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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

#641

Post by foepys »

pawelos wrote: post #592
throw0101a wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In all my years, I haven't had a single Lightning connector fail on me. The solid metal where the contacts reside is just too robust to wear out or get damaged (unless you somehow step on it the right way or let it corrode). I'm on my second phone where the Lightning connector barely works anymore. 'Thankfully' this one support Qi so I can charge wireless, but if I want to do a wired backup or upgrade I have to jig…

Try cleaning the connector, when my lighting connectors started to fail, it was always caused by a ton of dust that I removed with a needle.

Please use something wooden or plastic. A non-metal toothpick is perfect.

I've successfully cleaned multiple USB-C ports using a toothpick.

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

#642

Post by oblak »

fuzzybear3965 wrote: post #582
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…

It seems that USB-C for _Lenovo_ laptop power ports seems to be incredibly flaky. I have 2 year-old HP Spectre x360 and a new Framework and I've had no problems with charging either of them from a number of different USB-C cables, wall adapters, and even a power delivery monitor (Dell U2520D).

My wife's Lenovo ultrabook (although an AMD one) has USB-C charging and we haven't noticed any problem for about 4 years now. Her phone phone is also USB-C. No visible problems there, too.

This thread of full of non-sense

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

#643

Post by leadingthenet »

akira2501 wrote: post #568
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.

> Innovation, particularly disruptive and / or breakthrough innovation We are talking about power cables here. Are you anticipating something major in this space? Is it reasonable to do so?

Disruptive technology cannot be anticipated. It's tautological.

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

#644

Post by kibwen »

delecti wrote: post #613
treis wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The average person would have to pick and choose stations Stations would just have two nozzles on their pumps.

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.

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

#645

Post by garaetjjte »

jokabrink wrote: post #271

The whole discussion reminds me a bit of the similar move the EU did back in 2009: Introduce a (voluntary) common external power supply (Micro-USB). Now, I feel the same arguments are brought in again. 1) Hinders innovation 2) Lock on a single technology 3) Creates trash by soon obsolete "deprecated" connector types My bet: 2024 (!) onwards, nearly nobody will be affected by the "downsides".

Alternative history: EU actually makes micro-B mandatory back in 2009, and as a result USB-C never gained traction because all phones were forced by law to use micro-B.

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

#646

Post by Nextgrid »

interestica wrote: post #462
Nextgrid wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still not a great spec if it's so complex that you can screw it up. I understand the complexity for data, but for power I wish it was as simple as power & ground wires and that's it. Compare that with USB-A where even cheap Chinese cables from the lowest bidder usually work (work well enough at least - you might get voltage drop but it will still charge if you leave it on long enough) because the spec is so simp…

I wanted to get a trimmer with USB-C. Unfortunately, all that I found would not allow c-to-c charging. Only charging from A. The 'A' basically allows a 'hot wire' type charge to go through for power. C-only charging requires negotiation. There's no way to tell up front that the charging is limited like this and manufacturers don't want to highlight it.

You can build your own cable by buying a "USB-C trigger" (as they're called on eBay), it's a board with a USB-C port and a power delivery controller chip that's preconfigured for the specified voltage.

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

#647

Post by dfox »

tediousdemise wrote: post #545
bloppe wrote: post #485

A lot of people saying "USB-C cables aren't even compatible with each other!" (Nintendo switch etc.) Guess what: that's exactly the problem this regulation is intended to solve. Fake USB-C cables like Nintendo's that have the right shape but do not adhere to spec should gradually disappear along with lightning cables. The regulation actually says that cables can no longer be bundled with the devices themselves, so Ni…

It's kind of sad to me that Apple doesn't make Lightning an open standard. In all my years, I haven't had a single Lightning connector fail on me. The solid metal where the contacts reside is just too robust to wear out or get damaged (unless you somehow step on it the right way or let it corrode). USB-C connectors, on the other hand, seems to loosen after a rather small number mates and de-mates, leading people to u…

I assume that the reason for not making Lightning an open standard is that the thing on the technical level is really tightly coupled to iOS. On electrical level it is mostly an “two-lane” HS USB. USB-Lightning cable is basically wires, but other kinds of Lightning peripherals use weird protocols that are highly XNU/Darwin/iOS specific, mostly because that was the simpler implementation (looking at how things like AirPlay/CarPlay works show that Apple does not intentionally produce proprietary interfaces, but they use open standards as long as there are open standards and just invent the simplest thing when there is no applicable standard).

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

#648

Post by bonzini »

potatochup wrote: post #356
mrtksn wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU is a densely populated place where having multiple charging networks of incomparable plugs will be horrible. When you are not happy with decisions the governments make, it usually means that you should be involved in the process of making the decisions. Europeans don't trust that the industry will always come up with the best solutions for the user, Americans usually don't trust the government doing something well…

Random anecdote: I once got stuck at a friends place in Denmark with my Tesla, because the mobile connector wouldn't work. Turns out despite the voltage and socket being the same, the grounding can vary between countries and the connector wouldn't let me charge (this was back in 2016, I'm not sure if newer mobile connectors are better in that regard)

Is that because some places have 230V and neutral, while others have -115V and +115V (yes like in the US but in Europe)?

There's a single neighborhood in Rome where that happens and car chargers don't work. The "solution" is to request a three-phase 400V connection: the utility company can't deny it and it must be 220V to neutral.

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

#649

Post by Barrin92 »

leadingthenet wrote: post #506
bloppe wrote: post #485

A lot of people saying "USB-C cables aren't even compatible with each other!" (Nintendo switch etc.) Guess what: that's exactly the problem this regulation is intended to solve. Fake USB-C cables like Nintendo's that have the right shape but do not adhere to spec should gradually disappear along with lightning cables. The regulation actually says that cables can no longer be bundled with the devices themselves, so Ni…

> 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.

who needs breakthrough innovation for a charger? It's like the C++ programming language, I just want it to work everywhere. Programming languages have been designed by committee just fine.

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

#650

Post by ithkuil »

earthboundkid wrote: post #535
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.

> Innovation, particularly disruptive and / or breakthrough innovation, does not happen by committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD#History Never make an absolutist statement. They're always wrong. :-)

> They're always wrong

Lol. An interesting version of the liars paradox.

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