When a person buys a consumer electronic item like an iPhone or Apple Watch, that item is their personal property to do what they see fit with, so long as they do not use it to violate laws or others peoples basic human rights & freedoms! Device repair eco-friendly by reducing e-waste. Lithium Ion battery recycling important too!
To reduce e-waste & save you money! Device repair better for the environment & your budget!
When the manufacturer or designer of the product seals it to make it very difficult to perform basic maintenance or repairs, that's wrong! Screens are made of glass & glass breaks & everyone knows it! So naturally the screen on a smartphone should be easy to repair, replacement parts made widely available to anyone who owns that device.
Lithium ion batteries like the ones in most smartwatches & smartphones are called LIPO or lithium polymer batteries, typically with a NMC cathode made of nickel, manganese & cobalt in an 8:1:1 ratio & a cathode made of graphite or hard carbon. Metal foils of aluminum & copper are coated with these pastes or powders, then an electrode separator film sorta like Goretex, with engineered pores that allow the lithium ions to flow, placed between the two coated foils to prevent the anode & cathode from short circuiting. This jelly role of carbon coated anode metal foil, separator film, and NMC coated cathode metal foil, are rolled up into a coil that's flattened into a roughly rectangular geometry, then wrapped in mylar or aluminized plastic polymer, the electrodes connectors are laser welded to the battery tabs sticking out from the smashed role, then the BMS laser welded to the connectors. This is done an an inert nitrogen or argon sealed laser welding machine to prevent moisture & oxygen from contaminating the cell. Electrolyte then injected into the resulting pack.
These typical LiPO batteries have around 250-600 watt hours per kilogram of energy density & a peak discharge current of around 5-25C, while they can survive a few years & perhaps 1000 cycles before they have poor run time or can no longer hold a charge well anymore, known as a faded battery. LiPo batteries often swell up & become puffed in appearance near the end of life or EOL when they are ready for lithium ion battery recycling. Damaged by 100% charging, high heat & deep discharging or very fast charging or charging while frozen, you can make your common portable consumer electronics & smart device batteries last 5X longer by keeping them partially charged, near room temperature, with moderate electrical current loads & normal speed charging.
The point is that the battery often the first thing to wear out by giving the device shorter battery life or reduced runtime per charge. A weak battery often the only reason that someone uses to justify buying a newer smartphone or smartwatch, as the weak battery the only thing wrong with the previous device. This create a lot of e-waste that could be reduced if battery replacements in smartphones was easier, like it used to be on nearly all cell phones since the beginning of consumer cell phones in the late 1990's. It was not until Apple made the first iPhone that device makers started sealing in the batteries making them non user replaceable. Fortunately third parties like Batteries + Bulbs or Batteries + have a device repair program where you can bring in your Samsung or Apple smartphone & have a battery replacement done for a reasonable price.
Anytime your device is new or has a new battery installed, make sure to fully charge it & deep cycle it between 10 & 100% a few times at first to format the cell & wake up all of its capacity. The first full cycle forms an SEI layer on the separator film that enhances the useful life or lifetime of the battery, enabling it to survive more charge & discharge cycles for a longer period of time, or it just makes your battery last a lot longer! Store unused lithium ion batteries at 30-40% state of charge & give them a little 10min bump charge for storage every month or so.
Never charge a frozen battery or frozen device with a lithium ion battery inside, that will brick the battery by causing lithium to plate out onto the cathode, ruining it instantly by taking away all its charge holding capacity, so the battery becomes e-waste for recycling right away. Make sure your devices are above 20 C or around 50 F & keep then bellow 122 F or around 50 C, lithium ion batteries last longer around 25 C or 75 F, warm, not cold or hot. This is why Tesla puts battery warmers & liquid cooling in the Model S, Model 3, Model Y battery packs, to keep the batteries from freezing or becoming too hot, warm or cool, never frozen or very hot. Think of the Boing Dreamliner battery failing & thermal runaway, venting with flame, sometimes consumer electronics like smartphones smoke & flame out crispy burning when left on the charger all night long, which overcharges the battery by holding it at 100% or 4.35vdc & leaking a small amount of charge current into it, which can cause the cell pouch to rupture or the anode & cathode to short via tunneling hairs of conductor that short through the separator film.
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