Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

EU: Call to introduce common charger for all mobile phones

europarl.europa.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 185 posts

Re: EU: Call to introduce common charger for all mobile phones

#91

Post by anoncake »

djohnston wrote: post #50
MiroF wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I support the USB-C idea but this latter one is absolutely terrible

More terrible than needing a converter for every pair of wired headphones, and a separate converter for the highly advanced case of wanting to charge my phone while listening to music?

Yes. There are valid reasons for not including a headphone jack whereas there are none for having two incompatible connector types (USB/Lightning) for the same purposes. It would make more sense to encourage manufacturers to make variants of their headphones with a USB plug (AFAIK USB-C supports analog audio).

Mandating that all phones must have a headphone jack would make sense if manufacturers omitted it for anticompetetive or other nefarious reasons, knowingly acting against the interests of their customers. AFAIK there is no evidence for that so why micromanage the engineers in charge?

Re: EU: Call to introduce common charger for all mobile phones

#92

Post by danaris »

Renaud wrote: post #32

Apple really dropped the ball on this and the argument they make (thing about all of the old accessories!) is pretty moot for the consumer. I want all phone to standardise on USB-C. No adapter for Apple, no exception. The point is not just about charging: accessory manufacturers have to develop 2 physical versions of their equipment, for Apple devices and for Android devices. This increases development and manufactur…

The iPad is already moving to USB-C; it's very likely that Apple was already planning to move to USB-C for iPhone chargers within the next year or so (whether because they foresaw a change like this coming, because they felt it was the right thing to do, or just because they, too, want to reduce the number of different connections they have to deal with on the manufacturing side).

There are problems with USB-C, however—one of those being that some USB-C charger and cable combinations will simply fry your phone due to being wildly out of spec.

Re: EU: Call to introduce common charger for all mobile phones

#93

Post by lowken10 »

zaarn wrote: post #51
Renaud wrote: post #32

Apple really dropped the ball on this and the argument they make (thing about all of the old accessories!) is pretty moot for the consumer. I want all phone to standardise on USB-C. No adapter for Apple, no exception. The point is not just about charging: accessory manufacturers have to develop 2 physical versions of their equipment, for Apple devices and for Android devices. This increases development and manufactur…

The EU simply told the manufacturers to agree on a single port or else they would have to regulate one. Apple ruined the party for everyone.

The problem is had the EU been able to do this before we might have been stuck with Micro USB. A scary thought.

Re: EU: Call to introduce common charger for all mobile phones

#94

Post by llampx »

gmueckl wrote: post #84
gpderetta wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it was more: "the industry is strongly encouraged to self standardize or else". We are on the "or else" stage now. edit: to be fair, a lot of appliances (not just phones) come with USB chargers these days, so it is not too bad.

The goal should be to have chargers sold separately. Packaging chargers with the devices does nothing to reduce electronics waste.

That's an anti-consumer move guaranteed to add $20-50 to any phone purchase.

Re: EU: Call to introduce common charger for all mobile phones

#95

Post by ken »

fierarul wrote: post #25

Why stop at mobile phones? Is there a reason laptops need so many different connectors? I am willing to bet many random connectors are just planned obsolescence or a secondary revenue stream for producers. Also, let's take this further. Any reason laptop displays can't internally have a rather standardised connector? We are throwing away perfectly good displays on broken laptops. What if I could buy a $20 adaptor and…

Why stop at computers? Dewalt, Milwaukee, Makita, and every other power tool uses its own proprietary battery connector.

Why stop at DC power? Last I checked, Germany, France, England, Italy, and many of the smaller countries all had their own AC power connectors.

Why stop at hardware? iMessage, Hangouts, Messenger, Slack, and all the rest use their own proprietary interfaces. I still can't even save "a spreadsheet" in one program and reliably open it in another.

I can put any bit in any drill, and any blade in any saw, but as soon as electricity gets involved, everything gets stupid. A lot of programmers say they're interested in "visualization", but visualization was the default state of the world before electrons got involved. Most programmers use the invisible nature of software to disguise the proprietary and incompatible interfaces they're creating.

I hear a lot of developers complain about how their Mac laptop is no longer expandable or upgradeable, and then they turn around and use it to write a web app which uses a custom client-server interface with no public API or import/export. An industry is only anti-consumer when I'm the consumer.

Re: EU: Call to introduce common charger for all mobile phones

#96

Post by johnwalkr »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #79
fierarul wrote: post #25

Why stop at mobile phones? Is there a reason laptops need so many different connectors? I am willing to bet many random connectors are just planned obsolescence or a secondary revenue stream for producers. Also, let's take this further. Any reason laptop displays can't internally have a rather standardised connector? We are throwing away perfectly good displays on broken laptops. What if I could buy a $20 adaptor and…

IMHO everything that can be safely and reliably powered via a USB cable (of whatever a relevant standard connector type) should be powered that way nowadays (with exception of PoE and other cases where a non-USB power supply actually adds significant value for the consumer). An unpleasant surprise I have recently experienced was a Nintendo Switch refusing to connect to an HDMI TV without being attached to a Nintendo…

Power consumption increases a lot for better graphics quality, depending on the game. And while I think it’s true that the switch is non-compliant or at least strange, it generally works if the power supply can provide 15V (somewhat uncommon).

Re: EU: Call to introduce common charger for all mobile phones

#97

Post by johnwalkr »

oxplot wrote: post #70

Awesome. I've already started doing my own move to all things USB-C by making a custom made board [1] (which is also for sale [2]). I have so far converted 10 devices at home and gotten rid of their bulky bricks. [1]: https://blog.oxplot.com/usb-pd-standalone-sink-controller/ [2]: https://www.tindie.com/products/oxplot/stusb4500-compact-bre...

This is great! I have an idea for v2, can I email you?

Re: EU: Call to introduce common charger for all mobile phones

#98

Post by sokoloff »

gambiting wrote: post #38
yostrovs wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's take this further still. Why not mandate identical car tire sizes, having the fuel door in the same spot on every car, all the controls inside the car be universal... How about actually just making one car that embodies every European's needs?

You can argue that there is an actual practical reason for things like different tyre sizes. There is no practical reason for having slightly different barrel connectors on different laptops that makes them all incompatible.

Different barrel jacks and adapters on different products have different voltages, sometimes different polarities, some are AC, some are DC.

Some laptops have different voltage batteries that each "prefer" a different optimal voltage for building the on-board charger. This is a close analogy IMO to different sized tires on autos/trucks.

Many companies would be happy to standardize, so long as everyone else changed and they got to be the de facto/de jure standard. Bonus points if they held a royalty-generating license on the connector/communications standard.

Re: EU: Call to introduce common charger for all mobile phones

#99

Post by oxplot »

johnwalkr wrote: post #97
oxplot wrote: post #70

Awesome. I've already started doing my own move to all things USB-C by making a custom made board [1] (which is also for sale [2]). I have so far converted 10 devices at home and gotten rid of their bulky bricks. [1]: https://blog.oxplot.com/usb-pd-standalone-sink-controller/ [2]: https://www.tindie.com/products/oxplot/stusb4500-compact-bre...

This is great! I have an idea for v2, can I email you?

Sure thing!

Re: EU: Call to introduce common charger for all mobile phones

#100

Post by martin_a »

voqv wrote: post #62
martin_a wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My retired W520 got a 170 W one. So, they're out there. But probably only a few.

There's a 230W charger for use with current Thinkpad workstations, it's an absolute unit. [1] [1] https://i.redd.it/5ln51upcv8w21.jpg

Woah, you'll need a drivers license for that thing!
Post reply on HN