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EU plans to force OEMs to use a common charger for all phones

xda-developers.com

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Re: EU plans to force OEMs to use a common charger for all phones

#201

Post by jounker »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #141
xorcist wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I use the same USB plug everywhere, That's because of EU regulation. All the big manufacturers had their own connector before that, micro-USB started to look like a common connector among the low end manufacturers. This is the next step for that regulation and has been in the cards for some time.

>>> That's because of EU regulation. I am interested in that (because the "secret history" of many market driven change often ends up being a regulator in one influential area made a good decision - the usual example being California and car pollution standards) Edit: just to say I am not commenting either way on the EU here, or on regulators in general. I am just interested if there was a clear point in USB standard…

I Lived through it. It was not obscure. It was major tech news.

Re: EU plans to force OEMs to use a common charger for all phones

#202

Post by theranger »

jsudi wrote: post #139
cute_boi wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but without writing in law apple will never care about environment right? They are getting money from each connector so why would they? Is it possible to solve such issue without law? What solution do you propose? If you have solution let us know?

If citizens care about the environment they will stop buying Apple products. They don’t, hence they don’t care about the environment. Why make laws that go against the citizen wishes?

Apple recycles huge amounts of materials from old products. I really hope that people are not following your suggestion and estimate the environmental impact only by iPhone cable and connector port.

Re: EU plans to force OEMs to use a common charger for all phones

#203

Post by mclightning »

Aerroon wrote: post #174
iSnow wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why the EU back then banged the heads of the manufacturers together to force them to come up with a common standard, instead of picking one and forcing it down their throat.

Is that why the standard that USB-C cables use is such a ridiculous mess? > Even the seemingly most basic function of USB-C — powering devices — continues to be a mess of compatibility issues, conflicting proprietary standards, and a general lack of consumer information to guide purchasing decisions. https://www.androidauthority.com/state-of-usb-c-870996/

Worst examples of USB-C in that list is better than USB2.0...

USB-C is not lacking. You simply get what you paid for. I am using USB-C to charge my laptop, phone, earbuds. It's been amazing having just 1 single cable dangling on my desk, instead of several. This alone has been enough positive to justify the move over to USB-C.

Re: EU plans to force OEMs to use a common charger for all phones

#204

Post by Kbelicius »

sfg wrote: post #181
iSnow wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't a non-issue till the EU stepped in. Every manufacturer had their own plug and some (eg. Nokia) even had more than one, of course they were incompatible. I'm grateful that the EU stepped up here. I feel for Apple's hurt pride here that they should adopt something they didn't invent, but since we are a mixed Android/Apple household, getting rid of Lightning will be nice.

It was always a non-issue. I live in a mixed Apple and Android house and its a non-issue. If it was an issue, we'd just consolidate our house, but we don't, because -- like you -- we don't find it enough of an issue to care.

Do you make sure that your cables are properly disposed? How do you dispose of them?

Re: EU plans to force OEMs to use a common charger for all phones

#205

Post by jounker »

hungryforcodes wrote: post #80
mrsuprawsm wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lightning connector is a more physically robust one than USB-C. The male lightning connector is a single flat piece; the female connector is a hole with the contacts on the top + bottom of the port. Compare to USB-C, which has an exposed "tab" in the middle of the female connector, and the male connector has a matching "hole" in the middle. This makes USB-C more vulnerable to e.g. dust collecting, and damage of t…

We don't really know that -- USB-C hasn't been out long enough. I can tell you that for durability I hate lightning, because it always seems to have connection problems after a while and the plug itself seems overly complex for what it does. I can't recall ever having any such connection problems with micro USB or USB A for example. In general it's easy to see also that the lightning connector itself is far more expo…

Get a toothpick an scrape out the socket.

Re: EU plans to force OEMs to use a common charger for all phones

#206

Post by dexen »

Ginden wrote: post #200
dexen wrote: post #188

Bad move, an unforced error. This will stifle innovation needlessly, similarly to how US' (previously) mandated single model of sealed beam headlights stifled their automobile headlights innovation for several decades. Seems some bureaucrat has dusted off the bad old "Everything that can be invented has been invented." quote. The only possible upside would be manufacturers standardizing on wireless charging in all de…

> This will stifle innovation needlessly Do we have any room left for innovation in charging ports? USB-C provides 24 pins, up to 240W Power Delivery (negotiable), up to 40 Gbit/s, ability to negotiate alternate modes (so manufacturer can implement new proprietary protocol if they want/need to and put basically anything over those 24 pins).

>Do we have any room left for innovation in charging ports?

Absolutely!

The sheer amount of optional features in USB-C cables makes charging - in particular fast charging, and charging tablet/laptop sized devices - a hit-or-miss game.

USB-C's design was made to balance of costs with regards to client device complexity: 12 pins in total, three twisted pair signalling pathways, of which two are optional. All this is because both of need for backwards compatibility, and also current limitations on low-power, low-cost USB devices that need compat back to USB 1.1. Two thirds could conceivably be done away, using two pins for power and two for singalling. On a large volume production, a smaller number of pins pays off in costs - once Super Speed-grade transceivers are cheap enough for all devices. Alternatively, once optical interconnect becomes cheap enough, we could return to that technology - two power pins & one optical connector. For example Thunderbolt originally started out as optical connector [1], and was only later shifted to copper due to still costly technology.

A phone would also benefit from a contact connector similar to Apple's magsafes (attached via magnets) rather than insertion plug; both due to mechanical concerns and also savings on internal space. That we are stuck with plugs and sockets is largely artifact of requirements for uses other than charging, including pendrives & other USB dongles.

Lastly, a clear directionality hint to charging cables would be good: if you connect a phone to a tablet, which should charge which? Some sort of marking or indicator for the (rare) ambiguous case would be nice.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface)#Copper...

Re: EU plans to force OEMs to use a common charger for all phones

#207

Post by maccard »

zatarc wrote: post #183
maccard wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or $0.70 per year at current energy prices.

Germany: hold my beer! 1.78€ or $2.09 But thats not point here. Everyone is talking about the climate change and then we want to charge millions or billions of phones with ~50% extra power? Good idea!

In absolute terms it's nothing though. An average household uses 4000 kWh of electricity in the UK (less than half of the average us household), so saving the 5kWh on 4 phones is a 0.5% saving, which is roughly equivalent to running your home boiler for 10 minutes per year. Turning off your thermostat for one evening would have the equivalent impact of not using a wireless charger for a century.

Re: EU plans to force OEMs to use a common charger for all phones

#208

Post by akvadrako »

amelius wrote: post #90
sph wrote: post #4

Good, though in practice it's not the charger the problem, I use the same USB plug everywhere, it's Apple and their cable. Right now I always need with me a micro USB cable, an USB-C one, and Lightning, because Apple thinks different™. What's Apple reasoning for not abandoning Lightning for USB-C on their phones?

Can't we have protocol-agnostic cables? I mean, we use hundreds of different protocols over-the-air, so why can't we do the same with cables?

USB-C is protocol-agnostic. In alt-mode the extra wires can be used for HDMI, DisplayPort, PCIe, analog audio, or anything else really.

You can also put whatever voltage that can be physically handled over the power pins after negotiating with the other side. USB-PD is the common standard but it can be extended.

Re: EU plans to force OEMs to use a common charger for all phones

#209

Post by aaaaaaaaaaab »

avianlyric wrote: post #24
sph wrote: post #4

Good, though in practice it's not the charger the problem, I use the same USB plug everywhere, it's Apple and their cable. Right now I always need with me a micro USB cable, an USB-C one, and Lightning, because Apple thinks different™. What's Apple reasoning for not abandoning Lightning for USB-C on their phones?

Probably they think they can make the jump to a completely wireless phone before any USB-C mandates come in. Apple's timing with the lighting port wasn't great, with it arriving just before USB-C, and I imagine they're very reluctant to change the port on their phones because people already have lightning cables everywhere. Personally I would love to see USB-C on my iPhone, but I look at my parents, and having the po…

How do you use a phone while charging it wirelessly?

Re: EU plans to force OEMs to use a common charger for all phones

#210

Post by southerntofu »

ksec wrote: post #151
jonplackett wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is weird. My experience has always been the opposite. I’ve broken lots of usb-c cables with the metal bit coming loose. Lightening hardly ever. Any connection problems are usually pocket lint in the hole and fixed with a paper clip.

Same here, I have had lots of broken Lightning Cables , but never the connector. While I have had lots of USB-C connector issues.

Sounds like both tech could be improved?
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