You make this claim but have you ever worked in product design for something trying to achieve an IP water and dust ingress rating?

It is far more than "just a gasket and a few screws". The rating can't just be good on unboxing day. You want it to hold even after a few years, several drops on the floor, in cold weather, etc.

Watch makers solved this problem decades ago - there are very reasonable mechanical solutions to waterproofing. And if some limited components need to be sealed (i.e. the USB port requires special shielding) that sealing can easily exist in a device that is otherwise reasonable to maintain.

Watch maintenance has been done by skilled professionals using generic tools and (generally) generic components. Waterproofing is an excuse used to limit our ability to repair and maintain our devices and maybe because somebody didn't like the appearance of a screw face or screw cover on one side of the device.

How does the case size of a watch compare to the movement size?

Are you prepared to have a similar ratio for your phone? Basically the phones we have now with a permanent, very durable waterproof case?

Why are you comparing ratios of office vs wristwatches? You should be comparing phones with wall clocks. Those things are mostly empty.

This is precisely the point. It’s easy to make a durable case if it can be more than twice the size of the components it’s encasing.

Do most watches have ports that are designed for thousands of uses? My smart watch sure does. But of all the possible avenues by which its waterproofness might fail, that connector is #1. I'm pretty sure its custom, as the cable has actual pogo pins to connect.

Strictly from a product design and especially hardware design standpoint, I get the resistance to easy replacement of certain parts. Designing for a replaceable battery means designing your seal to withstand at least twice as many battery replacements as the law requires, or you make sure you have enough replacement seals stockpiled to cover the number that will be replaced, or you use a a commodity seal (think an O-ring).

Apple eventually made ~86 million iPhone 8 and 8 plus. Let's say that's representative of any given model of phone. How many millions (billions?) of seals is that? How much does that cost to store? To distribute? How much does that affect the cost of the phone?

I am fully behind right-to-repair. I won't work for companies that have lobbied against it (and as an embedded hardware and firmware guy, that's significant). But there is a measurable, monetary cost to designing things to be repaired. Either we accept that only the richest n% of e.g. phone manufacturers can afford to stay in business, we as the consumer accept lower performance at the same price point, or both.

All of that said, my point regarding connectors with finite cycle lifespans is relevant. These physical devices themselves have a lifespan. What is the point of replacing a battery when the charging port, headphone jack, physical buttons, touch screen, etc are spec'd to fail well before the average battery does? What about if you have the same iPhone 8 soldering problem, where the phone can't actually survive being put in the back pocket of a decently tight pair of pants? How does government regulation regarding batteries reverse the trend of people buying cheap things because they cost less?

These phones have been made before at scale, I'm sure we could manage: https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_s5-6033.php

> What is the point of replacing a battery when the charging port, headphone jack, physical buttons, touch screen, etc are spec'd to fail well before the average battery does

Parts often/usually last far in excess of what they're spec'd for as I'm sure you know. And many of the things you list aren't critical to operation like the battery is.

And they also required the flap to be closed for it to be water resistant.

Yes but USB C has solved that problem.

Which modern phone has a removable battery and is water resistant?

The vaunted Samsung s5, you still had to make sure that the battery was very secure and just right.

> https://www.gottabemobile.com/samsung-galaxy-s5-water-test-d...

> If you remove the battery, the Galaxy S5 will remind you to make sure the back cover is back in place securely.

Apparently the brand new iphone 14! https://www.ifixit.com/News/64865/iphone-14-teardown

The new law apparently doesn't require a user to be able to replace the battery by hand. Just that it is serviceable.

The iPhone has always been serviceable by an authorized Apple dealer or if you’re good enough and brave enough by the end user wiling to use the iFixit guide.

So, you're saying the answer to your own question was "basically all iphones"?

I think the new law would basically mean the end user doesn't have to deal with glue now at least.

The answer to my question - was that you could spend $69 - $99 to get a battery replaced by an authorized Apple provider and if they broke something or didn’t do it right, it would be covered under warranty.

They solved it in a way where they don't guarantee you that it is water proof for more than 2 years without service and appropriate maintenance and it stops being water proof as soon as you open it.

I can also make a tiny little thingy waterproof, but it’s much harder to do with a mini-computer that is insanely powerful, has a whole camera department, can be used as a semi-professional video recorder, can withstand drops, and has a 1+ days battery life at least.

Also, it is just ingenious to attribute everything to malice — is a modern combustion engine also irreparable because of some conteo, or is it irreparable simply because for efficiency reasons they had to use more precise technology with smaller error margins, where one’s fatty human hand just doesn’t cut anymore?

the easiest way is to just separately encapsulate all parts that need to be removable (i.e. the battery + wireless charging coil in one piece and the rest of the phone in the other), and only have the connectors as the exposed pieces. A gasket around those and contacts far enough away from each other for good measure and you're good to go.

Plus the Samsung Active line never needed to go to these extremes to churn out perfectly fine waterproof phones at slightly higher than average prices. And they weren't the only ones with these sort of offerings.

That means double the casing which takes up space and adds weight.

I never claimed it was impossible. I'm only pointing out there are far more severe design constraints than a lot of people even understand, yet they confidently proclaim it is both a simple matter of trivial engineering and completely free of consequences.

Controlling water in machines is not new, neither is phone design. It's been done a million ways and all of those ways have certain trade offs. It's just another design challenge and the flipside of your comment is a suggestion that there isn't some person other than me that is up to the challenge. Customers can make their own judgements about looks and size versus (replaceable battery) functionality as they always have.

The fact is gluing is simpler and cheaper but most importantly it reduces the repairability of phones by third parties. Quite often trying to repair a phone will cause it to be destroyed, making replacing a battery more risky and difficult. Companies would love not to have to use glue, but <design excuse>! Nothing at all to do with built-in obsolescence.

I'm sure many people want a repairable smartphone and a replaceable battery. Of course, there are many that don't. I don't understand how it make sense to force those people, that don't want a repairable phone and a replaceable battery, to get such a smartphone.

Because the cost of the waste these throw-away phones generate isn't priced in. There is a societal cost that isn't being paid by the firm or the consumer.

Honestly, it probably only adds a few bucks to the BOM and the consumer who doesn't care about repairability still likely comes out better off in the long run because their phone lasts them longer and/or resells for more because it isn't junk after 3 years.

Iphones are arguably not too repairable, yet they absolutely dominate the whole market in their lifetimes - often having 2-3 owners.

Yeah iphones were premium/valuable enough that people would go through the trouble to repair them even if they had to deal with some glue.

With android phones the resale value/demand wasn't there (also due in part to bad software support lifetimes which would also need to be addressed) so they'd just get tossed/shelved after 2 to 3 years even if they were perfectly functional.

Users of cars pretty routinely replace seals that are under a lot more extreme enviroments and abuse than a phone without issue. All of the ones I've dealt with pretty much are "just a gasket and a few screws" Sure, there needs to be some design process to get there, but let's not pretend that doing this would be some unheard of technological advancement.

Cars are much larger and their seals are much larger. They consequently have much more play and far larger tolerances.

If you scaled the forces and subjected the car to the equivalent of dropping a phone on the floor it would be totaled instantly... forget about maintaining waterproofing.

Thus I stand by my original statement: people making claims like "just a gasket and some screws" have never designed a product under similar constraints and are making bad assumptions or straight-up Dunning-Kruger errors left and right.