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

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

engadget.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 1001 posts

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

#461

Post by DeRock »

miohtama wrote: post #443
stewx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with the Nintendo Switch is that Nintendo designed their own faulty USB-C charging implementation rather than merely using the reference design. It's not a failure of the spec, it's a failure to adhere to the spec. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16706803

My Macbook Pro charger charges Nintendo Switch, so maybe this was fixed later? Switch is 2017 device.

I have a device from launch, and remember for the first while this didn't work, but now does. It must've been fixed at some point with a SW update.

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

#462

Post by interestica »

Nextgrid wrote: post #20
stewx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with the Nintendo Switch is that Nintendo designed their own faulty USB-C charging implementation rather than merely using the reference design. It's not a failure of the spec, it's a failure to adhere to the spec. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16706803

It's still not a great spec if it's so complex that you can screw it up. I understand the complexity for data, but for power I wish it was as simple as power & ground wires and that's it. Compare that with USB-A where even cheap Chinese cables from the lowest bidder usually work (work well enough at least - you might get voltage drop but it will still charge if you leave it on long enough) because the spec is so simp…

I wanted to get a trimmer with USB-C. Unfortunately, all that I found would not allow c-to-c charging. Only charging from A. The 'A' basically allows a 'hot wire' type charge to go through for power. C-only charging requires negotiation. There's no way to tell up front that the charging is limited like this and manufacturers don't want to highlight it.

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

#463

Post by theptip »

kstenerud wrote: post #445

Alright, so before more folks freak out even more at this, there are a number of knee-jerk reactions that could be mitigated by reading up on this a bit before tossing thunderbolts. The main reasoning for this is to cut down on waste from incompatible chargers. This will bring charging more in line with other standardized products such as AC power cords, twisted pair networking, SD cards, M.2 SSDs, and all of those w…

I think your analogy isn’t right. None of those standards are mandatory. Would M.2 have come out when it did if you needed to change the law to permit it to be used over SATA?

USB-C is already a standard just like all your other examples. This law forbids using other standards.

> New innovations can be brought forth in the same way they are with the other standards mentioned above: developed in a harmonised manner

I think you are confused about how consumer product innovation happens in the real world. You don’t form a committee and convince them that your new product is better. You bring something new to market and if it succeeds, you make money and gain market share; like Apple did when they brought out Lightning. Even if you are building a new standard like M.2, you are still competing with other standards, all of which can be chosen by your customers as they deem appropriate. By definition it is now harder to innovate on charging cables simply because you can’t try something new.

It is perfectly fine to say “I don’t think we need to prioritize innovation in this sector any more; eWaste is more important than innovation”. I wouldn’t even argue with that claim in the short term. But it’s not credible to deny that this will have a negative effect on innovation. That is always the impact of regulation like this. If nothing else, startups are now forbidden from experimenting with this variable.

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

#464

Post by theptip »

metalliqaz wrote: post #454
theptip wrote: post #450

So every upgrading iPhone user in the world needs to discard every single charging device they own, including expensive multi-device chargers like phone+watch. In the short-term this clearly produces _more_ e-waste. I wonder if anyone made an estimate of the break-even time here. One year? Ten? Will everyone be discarding their chargers and switching to wireless before break-even is achieved? How much money does it c…

No reason to toss everything until your current phone is no longer used. And Apple isn't exactly shy about changing their connectors, so such might already be the case for upcoming phones. In any case, I'm pretty sure Apple will go to to full wireless before long.

Right, like I said, every _upgrading_ user needs to replace.

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

#465

Post by bobthepanda »

xxpor wrote: post #458
gpderetta wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not supposed to, but it seems to me that the blame is on Nintendo, not with USB-C.

Nintendo always does something that's JUST slightly off with their consoles that make them annoying as hell to use. With the switch it's the screwed up USB-C implementation and the fact that you can't use bluetooth headphones (it has BT support, but only for the controllers) With the DS, the wifi only supported WEP, not WPA, even though WPA2 had been released by the time the DS came out The Wii famously didn't suppor…

The Switch was updated to support BT headphones, with the caveat that you can only have 2 BT controllers simultaneously connected with the headphones, and the controllers can’t be switched while headphones are in.

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

#466

Post by kansface »

Majestic121 wrote: post #187
D13Fd wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does stop innovation in things like lightning and MagSafe. And it doesn’t fix the multiple charger issue either, because so many manufacturers don’t adhere to the USB-C standard that any combination of charger + cable + device has an unreasonably non-zero chance of not working or even damaging the device. So in the end we still have to have multiple chargers, but now we can roll the dice on which one works with or…

It does not stop innovation like MagSafe : https://www.amazon.com/Magnetic-Adapter-Connector-Transfer-C... I'm not sure what you mean by 'unreasonably non-zero', but I've been sharing chargers between Macbook, XPS 13 and Thinkpad with no concern, + a charger from amazon. Some charger are less powerful than others, so charge is not always as quick, but in real life it does not matter : it's still charging fast enough…

You shouldn’t use a lower wattage charger so it goes.

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

#467

Post by nybble41 »

_ea1k wrote: post #392
mcv wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine that car charging is still too new and fast-moving to enforce a single standard, unlike phone charging, where it's just ridiculous to have 3 separate standards. On the other hand, you're absolutely right that it doesn't help anyone if your car is incompatible with half of the chargers out there. Are adapter cables an option, perhaps?

Yes. Tesla has a simple passthrough adapter for CCS1. Other adapters are also possible.

Some adapters are more problematic than others. For example if the charger and the vehicle both expect the other side to initiate the charging process and withhold power until some voltage is detected then the adapter may need its own independent power supply to jump-start the charging process. Locks are another problem—some combinations would require the adapter to provide powered locking mechanisms for both sides. None of this makes an adapter impossible, but it could be too expensive or unwieldy to be a practical solution.

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

#468

Post by mattnewton »

miohtama wrote: post #443
stewx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with the Nintendo Switch is that Nintendo designed their own faulty USB-C charging implementation rather than merely using the reference design. It's not a failure of the spec, it's a failure to adhere to the spec. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16706803

My Macbook Pro charger charges Nintendo Switch, so maybe this was fixed later? Switch is 2017 device.

For me, it will charge but not power the dock for playing on a TV.

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

#469

Post by filoleg »

pfortuny wrote: post #107
qalmakka wrote: post #2

2024? There's still plenty of time for them to remove the port altogether and go with just MagSafe/Qi. Which they control, and they still can get fees from. Trust me when I say that Apple will NEVER submit to this legislation, they will find every sort of obscure or arcane tricks to comply with it without actually doing it. It would set a precedent that legislating can change Apple's behaviour, which they clearly do…

In Europe, and this is well known, companies must comply with the intent of the law, especially on something related to customers and compatibility. This is very very different from the US legal system, which can be tricked “ad nauseam”. Apple may well do what they please but there will be fines, and even prohibition of sales. Because the EU “knows” that it can be done without much burden and “sees” it as a benefit f…

This is a nice fantasy and all, but how did that whole "In Europe [...] companies must comply with the intent of the law" work out for GDPR?

As far as I am aware, all the big tech companies that were used as the primary reason for creating GDPR are still doing the exact same things (that people were upset about) they were doing back then (just in a legally compliant™ way now according to "the intent of the law").

Not trying to take a dig at GDPR with this, it definitely made some tech companies to make some small concessions, like being able to export your data easier. But it would be difficult to argue that companies comply with GDPR according to the intent of the law, and not according to the letter of the law instead.

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

#470

Post by simion314 »

rootusrootus wrote: post #364
simion314 wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The chance is larger the Zero, we can't even think of standardizing something if is proprietary and we have to pay some corporation outside our jurisdiction a lot of money. So Apple did not even try, as usual they tried to milk things as long as possible exactly how they done it with dating apps in some EU countries.
Post reply on HN