Official: USB-C will be mandatory for phones sold in the EU by Autumn 2024

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, Chiyawa said:

Just 1 question, will they follow Power Delivery, Qualcomm Quick Charge or Apple Lightning?

Sounds like a new standard is required that unifies all 3... lol

[saltycaramel]

1 hour ago, Chiyawa said:

Just 1 question, will they follow Power Delivery, Qualcomm Quick Charge or Apple Lightning?

 

Apple already uses PD voltages even if there's Lightning at one end of the usb-c cable. 

Apple's usb-c power bricks have been ready for this transition for a while...

[RedRound2]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

Sounds like a new standard is required that unifies all 3... lol

 

2 hours ago, Chiyawa said:

Just 1 question, will they follow Power Delivery, Qualcomm Quick Charge or Apple Lightning?

All proprietary fast charge tech will die and USB-PD is going to be the standard. Apple already uses it. Google has mandated it since some years (even if the device supports proprietary standard). Laptops will also use PD.

 

Sure there will be those exotic standards like Super VOOC which charges the phone at 1000W, but 99% of the industry should converge to USB-PD

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

All proprietary fast charge tech will die and USB-PD is going to be the standard. Apple already uses it. Google has mandated it since some years. Laptops will also use PD

I know, it was a joke about standards 

[BiG StroOnZ]

Not sure if this was posted ~

 

The UK is not "currently considering" following the EU's lead with USB Type-C. The UK has no plans to make USB Type-C the nation's common charging cable for portable devices:

 

Quote

Earlier this week, the EU announced that they would be making USB Type-C the block's common charging cable for mobile devices, a move that's designed to reduce electronics waste and ensure that most portable devices can be charged though an almost universal cable standard.

 

When asked for comment by the BBC, the British government has stated that they are not "currently considering" any plans to copy the EU's plans to make USB Type-C a common charging cable within the UK.

 

In theory, the rules variations between the UK and EU could force devices sold in Northern Ireland to include USB Type-C, while devices sold in the mainland UK could use alternative charging ports. This will make standards between segments of the UK market diverge...

 

Critics of the EU's move to adopt USB Type-C as a common charging cable states that forcing USB Type-C "stifles innovation"...

 

https://www.overclock3d.net/news/input_devices/the_uk_is_not_currently_considering_following_the_eu_s_lead_with_usb_type-c/1

[CTR640]

On 6/7/2022 at 11:38 PM, Salv8 (sam) said:

usb-c is a god send, but even it has limits. (250w to be precise)

most devices don't need more, some do.

case in point: gaming laptops, they do stay within this limit and won't need it, but some more power hungry ones are going to have to implement a custom solution if they go over.
(e.g if its running a 3070 maxq or above)
these bad boys can consume as much as 300w (from what i've been able to deduce) and at that point sharing the load between two usb-c connections is a bad idea.

if one of them gets unplugged the laptop may not have enough power to run the devices it houses so it shuts off or it limits them, hurting the users experience.

 

while i agree that usb-c needs to be todays standard for charging, it cannot do everything and there will always be devices that cannot fully rely on it.

that is why it exists and it makes full sense.

Perhaps, maybe USB-C will develop further and will be able to do more than 250W. Hopefully it will force nGreedia and AMD to develop more efficient GPU's instead of going all overboard with horrible efficiency.

 

And yes, USB-C is indeed a God send. Fuck all the proprietary bullshit! I had many times happening we lost our cables so we couldn't use the devices no more. Fucking hell with all the proprietary nonsense. Even my shaver from Aliexpress comes with USB-C!

[tikker]

23 hours ago, CTR640 said:

Perhaps, maybe USB-C will develop further and will be able to do more than 250W. Hopefully it will force nGreedia and AMD to develop more efficient GPU's instead of going all overboard with horrible efficiency.

I think people confuse efficiency with power draw. If you measure efficiency as frames per Watt, for example, and the new generation will have twice the frames for double the wattage then the efficiency has not changed. Tom's Hardware did a test like that and you can see that while the 361 W 3090 is less efficient than their reference (an RX 6800), a 217 W 3070 is more efficient than their 172 W 3060. A higher power draw does not immediately imply a worse efficiency. As came up in another thread, these things unfortunately often don't scale linearly, so just like with overclocking for X more performance you tend to see a greater-than-X increase in power required. Or at least at first before optimisation comes to fruition.

 

I doubt this will affect GPU manufacturers much as I don't think we're at the point yet where the market has a strong need to have fullblown GPU with performance equal to the desktop variant in a laptop. I'm also not sure if we need USB to power everything under the Sun from 10 W phone chargers to 1000 W gaming PCs, so for now I think it's a good middle ground. It's 240 W capability is 48 V / 5 A already. I'm not sure how much more one can safely push through the size of cable that they are.

[Dracarris]

On 6/7/2022 at 9:04 PM, Caroline said:

Apple will come up with some shitty DRM that uses the data pins to prevent the iPhones from working with non-Apple chargers. Or just portless.

How on gods wide earth do people come up with such utter bullcrap? As of today you can use every freaking charger with a USB-A or -C port to charge iphones. JFC.

[LAwLz]

39 minutes ago, Dracarris said:

How on gods wide earth do people come up with such utter bullcrap? As of today you can use every freaking charger with a USB-A or -C port to charge iphones. JFC.

I mean, it would not be that surprising if Apple did implement som DRM. They did so with their Lighting cables.

But yeah, since we already have USB-C devices from Apple and we know they don't do any type of DRM checks it makes sense to assume any cable will work with the theoretical future USB-C iPhone.

[adiack]

am i the only one who doesn't feel comfortable with this being mandatory what if usb C isnt the best port maybe a new better one comes out. 

[Dracarris]

14 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I mean, it would not be that surprising if Apple did implement som DRM.

No. Lighting cables are a totally different cup of tea.

[tikker]

24 minutes ago, adiack said:

am i the only one who doesn't feel comfortable with this being mandatory what if usb C isnt the best port maybe a new better one comes out. 

Then you wait until it has matured a bit, proven better and equally or more reliable and change the mandate.

[adiack]

1 minute ago, tikker said:

Then you wait until it has matured a bit, proven better and equally or more reliable and change the mandate.

if every big nations implements something like this then how will it properly mature when there is no market funding or large user base. and even when it is mature goverments have shown them selves to be slow to update laws. and are they gonna just mandate multiple conecters because just because there is a new good one what if it isnt perfect in all situation but is real good for a few use cases.

[tikker]

34 minutes ago, adiack said:

if every big nations implements something like this then how will it properly mature when there is no market funding or large user base

By truly being a better solution. If there is truly so much innovation just waiting to happen for these connectors, where has that been the past decade? The "what if" questions are valid to a point, but those stifle innovation just as much if not more, because they actually stop things from progressing. "What if" very easily gets you stuck in the "but it can be better" cycle to the point where nothing gets released or done, because there's always the better thing around the corner. At this point I do think the time of quick developments is over due to the lack of major changes over the past years. It's all been incremental improvements on either Lightning for Apple, or USB for others. USB-C now simply ticks many boxes and the market had already sort of naturally gravitated towards it. It can provide ample power for the intended devices and has a solid history in terms of communciation protocol and compatability with other things like Thunderbolt.

 

Most of us here will probably have lived through "charger hell". It was not fun. Even without the mandate, I think people would dislike it if e.g. Samsung now put a square charging port on their phone requiring you to go and buy a charger specifically for that single device simply because of how common USB-C already is.

34 minutes ago, adiack said:

and even when it is mature goverments have shown them selves to be slow to update laws.

I agree the political process can be slow to a sometimes unduly degree, but at the same time laws are not really something that should be easy to change on a moment's notice. The connector also has already changed once in a sense, since the original agreement was supposed to base it on micro-USB.

34 minutes ago, adiack said:

and are they gonna just mandate multiple conecters because just because there is a new good one

No. This directive only mandates they adhere to whatever the decided-on common charging port is. You are free to put as many extra ports on it as you like.

34 minutes ago, adiack said:

what if it isnt perfect in all situation but is real good for a few use cases.

Then it likely has no bigger value in being a generally mandated connector and can be on those devices specifically.

[Paul Thexton]

37 minutes ago, tikker said:

Most of us here will probably have lived through "charger hell". It was not fun.

I've suddenly had memories of some Nokia phones using a barrel plug that was so thin it was ridiculously easy to bend (and then break when it bends again).

 

Urgh.

[adiack]

Just now, tikker said:

Then it likely has no bigger value in being a generally mandated connector and can be on those devices specifically.

but how can it be there main port of the eu mandates usb C

[suicidalfranco]

2 minutes ago, adiack said:

but how can it be there main port of the eu mandates usb C

Cause mandating USB-C doesn't mean there can be only a C port. It must have a c port yes, what an oem adds in addition to that doesn't violate the mandate.

See HP laptops who have both barrel plug and a USB-C charging enabled port

[tikker]

14 minutes ago, adiack said:

but how can it be there main port of the eu mandates usb C

It can't, at least not the only one. That's the point of the mandate. They address this at the start of the directive:

Quote

In June 2009, following a request from the Commission, major producers of mobile telephones agreed to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on harmonising chargers for data-enabled mobile phones sold in the EU.

<snip>
However, the MoU also allowed for the use of proprietary charging interfaces, and one such solution continued to be used (and still is) by a major mobile phone manufacturer, thus preventing full interoperability.

In the new agreement you can still do whatever you want, as long as you also provide the ability to charge over USB-C with USB PD.

[Just that Mario]

On 6/7/2022 at 4:47 PM, Neoxon said:

Buyers can choose whether to purchase new device with or without charging device 

Ah yes, we all know how this all went when Apple decided you must buy charger separately if you really need one.

Overall, Type C is just the physical connector... How it behaves and does electronically is still for everyone to decide and this is a major issue. Just because it fits doesn't mean it should be inserted.

[Just that Mario]

On 6/7/2022 at 6:15 PM, J-from-Nucleon said:

I think this was metioned in a previous article but the law does account for this and should be updated accordingly.

That said, I could very well be wrong

You clearly said it yourself, it SHOULD be. Doesn't mean it will be, just like it usually goes.

[Just that Mario]

On 6/9/2022 at 11:23 AM, Kisai said:

The amount of times people have broken connectors off, or broken the pin in the barrel connector in laptops, is reason enough to move away from barrel connectors.

Sadly USBC is physically much weaker than a barrel connector. Oh well...

[Roswell]

Just now, Just that Mario said:

Sadly USBC is physically much weaker than a barrel connector. Oh well...

That's my main beef with this stupid law.

 

If you snap a lightning cable off, phone falls on it, whatever... The lightning cable breaks and you're out 10 bucks. BUT if you snap a USB-C cable, instead of the cable just breaking you end up with a broken port on your phone instead costing you a lot more than 10 bucks.

[tikker]

18 minutes ago, Just that Mario said:

Overall, Type C is just the physical connector... How it behaves and does electronically is still for everyone to decide and this is a major issue. Just because it fits doesn't mean it should be inserted.

Every connector on the planet is "just the physical connector" with "for everyone to decide how it behaves". If you are referring to voltages and such, then that is also covered. The mandate doesn't just require USB-C, it also requires the implementation of USB Power Delivery (PD) if the device can do more than 5 V, 3 A or 15 W and USB PD will negotiate the possible charging modes and voltages  with the device before it does anything. It won't just assume it's fine to blast 48 V into your phone that only takes 5 V.

 

I had a perfect example recently of "Just because it fits doesn't mean it should be inserted." my router and switch used the exact same barrel plug with near identical wall plugs at the end. Unfortunately one was 12 V and the other was 48 V, and I plugged the 48 V power brick into the 12 V device, releasing the magic smoke. With USB PD that is much less likely to happen since it supports various modes and won't just blast it with 48 V, but instead will negotiate with the device to figure out the supported ones.

15 minutes ago, Just that Mario said:

You clearly said it yourself, it SHOULD be. Doesn't mean it will be, just like it usually goes.

True, but also a never ending circular argument. At this point it becomes a matter of trust. Some will have faith it will work out and some won't.

 

2 minutes ago, Roswell said:

That's my main beef with this stupid law.

 

If you snap a lightning cable off, phone falls on it, whatever... The lightning cable breaks and you're out 10 bucks. BUT if you snap a USB-C cable, instead of the cable just breaking you end up with a broken port on your phone instead costing you a lot more than 10 bucks.

Haven't one break myself yet through dropping phones attached to chargers, but what I do find a bit surprising is how often I encounter it not being flush with the product. My phone has like a mm of space between the phone's casing and the connector casing and my microphone plug sticks out half a kilometre. I can indeed feel the wiggle room and it is certainly a weak point. On my laptop on the other hand they mate completely flush and it's a solid connection.

[flibberdipper]

On 6/7/2022 at 3:04 PM, Caroline said:

Apple will come up with some shitty DRM that uses the data pins to prevent the iPhones from working with non-Apple chargers. Or just portless.

Out of all the anti-Apple shit I have read, this might just be the funniest. "Surely they'll implement some form of charger DRM when they have products go USB C, like the MacBook and the iPad... oh wait they didn't?"

[Paul Thexton]

11 hours ago, Sakuriru said:

Uh, no.

 

Here's the specification. Apple, or anyone else, can't magically make their USB-C device not be compatible by altering how the signal transmission works, because then it wouldn't be USB-C as defined in a rigorous specification which the EU just said everyone needs to comply with.

I do have vague memories of Apple using the resistive value of one of the pins, or at least one of them anyway, for the iPhone/iPod to go in to a relevant mode when plugged in to something.  This is how iPods used to go in to iPod Accessory mode for example, and I once bought a "fast charge" (2A, so not fast not by modern standards!) 9v adapter for my car that didn't work with my android phone at the time as it was geared towards being used with an iPhone (wasn't on the product description page), so one of the hardware engineers I worked with at the time "fixed" it for me by modifying the circuit on it to undo the Apple fast charge stuff.

 

I think those historic things are why people are so suspicious of what Apple might do this time around.

 

It's not unwarranted scepticism, it's already happened with the current 16" MacBook Pros that will only do the 50% in the 30 minute fast charge via the MagSafe connector and not from the USB-C connector.