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EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices

engadget.com

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Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices

#261

Post by scarface74 »

horsawlarway wrote: post #237
peeters wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are welcome to change it going forward, they just have to agree and consolidate. That's not how innovation works. What motivation would they have to change it if all your competitors will change it step? This only hurts consumers.

I think this is a pretty bad take. Not all that many companies are doing work for cable standards to begin with, and personally - as a consumer - I very much welcome the standardization on usb-c. The companies that are doing work on communication standards aren't normally selling the kind of devices covered here to consumers. It's more business to business and military applications. Further, charging in particular is…

If you as a consumer prefer USB-C, buy a phone using USB-C. Why have the government involved?

Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices

#262

Post by ARandumGuy »

samatman wrote: post #211
mrtksn wrote: post #123

By the way, that's also how Tesla and all other cars have the same electric plug in EU(not the USB mandate but the car plug standardisation mandate). Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is what happens if better solutions are found. Will EU block innovation? That question is addressed in the Q&A: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/QANDA_... In essence, they seem to believe that wired char…

> Will EU block innovation? It already has. Tesla's connector is nicer (you can call that subjective but it isn't) and the supercharging network in the US is deploying the clunky standard sort of connector as well. If EU legislation were universal, that would preclude any future where the superior connector is licensed and takes over from the crappy designed-by-committee alternative, because Tesla would be forced to…

Sure, the Tesla connector is smaller, and a little sleeker. But from a functionality perspective, the plug types are basically identical. Both allow AC standard charging and DC fast charging. Electric cables aren't that complicated.

Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices

#263

Post by gwbas1c »

samatman wrote: post #211
mrtksn wrote: post #123

By the way, that's also how Tesla and all other cars have the same electric plug in EU(not the USB mandate but the car plug standardisation mandate). Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is what happens if better solutions are found. Will EU block innovation? That question is addressed in the Q&A: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/QANDA_... In essence, they seem to believe that wired char…

> Will EU block innovation? It already has. Tesla's connector is nicer (you can call that subjective but it isn't) and the supercharging network in the US is deploying the clunky standard sort of connector as well. If EU legislation were universal, that would preclude any future where the superior connector is licensed and takes over from the crappy designed-by-committee alternative, because Tesla would be forced to…

> Legislators deciding who gets to be VHS and who has to be Betamax is bad, actually.

They didn't make the decision. It's more like legislators observing that Betamax is failing and deciding that it's in everyone's best interests to tell Sony that they have to adopt VHS instead of creating confusion in the marketplace.

> Tesla's connector is nicer

Tesla's system only goes up to 400 volts. CCS goes up to 800 volts. The higher voltage supports faster charging.

(This is similar to Betamax's critical flaw. The smaller, more elegant Betamax tape compared to the clunky VHS tape meant that VHS could record 6 hours on a tape when Betamax was limited to about 3.5 hours on a tape. It also meant that feature length films were often recorded at slower tape speeds, thus meaning that prerecorded VHS tapes were often a better quality than the Betamax version.)

Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices

#264

Post by scarface74 »

DannyBee wrote: post #150
ubermonkey wrote: post #130

It's just really not clear to me that regulators need to be mandating product design. I have no expectation, for example, that these same regulators will stay on top of this and revise it when USB-C stops being the preferred or best choice. Twenty years ago, we really DID have a snarl of competing and proprietary phone ports. It was a mess -- Blackberry chargers didn't work with Palm; most WinMo devices had their own…

"I have no expectation, for example, that these same regulators will stay on top of this and revise it when USB-C stops being the preferred or best choice." Why? Everything is usb or lightning because people complained, and everyone but apple listened to people. If USB-C is no longer the best thing, rather than complain to 10 companies, and hope they all agree, they will complain to regulators, and hope they agree. W…

Yes, because regulators are the best people to design technical products.

Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices

#265

Post by mrtksn »

ericmay wrote: post #255
mrtksn wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU is a densely populated place where having multiple charging networks of incomparable plugs will be horrible. When you are not happy with decisions the governments make, it usually means that you should be involved in the process of making the decisions. Europeans don't trust that the industry will always come up with the best solutions for the user, Americans usually don't trust the government doing something well…

> EU is a densely populated place where having multiple charging networks of incomparable plugs will be horrible. In the short term, yes. In the long term however competition between these different standards will cause consolidation and overall technology improvement. The next step will be regulating wireless charging so that all devices have to use/do the same thing, rinse-wash-repeat. > Europeans don't trust that…

We can copy the US if the cable freedom gives birth to superior cables on the long run. EU stuff is't written on stone, it changes as it needs to.

I guess In Europe we kind of like the idea of being able to overthrow the people in power if they screw us too much. It's much more socially acceptable to burn cars and occupy streets and decapitate politicians than shooting CEO's when you are really not happy with the way things work. It feels like you have control over the stuff going on in your country.

Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices

#266

Post by mikkergp »

cowtools wrote: post #238
mikkergp wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won’t this increase waste as lightning is deprecated?

temporarily

Yeah but then there will be a new standard, I have to imagine waste is not the primary thing they are optimizing for here.

Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices

#267

Post by hcal »

ho_schi wrote: post #256

Instead of "enforcement" I would appreciate good "standards". This allows for improvement and reasonable exceptions. I would provide a "customer traffic light" informing about specific features. More specifically I would shift from implementation (How?) to actual requirements (What?). The implementation is a decision of the manufacturer. Examples: * User-replaceable batteries # By Screw? Coin? Flip/Notch on outside?…

I'm probably overlooking an obvious answer, I'm not sure how you define this clearly. Using your noise level example, we know how to measure noise levels. It is straight forward to say your new technology complies with a noise regulation.

How do you do that for a regulation like standardized connectors? Just say you can't use any non-open-standard connectors?

Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices

#268

Post by scarface74 »

RandomWorker wrote: post #152
ubermonkey wrote: post #130

It's just really not clear to me that regulators need to be mandating product design. I have no expectation, for example, that these same regulators will stay on top of this and revise it when USB-C stops being the preferred or best choice. Twenty years ago, we really DID have a snarl of competing and proprietary phone ports. It was a mess -- Blackberry chargers didn't work with Palm; most WinMo devices had their own…

That was the whole point of USB —- it’s in the name Universal Serial Bus. We have to talk about the ewaste issue, which is massive score on the earth. The particular village in China where all our waste get recycled is just a horrible scene. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_waste_in_Guiyu This is a small step, but standardization is a great thing towards less waste.

https://learn.adafruit.com/understanding-usb-type-c-cable-ty...

And we have always been at war with EastAsia.

Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices

#269

Post by samatman »

mrtksn wrote: post #233
samatman wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Will EU block innovation? It already has. Tesla's connector is nicer (you can call that subjective but it isn't) and the supercharging network in the US is deploying the clunky standard sort of connector as well. If EU legislation were universal, that would preclude any future where the superior connector is licensed and takes over from the crappy designed-by-committee alternative, because Tesla would be forced to…

EU is a densely populated place where having multiple charging networks of incomparable plugs will be horrible. When you are not happy with decisions the governments make, it usually means that you should be involved in the process of making the decisions. Europeans don't trust that the industry will always come up with the best solutions for the user, Americans usually don't trust the government doing something well…

I'm not a citizen of the EU, so your various centrally-planned interventions in the world economy affect me without any possibility of representation.

It leaves me hoping your economy becomes much smaller so Asia can start ignoring it. Or reform I guess, the vote is yours, not mine.

Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices

#270

Post by scarface74 »

dingleberry420 wrote: post #184
ubermonkey wrote: post #130

It's just really not clear to me that regulators need to be mandating product design. I have no expectation, for example, that these same regulators will stay on top of this and revise it when USB-C stops being the preferred or best choice. Twenty years ago, we really DID have a snarl of competing and proprietary phone ports. It was a mess -- Blackberry chargers didn't work with Palm; most WinMo devices had their own…

> What problem is the EU solving here? Everything works together, except Apple stuff.

Are they also going to insist that Android manufactures support their phones for more than six months with operating system updates? Worrying about cables causing e-waste is instead of phones, is even more evidence of the technical ineptness of legislators.
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