Addressing international shipping of batteries (i.e. sans USA), it might help if Puri publish a policy as to what or how (or not), anyone outside the USA may purchase a battery and include whether or not ordering a L5 for example, may request that the L5 be shipped with a spare battery.
I considered sending my L5 with no battery in it, and have a battery inserted and shipped back. Too, I wonder, can Puri ship just the battery within the continental USA?
A How-to get a battery (legally of course) would be helpful. Volunteers?
the policy is not set by Purism - it is set by the shipping company
different destinations will use different shipping companies
shipping company policies can change over time
This isn’t just a Librem 5 problem i.e. Librem 14 too.
I can confirm that that works - for a destination requiring air shipment.
If you yourself are actually trying to get a battery, it may be an option to use one of those services where you get a US-based address (i.e. they order on your behalf, the merchant - in this case Purism - sends to them, they organise the onwards shipping - and may be more flexible than the original merchant). You obviously have land-based options that I don’t.
But then if you yourself are actually trying to get a battery, I would email support@puri.sm and see what they can do for you.
OK, policy was wrong word. Perhaps a procedure, guide, caveat, or cautionary word of sage advice. I wouldn’t blame the US laws for not informing international customers to beware.
Won’t apply to me anyway. I wouldn’t order another battery for something that will probably sit in the desk draw, battery removed since the last remaining possible fix by flashing fails with script errors - again. A least they’re new.
Late in this calendar year, at some point I might vacation to Europe. When I do, I might bring only my Librem 5/Liberty Phone because I want to stick it to the smart phone duopoly. [And I will probably be journeying with multiple friends who carry duopoly-supported devices, in case my life would for some reason depend on one.]
Since I normally live in the US, battery shipment is easy. I’m operating off of about 4 batteries currently, although recently I broke some of the cheap wall chargers (from overuse) that I was using to get simultaneous charging of L5 batteries.
So, would I be crazy to offer to meet someone in EU to sell them my L5 battery as I leave to travel home, if someone wanted to do that? I doubt I would want to travel too far from my original trip, but if someone with money happened to journey to my location as I was about to hop on a plane back to the US and happened to trade me money for my battery that I rip out of my phone on the spot and hand off to them, would it essentially be a win/win? I saw someone mentioned it’s hard to get batteries overseas but I don’t really have a handle on exactly how hard.
I was going through trying to get a spare - from US to Canada.
Can’t be done and it’s the law, not Puri. Remember when lithium batteries in laptop we setting fire to things?
Incidents of overheated lithium batteries on aircraft are now happening at a rate of more than one per week, on average. In 2022, the Federal Aviation Administration reported at least 62 incidents involving lithium-ion batteries on airplanes and in airports, compared to 54 incidents the previous year. …More info @ Forbes
@Sharon, @irvinewade is right that Purism does not make up these rules; shipping regulations are different between land vs air transport, between carriers, and even between destination countries. Regarding shipping from USA-Canada, Purism often uses either DHL or USPS+GlobalPost.
These regulations, restrictions, or inherent challenges are not in my wheelhouse, so I’ve asked the shipping manager to write some general guidance so that Purism may offer some helpful insight when ordering batteries (but, as you may expect, they cannot write a definitive/comprehensive guide, as that would be very complex and quickly obsolete given the variables in global shipment).
I have only done personal research on USPS regulations, and have used these resources in the past:
