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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

#841

Post by Gigachad »

zaik wrote: post #748
Gigachad wrote: post #738

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bridges are not horrible. But they aren’t super reliable. I have seen them go down for a few days once, generally be a bit slow, forward messages out of order, etc. The free matrix.org server is also overloaded. The paid server is much faster.

Still, bridges do not really solve fragmentation problems the same way compliance with internet standards does. For example bridges break important features like end-to-end encryption.

Internet standards have consistently failed to innovate. Email and IRC have failed to progress along with proprietary platforms. Features like end to end encryption require user effort and plugins which never took off.

Having 5 IM apps installed is much preferable to me than 1 worse app. Not sure the situation for XMPP but I have been told its highly fragmented with extensions that not all clients support. If I'm talking with someone, I want a high level of assurance that their client is pretty much the same as mine and that all features work and look roughly the same on both sides.

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

#842

Post by danhor »

markstos wrote: post #558

The USB-C spec has 24 pins, making it considerably more complex than USB-A connections, which 4 pins. Only 4 of those 24 pins are used for power delivery. If all you need from the USB-C connection is charging, is OK to implement a 4 pin connection to keep the design simpler and cheaper?

First of all, 8 pins are used for power delivery for just VBUS & GND.

Furthermore, you need the two CC pins or otherwise you won't get any voltage from USB-C chargers. USB 2.0 data pins are needed for backward compatible charging (otherwise a compliant device could only pull 500mA from a USB-A to C cable).

The spec defines such a receptacle connector for USB 2.0-only support (also including the two sideband channels, but that's only 2 out of 16 pins, so probably not noticeably more expensive).

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

#843

Post by rektide »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #808
rektide wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mini-B (2000) had serious reliability problems, and would often damage the device rather than the cable. Micro-B (2007) was a pretty smart & necessary response. USB-C (2014) elegantly encompassed the additional high-speed data-connectivity that the hideous huge SuperSpeed USB Micro-B (2008) tacked on, & added significant future-proofing/adaptability (alt-modes). I have a hard time imagining much advantage beyond USB-…

I would bet the industry will invent something to replace it anyway, even if there's no good reason for the change. Or maybe there will be some fundamental leap making 80 Gbps as irrelevant as 9600 bps are today.

Please Intel... I still want it: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/03/intel-thunderbolt-op...

Side note, there's some really really cheap fiber optic DisplayPort cables out there. They work, they're whatever length you want, mine were ~$0.60/foot. My monitors are 4k60 & 2k170; all resolutions run great. I feel like we're not too far off from fiber maybe happening for real.

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

#845

Post by zajio1am »

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.

No. Type C is limited to 2.5 A ungrounded appliances. For regular (16 A, grounded) sockets, half of EU use type E and other half type F. Fortunately, there is CEE 7/7 plug, which is compatible with both type E and type F sockets.

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

#847

Post by danhor »

kanetw wrote: post #837
danhor wrote: post #821

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the two CC line resistors are spec-conform? That's how 5V sinks are supposed to work. I agree that the whole USB PD stack is way over complicated, I still don't get why the electrical layer and the on-the-wire protocol is so complex. Wouldn't a 3.3 V bidir UART with a CRC at the end do a fine job?

Without CC line sensing, you don't know how much current you're allowed to draw. Screenshot from the standard: https://i.kane.cx/EI4HtM Specifically, the sink has to detect vRd to determine how much current it can actually draw. E: sorry, to clarify: 2 resistors is fine, but you also need line sensing. So that's at least a few comparators or an ADC or whatever. Or a dedicated IC.

Ah, the good 'ol legacy USB issue (for anything under 1.5A).

The standard provides a way for simple devices (page 218, PSD), to just draw up to 500mA [0]. But TBH, legacy USB charging is such a mess, I'd just always assume 1.5A and hope for the best.

(for USB 3.0 900mA you at least need a USB Device to detect it, I'm not sure if a 3.0 device is needed).

[0]: 500mA in default current and the other options provide more current.

EDIT:

Mmh, you still need to detect above vRa voltage in "AttachWait.SNK", but you can assume default USB Current after that without specifically detecting it. I think no one cares about vRa.

Still better than USB 2.0 (where without being a USB device you could only pull 100mA) or not much different than USB BC for DCPs (detect 200 Ω or smaller resistor between D+ and D-).

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

#848

Post by alimov »

thaway2839 wrote: post #764
tomp wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Lightning cables don't last. They are a complete disaster. And that's not even considering how a little bit of dust can prevent your device from charging at all, and lightning ports are a complete dust magnet. But the best argument against "what about lightning?" is the fact that Apple themselves don't use it on their higher powered devices like macs, and use USB-C instead.

Haven’t had any terrible experiences with lightning cables. I have several cables that are from 2016/2018 that I use regularly. But then again none of my type c cables go bad either… I think it would have been safer to say “from my experience ” instead of presenting your opinion as if it were more than just an opinion. I see how friends and family members treat their cables, tugging on the phone to disconnect instead of removing the cable by hand. Or placing the charger in a way that the cable is bent up against a piece of furniture. Regarding the lightning port, it’s actually quite easy to clean, compared to ports like usb-c (I’m guessing you know why that would be). Also using lightning on a Mac doesn’t make sense and that’s probably why they don’t do it.

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

#849

Post by Evidlo »

kanetw wrote: post #812
paulmd wrote: post #771

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Well you can still do USB2.0 over USB-C for all your low-speed, low-power gadgets.

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

#850

Post by ericd »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #709
ericd wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Light bulb sockets are actually a great example for the downsides of standardization, because they’re super suboptimal for LED bulbs, and are a large part of the reason for the transformers on many of the new bulbs burning out way before their rated lifetime. A better LED socket would provide better heatsinking/dissipation opportunities. But it was pretty good for many decades.

MR16 is a 12V DC standard so it does not need a transformer, in theory it's much better for LEDs, and yet we hardly ever see it used even in new builds. Every time I rented a place with MR16, like 1/3 of all sockets in the ceiling were dead, the power supply was inside the false ceiling and it was not possible to fix without making a hole. Needless to say lardlord need much motivating to fix anything. Also, it;s not…

Yeah, there’s a ton of inertia, with the standard socket so well entrenched. That’s pretty crazy about the proprietary socket. Seems like the big industry players should get a voluntary standards group together and make a big push.
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