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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

#811

Post by kube-system »

krzyk wrote: post #707
kube-system wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, because all of North America uses the NEMA standard and the EU uses a bunch of different plugs.

No, EU uses a single plug, it is called "Type C" (no, not USB-C). What you might find in some poorer regions in EU is old plugs that were there pre-EU, or prestandardization. I can say that, because Brexit happened, I have no clue what those were thinking when designing their own gigantic plug.

Doesn’t Ireland use G?

Regardless, I meant, physically within the borders of the EU, not during the time of the EU.

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

#812

Post by kanetw »

paulmd wrote: post #771
robonerd wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why "What about innovation?" is taken seriously as an argument anyway. USB-C is more than adequate, we could coast with it for the next hundred years. Nobody is kept up at night by the lack of innovation in AC power plugs, the standards countries have settled on today, while not all equivalent, are all generally satisfactory in practice. Problem solved; stop fixing that which ain't broke and move on to ot…

> I don't see why "What about innovation?" is taken seriously as an argument anyway. because the USB-IF historically has struggled to reach enough consensus from its stakeholders to allow innovation to take place. The entire reason that lightning exists in the first place is because USB-IF couldn't agree on a replacement for micro-B (which everyone agreed clearly needed improvement!) and one of the members just had t…

Absolutely.

On top of that, I feel like USB-C is deliberately engineered to sell more ICs. Which wouldn't be that huge of an issue except as a result, all relevant ICs are sold out (or unsuitable).

CC/PD use a custom transmission standard so you can't implement it without a PHY, which basically means at least one dedicated IC.

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

#813

Post by Dylan16807 »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #696
CardenB wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a flawed comparison because the use cases for the former examples are very limited in comparison to USB C which is arguably evolving rapidly still. You could imagine if we had formed such a standard around USB A in the 90s and how it might have blocked the already high friction establishment of USB C and thunderbolt 3 standards. USB C currently seems more mature than USB A, so I can see where things ar ea bit…

This regulation is about charging - so power, not data / thunderbolt. And when it comes to charging USB C can delvier 100W, which is enough for any small gadget, phone, etc.

They upgraded it to 240W.

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

#814

Post by kanetw »

danhor wrote: post #810
alerighi wrote: post #760

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a stupid thing. Repurposing a commonly used connector for other things to reuse cheap connectors and cables is something that is usually done in the electronic industry (e.g. my oscilloscope use an HDMI socket for the logic analyzer input, you have plenty of lines and the connector is cheap and good). It's not uncommon to design a board and use type-C only for power (5V input, without the circuitry to…

The lowest spec for cables requires 5 wires (CC, 2 * USB 2.0, GND, PWR) and a rating of 3A. CC pins are required for USB-C, if they're left out most devices won't charge over it [1]. 3A is (in my opinion) a reasonable choice, since pre-USB-C devices took up to 2.1A and backwards compatibility is important. USB 2.0 data lanes aren't required for charging per-se, but the older charging protocols preceding USB-C did sig…

The 2 resistor on CC line thing is not spec compliant.

E: you also need vRd sensing to determine the available current.

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

#815

Post by zaik »

ciupicri wrote: post #752
zaik wrote: post #701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the XMPP standard? I use it everyday for messaging family and friends. WhatsApp is basically an unfederated XMPP provider.

I used XMPP around 2003 when it was still called Jabber. I can't say there's something major wrong with it (only XML verbosity comes to my head), it's just the idea of making it mandatory. By the way how come some EU officials use Zoom? [1] Where are those good open standards? [1]: https://meeteu.eu/events/

If you want to have provider choice for customers and interoperability between messaging apps, I don't think there is another way than making standards mandatory.

Why do you think WhatsApp reached a billion dollar evaluation? Not because users have the freedom to move to a different provider and still be able to talk to all their friends...

The only other possibility is that users start rejecting providers who do not comply with internet standards (and I don't see that happening, even here on Hacker News).

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

#816

Post by Dylan16807 »

mmis1000 wrote: post #343
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? Usb typec wire from 65A(non e-marked wire) to 240A(the latest standardized e-marked wire) uses literally the same plug. Typec is the header but not the protocol. Even China phone vendor's proprietary high speed charging protocol use typec wire. And Intel's tb4 wire also use a type c wire. (the band…

> the bandwidth of tb4 is definitely overkill for every phone ever made on the world for now

That depends on what you're doing with it. It would not be very strange to power a VR headset with a phone, which could easily get into that bandwidth range.

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

#817

Post by eptcyka »

worik wrote: post #632
bsnal wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like history of computing goes against this

How do you mean? Would Raspberry Pi have happened without Linux? What about the evolution of data centres? I am sure that there are examples from closed systems, but it is not clear that keeping secrets and strict intellectual property spur innovation

Commodification spurs innovation at a level above the commodity. I love Linux but its ubiquity is partly to blame for why I am not using a capability based OS on my personal devices.

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

#818

Post by Dylan16807 »

golemotron wrote: post #236
bluGill wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The constitution gives US congress the right to set standards for weights and measures, which unless you use a very strict reading says they can set charging standards. I wish they would. Tesla (and Nissan) as early movers 10 years ago can be forgiven for not adopting a standard charger, but now they need to update to the standard. (IIRC both are planning on it)

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.

> on par with classifying bumblebees as fish

So you're saying it's quite reasonable when you look at what actually happened?

The law defined a handful of categories. "fish" is actually "fish and miscellaneous". Invertebrates are explicitly part of that miscellaneous.

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

#819

Post by majewsky »

mattmaroon wrote: post #604
Someone wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I throw away a higher volume of stuff in one or two average days than all the wall warts and phone cables I've ever owned probably add up to. I would think ‘mass’ is a better metric to use than ‘volume’. Also, it’s not only the waste, but also the work needed to make it, and I would guess that’s a lot harder for electric chargers than for, say, the plastic bags that take up the bulk of the volume of trash. Also, “O…

I would think volume is a better metric because landfills don't really much care about mass. If you wanted to save trash you'd probably go after packaging. Ban disposable water bottles (or something less drastic like taxing them extra) and there's 50 lifetimes of wall warts per person per annum. This just isn't really an enviromental problem. Or if it is, it's so far down the scale as to be pointless to prioritize ov…

> I would think volume is a better metric because landfills don't really much care about mass.

Most EU countries have actually outlawed landfills in favor of waste-to-energy systems. [1] Of course waste-to-energy only works for stuff like plastics, not for electronics which you'd rather want to disassemble carefully to recover the precious metals.

> If you wanted to save trash you'd probably go after packaging.

Which the EU does too. There is legislation underway (or possibly already passed) to outlaw many types of single-use plastic items. Everyone switching from plastic straws to paper straws may actually be another case of Brussels effect.

> it's so far down the scale as to be pointless to prioritize over almost anything

The thing is, from experience we know that these legislations take so long to enact and enforce that you cannot just start with the biggest items, wait for it to be done, and then move to the next biggest item. You need to tackle many possible avenues for waste reduction at once.

[1] https://www.cewep.eu/landfill-taxes-and-restrictions/

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

#820

Post by elif »

tomp wrote: post #751
robonerd wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why "What about innovation?" is taken seriously as an argument anyway. USB-C is more than adequate, we could coast with it for the next hundred years. Nobody is kept up at night by the lack of innovation in AC power plugs, the standards countries have settled on today, while not all equivalent, are all generally satisfactory in practice. Problem solved; stop fixing that which ain't broke and move on to ot…

This argument would sound less hollow if there weren’t two existing superior (from a user experience perspective) alternatives already on the market. Apple’s Lightning (thinner than USB-C) and MagSafe (safer than USB-C for charging laptops… so glad Apple is transitioning back to it for M2 Airs)

"thinner" is not a universally superior quality. It also means "more likely to get bent or broken" which implies "more likely to need replacing" which is one of the direct aims of this legislation.
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