EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices • Hacker News Board

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

#481

Post by Teknoman117 » Tue, Jun 07, 2022, 5:02 PM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #465

xxpor wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The reason for the limitation is bandwidth and latency.

Multiple devices on one Bluetooth controller have to timeslice in 4 millisecond (iirc) chunks. Audio devices in a high quality mode consume a substantial amount of the overall bandwidth. It also doesn't matter if your packet consumes the full size of a chunk of not, all of them are equally sized. You'd have to do two audio chunks and one controller chunk * 2 controllers to maintain a 60 Hz sample rate on the controllers.

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

#482

Post by WinstonSmith84 » Tue, Jun 07, 2022, 5:02 PM UTC

maccard wrote: post #7

The problem with USB-C is that you can't just pick up a device cable and power brick and expect them to work together. As an example, my Apple 96W USB-C charger doesn't charge my nintendo switch. The cable that came with my phone doesn't charge said fully Mac when used with the 96w charger. There is no indication of incompatibility between these devices until you realise they don't work. This is going back to the dc…

Not sure about Nintendo, but my macbook charger is charging perfectly fine my (Android) smartphone, and I don't even take my Android charger when traveling (charging at decent pace but unfortunately not in "very fast" mode). Either way, this is quite ironic in regard to the so-called Apple ecosystem and iPhone users still having to carry their own charger in 2022

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

#483

Post by macinjosh » Tue, Jun 07, 2022, 5:03 PM UTC

I’d love to see Apple just leave the EU market or only offer a single old phone model with USB-C added. They have enough money to do it. Bullies like the EU should be stood up to.

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

#484

Post by kstenerud » Tue, Jun 07, 2022, 5:03 PM UTC

theptip wrote: post #463

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…

> None of those standards are mandatory

AC power cord standards ARE mandatory. The other standards don't require enforcement because the industry has already converged on the standards and didn't need a push.

This will be the equivalent power cord standard for DC devices. However, unlike AC power cords, USB-C also transmits data, and will thus require further innovations (much like the innovations in twisted pair networking).

Will there be less innovation? In a small way, yes, because nobody can unilaterally push some new power cable standard by leveraging their market dominance. But then again, market dominance usually results in protectionism instead of openness (lightning cable, memory stick, Beta, etc), so such innovation would have been a dead-end e-waste producer anyway.

What big players CAN do now is influence the newer standards to adopt their (free and open) innovations, like they do with all other standards out there. The great thing about open standards is that the rising tide lifts all boats.

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

#485

Post by bloppe » Tue, Jun 07, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

A lot of people saying "USB-C cables aren't even compatible with each other!" (Nintendo switch etc.) Guess what: that's exactly the problem this regulation is intended to solve. Fake USB-C cables like Nintendo's that have the right shape but do not adhere to spec should gradually disappear along with lightning cables. The regulation actually says that cables can no longer be bundled with the devices themselves, so Nintendo would stop sending you that fake cable with your switch, and you would just buy a real one to work with all your devices.

Other people saying "what about innovation!?" That's fine. Let's say the USB consortium releases USB-D with input from Apple, Google, and many other stakeholders. The EU can set another deadline for newly released devices to adhere to the new version instead of the old one. The transition will involve a period of time where older devices are still on C and newer ones on D, which is totally compatible with the regulation and is necessary with or without regulation. It's ludicrous to think companies won't be able to "iterate": you would be crazy to go to market with any cable technology that isn't already very mature. Apple spent years designing lighting chargers because they knew that once they were released they'd be around for a long time (and they have been!)

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

#486

Post by nybble41 » Tue, Jun 07, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

treesknees wrote: post #448

patentatt wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the switch a notorious outlier and oddball with respect to its usb-c implementation though? I think it's more just that Nintendo screwed up one product than the standard is bad.

It's certainly the most popular example of poor implementation. But one could argue that USB-C isn't even implemented and they just used the connector/form factor for their cable. I recall the RPI4 also having issues early on with power over USB-C. But that's precisely my problem with this - if we're forcing every device to merely adopt a USB-C port, that does nothing to ensure they're actually using USB-C specificat…

> …if we're forcing every device to merely adopt a USB-C port, that does nothing to ensure they're actually using USB-C specifications or interoperable.

You certainly need more than just the physical port. IMHO the minimum reasonable requirement would be that the device must charge at near the maximum supported rate (minimum of the device's, cable's, and charger's advertised rates) with any combination of compliant charger & cable. There wouldn't be much point in mandating the use of USB-C ports otherwise.

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

#487

Post by peoplefromibiza » Tue, Jun 07, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #477

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we have only standardized the need to supply one type of connector, nothing stops USB from evolving. I still use Ethernet at work, it's connected to the thunderbolt port through an adaptor.

Is it better if my phone has the mandated-by-[hypothetical]-1999-law original USB-B and a new-fangled USB-C?

Would it have been better if they settled on this?

https://www.mouser.it/images/qualtek/hd/703W-00_SPL.jpg

It has been working quite well in many electronic devices for decades...

I don't see the usefulness of discussing things that have not happened.

Is USB-C bad?

That's the question you should be interested in.

“The best is the enemy of the good.”

Saying that choices should never be made because we don't know what the future brings, is the same of saying that there's no point in living, because we are all going to die.

Of course they did not settle on USB-B in 1999 because there weren't billions of devices using it and it was relatively new technology.

Now it's a de facto standard already.

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

#488

Post by cycrutchfield » Tue, Jun 07, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

cmckn wrote: post #418

I kind of understand this from an e-waste angle, but why (as a consumer) do I care if different phones use the same cable? I only have one phone. Even if I get a new phone every year, unless I’m switching back and forth between iPhones and Androids, I’m not having to buy new cables. If I go to a public place, and need to plug my phone in, I can already do that regardless of the connector on the phone end. If a friend…

Because it makes officious bureaucrats feel good and justifies their existence.

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

#489

Post by golemotron » Tue, Jun 07, 2022, 5:08 PM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #333

golemotron wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading charging standards as "weights and measures" is on par with classifying bumblebees as fish. Not only aren't these strict readings, they aren't even sensible.

Standardization of metering devices used in commerce is directly in the purview of Weights and Measures regulation. For example, NIST Weights and Measures division regulates the nozzle on the dispenser used for gasoline in the US. > Each retail dispensing device from which fuel products are sold shall be equipped with a nozzle spout having a diameter that conforms with the latest version of SAE J285, “Dispenser Nozzl…

It's an overreach. "A pound is 16 ounces" is not the same as "cakes shall only be 5 ounces," i.e., a standard of measure does not extend to regulation of what is measured and what measures are permitted. An originalist court could fix this.

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

#490

Post by vineyardmike » Tue, Jun 07, 2022, 5:09 PM UTC

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…

By the way, it’s been talked on HN a lot when USB c comes up, it you shouldn’t use those magnetic cables. The “magnetic disconnect” motion can cause arcing and static electricity that can theoretically damage the thing they’re plugged into. Especially if you leave the exposed pins on the device as you use it unplugged.