that threat would have no weight.
