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

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

#361

Post by mrtksn »

HPsquared wrote: post #344
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…

Being densely-populated makes it easier to have a range of different plugs, since there will be a range of alternatives, and you'll be able to find the right one for you nearby. Consider the opposite of a sparsely-populated region, where the next charging point may be 50 miles away. In that case, having a random hodge-podge of competing connectors could have actual consequences. In practice though, there is not much…

When you have 24 official languages in 27 countries with no physical borders it doesn't end up having an even distribution of plugs but clusters of different types. There are no large wastelands of cheap land where every network can have a station, it's usually one station on each side of the road every 50km on the highways. In cities, a lot of things are retrofitted into medieval city structure so there's not much free space for all your charging needs.

As a result, this will create artificial limits on where people can travel. EU is that much into standardisation because we want to remove these artificial limits created through the thousands years of history.

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

#362

Post by Vladimof »

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…

> Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is what happens if better solutions are found. Will EU block innovation?

no... we also had the Micro USB standard because of Europe...

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

#363

Post by itsoktocry »

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

Interesting example. Betamax was technologically superior, but lost out due to marginally higher costs. What makes you think Tesla's connector wouldn't suffer the same fate?

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

#364

Post by rootusrootus »

simion314 wrote: post #353
rootusrootus wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apples racketeering and monopolistic behavior? That's a bit over the top, don't you think? When Apple created the Lightning connector, the accepted alternative was micro-USB. And micro-USB is terrible, awful, no-good, crap . Many millions of people are happy Lightning existed to bridge the time before the rest of the world could design a slightly better small USB connector. Which, of course, might still not be as d…

Apple could have at least attempted to standardize his port, but they did not because they charged money when a third pary uses their proprietary ports. So stop crying for poor Apple, they have paid PR people to defend them with better arguments anyway.

How often does the world willingly standardize on something invented by a single company? Even if they had released it into public domain, USB-C was going to happen anyway.

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

#365

Post by matthewmacleod »

rootusrootus wrote: post #231
marticode wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USB-C is highly extensible (some would say way too much), I doubt we will need to make a connector that is physically incompatible anytime soon (although I'm sure the standard will be upgraded for more speed/uses)

> I doubt we will need to make a connector that is physically incompatible anytime soon Didn't USB-C already do that to itself? I suppose that depends on how narrow the definition of "physically incompatible" is. But IIRC you can't buy a perfect do-everything USB-C cable today, because some USB-C use cases are flat out incompatible with others.

You can – AFAIK a real Thunderbolt 4 cable will carry anything that can be carried over a USB-C port.

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

#366

Post by itsoktocry »

wumpus wrote: post #307
aiisjustanif wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if we had this outlook towards plugs in houses in the US. Standardization is underrated.

There are a bunch of different plugs in houses in the US, look at electric stoves and clothes dryers.

>look at electric stoves and clothes dryers

Those are 240V plugs, which are also standardized.

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

#367

Post by taylodl »

kalleboo wrote: post #58
jl6 wrote: post #35

I want to like this, but I charge my iPhone with a cable that has lightning on one end and USB-C on the other, and I know from extensive direct experience that the lightning end is the better physical design. Supporting this is tantamount to believing that there will never need to be a USB-D that improves upon USB-C, and I just can’t believe that.

If there's a better standard in the future the law can be changed, they didn't put this in the constitution. I've never had a phone with USB-C to compare, but I've had rotten luck with Lightning. I always get that one power pin that blackens and makes the cable unreliable.

Yeah, me too. Or even though the cable is supposed to be reversible and yet my phone will only charge if the cable is inserted one way, but not the other. I've had that happen a lot too!

I'm just glad USB-C has come along so we didn't do something foolish like standardize on Micro USB - I hate those ports! I recently bought two brand-new BT speakers and guess how they're charged? Micro USB! Grrrrrrr!!!

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

#368

Post by vel0city »

wumpus wrote: post #307
aiisjustanif wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if we had this outlook towards plugs in houses in the US. Standardization is underrated.

There are a bunch of different plugs in houses in the US, look at electric stoves and clothes dryers.

They're all a part of the NEMA standard. The different plugs denote different capacities of the circuit and the requirements of the load. That way you can't accidentally plug a 30A device in a 15A circuit or you can't plug a 120V device into a 240V plug. If the wiring to your stove top is only 30A but you bought a 50A stove, you shouldn't be able to plug it in and just hope the circuit breaker trips before the wires melt to let you know you did it wrong.

Its not like there's a plug for Samsung TVs, a different plug for Sonos sound bars, a different plug for a Sony alarm clock, a different plug for a Singer sewing machine, etc. They're all going to be a NEMA 5-15 plug since all of these things are ~120V and use less than 15A.

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

#369

Post by isignal »

treis wrote: post #292
agloeregrets wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, companies building wholly proprietary infrastructure is just pure e-waste on the back of the citizens of those countries that ALSO limits innovation. Imagine a world where Ford cars use a different gas nozzle from a GM product in the US. The average person would have to pick and choose stations and if one were to go out of business, the lesser standard would encounter mass disposal and retrofit, al…

>The average person would have to pick and choose stations Stations would just have two nozzles on their pumps.

What if Ford operates their own stations? Would they still have two plugs?

(see: Tesla superchargers)

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

#370

Post by gadders »

cesarb wrote: post #149
gadders wrote: post #118

I don't have an apple phone, but my daughter does, and I've always thought that mechanically at least the Apple connector was better because it had less bits to go wrong. USB C, like micro USB has that "tongue" piece that has to fit inside the end of the cable which always looks like it could snap off. The Apple connector is just a solid piece that goes in the end of the phone. No fiddly interlock pieces.

In all the discussions I've seen where people complain about USB-C, not once have I read about that tab snapping off, so it does not seem to be a problem in practice. The reason USB-C has the tab on the device is to have the springs, which are the bits which can go wrong the most, on the cable instead of the device. When they start to become loose, you only have to replace an inexpensive cable, instead of having to r…

It happened to me on a micro-usb phone, which is probably what makes me a bit warey of them.
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