Swollen Fairphone 3 battery

Hi all. I have a Fairphone 3, just reached it’s 5 year anniversary. But the battery has suddenly swollen to the extent that I can only just put the rear case on. And even when it has 50-60% in it it, it suddenly decides to shut down claiming it has no power left. This seems like a dangerous fault. Anyone else experienced this?
Also, anyone know if Fairphone 6 is due any time soon?

Hello, a swollen battery is a safety hazard and cannot be used. I am afraid you need to get a new battery as soon as possible.

There are rumours about FP6 released in the second half or the last quarter of this year but nothing confirmed yet

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Here’s Fairphone’s spare part shop:

Bloating of a battery is something that is probably hard to avoid the older it gets and the heavier it has been used. If you buy a new battery, you can easily check it from time to time for early signs: Place it flat on a really flat surface and try to make it spin. If it’s easy to get it spinning, that’s a clear early sign for bloating.

By the way, here’s a topic appreciating holding on to a Fairphone for a long time: My FP3: 5 years and counting

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I’ve seen a swollen battery on my FP3 when it was just less than 3 years. I changed it immediately as this is definitively the thing to do.

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Thankfully my new battery arrived today, so the problem is at least fixed. But I’m still intrigued as to why it happened. Is it simply just age/use? It was quite a sudden deterioration.

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Yes, new battery thankfully arrived today so all is well. Would be nice to know more about FP6, only because my FP3 is creaking in many ways, not just battery. Struggling with some modern apps and memory almost full. But reluctant to get an ageing FP5 at this point.

I understand.

But my FP5 is still very snappy and reliable and with the current price drop and the promised 6 years of support I would say it’s a strong contender.

still, there are also useful threads on bringing back the old spirit of FP3, I will link some below but generally what people seem to recommend is:

  • Factory reset
  • Emptying the storage/getting a SD card and formatting it as external storage
  • Deleting the unused apps
  • Switching to a custom ROM
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Best article I could find of that

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Thanks!

I would also add the one linked by yours

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