"European union" Council adopts position on a common charger for electronic devices

[Spindel]

For the love of everything just don't make it USB-C. That connector is really bad and fragile. Heck even USB-A would be better than USB-C. 

 

If I had a say it would be a connector that is just a "male" on the coord and a "female" in the device (like Lightning, but does not necessarily need to be Lightning). Aside from USB-C being both male and female on both sides my experience is that it also wears out the device side and becomes loose really quickly and is a pain in the ass to clean once lint accumulate in it (like it will for pocketable devices like headphones and mobile phones). 

 

In previous threads on this topic I have made it clear that I personally think this is really stupid to legislate around since in the end it stifles innovation. 

 

But if EU (or any other part of the world for that matter) legislates this anyway:

 

DO NOT MAKE USB-C THE INTERFACE BY LAW!

[Forbidden Wafer]

46 minutes ago, CephDigital said:

Here's my thoughts on this, would we be stuck with the same connector forever if this was implemented? I highly doubt it, if someone came up with something much better and practical that would warrant an upgrade, I think we'd swap to it. Example, if this was implemented during the micro b days and then came along usb c that could do so much more while being more durable etc., we'd probably eventually move towards it.

Especially since usb is backwards compatible, which could solve the problem with tiny passive adaptors instead of replacing entire cables and chargers. 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

On 1/27/2022 at 5:54 AM, Imbadatnames said:

Imagine if they did this 10 years ago and said Micro USB was the standard. This is really aimed at Apple and lightning and all they’re gonna do is switch to portless. USBC isn’t a great connector and will break the device before the cable.

Dafaq is usb c a bad conector

its bidirectional, can transfer lots of data, and can do like 250w of power.

I go through micro usb cables constantly for my controler, I’ve already gone through two (they weren’t new, but realitivly unused before that), one the clips broke and one the conector got bent.

I have 3 usb c devices (and had one usb c phone) and none of them have broken the cable or device.

I hung that phone off the ceiling on that usb c cable and it didn’t break it (long story the nearest outlet was on the ceiling)

[Spindel]

17 minutes ago, Helpful Tech Wiard said:

Dafaq is usb c a bad conector

its bidirectional, can transfer lots of data, and can do like 250w of power.

I go through micro usb cables constantly for my controler, I’ve already gone through two (they weren’t new, but realitivly unused before that), one the clips broke and one the conector got bent.

I have 3 usb c devices (and had one usb c phone) and none of them have broken the cable or device.

I hung that phone off the ceiling on that usb c cable and it didn’t break it (long story the nearest outlet was on the ceiling)

USB-C is great in my personal experience for stuff that stays mostly plugged in. In stuff where you plug-in and unplug regularly it pretty quick becomes loose and finicky if it has the slightest side forces on the connector and loses connection.

 

And most it's the non-binary male/female connector on both ends. it would be much more sturdy and easier to clean if it was a straight female connector in the devices and a straight male connector on the cord.

 

Also if this thing would be purposed 15 years ago the standard would be something like this:    

This was all that a phone needed back then, who would need anything else, you can transfer data and power trough this connector. 

 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

18 minutes ago, Spindel said:

USB-C is great in my personal experience for stuff that stays mostly plugged in. In stuff where you plug-in and unplug regularly it pretty quick becomes loose and finicky if it has the slightest side forces on the connector and loses connection.

 

And most it's the non-binary male/female connector on both ends. it would be much more sturdy and easier to clean if it was a straight female connector in the devices and a straight male connector on the cord.

 

Also if this thing would be purposed 15 years ago the standard would be something like this:    

This was all that a phone needed back then, who would need anything else, you can transfer data and power trough this connector. 

 

I’ve never had issues with those.

What I have is a rpi (that stayed plugged usually) my school chromebook which I plug and unplug regurally, and a quest 2, which I’ve only had a month but it’s not had issues.

I also had a phone with it so ofc it got plugged and unplugged.

The thing is not we’re facing realistically limits. Plus, we can keep the connector the same but improve it, like we’ve been doing with usb a and usb c, increasing the number of pins and the data rate and voltage or amperage maximums for more power 

[mr moose]

8 hours ago, 1518 said:

I don't think it would stifle innovation as they can make newer versions of USB. And I think it would be better if I needed one cable for everything. 

They will make a new one, but since USB was released in 1996 it has had two physical plug updates.  Once to USB3 and then to C.    Because it is the standard and everyone (almost everyone) uses it for everything we are essentially waiting for the consortium and those who develop for it to get a round to developing something better.  

 

(yes I am ignoring mini/Micro USB and many of the esoteric ones,  simply because if we are talking about mobile then we have had only 3 physical plugs and the first update offered no real advantage).

 

Don't get me wrong standardization is great for many many reasons, but one thing it does do is slow down tech advancement.   When everyone wants you to use format X, then you won't even think about developing a new format that might be better.  The reality is that like everything else on this planet it is a trade off between convenience and something else.

[Paul Thexton]

I’ve no problem with standardising the use of the type C connector in principle, but can we please mandate some way of telling what the cable can actually do? Thunderbolt 3/4? USB 3.1 Gen 2?

[darknessblade]

1 minute ago, Paul Thexton said:

I’ve no problem with standardising the type C connector in principle, but can we please mandate some way of telling what the cable can actually do? Thunderbolt 3/4? USB 3.1 Gen 2?

That problem lies with the USB association  they changed the standard 3+ times

 

it is already listed what version of usb it uses on the spec list of phones.

 

This regulation, goes solely about the connector/adapter type

[Paul Thexton]

5 minutes ago, darknessblade said:

That problem lies with the USB association  they changed the standard 3+ times

 

it is already listed what version of usb it uses on the spec list of phones.

 

This regulation, goes solely about the connector/adapter type

I don’t mean the phone, I mean the physical cable that everyone wants to be able to share. They’re not all made equal. 

[Quackers101]

there should be 3 standards in charging for like home consumers. Also should be tied with how the charging bricks would operate or allow more devices too.

 

1. small devices (phones, gadgets etc)

2. for medium devices (laptops consoles etc), maybe two in this category?

as one would still need or want the barrel plugs or other for beefy laptops? much beef and noodles.

3. Future standards that could be adopted or changed if there will be a better one out there.

 

but to make both phones, laptops and other devices to use the same port or restrict design? is that a good thing?

[Kisai]

4 hours ago, Quackers101 said:

there should be 3 standards in charging for like home consumers. Also should be tied with how the charging bricks would operate or allow more devices too.

 

1. small devices (phones, gadgets etc)

2. for medium devices (laptops consoles etc), maybe two in this category?

as one would still need or want the barrel plugs or other for beefy laptops? much beef and noodles.

3. Future standards that could be adopted or changed if there will be a better one out there.

 

but to make both phones, laptops and other devices to use the same port or restrict design? is that a good thing?

Honestly, you want to see why USB standard was a bad idea? Look at airplanes and trains. You can't replace those every 3 years. Rather you can rip out the existing ports, but not the wiring. In the last decade, BC Ferries put USB-A port/120v AC charging stations on the ferries. (remember the problem with USB charging stations is the potential for hacking/fried devices), Amtrak Cascades has 120v+USB-A outlets between their seats (other coaches have 120v on the wall of the seat)

 

As the three newer ferries on BC Ferries were produced in europe, they have euro-styled outlet spacing in places that have them.

 

Now what's the best option?

 

All small devices that are thicker than four 25-cent coins (7mm), should be required to use USB-C PD for all charging, data, and docking. iphones are 7.7mm. If it's thinner then we should have a "electrically USB-C" magnetic connector that attaches to the outside for charging, but trying to impose USB-C on things that are thinner may result in "stifiling" innovation in thin devices. That said, I'd appreciate if a regulation existed that mandated that "ALL" mobile devices with a battery larger than 1000mAh be USB-C without exception.

 

For devices that are effectively portable computers (tablets and laptops), should have USB-C as a required port for charging, displayport, hdmi, but only needs ONE port to have these capabilities unless it requires more than 90w, in which case then ALL UBC-c ports must support PD in both directions.

 

To that end, anything that is effectively a portable desktop (225w+ laptops) should also support some kind of standard maglock (that again, electrically USB-C) option so that the ports aren't damaged/arced when accidently pulled out.

 

If it has a battery, it should support power and charging over USB-C PD. The device is free to have alternative options as long as long as they are not inferior to USB-C PD's charging speed, and the device may not cripple USB-C in any way (speed, bandwidth, feature set) to give an advantage to another connection method. (read: no disabling USB-C PD features to benefit the other method.)

 

 

[Tenelia]

On 1/27/2022 at 7:54 PM, Imbadatnames said:

Imagine if they did this 10 years ago and said Micro USB was the standard. This is really aimed at Apple and lightning and all they’re gonna do is switch to portless. USBC isn’t a great connector and will break the device before the cable.

that's my main concern too.

 

Also: If better connector tech appears, will the committee responsible be able to keep pace with the tech? Or will they take another good 7 years to settle on another draft proposal again? I love having sufficient regulation set the ceiling and floor appropriately, but not when it takes forever to keep up.

[whispous]

On 1/27/2022 at 11:44 AM, Grand Admiral Thrawn said:

I do not see anything innovative in creating a differently shaped charging/data port.

I am sure there is a possibility to keep the shape as it is and improve on other fields just like USB as well as HDMI do.

Lightning was far FAR FAR better than Micro-USB.

[jagdtigger]

Geese, just use something like magsafe. Easy to clean and very hard to ruin....

[Moonzy]

On 1/27/2022 at 8:03 PM, darknessblade said:

99% of all newly released mobile devices use a usb type C, and there is no problem with it.

I'm pretty sure there are things to improve for USB C, nothing is perfect
and some other connections may be better suited for certain cases where USB C is not good for.
 

Quote

... if you make the assumptions that there aren't improvements to be made, you may not ever look for them.
- Technology Connections

 

[williamcll]

On 1/28/2022 at 12:21 AM, whm1974 said:

Never heard of this before, what is it?

The USB standard for charging laptops using a USB-C cable. Commonly seen on macbooks and nintendo switches but a lot of modern laptops with USB-C such as the GPD Win 3 or Lenovo Legion 2021 will work too. Some phones do have PD but most of them do not offer the same speed as their proprietary charging standards.

[tikker]

Gotta love how having a zoo of chargers will lead to complaints about having so many different chargers, bad connectors and what not yet the moment something is done about it to simplify the state of affairs the complaints simply shift to how now forcing a single charger is bad.

  

16 hours ago, Paul Thexton said:

I’ve no problem with standardising the use of the type C connector in principle, but can we please mandate some way of telling what the cable can actually do? Thunderbolt 3/4? USB 3.1 Gen 2?

Yeah mandates to force manufacturers to be clearer about this would be great. Btw, the official USB designations are SuperSpeed, SuperSpeed 10Gbps and SuperSpeed 20 Gbps. Saying it is "USB 3.1 Gen 2" at best tells you it supports the Gen 2 transfer mode and was built in a time where 3.1 was the latest revision, which is a nice detail for the interested people, but does not indicate a feature set (it should be advertised as "SuperSpeed 10 Gbps" and not Gen 2).

 

10 hours ago, Kisai said:

If it has a battery, it should support power and charging over USB-C PD. The device is free to have alternative options as long as long as they are not inferior to USB-C PD's charging speed, and the device may not cripple USB-C in any way (speed, bandwidth, feature set) to give an advantage to another connection method. (read: no disabling USB-C PD features to benefit the other method.)

 

Unless I misunderstand your point, how is this different from the EU's proposal? The only thing it says is " a common standard port for all smartphones, tablets, digital cameras, headphones, portable speakers and video game consoles." There doesn't seem to be anything preventing them from putting other ports on there, just that they must have a USB-C charging port supporting USB PD.

[StDragon]

Apple is valued at 3 Trillion. One would think it's in their interest to come to the table to open up some of their IP. Transfer and expansion, USB-C is the superior option. But in terms of connectivity, Lightning is better. I would rather have physical damage be in an easily replaceable cable than have a broken USB-C port on the mobile device. Probably too late now...

[poochyena]

On 1/27/2022 at 5:54 AM, Imbadatnames said:

Imagine if they did this 10 years ago and said Micro USB was the standard. This is really aimed at Apple and lightning and all they’re gonna do is switch to portless. USBC isn’t a great connector and will break the device before the cable.

But they did though. Are you too young to remember when every single tech device has its own unique cable type?

[Jito463]

1 hour ago, poochyena said:

But they did though. Are you too young to remember when every single tech device has its own unique cable type?

I still have my old Samsung BlackJack II sitting next to my head, that I use as a backup alarm for in the morning.  It actually wasn't a bad charging port, but it was definitely unique to that device.

 

[tim0901]

Personally I just don't see the point of introducing a regulation that is clearly aimed at a single company (Apple) that is already planning to ditch power connectors entirely in the next few years. Everyone knows Apple wants to move to the portless iPhone and this regulation would do nothing to prevent that - saying "you must use USB C" does not mean "you must have a USB C port on your device".

 

The only thing this legislation would do is expedite this process. It would not in any way result in the release of a USB C iPhone.

 

I also, however, agree that putting legal legislation surrounding this is not the best idea. USB C will eventually need replacing and even if a single "next-gen" standard is agreed upon by major players in the industry (kind of like AV1) it would take forever (years) to change the legislation and allow it to actually be used there. Inevitably some companies will object to the new standard - especially if it has a license cost - and chances are the movement will get locked up in lawsuits and courts (as is often the case with changes in standards) and it just turns into an absolute shitshow. EU-based consumers end up with inferior products for years while they wait for the laws to be updated. For a glimpse at how bad legislators are when it comes to technology: just look at how much of a terrible job they are doing at regulating social media companies. Legislation does not keep up with - or remotely understand - advances in technology and will always be late to the party.

 

Even more problems would arise if another block (say the US) were to then introduce their own regulations mandating the use of a different connector - or perhaps the inevitable future where different countries move on to future standards at different times? Suddenly you've got the EU mandating the use of USB C while the US requires the newer USB D - perhaps China mandates FireWire2 - and congratulations your devices are now as regional as your wall plug! Manufacturers get shafted as they have to produce far more SKUs of their products, driving up costs for consumers. The regions of the world that don't regulate get truly shafted as they're left with a patchwork collection of all the globally accepted standards - basically whichever is the most convenient for the manufacturer to ship there.

 

At the end of the day it just isn't going to work. It isn't going to affect the primary target (Apple) and has the potential to cause huge problems down the line when technology moves on. How about they give up on this pointless law and focus on regulating things that actually matter, perhaps social media companies?

[Kisai]

4 hours ago, tim0901 said:

 

I also, however, agree that putting legal legislation surrounding this is not the best idea. USB C will eventually need replacing and even if a single "next-gen" standard is agreed upon by major players in the industry (kind of like AV1) it would take forever (years) to change the legislation and allow it to actually be used there.

Every country has been using their own wall-outlet design since inception more than a century ago. Changing the USB-C PD every few years will just result in manufacturers of products releasing dongle-hell.

 

What I want is the small USB-C connector be mandated as the primary charging option for all devices (that are 7mm or thicker) with a battery, and that does not mean an alternate can't exist, just that no end-runs around the rule like most manufacturers did at the beginning where the proprietary connector or other usb (eg micro) was used on the phone, and then USB-A on the charger end. Both ends, USB-C PD. 

 

Where flexibility clearly needs to exist are on devices that are too small to put out the same amount of power they put in (such as phones), because you want both wall-chargers and batteries to be possible, and having two USB-C ports on devices would allow you to daisy-chain a bunch of PD units together as long as they can pass the full PD power thru them, which is why you don't want manufacturers to leave things up to interpretation. What if I have a 250w dell  usb-c pd charger, plugged into an after market 30,000mAh battery ,  plugged into two mobile phones, and then headphones plugged into the one phone? The charger doesn't need to support USB audio, the battery likely won't pass non-PD protocols unless it also incorporates a USB 3.x hub, and since USB is software-driven, the host device is the only device that needs to know how to handle anything other than PD. What happens when you have two of them?

 

That's why mandating that devices use a mechanical USB-C port with USB PD as the charging protocol is a sane idea. 

 

But quite honestly, I'm surprised they aren't going further and mandating a standard AC power ( eg 250v / 3000w, or "rapid kettle" spec) standard that uses the same PD protocol but an obviously much larger connector. Global manufacturers would then only need to produce one cable, and the closest we got to this are the IEC C13 standard for the device end. The office I worked at, had, hundreds of these cables, hundreds of VGA cables, and hundreds of DVI cables.

 

All this waste comes from changing standards for no apparent benefit to the consumer. There was nothing stopping us from still using VGA for what became DVI and what became HDMI, other than a desire for a better cable spec, and even them, cheap chinese counterfeit-tier cables violate the spec all the time.

 

As it is, a "double USB-C" standard already exists, Dell uses it on the laptops that would normally have a 240w power brick, and the docking stations that use it, require the 240w power brick. All other docks (eg WD15 and WD19) only have a single USB-C connector, and ship with 130w chargers.

 

We are sometimes so short-sighted about things, that we demand a standard to exist, and then that standard made too many compromises to make it useful for all scenarios, and that's why proprietary solutions end up existing.

 

And Apple is not going to be happy when customers don't buy a new iphone if they decide to go portless. They will get flack for wasting energy on wireless charging, and they will get flack for e-waste. Apple customers, if anything, like a shiny new phone, but they are not oblivious to e-waste, unlike Android manufacturers which produce phones that barely last 2 years and end up in landfills.

 

[RejZoR]

It's funny everyone is whining over Lightning when Lightning predates USB-C as the first reversible connector actually available on physical commercial device. And it got adopted in a single year across ALL Apple devices.

 

It's 2022 and I still see bunch of NEW devices around with stupid microUSB connectors. Who's sanctioning those? Whose whining over those? No one apparently because they aren't made by Apple and as we know, anything not made by Apple is generally not news/post worthy. Now, I wouldn't mind USB-C on an iPhone, but frankly, having to rely on Lightning which was again the first reversible connector is no different than still having to rely on microUSB for so many things, today.

 

And with most chargers insisting on having USB-C outputs only, it means I'll have to throw away ALL the USB-A to USB-C cables that I still have because they won't fit into any charger anymore. Progress and ecology!

 

If anyone actually gave a fuck, USB-C would be mandated on all devices sold today, not just recommended but required. And then bark at Apple for their Lightning. Instead everyone is barking at Apple while setting bad example by leaving all others freely use ancient microUSB. It just makes everything look weird, that's all.

[Senzelian]

3 hours ago, RejZoR said:

It's 2022 and I still see bunch of NEW devices around with stupid microUSB connectors. Who's sanctioning those? Whose whining over those?

The same people that will sanction Apple.
No one, because a few thousand Wiko Y82s don't matter when there are millions and millions of iPhones. On top of that, this is about USB C chargers, not USB C devices.

 

3 hours ago, RejZoR said:

And with most chargers insisting on having USB-C outputs only, it means I'll have to throw away ALL the USB-A to USB-C cables that I still have because they won't fit into any charger anymore. Progress and ecology!

Yes, because all of your USB A chargers will suddenly transform into USB C chargers. 
btw. did anyone complain when the apple 30pin was replaced with lightning? or firewire with Thunderbolt? We've already been through this many times and at the end someone will always end up with a bunch of useless cables. 

 

3 hours ago, RejZoR said:

If anyone actually gave a fuck, USB-C would be mandated on all devices sold today, not just recommended but required. And then bark at Apple for their Lightning. Instead everyone is barking at Apple while setting bad example by leaving all others freely use ancient microUSB. It just makes everything look weird, that's all.

Usually the sheep follow Apple, not the other way around.
Apple has never really cared about "good examples". They're the ones that define for themselves what a good example is.

 

On top of that you can't just mandate USB C on all devices. Manufacturers have to have a say in this aswell. The EU is still a democracy and not east Germany.

[Spindel]

1 hour ago, Senzelian said:

btw. did anyone complain when the apple 30pin was replaced with lightning? or firewire with Thunderbolt? 

Both tech and non tech forums where a shit show when apple dropped the 30-pin connector to give place to lightning. 

 

Conspiracies where running wild that this was a move from Apple in cahoots with peripheral manufacturers to sell new peripherals. Some people refused to accept that the 30-pin was ancient and needed replacing. 

 

Same thing when FireWire was dropped, loads of people staring up a shit storm that had invested in loads peripherals complaining that they had to buy firewire to TB adapters to make them work (gladly forgetting that they probably only needed 1-3 adapters since daisy changing ie external drives was a thing with FW).