The European Commission has exempted wearable technology from regulations requiring batteries that users can remove and replace. The change removes a major obstacle to Meta’s latest smart glasses reaching the EU, Politico reports.
The delegated act, which was adopted on Tuesday, adds six categories of products to the list of exemptions. It covers wearable devices such as smart watches and fitness trackers, electronic toys, and equipment used in explosive environments.
Parliament and the national government have 20 days to object. If they don’t, it takes effect.
The difference is hard to miss
These are not vague rules. Under the Batteries Act, portable batteries in products sold in the EU must generally be removable and user-replaceable, to extend product life and promote recycling.
The law has real teeth. Nintendo is discontinuing the original Switch in Europe instead of complying, and the portable devices must allow owners to replace the batteries from February 2027.
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So the game console has to meet the standard, and the camera that is worn on your face now is not the same. The law was designed to force manufacturers to rethink product design, and removing the entire category is a retreat from that.
What Washington said
The persuasion was not subtle. In March, US Ambassador to the EU Andrew Puzder said the rules were so broad and restrictive that they prevented the sale of a good, jointly developed US-European product.
He called the glasses very stylish, and told Europe that it should focus on allowing businesses to grow and innovate. That’s an ambassador for one American company’s product line.
The Commission rejects what is said, saying that it did not give in to anyone’s pressure. In evidence, that denial holds up better than the surrounding structure.
Wrong timeline
The Commission account is auditable, and auditable. It introduced a request for new exemption applications in 2025, a year before Puzder said a word.
External experts then assess the technical suitability of the applications received, in conjunction with consultations with consumer groups, industries, and member states. This was a process that had already started, no one came forward to answer the ambassador.
The exemption is also less than “releasedUnder the Commission’s document, these batteries still have to be removed and replaced by independent technicians, so end-user removal has been discontinued, not repairable.
There is an example, too. Medical devices and wet electronics such as electric toothbrushes are already in this category, exempt for safety reasons and repairable by professionals.
Criticism survives all that
BEUC, Europe’s largest consumer association, still calls it a dangerous example. The exemption should be a genuine exception based on technical and safety evidence, not industry pressure, said digital policy chief Cláudio Texeira.
That objection does not depend on the timeline. Even a properly conducted process can achieve the effect of closing down the dominant green law one category at a time.
The Commission itself acknowledges that. Its release notes that improperly disposed small lithium-ion batteries are causing an increasing number of fires at waste treatment facilities, which is exactly what the removal was intended to reduce.
And emotional music is important, given that Europe is breaking its own rulebook to compete with America. A defensible decision can still come within an indefensible trend.
Brussels law does not rest
None of this touches on a more serious problem. Smart glasses are always sensitive to privacy, and the battery decision does nothing to solve it.
The European Data Protection Board issued a report on this section, due this summer, after which it will consider the action. Irish and Italian regulators have raised concerns since 2021 about whether bystanders can say they are being filmed.
The most damaging part was not compatible with batteries. Meta terminated the contract with Sama after the Kenyan employees said they were reviewing the images taken with the glasses while explaining the details of training the AI models.
The Meta points to its defenses, including an LED that lights up when it’s recording and is detected by interference to stop the people covering it. It has since pushed an update that disables the camera if that light is damaged, which is an actual fix for an actual exploit.
A real winner
Commercially, this is an important opening. More than 7 million pairs of Meta smart glasses will be sold worldwide by 2025, and EssilorLuxottica says US sales are rising sharply while European distribution is slowing, with more than half of sales points untapped.
Samsung, Google, and Apple all have smart glasses programs, and they’re all benefiting. The category is made easier to sell at the same time that it is investigated for privacy.
That’s not a contradiction, because battery laws and privacy laws answer different questions. But Brussels has removed the hardware barrier for the device it has not yet decided is acceptable, and the responsibility for that succession is theirs.
