This was already done once for micro-USB 12 years ago:
https://www.wired.com/2010/08/europe-univeral-phone-charger/
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
#622As an American, it's strange to see people applaud such overreaching regulation that will stifle innovation. This really underscores and makes me appreciate the differing regulatory philosophies between the EU and the US.
Also reminds me of this Paul Graham tweet: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1231699385525903360
As an American, I'm surprised to see so much lip service paid to reducing waste in our country and then describing a universal plug as "overreaching regulation that will stifle innovation."
Want to roll back the styrofoam ban too? Lots of new innovative (and greener) packaging resulted.
(you could have just edited your first reply to include the appeal to authority)
Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices
#623USB-C for laptop power ports seems to be incredibly flaky. :-( Let me share my ongoing horror story (excuse the verbosity): I've got a barely 3-months old Lenovo X1 Carbon (Gen-9) work laptop. A week ago I noticed the battery draining while the power cord is plugged in! Nothing worked: reset via the pinhole at the back, trying out different chargers, BIOS update, charging while the OS (Linux) is shut down, "to elimin…
To me, the ideal solution is something that Apple had for ages, and now them and Microsoft both have. Magsafe. Use a nice, robust, safe laptop charger for most of your workdays, when things are routine and you have control over the environment. Then, if you're going to travel, and need to be ultralight, you carry your GaN compact, high-power travel power adapter with USB-C so you have one charger and one cable for al…
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Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices
#624Earlier quoted context omitted.
In fact interoperability is what enables innovation, vs walled gardens.
Seems like history of computing goes against this
PC and x86 took us pretty far... And that was mostly carried on interoperability... I doubt we would have gotten to technology being as ubiquitous as it is without it.
Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices
#625USB-C for laptop power ports seems to be incredibly flaky. :-( Let me share my ongoing horror story (excuse the verbosity): I've got a barely 3-months old Lenovo X1 Carbon (Gen-9) work laptop. A week ago I noticed the battery draining while the power cord is plugged in! Nothing worked: reset via the pinhole at the back, trying out different chargers, BIOS update, charging while the OS (Linux) is shut down, "to elimin…
I have the same problem after a year or so with my Xiaomi Redmi Note phones (7 and 10). In the end it is sometimes easier to charge with a USB-A to USB-C cable, because USB-PD signalling easily breaks if the connector is worn out. I do not understand why we need more than 2 lines to charge.
I also have a Lenovo X395 laptop this one has the problem that the USB-C socket is not deep enough to snap in. I am hoping it will die before the end of warranty. Because if not, it will die a week after.
At least we can keep the chargers as all our devices will die early because we cannot charge them anymore
Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices
#626USB-C for laptop power ports seems to be incredibly flaky. :-( Let me share my ongoing horror story (excuse the verbosity): I've got a barely 3-months old Lenovo X1 Carbon (Gen-9) work laptop. A week ago I noticed the battery draining while the power cord is plugged in! Nothing worked: reset via the pinhole at the back, trying out different chargers, BIOS update, charging while the OS (Linux) is shut down, "to elimin…
> "this time let's replace both the motherboard and also the power adapter" [...] > I want to think this is just plain bad luck, but the Lenovo support forums are full of similar problems, and two other colleagues independently confirmed the same issue Oh no, I have to confirm this too. Had the same issue with my X1 Carbon Gen-9. They replaced the motherboard (and hopefully the power adapter). At least so far it's st…
> Did you know you can charge the laptop via the other usb port, next to the power port?
I knew, but would you believe: with the new motherboard, even that other USB-C port is bricked, it doesn't charge the battery either. :-( Speak of one-two punch.
Thanks for confirming the original issue. I've been a Lenovo user for 13 years, mostly trouble-free, but this nuisance is incredibly untimely. I've already put in a request for a new replacement laptop when I'm back in 3-ish weeks.
Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices
#627Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Let's say the USB consortium releases USB-D with input from Apple, Google, and many other stakeholders [...] If you have to make such an argument, you've already lost. Innovation, particularly disruptive and / or breakthrough innovation, does not happen by committee, no matter how many times over history people tried deluding themselves into thinking that it does. So no, it's not fine.
Ah what lovely place our technological lives would be without standards, that are done by committees... No standardised wireless technologies like Bluetooth, WiFi, 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G... Each and every provider and technology manufacturer running their own incompatible networks... Hey, maybe throw away IP and TCP too... Let each site run on their own proprietary protocol...
Those protocols were developed without government mandate.
Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices
#628Earlier quoted context omitted.
>you can't just pick up a device cable and power brick and expect them to work together I never understood this sentiment. That would be even more true if USB-C wasn't the standard so I don't really understand the complaint. Obviously "same shape" isn't an indicator that it will "just work" for USB-C, so why would we expect that to be the case for anything else with modern complexity? It would be nice if fits == work…
The previous chargers did work that way though.
USB charging usually works unless you care about max watts. Apple chargers would be different based on the brick. Lots of barrel chargers were not compatible.
Re: EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices
#629It'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…
This is absolutely correct. I think the EU could have used its time and money focusing on more important problems. The new legislation is the type of feel-good lawmaking that sounds good on paper but has no real impact on society.
The EU threatening manufacturers with regulation unless they settled on a format led to the end of different chargers for every phone model. It definitely had a direct impact on my life. Getting rid of different cables as well will make me very happy.
"The EU" is not a singular entity. The tiny little parts of the EU doing most of the work on this combined with the tiny amount of time spent by larger parts of the EU seems well worth it to me.