EU Battery Regulation 2027: How to adapt product design for new removable battery rules

From February 2027, new EU Battery Regulations will require portable batteries in products sold in Europe to be removable and replaceable using commonly available tools. The new legislation (EU 2023/1542) targets sustainability. It aims to reduce carbon footprints, minimize the use of harmful substances, and encourage reuse/recycling. However, for many product teams, the new rules bring uncomfortable implications. Product designs that rely on sealed enclosures or glued assemblies – including those aiming for high IP ratings - may no longer be viable in their current form.

In this blog, we explore what the shift means in practical product design terms. Drawing on real-world experience, Rompa’s Product Development and Engineering Manager, Fred Wiekens, explains what happens when removability, waterproofing, aesthetics, cost, and manufacturability collide, and what product teams should be doing now to avoid costly redesigns.

At its core, the EU Battery Regulation shifts removability from a design choice to a requirement. An unintended consequence is exposing how often product requirements are over-specified. In many cases, devices are designed to meet extreme protection standards that don’t reflect how they are actually used — and those decisions quietly shape everything that follows.

“We regularly see products designed for IP67 when they’ll never be submerged in water,” says Fred Wiekens. “Once you make that assumption, you almost force yourself into sealed or glued constructions. At Rompa, we use techniques like ultrasonic or laser welding for customers all the time to deliver excellent ingress protection, but by definition they create enclosures that can only be opened by destroying the product.”

Those choices may have made sense when products were never meant to be opened. Under the new rules, they become constraints. Waterproofing, thin form factors, and aesthetic simplicity all compete directly with battery accessibility, and long-term serviceability. “Sealing is no longer a one-and-done process”, adds Fred. “When batteries have to be replaceable, sealing has to be repeatable.”

Product teams can, of course, try to find a way to make their current designs comply with the new regulations, but a more sensible and cost-effective approach is to reassess which requirements genuinely add value and which ones increase cost, complexity, and risk without improving real-world performance.

Making a product watertight is a well-understood challenge. Making it watertight again after it has been opened by a user is not.

Many traditional sealing strategies assume a single, permanent closure. Glues, welds, and compression seals work well when a product remains in the state that it left the factory. Removing batteries can cause seals to shift, deform, or degrade, and even small changes in how a product is reassembled can have a significant impact on performance.

As Fred explains, the problem is often not the seal itself, but how it is used. O-rings, for example, rely on precise compression and alignment: “If a seal is damaged, misplaced, or reassembled incorrectly, the product may look fine, but it won’t behave the same way in the real world.”

This is why repeatable access forces teams to rethink enclosure geometry, fastening strategies, and material choices together. Waterproofing can no longer be treated as a final checkbox; it has to be designed as a behaviour the product can sustain over its lifetime.

Once a device leaves the factory, it enters an unpredictable environment. As Fred points out, “screws get dropped. Seals get twisted. Components are reinserted slightly out of alignment.” And even small details can have outsized consequences. “If a screw falls onto a carpet, there’s a good chance it’s never going back in,” he notes. “So, you have to assume the product won’t always be reassembled perfectly.”

That reality has important design implications. Products that rely on multiple small fasteners, precise torque, or carefully oriented seals may perform flawlessly in testing, but fail over time in the hands of real users. Designing for removable batteries therefore means designing for imperfect behaviour: limiting the number of parts that can be lost, guiding reassembly so components only fit one way, and avoiding solutions that depend on specialist tools or delicate handling.

In short, compliance is both a mechanical and behavioural challenge.

Consider a compact consumer device designed for everyday use and to withstand occasional exposure to water - something like the leak detector we wrote about in a recent blog on wireless connectivity.

In its original form, the simplest route to reliability might be a sealed construction: glued or welded shut to protect the electronics and meet an ambitious ingress rating. From a manufacturing perspective, that can be efficient and robust. From a regulatory perspective, it now creates a hard constraint. Because once the battery must be accessible, the product can no longer rely on a one-time seal. But switching from a permanent seal to a serviceable one, starts a cascade of design choices.

Flat enclosures can flex under screw compression, creating weak points in the seal. “If you squeeze an O-ring down in a flexible ‘box’ design, it can bulge — and then you’re no longer compressing the seal evenly,” Fred explains. That’s why details like where you place screws and how you structure the seal suddenly matter: “Putting fasteners outside the O-ring rather than inside will remove an entire leakage risk.”

The point is not that there’s one “right” construction. It’s that the fastest, cheapest fix is rarely the best one. Taking a step back to reassess real-world waterproofing needs, expected battery life, and how often access is genuinely required can lead to better options. A new design may be a more effective way to balance compliance, usability, and manufacturability instead of trading them off against each other.

For teams developing battery-powered products for the European market, the EU Battery Regulation makes early design decisions more important than ever. Rather than treating removability as a late-stage compliance exercise, it’s worth addressing a few fundamentals upfront:

• Revisit real-world protection needs. Is full immersion genuinely required, or is protection against splashes or jet water sufficient?
• Design seals for repetition, not perfection. Assume products will be opened, reassembled imperfectly, and used again.
• Consider user behaviour. Fewer fasteners, guided assembly, and support for standard tools will reduce risk.
• Involve manufacturing early. Sealing, fastening, and enclosure geometry need to work together at scale.

Addressing these questions early helps teams avoid costly redesigns and results in products that are compliant, robust, and ready for real-world use

The EU Battery Regulation is a reminder that product compliance, usability, and manufacturability are deeply interconnected. Adapting to the new removable battery rules requires informed design decisions, taken early, with a clear understanding of how those choices affect the finished product in the real world.

As a full-service contract manufacturing partner, Rompa supports customers across the entire journey, from product design and engineering through to tooling, production, assembly, and testing.

If you’re developing a battery-powered product, contact Rompa’s expert team to explore how to balance compliance, performance, and manufacturability from the outset. Or learn more about Rompa’s full-solution contract manufacturing capabilities here:
https://rompagroup.com/manufacturing/full-solution-contract-manufacturing