The European Commission has exempted wearable technology from regulations requiring user-removable batteries. The change removes the biggest hurdle to Meta’s latest smart glasses reaching the EU. This was reported by Politico.
The enabling act passed on Tuesday adds six product categories to the list of exemptions. This includes wearable devices such as smart watches and fitness trackers, electric toys and equipment used in explosive atmospheres.
Parliament and national governments have 20 days to object. If they don’t, it takes effect.
The contrast is hard to miss
These are not obscure rules. Under the Batteries Regulation, portable batteries in products sold in the EU must generally be removable and replaceable by consumers to extend product life and improve recycling.
The law has real teeth. Nintendo does Discontinuation of the original Switch in Europe From February 2027, mobile devices must allow owners to replace batteries.
So the game console has to meet the standard, and now the camera on your face doesn’t. Such was the charter designed to force manufacturers to rethink product designand to raise a whole category is to retreat from it.
What Washington said
The lobbying was not subtle. In March, the US ambassador to the EU, Andrew Puzder, said the rules were so broad and restrictive that they prevented the sale of a nice, co-developed US-European product.
He called the glasses very stylish and said Europe should focus on growing businesses and focusing on innovation. It’s an ambassador arguing for a single American company’s product line.
The Commission categorically rejects this content, stating that it does not yield to anyone’s pressure. On the evidence, this denial holds up better than the surrounding frame.
Inconvenient timeline
The commission’s own account is audited and it checks. Puzder launched a call for applications for new exemptions in 2025, a year before he said a word.
External experts then assessed the technical merits of the applications received, in addition to consultations with consumer groups, industry and member states. It was a process already in motion, not a process concocted in response to some ambassador.
An exception is “narrower than”is releasedAccording to the commission’s text, these batteries must still be removed and replaced by independent professionals, so end-user removal is denied, not repairable.
There is also a precedent. Medical devices and wet devices such as electric toothbrushes already fall into this category, are exempt for safety reasons and can be repaired by professionals.
Criticism that escapes all this
BEUC, Europe’s largest consumer organization, still calls it a dangerous precedent. Exceptions should be genuine exceptions based on technical and security evidence, not industrial pressure, said Cláudio Texeira, its head of digital policy.
That objection does not depend on the timeline. Even a properly executed process can result in a flagship green law being removed from one category at a time.
The commission itself accepts the stakes. Its release notes that mis-discarded small lithium-ion batteries are causing an increase in fires at waste treatment plants, which were designed to reduce removability.
And with that in mind, mood music is important Europe is scrapping its own rulebook to compete with America. A defensible decision can still enter an indefensible trend.
The rule of Brussels is not relaxing
None of this addresses the more difficult problem. Smart glasses remain under heavy privacy scrutiny, and the battery decision does nothing to address that.
The European Data Protection Board has prepared a report on the category, due this summer, and will review the measures thereafter. Irish and Italian regulators have raised concerns about whether bystanders will be able to tell they are filming by 2021.
The most damaging episode had nothing to do with batteries. Meta Kenya terminated Sama’s contract after employees said they were viewing intimate footage Shot through the glasses while interpreting data to train AI models.
The meta hints at security measures, including an LED that lights up during recording and intrusion detection to stop people tampering with it. It has ever since pushed an update that turns off the camera if that light is destroyedthis is a real fix for real exploitation.
Who actually wins?
From a commercial point of view, this is a significant lock. More than 7 million pairs of Meta smart glasses have been sold worldwide in 2025, and EssilorLuxottica says US sales are growing exponentially, while European distribution lags behind and more than half of its sales outlets are still unserved.
Samsung, Google, and Apple all have plans for smart glasses, and they’re all benefiting. The category is being explored for privacy while also making it easier to sell.
This is not inconsistent because the battery rules and the privacy rules answer different questions. But Brussels has cleared the hardware hurdle for a device it has yet to decide is acceptable, and the burden of consistency is now on itself.
