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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

#791

Post by ajford »

tomp wrote: post #753
cm2187 wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact interoperability is what enables innovation, vs walled gardens.

Is that why all PC (interoperable) laptops are inferior to MacBooks? Your statement might hold for software but definitely doesn’t hold for hardware.

Yours doesn't hold for hardware either. MacBooks are comparable and competitive to PC laptops, but it's only your opinion that they are superior.

Having used a few different models of MacBook over the last decade for work, and owning a few different models of Thinkpads over the same timeframe, I'd take the Thinkpad any day of the week. From the annoyingly either hot or cold all-metal case to the floating ground problem triggering shocks when using the fold-out wall connector, MacBooks are inferior in my book. But that is also only my opinion.

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

#792

Post by scarface74 »

layer8 wrote: post #749
scarface74 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Are they also going to insist that Android manufactures support their phones for more than six months with operating system updates? Yes they are, with a directive from 2019. See for example https://grunecker.de/en/blog/sales-of-goods-directive-and-di... , search for “Update Obligations”.

I don’t speak German. But the best summary I found doesn’t say that manufacturers have to support cell phones for 7 years with operating system or security updates like Apple has been doing.

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

#793

Post by nickpp »

nocoolnametom wrote: post #633
bsnal wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like history of computing goes against this

In order to talk to my friends, family, and coworkers I need to have the following apps installed and running: Slack, Teams, Telegram, Signal, WhatsApp, Google Chat/Hangouts/Allo/Whatever, FB Messenger, Discord, Twitter, etc. It'd take a pretty strong argument to convince me that this is so much more productive and allows for more innovation than the old days when the spec for things like Email, HTTP, IRC, XMPP allow…

I actually love the choice and the separation. And when an innovation good enough appears on a platform, it is quickly copied on the others (reactions…)

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

#794

Post by maest »

ciupicri wrote: post #679
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…

Speaking of cars and standardization, I'm still waiting for the European Union to put the steering wheel on the left side of the car and while we're at it, make it mandatory to drive on the right side of the road.

Is your point that since there exist a standard which occurred without government intervention, then the government should never intervene to create any standards?

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

#795

Post by nickpp »

10x-dev wrote: post #553
leadingthenet wrote: post #506

Earlier 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.

I'm ok if my life doesn't get disrupted every 2 years with a new type of incompatible connection between my devices. Maybe we could put all that innovation and consumer inconvenience into resolving climate change.

Maybe we could’ve put all that regulatory effort and politician time into resolving not even climate change, but just EU's dependence on cheap Russian fossil fuels.

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

#796

Post by kanetw »

As a user, I liked USB-C. Until I had to implement this ridiculously overcomplicated garbage.

To be spec-conform, you need at least 1 IC. You can theoretically hack a solution together with some resistors, but it's not spec conform. If you need the high-speed lanes, add a mux/redriver to un-flip it.

If you want power delivery (>15W), you need a PD controller and port protection (or a user will fry your data lines when they unplug the connector and put 20V on the data pins). 2 ICs right there, and one of them is basically a microcontroller, so you need to deal with more programming.

If you want alternate mode, you need to implement the entire PD stack and a redriver/mux. That's 2-3 ICs right there that have to work together (so usually a single vendor). And not all of them support alt mode.

Which, ok, fine. I'm not building a cost optimized product, I just want it to work well. Except literally none of the ICs are available. Because USB-C requires ICs for everything, it's all sold out (or total garbage that's not worth designing into a product, or requires vendor support to design the firmware, or or or).

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

#797

Post by kanetw »

kashyapc wrote: post #566

USB-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…

Yep. If there's no port protection IC (and even then it might not catch it), if you unplug the USB-C connector you can potentially get 20V+ on the data lines. Goodbye data lines.

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

#798

Post by im3w1l »

lynguist wrote: post #289
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…

Look, we have the headphone jack (6.35mm) stemming from 1877, and its miniature form (3.5mm) from 1960. It’s ok to let USB-C live for another 60-100 years.

The 3.5mm jack is not that good in my opinion. It fails too quickly. Less than a year for a portable device that bumps around in your pocket and reconnect a couple times a day. Now I still prefer it in many situations to bluetooth with its latency and packet drop issues, but I do think that a better jack could be made and is worth making.

As for suggestions for improvements: it should not be able to spin, because spinning wears it down. Second, maybe some kind of latch to lock it into place.

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

#799

Post by Dylan16807 »

paulmd wrote: post #783
mrtksn wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the US comes up with the superior cables, EU will simply allow it be optional and the industry will retrofit as needed. Europe is very old, we are used to have old stuff laying around. Old building that definitely don't meet the modern requirements are everywhere. Besides, the states with Cable Freedom will also have all the obsolate cables when the industry finally comes up with the perfect cable.

> Europe is very old, we are used to have old stuff laying around. So what's the problem with allowing lightning to exist, since as a standard it predated USB-C (and in fact was the impetus for the creation of the latter)? If we allow neighborhoods to keep their old power connectors without retrofit... why not allow lightning to continue to exist?

There's a difference between allowing old installations to continue existing and allowing mass manufacture of the old standard indefinitely. This legislation isn't going to touch anyone's old phones.

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

#800

Post by Dylan16807 »

kibwen wrote: post #644
delecti wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, three, because diesel pump nozzles are already a different standard.

Well, eight, because you'd have two each for diesel and each of the three octanes.

Octanes don't need separate nozzles.
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