It was a French peculiarity.
When we bought an iPhone or any other smartphone, whatever the brand, we had in the box ... headphones.
Elsewhere in the world, we only had smartphones in the box.
This will soon change: as Frandroid spotted, the Senate definitively adopted a text on Tuesday removing this obligation.
Until now, and since 2010 and the Grenelle II law, smartphones could not "be marketed without an accessory making it possible to limit the exposure of the head to radioelectric emissions during communications". Headphones, then. With the bill "Reduce the environmental footprint of digital in France", voted in Parliament, manufacturers will only "ensure the availability of headphones compatible with the terminal model during its marketing period".
It was primarily for health reasons that the obligation to provide headphones with any new telephone was taken.
However, as the senator from Ain Patrick Chaize (Les Républicains), at the origin of the bill, explains to Frandroid, “bodies of international expertise, such as the World Health Organization, have up to now. 'now refuted the existence of a causal link established between exposure to electromagnetic fields produced by mobile phones and chronic pathologies'.
"In any case, there is nothing to indicate that the free supply of headphones more widely protects these intensive users from the health risks identified", asserts the senator.
Ecological virtues
The end of this obligation for builders would have, above all, an ecological virtue. "Wired headphones, systematically supplied with smartphones, are a major source of waste, even though the market for better quality headphones and listening systems, wired or wireless, is expanding," writes Patrick Chaize to Frandroid. . The health argument cannot justify this source of waste. The argument is all the more valid since the headphones - except Apple - are most often with universal pins.
The measure will come into force after its publication in the Official Journal.
The ball will then be in the constructors' court: whether or not to leave the headphones in the box of the smartphone?
Several manufacturers have already withdrawn the charger, justifying it by a desire to reduce their carbon footprint.
As Frandroid specifies, manufacturers would also benefit from removing the headphones for logistical reasons, without having to create special boxes for France.
Will we see the price drop, however?
Nothing is less sure…
