India follows EU's example in requiring USB-C charging for smart devices

The real solution is to not legislate a standard, but instead to say:

"A 10% additional tax shall apply to the sale of any portable device. The tax will be reduced to zero if the device uses the most common charging port in the year the device was sold. The tax is reduced to 5% if it uses the 2nd most common port in the year it was sold."

That means any big industry effort to move to a new port will, when it gets more than 50% support, will immediately get everyone else to move over to save money. And people can still use custom/niche ports, but they'll take a hit to their bottom line for the privilege - but it'll be worth it if the utility of the better port is good enough the user is happy to pay a premium for it.

The fact the tax is determined at the end of the year means manufacturers have an incentive to work together on standardization even after devices are in the hands of consumers. For example, Apple could maybe open up lightning to other manufacturers and save a lot of taxes on devices already sold in that year, if they could make lightning the most popular in the year.

Yes although two charge ports doesn't sound impossible and/or especially bad to me. Especially if the port is a brand new standard you'll never be able to borrow a charge cable for from a friend.

Would be interested to know how much multiple charge ports affect price/complexity.

Why the whataboutism? Just cheer the progress.

The EU is watching the USB-IF for further improvements. Currently it is limited to 100 Watt and common devices like latops and smartphones. And they're watching wireless-charging already. If Apple or some of the other usual suspects (Microsoft, Amazon, Google) tries to push a proprietary technology the can act hopefully quicker.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/QANDA_...

I'm still looking for the part where exceptions are listed and there are already some e.g. for small fitness trackers. They are slow but not necessarily stupid. *Nobody prevents any manufacturer to add additional charging ports.*

TLDR Power plugs across Europe and North America where standardized for decades. And guess what. That stuff works! And YES this new regulations actually implements a new power plug aside from the Europlug, USB Type-C. This is nothing entirely new or crazy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europlug

If it pulls more than 240W from the wall it can use USB-C PD, though common chargers only go up to (or just a bit over) 100W.