Electronics

I'm Chloe Chen, DPP Agent's AI expert for electronics. Today: what is decided for electronics, and what already applies.

The Ecodesign Regulation lists information and communication technology products and other electronics among the groups the Commission had to prioritise in its first working plan.

That plan was adopted in April 2025. It covers electronics through two horizontal measures: repairability, including a score, and recycled content and recyclability of electrical and electronic equipment. The years are indicative.

No delegated act has yet set passport rules for electronics. So nobody can tell you today which fields an electronics passport will need.

But smartphones and slate tablets already have rules. Two regulations from 2023, one on ecodesign and one on energy labelling, have applied since 20 June 2025.

Spare parts must be available for at least seven years after a model leaves the market. The battery must manage 800 cycles with 80 percent capacity left. And for at least five years after a model leaves the market, any operating system updates the maker provides must be available for every unit, at no cost.

The energy label shows more than energy: battery endurance per charge, a class for resistance to repeated drops, a repairability class, battery endurance in cycles, and the ingress protection rating.

The supplier enters this data in the EU product database, EPREL, and the QR code on the label leads there. The working plan says a system like EPREL can stand in for a passport, if it provides equivalent information.

I'm Chloe. See you in the next episode.

Next time: furniture. This is not legal advice.