[HN Gopher] EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for m...
___________________________________________________________________
EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic
devices
Author : geox
Score : 387 points
Date : 2022-06-07 10:50 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.engadget.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.engadget.com)
| tzs wrote:
| > "Today we have made the common charger a reality in Europe!"
| said the European Parliament's rapporteur Alex Agius Saliba in a
| press statement. "European consumers were frustrated long with
| multiple chargers piling up with every new device. Now they will
| be able to use a single charger for all their portable
| electronics."
|
| The devices this covers, those rechargeable by a wired cable
| according to the EU press release, have pretty much all used USB
| chargers for a long time so I don't see how this addresses the
| issue of multiple chargers piling up. At most it addresses the
| issue of multiple USB to X _cables_ piling up, where X is most
| commonly Lightning.
|
| Unless they also prohibit selling devices with USB chargers I
| have doubts that this will stop the bundling. Apple has tried to
| stop including chargers on the theory that nearly everyone
| already has a bunch lying around, and has drawn a lot of
| complaints over that, and fines in Brazil where the government
| regulators have decided that not bundling chargers with every
| phone is anti-consumer.
| theptip wrote:
| So every upgrading iPhone user in the world needs to discard
| every single charging device they own, including expensive multi-
| device chargers like phone+watch. In the short-term this clearly
| produces _more_ e-waste. I wonder if anyone made an estimate of
| the break-even time here. One year? Ten? Will everyone be
| discarding their chargers and switching to wireless before break-
| even is achieved?
|
| How much money does it cost for the USB-D spec to get approved by
| the EU if/when that is released? (How much did the USB-C industry
| groups spend on lobbying to get this done)? This seems like a
| much less significant concern but I am curious what order of
| magnitude we are dealing with here.
|
| This legislation would have been great twenty years ago when
| there were lots of proprietary plugs on phones, but it seems much
| less substantial of an issue now in my experience.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| No reason to toss everything until your current phone is no
| longer used. And Apple isn't exactly shy about changing their
| connectors, so such might already be the case for upcoming
| phones. In any case, I'm pretty sure Apple will go to to full
| wireless before long.
| theptip wrote:
| Right, like I said, every _upgrading_ user needs to replace.
| macinjosh wrote:
| I'd love to see Apple just leave the EU market or only offer a
| single old phone model with USB-C added. They have enough money
| to do it. Bullies like the EU should be stood up to.
| dedzycide wrote:
| Huh? Why is EU the bad guy lol? Every single company except
| Apple switched to USB-C. Apple is just milking money out of
| their customers with overpriced Lightning cables. It's sad to
| see people defend this predatory behavior.
| rob_c wrote:
| There is little to no incentive to stop tiktok streamers and
| vapid tech fans throwing out their 6 month old devices and
| upgrading. But it's a start.
|
| Whilst important, we have done much better to FORCE the industry
| to provide security support and updates as part of the sale of
| devices for a minimum of 5 years on all products. This is one of
| the biggest insurmountable reasons I see for people who don't
| even want to, to have to upgrade because of the locked down
| nature of phones/watches/washing-machines/hoovers/etc...
|
| Although I doubt it'll be the EU project to push through
| something so bold that will have enough of an impact.
| jokabrink wrote:
| 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".
| garaetjjte wrote:
| 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.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| The regulation as written specifically accounts for
| advancements in standards and includes options to switch to a
| new mandatory port over a period of years. It also
| specifically mentions USB-IF as an organization to work with
| for such future standards.
|
| Safe to say we would probably have standardized on USB-C even
| sooner had they passed this law for micro-B in 2009.
| simondanerd wrote:
| Will that have an effect on the devices sold on the US market? I
| would love an iPhone with USB-C.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Seems probable. I'm hopeful as well.
| akmarinov wrote:
| Either (sorted most likely to least likely):
|
| 1. All iPhones get USB-C
|
| 2. Only EU iPhones get USB-C, US sticks with lightning
|
| 3. iPhones become portless with wireless charging only
| tyingq wrote:
| I imagine there's also some option where you can charge your
| iPhone with any USB-C charger, but the special Apple charger
| will charge it up faster.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| They provide a USB-C charger already, and it's not
| magically faster than good quality third-party chargers.
| It's top-end, for sure, but not proprietary.
| tyingq wrote:
| Right, the idea being the EU mandate would reduce sales
| of their charger, and eliminate sales of their USB-C ->
| Lightning cable. And how they might respond.
| [deleted]
| bluescrn wrote:
| Portless could be a pain for developers, if the only way to
| deploy/debug is wifi, and the only way to charge is a
| wireless charger (which may not be able to keep up with the
| discharge rate of a device being used to test a game/app all
| day)
| akmarinov wrote:
| Well Apple's priorities have always been:
|
| 1. Apple
|
| 2. Users
|
| 3. Developers
|
| so they'll sacrifice developer experience with not a second
| thought.
| rmm wrote:
| They will probably have data transfer through the MagSafe
| by then.
|
| https://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
| Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=...
| kingsleyopara wrote:
| This all seems pretty short sighted. Great in the short term (I
| want a USB-C iPhone and for everything _today_ to be USB-C) but
| will surely be a pain going forward - where would USB-C be if
| this policy had standardised on micro USB earlier? Some will say
| wireless is the future but I'm not convinced. Maybe the best
| solution would be to have this policy expire after a certain
| number of years?
| amelius wrote:
| > where would USB-C be if this policy had standardised on micro
| USB earlier?
|
| It would be a separate port next to the micro-USB port.
|
| The point is that we don't need a new connector every few years
| for charging a device. This saves e-waste, since the chargers
| can stay the same. For data, you might want to have a new
| connector, though.
| rubyfan wrote:
| The baked in expiration seems like a great idea.
| RGamma wrote:
| Micro USB _was_ the standardized smartphone port for years
| (around the time of the feature phone- >smartphone transition):
| https://techcrunch.com/2009/06/29/micro-usb-to-be-the-standa...
| hoistbypetard wrote:
| It wasn't that standardized. Between my house and the office
| around that time, I had a mix of micro USB, mini USB and
| barrel ports. And always had the wrong adapter with me, it
| seemed.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Agree, I still have a gaggle of random USB cables for
| various devices. Micro USB was common, but far from
| standardized. And on top of that, it sucks. I keep a bunch
| of spares around because it's such a fragile connector.
| Quanttek wrote:
| The article already hints at it, but lawmakers are not
| completely dense and allow for relatively easy amendments by
| the Commission. From the legislation [1]:
|
| > "With respect to radio equipment capable of being recharged
| via wired charging, the Commission is empowered to adopt
| delegated acts in accordance with Article 44 to amend Annex Ia
| in the light of technical progress, and to ensure the minimum
| common interoperability between radio equipment and their
| charging devices, by: (a) modifying, adding or removing
| categories or classes of radio equipment; (b) modifying, adding
| or removing technical specifications, including references and
| descriptions, in relation to the charging receptacle(s) and
| charging communication protocol(s), for each category or class
| of radio equipment concerned."
|
| [1] https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/46755
| est31 wrote:
| That's good but usually a new standard is phased in for one
| or two models to gain experience with it and then increasing
| numbers of phones use it. If you require all phones to use it
| from day one, you lose that. You'd at least need an
| "experimentation" mechanism where the commission allows
| manufacturers to build different devices that represent a few
| percent of their sales.
| cdash wrote:
| Experimentation can still happen by having 2 ports. Might
| not be practical for phones since they are so small these
| days but it being on phones wouldn't be necessary for
| testing a new universal standard. It could be tested on
| other larger devices.
| bluGill wrote:
| Phones have been doing USB charging for more than 10 years
| now. USB-C was designed based on the experience, and is
| what most phones use already.
|
| Your point isn't wrong, but is is several years out of
| date: USB-C is already well past the few models to gain
| experience point and now moving to the late adopter part of
| the cycle. A phone without USB-C charging is as quaint as a
| phone with a rotary dial at this point.
| est31 wrote:
| USB charging, yes, but USB-C is not used for that long.
| We might have USB-D in the future. I doubt that it's the
| end of technological development.
| netheril96 wrote:
| I blame Apple on this (as an iPhone user). If they had adopted
| USB-C sooner, or if they had invented something much better
| than USB-C, this regulation would never pass.
|
| Right now, the charging speed of iPhone is way less than
| Android phone sold in China. Here most phones charge at 50W+,
| some at 120W, several times faster than iPhone. While the
| limitation is not because of Lightning, it is hard to maintain
| a straight face when Apple insists that they use Lightning
| because of technical advantage.
| edent wrote:
| What's interesting is that nearly all of my recent electronics
| purchases have used USB-C.
|
| Headphones, thermal printer, neck-cooler, rechargable screwdriver
| - all USB-C.
|
| What's weird are the few things which don't. Amazon Alexa use a
| barrel charger. Brand new HP printer has the old square style USB
| plug. Pulse Oximeter user micro-USB.
|
| So C is certainly getting there. Appearing in cheap and expensive
| products. And, I'm happy to say, works well. Just needs a few
| laggards to update!
| [deleted]
| basisword wrote:
| >> What's interesting is that nearly all of my recent
| electronics purchases have used USB-C.
|
| I've started noticing this recently. It's taken longer than I
| thought but the only devices remaining I have that I need to
| search for cables for are my iPhone/Apple Watch/old iPod.
| Everything else, including laptops, I usually have a USB-C
| charger already plugged in and ready to go no matter what room
| I'm in.
|
| It makes sense that there should be a standard for this, just
| like we do (although it varies by country) for our plugs.
| ProZsolt wrote:
| I usually try to buy devices with detachable IEC 60320[1]
| mains cable. So when I move to a different country I only
| need to change the cables and not the devices.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_60320
| bloppe wrote:
| 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 Nintendo would stop
| sending you that fake cable with your switch, and you would just
| buy a real one to work with all your devices.
|
| Other people saying "what about innovation!?" That's fine. Let's
| say the USB consortium releases USB-D with input from Apple,
| Google, and many other stakeholders. The EU can set another
| deadline for newly released devices to adhere to the new version
| instead of the old one. The transition will involve a period of
| time where older devices are still on C and newer ones on D,
| which is totally compatible with the regulation and is necessary
| with or without regulation. It's ludicrous to think companies
| won't be able to "iterate": you would be crazy to go to market
| with any cable technology that isn't already very mature. Apple
| spent years designing lighting chargers because they knew that
| once they were released they'd be around for a long time (and
| they have been!)
| cm2187 wrote:
| In fact interoperability is what enables innovation, vs walled
| gardens.
| bsnal wrote:
| Seems like history of computing goes against this
| jchw wrote:
| When in history has interoperability not been a catalyst
| for innovation? Look at everything people do in browsers
| now. Or if that's not to your taste, perhaps the era of
| BASIC is a better example. Not all standards are good, but
| a decent standard is better, or at least much more
| practically useful, than a lot of better but incompatible
| proprietary equivalents.
|
| Of course it doesn't have to be mandated, and in the past
| usually wasn't, but hell, it's hard to see many good
| reasons to not standardize on USB-C. It's got plenty of
| pins, it's already mass-manufactured, and outside of only a
| single product Apple sells, there's not much competition
| aside from legacy stuff that can't handle a lot of today's
| data, form factor and power delivery needs.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _When in history has interoperability not been a catalyst
| for innovation?_
|
| Most of it, including most of the history of computers.
|
| Competition almost always breeds innovation. It's basic
| economics, and why people get upset by monopolies and
| such.
| Ekaros wrote:
| PC and x86 took us pretty far... And that was mostly
| carried on interoperability... I doubt we would have gotten
| to technology being as ubiquitous as it is without it.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Also, the internet itself.
| nickpp wrote:
| Funny enough, France's failed internet, the Minitel would
| probably be the solution pushed today by the EU.
|
| The Internet won on the free market, through its own
| merits. No politician intervention necessary. Even if
| plenty tried to capture the glory (information
| superhighway...)
| goto11 wrote:
| You think AOL had more innovation than the web?
| lanstin wrote:
| AOL used SMTP and NFS and TCP/IP and many many other open
| protocol interop things. It wasn't great at sharing back,
| I am afraid, but it wouldn't have been able to be what it
| was without the internet protocols and many other open
| things (network socket programming, DLPI, heck sendmail,
| SSL, HTTP compression). AOL is a prime example of how a
| solid infrastructure enables new businesses (but those
| businesses might not stick with the partner that brought
| them).
| worik wrote:
| How do you mean?
|
| Would Raspberry Pi have happened without Linux?
|
| What about the evolution of data centres?
|
| I am sure that there are examples from closed systems, but
| it is not clear that keeping secrets and strict
| intellectual property spur innovation
| nocoolnametom wrote:
| In order to talk to my friends, family, and coworkers I
| need to have the following apps installed and running:
| Slack, Teams, Telegram, Signal, WhatsApp, Google
| Chat/Hangouts/Allo/Whatever, FB Messenger, Discord,
| Twitter, etc.
|
| It'd take a pretty strong argument to convince me that this
| is so much more productive and allows for more innovation
| than the old days when the spec for things like Email,
| HTTP, IRC, XMPP allowed for a plethora of different tools
| unrelated to the company sponsoring the tech and people
| figured out how to make money USING the interoperable tech
| instead of OWNING the tech.
| mlok wrote:
| I really hope Matrix bridges will help bring back some
| sanity on this front.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| the performance is too bad
| Gigachad wrote:
| 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.
| zaik wrote:
| 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.
| nickpp wrote:
| I actually love the choice and the separation. And when
| an innovation good enough appears on a platform, it is
| quickly copied on the others (reactions...)
| rkangel wrote:
| I'm using Element One these days
| (https://element.io/element-one) which at least gets me
| Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram, Matrix and IRC all in one
| place.
| ciupicri wrote:
| I'm willing to bet that your friends and family wouldn't
| be happy if the European Union would mandate using IRC
| everywhere. Heck, why not go further and stick to the
| good old ntalk [1].
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_(software)
| midislack wrote:
| Seems like a disingenuous argument, why not make a real
| one?
| zaik wrote:
| What about the XMPP standard? I use it everyday for
| messaging family and friends.
|
| WhatsApp is basically an unfederated XMPP provider.
| ciupicri wrote:
| I used XMPP around 2003 when it was still called Jabber.
| I can't say there's something major wrong with it (only
| XML verbosity comes to my head), it's just the idea of
| making it mandatory. By the way how come some EU
| officials use Zoom? [1] Where are those good open
| standards?
|
| [1]: https://meeteu.eu/events/
| tomp wrote:
| Is that why all PC (interoperable) laptops are inferior to
| MacBooks?
|
| Your statement might hold for software but definitely doesn't
| hold for hardware.
| ajford wrote:
| Yours doesn't hold for hardware either. MacBooks are
| comparable and competitive to PC laptops, but it's only
| your opinion that they are superior.
|
| Having used a few different models of MacBook over the last
| decade for work, and owning a few different models of
| Thinkpads over the same timeframe, I'd take the Thinkpad
| any day of the week. From the annoyingly either hot or cold
| all-metal case to the floating ground problem triggering
| shocks when using the fold-out wall connector, MacBooks are
| inferior in my book. But that is also only my opinion.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > The regulation actually says that cables can no longer be
| bundled with the devices themselves,
|
| Wait, what? That's idiotic
| alerighi wrote:
| I think this is a stupid thing. Repurposing a commonly used
| connector for other things to reuse cheap connectors and cables
| is something that is usually done in the electronic industry
| (e.g. my oscilloscope use an HDMI socket for the logic analyzer
| input, you have plenty of lines and the connector is cheap and
| good). It's not uncommon to design a board and use type-C only
| for power (5V input, without the circuitry to handle power
| delivery, so you must connect a suitable power supply) or for
| other things (TTL serial data).
|
| > 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
|
| Which spec? There are a multitude of them! What we do, adhere
| all to the best spec and to only feed 5V power to a device
| (that could be done with 2 wires) require the same cable used
| to connect a thunderbolt device at 40Gb/s? Of course not, since
| the first one costs a couple of dollars, the second one tens of
| dollars, the first one can be as long as voltage drop permits
| it to be, the second one needs to be maximum 1 meter, the first
| one needs no shielding at all, the second one needs to be
| heavily shielded, that not only increases cost but makes it
| bulkier. And again, does a data cable that is used for
| thunderbolt connection (assuming that the thunderbolt device is
| externally powered) be designed to carry the full 5A of the
| spec? 5A is a lot of current, it will require bigger
| conductors, but for a data cable it doesn't make sense!
|
| Type-C is a standard that makes to me not a lot of sense: they
| wanted to create the one connector that fits all, while in the
| past they designed different connector, one for each device,
| not because they wanted you to buy more cables but to avoid
| confusion in customers, if the cable fits it works I used to
| say back in the day, the VGA connector was physically different
| from a serial port, the PS2 connector was not the same as a
| parallel port, even if they could have done everything with one
| port they didn't.
| [deleted]
| ZekeSulastin wrote:
| "The regulation actually says that cables can no longer be
| bundled with the devices themselves"
|
| I don't think anyone's mentioned that. Oh my god, tech social
| media is going to melt down when that kicks in if the reaction
| to chargers being excluded is any indication (not to mention a
| repeat of the shift from 30-pin to Lightning in Apple's case,
| except now without a cable).
| creativenolo wrote:
| I have had usb cables from usb rechargeable bike lights that
| leaked into my ever growing bundle of cables. So I'm never
| quite sure which USB cable will work with what. I'd never
| knowingly buy these crap cables.
| enkid wrote:
| If it comes with being able to buy a $5 cable to act as a
| charge, I don't see how people could complain. (But I know
| they will.)
| phkahler wrote:
| >> If it comes with being able to buy a $5 cable to act as
| a charge, I don't see how people could complain.
|
| Even better, just use the old cable from your old device
| since they won't be designing a new one every other year.
| kennywinker wrote:
| As far as a I know, in the history of smartphones - which
| I'd say starts in 2007 with the launch of the iPhone -
| there have only really been 4 (or maybe 5) connectors
| used on widely sold phones:
|
| 1. Apple 30pin "iPod" connector
|
| 2. Apple Lightning connector
|
| 3. Mini USB (I don't think this ever appeared on anything
| but blackberries and cheapo flip phones?)
|
| 4. Micro USB
|
| 5. USB-C
|
| So, while I agree that cable changes are annoying, and I
| support standardization efforts, "a new one every other
| year" is just not how it's ever been. 5 connectors in 15
| years. The 30pin connector reigned from 2007 to 2012, and
| on the android side, micro USB was dominant until around
| 2015-2016 when USB-C started showing up on phones.
| Realistically, it's been a new connector every ~7 years.
| sydd wrote:
| Except that the current USB-C situation is a mess, and
| this regulation plans to solve this.
|
| I got a pretty expensive HP monitor for work from my
| company that connects via USB-C (and can charge my Mac).
| IT has sworn me to not loose its USB-C cable because for
| some unknown reasons it refuses to work with other
| cables, it costs >$100 and is constantly out of stock.
| coolspot wrote:
| Oculus Link for example is a USB-C cable that is not
| copper, but optical. This allows it to have very high
| bandwidth and long length (16ft/5m).
|
| Hence the price.
| dorgo wrote:
| Its not only about smartphones. How many different
| connectors (just) Thinkpad's had in the same time frame?
| shaded-enmity wrote:
| No it's not fine, this is just another coercion and
| consolidation of power where it shouldn't belong. Independent
| entities cannot innovate on their own because now there's a
| central apparatus that decides what should be innovated and
| how, with all the inherent political power struggles of big
| players, good luck.
|
| EU should be there to set goals, not to dictate implementation.
| tediousdemise wrote:
| 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 use
| preemptive workarounds such as magnetic connectors.
| baq wrote:
| The cables though... they used to be a joke. I've wrapped
| mine with electrical tape near ends so they last longer.
| tediousdemise wrote:
| Definitely, those Apple-supplied cables suck hard. Adding
| little tension relief springs[0] to the ends can protect
| them if you don't want to buy another (or more robust)
| cable and create more e-waste. You can find the springs in
| clicky pens.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCIo8xGTUX0
| WanderPanda wrote:
| The Apple supplied cables seem to be quite
| environmentally friendly already since they literally rot
| at the ends. Not only lightning but also the MagSafe
| ones. The Lightning connector itself mechanically is the
| best connector I've ever encountered, though. Pure
| satisfaction when plugging it in, even after 5 years or
| so
| Larrikin wrote:
| I think at some point they changed the material.
|
| I had never had a single cord fray on me except every
| single Apple supplied white cord for years, until suddenly
| I no longer had that problem. Don't know what changed but
| glad it did
| spockz wrote:
| Interesting. The only lighting cable that has failed me
| so far is the usbC to lightning cable that came with my
| 13 Pro. All other cables are still in use. Including some
| cheap ones that get abused being jostled in my backpack.
| atoav wrote:
| I connect disconnect the same USB-C connector minimum 8 times
| a day for 4 years now. I have yet to have any issue with it.
| USB micro B connectors that got the same treatment repeatedly
| failed.
|
| The USB C jacks I have seen on PCBs so far seem all to look
| pretty solid to me, although I am convinced you can also get
| cheap ones that will just happily fail if you just tried.
| Getting cheap Lightning connectors will be a lot harder, for
| obvious reasons.
|
| So if we do the comparison between Apple and something else,
| let's not fall into the old trap of comparing an 1000EUR ios
| device to an 100EUR android device and declaring android to
| be unusable.
| Gigachad wrote:
| I think it's more of a quality thing. Apple makes great usb c
| cables as well which seem to last forever. While the cheap
| eBay crap wears out quickly.
| dfox wrote:
| 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).
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _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 jiggle the cable like mad to get any kind
| of connection.
|
| YMMV.
| lattalayta wrote:
| If you haven't, you might want to try carefully "cleaning
| out" the lightning port with a toothpick or other small
| tool. I've seen multiple iPhones collect enough lint and
| dust in the lightning port over the years to make the
| connection still work sometimes but be unreliable until you
| clean it out
|
| https://www.tomsguide.com/how-to/how-to-clean-iphone-
| chargin...
| eastbound wrote:
| No, the tooth with the power loses its gold or silver.
| It's not dirty, it's an electrical exchange of atoms. A
| design problem.
| pawelos wrote:
| 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.
| foepys wrote:
| Please use something wooden or plastic. A non-metal
| toothpick is perfect.
|
| I've successfully cleaned multiple USB-C ports using a
| toothpick.
| r00fus wrote:
| I just had a Lighting port fail on me (partial thankfully -
| there's one single cable in my house that still works to
| charge the thing) - but it's a 2014 device, a good 7-8
| years old.
| cromka wrote:
| I've had two iPhones serviced (replaced) due to lightning
| port failure. I also had few cables replaced due to them
| getting the surface on the contact pins literally burned by
| the micro-fires caused by the high-current and the fibre
| residue of the fabric.
|
| So, yours is just as anecdotal as mine. Would actually have
| to see some numbers comparing Lightning vs USB-C failure rate
| (on some premium Android smartphones), which we are unlikely
| to.
| robonerd wrote:
| I don't see why _" What about innovation?"_ is taken seriously
| as an argument anyway. USB-C is more than adequate, we could
| coast with it for the next hundred years. Nobody is kept up at
| night by the lack of innovation in AC power plugs, the
| standards countries have settled on today, while not all
| equivalent, are all generally satisfactory in practice. Problem
| solved; stop fixing that which ain't broke and move on to other
| matters.
|
| Yeah yeah, "640k should be enough for everybody". There comes a
| point where that is actually true.
| biztos wrote:
| > the lack of innovation in AC power plugs
|
| Having lived in a country (Thailand) where both Euro and US
| plugs work just fine as long as you mind your voltage, I have
| become quite annoyed at that lack of innovation.
| bloppe wrote:
| To be totally fair, it's not like a phone manufacturer is
| going to put 2 different ports on their device, so this is
| essentially regulating data as well as power. But also to be
| fair, USB-C cables that support thunderbolt 3 are a couple
| orders of magnitude faster (throughput) than Apple's
| lightning cables (40 Gbps vs ~480 Mbps), and if Apple could
| possibly support such speeds without releasing a new
| backwards-incompatible cable, they would have done so long
| ago.
|
| If Apple ever wanted to support faster than 40 Gbps, they
| would have to do so in concert with the rest of the tech
| industry and release it as an open standard. I'd like to hear
| somebody try to argue this is a bad thing.
| solarkraft wrote:
| > Nobody is kept up at night by the lack of innovation in AC
| power plugs
|
| Mandatory Tom Scott video about bri'ish power plugs:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEfP1OKKz_Q
|
| :-)
| tephra wrote:
| When they started this in 2009 they did want to make micro
| usb the thing everybody was forced to use.
|
| It's only by luck that it took enough time to not get stuck
| on that...
| tester756 wrote:
| >Gates himself has strenuously denied making the comment. In
| a newspaper column that he wrote in the mid-1990s, Gates
| responded to a student's question about the quote: "I've said
| some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No
| one involved in computers would ever say that a certain
| amount of memory is enough for all time." Later in the
| column, he added, "I keep bumping into that silly quotation
| attributed to me that says 640K of memory is enough. There's
| never a citation; the quotation just floats like a rumor,
| repeated again and again."
| paulmd wrote:
| > 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 to shrug and go do it
| themselves. Once one of the members had gone there and proven
| the concept, it lit a fire under the asses of the rest of the
| consortium.
|
| Same for why thunderbolt exists as a standard and not as USB
| 4 in the first place... not enough consensus to go there as
| an official standard rather than an extension. It took what,
| 10 years after Thunderbolt was standardized before we finally
| pulled ourselves out of the fecal lagoon of USB 3.x
| standards?
|
| And then you layer in the dysfunction from the members that
| are primarily interested in _creating_ consumer confusion
| with the USB 3.0, USB3.1 Type-1, USB 3.1 Type-2, USB 3.2
| Type-1, USB 3.2 Type-2, USB 3.2 Type-2x2 nonsense so that
| they can deceptively and maliciously sell yesterday 's
| hardware with tomorrow's standard on the box... many of the
| members of USB-IF are interested in _actively stalling
| progress_ if it means they save 30 cents on their BOM.
|
| This is not an organization with consumer interests at heart.
| They are a bad choice to be the legal guardian (more like,
| conservator) of all innovation.
| tomp wrote:
| 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)
| thaway2839 wrote:
| 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.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| I used both Lightning and USB-C cables, I had two Lightning
| cables dying from oxidation (not misuse in water or
| anything, normal use) and not a single USB-C problem so
| far.
|
| Calling Lightning superior is blatant Apple fanboyism.
| snotrockets wrote:
| Lightning isn't as fast as USB 3.0 (which USB C cables
| should support), and can't supply as much power as USB-PD
| (which, again, works over USB C cables)
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| MagSafe-style charging connectors are an innovation that,
| IMO, justifies breaking compatibility. I dislike this forced
| standardization on USB-C because USB-3/USB-C is a user-
| hostile nightmare standard.
| leadingthenet wrote:
| > 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.
| 10x-dev wrote:
| I'm ok if my life doesn't get disrupted every 2 years with a
| new type of incompatible connection between my devices.
|
| Maybe we could put all that innovation and consumer
| inconvenience into resolving climate change.
| nickpp wrote:
| Maybe we could've put all that regulatory effort and
| politician time into resolving not even climate change, but
| just EU's dependence on cheap Russian fossil fuels.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Ah what lovely place our technological lives would be without
| standards, that are done by committees... No standardised
| wireless technologies like Bluetooth, WiFi, 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G,
| 5G... Each and every provider and technology manufacturer
| running their own incompatible networks... Hey, maybe throw
| away IP and TCP too... Let each site run on their own
| proprietary protocol...
| nwienert wrote:
| Those protocols were developed without government mandate.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| And so will USB-D
| dfox wrote:
| ETSI (which is the parent organization of 3GPP) is
| technically an independent non-profit NGO, but in reality
| it is part of EU bureaucracy and was chartered by EC.
| tankenmate wrote:
| The directive is designed to make things easier for customers
| and the environment, not OEMs per se (even though there will
| be benefits for a number of companies).
| Bayart wrote:
| Standards happen by committee. They're not disruptive and
| _that 's the point_.
| afpx wrote:
| Standards bodies work like other technical teams. They
| actually produce useful output if they're fed sufficient
| requirements and stakeholder input.
| earthboundkid wrote:
| > 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. :-)
| ithkuil wrote:
| > They're always wrong
|
| Lol. An interesting version of the liars paradox.
| notJim wrote:
| It's very strange to read this comment on article about USB,
| which has been developed by committee from the beginning. To
| me it seems quite innovative, and arguably disruptive to have
| a single standard for all these things. Maybe USB doesn't
| clear your personal bar, but then why worry about this at
| all?
| dfox wrote:
| From time to time Intel's marketing tries to sell the idea
| that USB was invented by this one Intel engineer. Somewhat
| obviously that is not true.
|
| On the other hand if you compare USB 1.0 to 1.1 it is quite
| obvious that real implementation experience and throwing
| out artifacts of the design by committee was quite
| important for the success.
| bsder wrote:
| > Somewhat obviously that is not true.
|
| Especially since I know that several people at Digital
| Equipment Corporation had to do the signal integrity
| analysis for Intel for the original USB standard.
| warning26 wrote:
| _> On the other hand if you compare USB 1.0 to 1.1 it is
| quite obvious that real implementation experience and
| throwing out artifacts of the design by committee was
| quite important for the success._
|
| This sounds like it has some interesting history there;
| do you have any recommended sources to read about the
| transition between USB 1.0 and 1.1?
| ghaff wrote:
| I was going to disagree as I used to know one the
| standards people at Intel quite well (who always
| regretted that USB was orientation specific)--and I
| didn't remember anything like that. But you're right.
| Intel was pushing Ajay Bhatt was one of the people Intel
| highlighted as a face behind Intel's technology.
| (Although the campaign wasn't specific to USB.) https://w
| ww.oregonlive.com/business/2009/05/intel_ad_campaig...
| hwbehrens wrote:
| I can't be sure, but my interpretation of the parent's
| comment is that the USB-IF would never have thought to work
| on USB-C at all until Lightning's release two years
| earlier. The whole forehead-slapping moment of cables that
| didn't need to be flipped was a pretty big divergence from
| the USB-A, -B, mini B, micro B, etc. that has prevailed
| previously. The kernel of the argument being, Apple's
| "innovation" by rejecting the status quo is what allowed
| for the (eventual) development of the USB-C standard.
|
| This is actually fairly common in Apple-land, now that I
| look:
|
| - ADB (1986) to PS2 (1987) to USB-A (1996) for HID
|
| - Firewire (1995) to USB 2.0 (2000) to Firewire 800 (2002)
| to USB 3.0 (2008) for data transfer
|
| - VGA (1987) to ADC (1998) to DVI (1999) for video
|
| A lot of the connectors they proposed are now lost to the
| mists of time, but I can at least understand the argument
| that some of these changes were plausibly driven by Apple's
| rejection of the then-standard in favor of some new benefit
| (faster speeds, better UX), which lasted only until a new
| standard was developed to incorporate that benefit, and the
| process repeats again.
| paulmd wrote:
| > my interpretation of the parent's comment is that the
| USB-IF would never have thought to work on USB-C at all
| until Lightning's release two years earlier
|
| it's actually worse than that, there was _extensive_
| discussion of what to do next since micro-B was still
| obviously flawed, they just _couldn 't reach a consensus
| to take any action even after years of debate_.
|
| the thing to remember is that USB-IF isn't a benevolent
| organization of technology companies working together to
| set a direction for the future - many of them are
| primarily interested in reducing their own costs, which
| is why we got the "USB 3.x Gen 2x2 Wave 2: USB Harder"
| crap. Many of the players at USB-IF are _specifically
| interested in stalling progress_ as long as it saves them
| 30 cents on their BOM.
| Daishiman wrote:
| > 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.
|
| You have no evidence to back this up. There's been throughout
| history many innovative standards that have gone through
| committee work, including a ton of network protocols.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > 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?
| leadingthenet wrote:
| Disruptive technology cannot be anticipated. It's
| tautological.
| Panoramix wrote:
| It can be disproved within reason. The only new thing a
| magic new cable would bring to the table is more power,
| which is not practical to have.
|
| The big innovation I'd love to have? Having only ONE
| charger for all my devices, forever. That absolutely
| destroys any "innovation" Apple or whoever can bring to
| the table.
| bushbaba wrote:
| Well, innovation does shift to circumventing the regulation.
| Such-as removal of the charging port all together, and moving
| to magsafe-qi charging
| https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MHXH3AM/A/magsafe-charger
| layer8 wrote:
| ...which wastes energy and reduces battery life. Great
| innovation.
| paulmd wrote:
| it's always interesting to me that people ignore the
| ecological impact of cables. If you break four cables
| over the life of the phone from plugging/unplugging, and
| that results in 2 or 3 additional Amazon Prime trips to
| deliver your cables, how does that compare in terms of
| environmental impact to wasting 5 additional watts for
| the 1 hour a day you charge your phone?
|
| (and don't tell me _everybody_ uses Amazon Prime day
| shipping... people just order new cables when they break.
| And sure, you can have one common pool of all your
| cables... sort of! except for the part where cable X or
| charger X doesn 't fast-charge device Y, so you actually
| need several pools of chargers and cables...)
| Barrin92 wrote:
| 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.
| usr1106 wrote:
| That's a weird argument. What would you say if EU demanded
| us to stop programming in Python, Rust, bash and mandate
| that only C++ must used?
|
| No, I have no problem with the USB-C mandate. But the
| analogy seems weird.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >What would you say if EU demanded us to stop programming
| in Python, Rust, bash and mandate that only C++ must
| used?
|
| I support the idea that regulatory bodies like the EU
| create stronger software standards in safety critical
| applications in particular so that software 'engineering'
| actually starts to deserve that label so I have no
| problem with a good faith version of that take.
| midasuni wrote:
| Ok. Go back 5 years and standardise on the ubiquitous usb-
| mini -- usb-a solution.
|
| Why does my next phone need a charger? I'd be happy with
| wireless charging -- especially if I have a 3.5mm socket in
| the phone too.
| kaibee wrote:
| It would have been bad to standardize on USB-B and it
| will be good to standardize on USB-C. These aren't
| mutually exclusive statements.
| joadha wrote:
| Would you mind clarifying your argument? How would you define
| "breakthrough innovation"? I think that's critical to my
| understanding of your point.
| peheje wrote:
| Not OP. But a breakthrough innovation in charging could be
| a new battery-technology holding charge for much longer but
| required different charging specifications offered by
| USB-C. Such a breakthrough would hopefully get enough
| attention from EU to get the law updated. Or they might
| want the devices to still have USB-C? Who knows who's in
| charge then.
|
| Also missing from this discussion is the fact that even if
| the law is only about charging it will define he go-to
| data-connection for smaller devices for a long time, where
| an additional port will be dimensionally challenging, more
| costly to add as well as difficult to make water-resistant.
|
| I am sympathetic for reducing e-waste, but I'm unsure where
| this will lead us. Crypto-mining is also bad for the
| environment but might hold unknown positive possibilities
| if explored properly (maybe reduce bureaucracy, avoid
| monopolies) that could be extinguished by a premature ban.
|
| I am already paying some of the highest taxes on consumer
| products compared to other countries in the world, I would
| rather pay even more for a charger, phone etc., remember an
| adapter when out and about and keep the freedom of choosing
| which technologies to support.
|
| *Also just wanted to add that even if OP mentioned the
| committee, I'm unsure how much you can compare that to EU
| making laws enforceable in 27 countries.
| antisthenes wrote:
| Proprietary connectors are about as far from innovation as
| you can possibly get, unless you count patent moats and
| corporate grift as part of innovating.
| bloppe wrote:
| > Innovation ... does not happen by committee.
|
| If you have to make such an argument... Good luck with that.
| This one in particular has many existing counterexamples,
| including USB-C itself.
| whiskey14 wrote:
| I guess a lot of the other replies here are saying the same
| thing.
|
| Innovation is first. Standardisation is second.
|
| That way, more people can make use of and innovate further on
| the original idea.
| maccard wrote:
| I was one of the Nintendo switch commenters in this thread -
| the problem I have is standardising on the connector without
| enforcing the underlying standards. This doesn't fix the
| charging problem or the cable problem, it just means that the
| all devices fit together, even if they don't actually deliver
| what they're supposed to.
| IvanK_net wrote:
| I wish EU standardizes a single electric socket for all EU
| countries. Germany, France, Switzerland and Italy - each has a
| different socket (although German and French are very similar to
| each other).
|
| More here:
| https://www.plugsocketmuseum.nl/EuropePlugsSockets.html
| fy20 wrote:
| CEE 7/7 plugs will fit into all sockets in the EU, except Italy
| (where they can be bent slightly to fit), Malta and Ireland.
| The only issue is grounding, but things like phone chargers
| wouldn't be grounded anyway.
| causi wrote:
| I wish USB-C was more robust, or at least had the option of being
| more robust. I miss not being scared of accidentally stepping on
| my laptop charge connector and crushing it flat. I'd pay good
| money for a type-C un-flattener.
| danaris wrote:
| Is there a halfway-modern port that _is_ more robust? Hell, is
| it _possible_ to make a port /adapter that you can't destroy by
| stepping on it?
|
| I've personally destroyed VGA, PS/2, and ADB adapters by
| stepping on them in the past. (I've since gotten somewhat more
| careful, and haven't yet destroyed any USB or Lightning
| adapters the same way.)
|
| How, exactly, do you propose that they design a port that you
| can't accidentally crush, aside from something dirt-simple like
| an 8mm headphone jack...?
| rbanffy wrote:
| > is it possible to make a port/adapter that you can't
| destroy by stepping on it?
|
| UK power plugs want a word with you. Not that there won't be
| damage, but it's your foot that will be completely destroyed.
| danaris wrote:
| A hit, a palpable hit!
|
| Yeah, those things are tanks.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Sadly, our feet are no match for them.
| vanattab wrote:
| Yeah. Type c is worse then micro or mini in this regard but
| still no where as bad as type A. I can't tell you how many USB
| cables I have thrown away because office chairs have run over
| the ends.
| causi wrote:
| The only advantage with type A is that it's large enough you
| can use a set of flat pliers to straighten it out. Type-C is
| nearly impossible to do that with.
| bencollier49 wrote:
| This was already done once for micro-USB 12 years ago:
|
| https://www.wired.com/2010/08/europe-univeral-phone-charger/
| PinguTS wrote:
| Everybody who is frenetically celebrating this as the end of the
| manufacturer-specific power brick, does simply not know that
| USB-C is not USB-C. There is no single USB-C.
|
| USB-C is a bunch of specifications that may can be combined or
| may not. USB-C is only the physical connector. USB-C PD (Power
| delivery) does support many different modes. There are at least
| 11 different modes with at least 4 of them are optional. I
| haven't read the latest version of the specification, but I would
| bet that there are optionally also some implementation-specific
| options aka manufacturer-specific. All that combined with the
| many different cable definitions for the different use cases,
| makes it for the average consumer a nightmare.
| plonk wrote:
| I've never seen a USB-C cable that didn't charge all my devices
| with all my chargers. OK, maybe one that came with an HP screen
| and was clearly labeled as "data only".
|
| I think this will make cables interchangeable in most cases.
| Fast charging and fast transfers are nice to have but rarely
| vital.
| PinguTS wrote:
| You haven't brought any of those cheap Chinese cables,
| haven't you?
|
| I have such cables, which can't be really used for charging
| as well as for fast data transfer. They are good for my
| development hardware kits, I have. Because those kits don't
| have any high power requirements. But I cannot use them to
| power my notebook.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > You haven't brought any of those cheap Chinese cables,
| haven't you?
|
| Do you expect them to follow standards while being
| impossibly cheap to pay for the licensing of said
| standards?
| PinguTS wrote:
| What you expect will average Joe buy at Amazon? What will
| be the key of comparing one cable with another?
| rbanffy wrote:
| Why would Amazon be selling non-compliant cables?
| Wouldn't that kind of be against the law?
| danieldk wrote:
| Well, with Amazon's co-mingling, you can't be sure that
| even brand cables are authentic.
| rbanffy wrote:
| That's not a problem a standard can solve.
| plonk wrote:
| I buy best-selling cable packs costing a few euros per unit
| on Amazon. They charge and connect anything I own that has
| a USB-C plug.
| danieldk wrote:
| But they may be very suboptimal. Most likely, they are
| not Thunderbolt or USB4 capable. Also, there is no
| guarantee that they can supply higher wattages.
| plonk wrote:
| I don't think this matters as much as some on HN think.
| People look for an iPhone charger, not for a USB4.0 Gen2
| 40W fast-charging cable and assorted wall plug that will
| transfer their movie collection in 2 minutes and charge
| to 100% in 5.
| schleck8 wrote:
| > makes it for the average consumer a nightmare.
|
| No, it doesn't. Almost all my devices (macbook, camera,
| speaker, phone, headphones...) use usb c pd and I am using the
| same three cables interchangeably for all of them, no issues.
|
| If Apple choses to intentionally break this compatibility it's
| a user hostile company.
| PinguTS wrote:
| If everything is so cool, so why is this Google engineer
| reviewing USB-C cables?
| https://www.theverge.com/2015/11/5/9674462/usb-type-c-
| google...
| hocuspocus wrote:
| We aren't in 2015 anymore.
| schleck8 wrote:
| Because this was in 2015 and the cables were bad? There is
| many low quality lightning ripoffs on Alibaba too
| privacyking wrote:
| That same engineer also said the following
|
| All passive USB-C cables support PD 2.0 or 3.0, all
| charging features. The only things a cable needs to need to
| support PD are:
|
| Vbus wire Gnd wire CC wire Therefore, all USB cables, even
| the lowest end USB 2.0 cable support USB PD. You don't need
| an identifier chip to support basic USB PD charging.
|
| Literally it's just the CC wire that goes end to end that
| enables USB PD charging from one end to the other.
|
| USB PD is supposed to be backward and forward compatible,
| and a USB 2.0 cable can't actually differentiate itself as
| a USB PD 2.0 or PD 3.0 cable, since chances are it doesn't
| actually have an identifier chip. Your basic cable (which
| the Anker is) should work all the way up to 60W with PPS.
|
| PPS also doesn't matter. A USB 2.0 C-to-C cable is supposed
| to support PPS.
|
| ----- In other words as long as you have any proper usb c
| cable (spec compliant) and a usb c Pd charger with
| sufficient power output, everything will work.
| samatman wrote:
| [deleted]
| markstos wrote:
| 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?
| mmis1000 wrote:
| I think you also need the CC pin or you aren't going to have PD
| fast charging. The pin is required to handshake a higher
| Voltage and Current outside of standard 5C1A.
|
| And that literally exists. Most charge wire don't have full 24
| line. (Unless it is specifically marked as USB3 compatible)
| jl6 wrote:
| I want to like this, but I charge my iPhone with a cable that has
| lightning on one end and USB-C on the other, and I know from
| extensive direct experience that the lightning end is the better
| physical design.
|
| Supporting this is tantamount to believing that there will never
| need to be a USB-D that improves upon USB-C, and I just can't
| believe that.
| torginus wrote:
| The problem with lightning is that the springs that fix the
| plug in place are on the port, not the cable.
|
| This is the part that wears out, and when it does, the port
| will need to be replaced, not the cable.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| How often does this happen in practice, though?
|
| My 6 year-old iPhone that I plug and unplug a bunch of times
| a day still keeps the plugs in very snuggly. They basically
| don't move. And I've pulled on the connector many, many
| times, by stepping on the cord and pulling the phone up.
|
| Contrast this with my 2 month-old laptop in which the usb-c
| cables move around, even though it spends 90% on the time
| plugged in.
|
| ---
|
| Edit: I did have connection issues at one point, but it was
| due to pocket lint that had accumulated inside the port. It
| was easily removable with a toothpick, and the connector went
| back to working like new.
| dundarious wrote:
| I had the same issue with the same toothpick solution, then
| 1 year later the spring really did fail and I essentially
| had to buy a new phone.
| plonk wrote:
| > I know from extensive direct experience that the lightning
| end is the better physical design.
|
| What's so great about it? USB-C is just as easy to plug in and
| these cables usually last longer. The only difference for me is
| that Lightning eventually ends up with black pins and I have to
| buy another cable.
|
| Also, is it really worth the few technical advantages if the
| alternative is a good-enough plug that works with absolutely
| everything?
| schleck8 wrote:
| To counter, I've had around five lightning cables and 10 usb c
| cables and not once has a usb c cables failed me. It does not
| accumulate dust.
| mmis1000 wrote:
| Same, I used about 10 type c wire. The only two wire I used
| that failed so far are caused by
|
| 1. I stepped on it. 2. The junction between wire and head
| broken.
|
| I have more that probably 5 micro b wire failed on the head
| since I use cellphone. But for type c, it's literally 0.
| glogla wrote:
| The previous standard was Micro-USB (that's why you still see
| it on dashcams, standalone GPSes, drawing tablets and other
| devices) and yet, USB-C came to exist.
| kalleboo wrote:
| If there's a better standard in the future the law can be
| changed, they didn't put this in the constitution.
|
| I've never had a phone with USB-C to compare, but I've had
| rotten luck with Lightning. I always get that one power pin
| that blackens and makes the cable unreliable.
| taylodl wrote:
| Yeah, me too. Or even though the cable is supposed to be
| reversible and yet my phone will only charge if the cable is
| inserted one way, but not the other. I've had that happen a
| lot too!
|
| I'm just glad USB-C has come along so we didn't do something
| foolish like standardize on Micro USB - I _hate_ those ports!
| I recently bought two brand-new BT speakers and guess how
| they 're charged? Micro USB! Grrrrrrr!!!
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > If there's a better standard in the future the law can be
| changed, they didn't put this in the constitution.
|
| Who will build the spec and research and then lobby Europe to
| change the law when no device uses it? The marketing of
| saying "this new spec is better... throw out EVERYTHING"
| won't happen.
|
| What will happen is that the hot mess of a market that is the
| Asian market will grow and change and develop... and throw
| out cables. And it'll get better over time while the
| availability in Europe stagnates.
|
| PS you can clean the blackened pin so it works again.
|
| https://www.zdnet.com/article/heres-why-your-iphone-
| lightnin...
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| >Who will build the spec and research and then lobby Europe
| to change the law when no device uses it? The marketing of
| saying "this new spec is better... throw out EVERYTHING"
| won't happen.
|
| Except that's basically what happened with USB-C. Micro-B
| was the standard for the EU, USB-C was developed and got
| approved, and now it's replacing micro-b as the standard.
| Game_Ender wrote:
| USB-C was developed partly because lightning should how
| much better a reversible multipurpose cable could be. The
| argument is that without the ability for one player to
| innovate with a new port we not have the same quality of
| USB-C port we have now.
| matwood wrote:
| > the law can be changed
|
| Basically there will never be a usb-d.
| kalleboo wrote:
| The only way I see there being a need to evolve from USB-C
| is if we see some major developments in optical (cost/size)
|
| The EU seems perfectly willing to adopt new standards if
| you look at what has been happening in mobile standards
| (e.g. despite 3G being standardized we got 4G, despite 4G
| being standardized we got 5G)
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| 3G/4G/5G isn't a good example. Standards evolve, but the
| issue many people have is that this isn't a standard, but
| a _mandate_ to use said standard. So people are concerned
| that the USB Consortium will come up with a USB-D, but
| new devices won 't be able to use it until the EU updates
| their law.
| izacus wrote:
| There's already Thunderbolt 4. And the requirement will
| expire in 2030. It's fine, stop with the drama.
| bigDinosaur wrote:
| It's probably worth noting that iPads and Macbooks charge with
| USB-C, and that seems generally fine.
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| From
| https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/QANDA_...
|
| Any technological developments in wired charging can be
| reflected in a timely adjustment of technical requirements/
| specific standards under the Radio Equipment Directive. This
| would ensure that the technology used is not outdated.
|
| At the same time, the implementation of any new standards in
| further revisions of Radio Equipment Directive would need to be
| developed in a harmonised manner, respecting the objectives of
| full interoperability. Industry is therefore expected to
| continue the work already undertaken on the standardised
| interface, led by the USB-IF organisation, in view of
| developing new interoperable, open and non-controversial
| solutions.
| whiddershins wrote:
| "How quickly the world owes you something you only found out
| existed 5 minutes ago."
| cannabis_sam wrote:
| I would gladly pay extra to get lighting and magsafe connectors
| on my devices, but I guess that this stupid legislation will
| force me to use the substandard usb connectors.
| marban wrote:
| Given that it took more than a decade, I'm just glad they didn't
| go with FireWire 400.
| cmckn wrote:
| I kind of understand this from an e-waste angle, but why (as a
| consumer) do I care if different phones use the same cable? I
| only have one phone. Even if I get a new phone every year, unless
| I'm switching back and forth between iPhones and Androids, I'm
| not having to buy new cables. If I go to a public place, and need
| to plug my phone in, I can already do that regardless of the
| connector on the phone end. If a friend is over and they need a
| phone charger, there's only two possible needs, and I've already
| filled them. Apple charges license fees on Lightning, but I can
| already buy a nice third party cable for like $10.
|
| Why is this so important as to require a large scale device maker
| to redesign their entire product line, and make millions of
| existing cables obsolete? Genuinely interested in the reasoning
| behind this, what problems is it solving?
| cycrutchfield wrote:
| Because it makes officious bureaucrats feel good and justifies
| their existence.
| delecti wrote:
| Agreed. I could probably be fairly called an Apple critic on
| most things, but I don't think Lightning is a problem in need
| of solving. It was great all phones migrated to USB on the
| brick, but the other end of the cable is less important as long
| as there are such a small number.
| kingrazor wrote:
| I also wonder about this. Every device I've ever bought that
| needs either a charger or an AC adapter has come with its own
| power/charging cable. I've never had the desire for them to all
| have the same connector. I just keep the charger with the
| device. When I buy a new device, I expect it to come with the
| cable necessary to power or charge it.
| pkulak wrote:
| Do you own a tablet and a laptop, by chance? Maybe have 3 other
| family members, each with some combination of said three
| devices? That can quickly become a lot of household chargers if
| they are all different.
| Aerroon wrote:
| But the problem will still be exactly the same, because not
| all USB-C cables are created equal.
|
| We've basically set in stone a standard that is so varied
| that the standardization means nothing. And that's before you
| get into any component actually wearing out and giving you
| degraded performance on the device or cable.
| pkulak wrote:
| That hasn't been my experience. I have a bunch of 30w USB-C
| chargers that charge everything in my house. They are built
| in to my wall outlets and support (at least) 5v, 9v and
| 15v. I don't know where you're getting this idea that the
| standard is "so varied that the standardization means
| nothing". Those three profiles are enough for me. If I buy
| a 100W laptop, I may need one more charger, but that's just
| because I chose not to pay to have 100W available
| everywhere. It seems reasonable that a tiny phone charger
| won't work so great on a gaming laptop.
|
| EDIT: Guess I'm not allowed to reply to sagarm? That's
| annoying. But yeah, it's the Leviton one. I love it. Cleans
| up so many ugly wall warts.
| sagarm wrote:
| Which USB wall outlets are you using? The only one I've
| found that supports PD and 30W is from Leviton.
| sagarm wrote:
| Practically it's not. We have probably a dozen USB-C
| devices in our home and many more chargers of varying
| wattage scattered about, and the only time I've had to
| think about the cable was for my TB3 dock. In fact, I worry
| more about cable lengths to minimize clutter.
| mort96 wrote:
| But you can get an USB-C power supply and cable which can
| charge all of your USB-C devices.
| cmckn wrote:
| As others have pointed out, even if all these devices have a
| USB-C hole on them, the likelihood that you could actually
| use their charger with another device (especially of a
| different class) is at best a coin toss.
|
| The devices still have to ship with chargers, you still have
| to find the "right" charger, but now you can't tell them
| apart?
|
| My main thought is just that the problem of different
| chargers is not one I think requires sweeping regulatory
| intervention; but I'm not an EU voter. :)
| Zababa wrote:
| > the likelihood that you could actually use their charger
| with another device (especially of a different class) is at
| best a coin toss.
|
| I've been able to use all my USB-C chargers for all my
| USB-C devices. That's 4 chargers and 4 devices.
| colonwqbang wrote:
| That's at best twelve coin tosses!
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > unless I'm switching back and forth between iPhones and
| Androids, I'm not having to buy new cables.
|
| Even if you did. Lightning's been around since 2012. It
| superseded the Dock connector every iPod and iPhone had since
| 2003. At this point they are pretty ubiquitous.
|
| > Apple charges license fees on Lightning
|
| This also prevents the mess that is USB-C where vendors don't
| implement the spec correctly (and brick unsuspecting devices in
| the process, see Nintendo). Apple can just refuse to license
| devices from vendors that don't implement the spec correctly.
| howinteresting wrote:
| In a home where almost everyone uses Android (along with
| laptops, all of which charge over USBC) and just one person
| uses an iPhone, looking for a Lightning cable just for that
| one person can be a huge hassle.
| superb-owl wrote:
| I currently own several USB-C devices (Laptop, phone, Remarkable,
| Switch, portable monitor) and I can't tell you how nice it is to
| only have to bring a single charger with me when I travel. The
| biggest thing holding me back from getting an iPhone is breaking
| this pattern.
| cromka wrote:
| > The biggest thing holding me back from getting an iPhone is
| breaking this pattern.
|
| You wouldn't real this patter with an iPhone: you can still use
| the same charger, with Lightning <> USB-C cable. In fact, this
| is the official cable you get these days with new models.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Yeah but thats another item to worry about, carry around,
| constantly or you are royally screwed. Definitely a drawback
| for Apple in 2022 if you are like OP or me.
|
| I was deciding between iphone 13 pro max and samsung s22
| ultra few months back to have best possible camera that is
| always in the pocket. For somebody not in their ecosystem
| Apple connectors are a massive drawback and one of the
| reasons I decided against iphone.
| ospzfmbbzr wrote:
| I'm all for stopping Apple,Sony, or other nasty megacorps from
| including deliberately 'unique' cables that cost a fortune to
| replace -- but when the bureaucrats get involved in anything,
| particularily technology, it frequently ends up being a disaster.
| This is for a few reasons not the least of which is that the
| types who are in government are not the types who can make
| anything useful let alone novel. Even worse the types who
| influence government are also mostly useless except for their
| ability to influence government.
| lesuorac wrote:
| And that's why the EU in 2009 got all the companies to agree to
| make a common charger [1]. However, then the companies didn't
| so that left the Gov 2 choices: Ignore the idea of a common
| charger or force a common charger.
|
| [1]: https://www.macrumors.com/guide/eu-charging-standard-
| proposa...
| ryathal wrote:
| Every useful technology has some level of Bureaucratic
| regulations attached to it. there are very few exceptions and
| they don't hurt any sort of growth or innovation. Cars, planes,
| electric outlets, the internet, radio, television, railways,
| and more are all regulated to some degree. There are as many
| examples of regulations driving innovation as there are
| limiting it.
| alligatorplum wrote:
| I am still on the fence on this. On one hand this is a good pro
| consumer move while also being environmentally friendly but this
| will likely hinder innovation in the field. If a new way charger
| standard was found which was a fraction of the cost of USBC and
| double the speed, the fact that companies would be forced to
| still use USBC is tough.
|
| I also found this tidbit pretty funny.
|
| > The legislation has been under development for more than a
| decade, but an agreement on its scope was reached this morning
| following negotiations between different EU bodies.
|
| > The EU denies this will be the case, and says it will update
| the legislation as new technology is developed. > "Don't think
| we're setting something in stone for the next 10 years," said
| Breton at the press conference.
| Angostura wrote:
| Can't Apple ship the phone with a USBC adapter and claim it is
| part of the phone?
| [deleted]
| seydor wrote:
| Why would they do that?
| Angostura wrote:
| To circumvent the impact of the regulations
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| Wouldn't that be a bad faith interpretation of the directive?
| [deleted]
| jamil7 wrote:
| Wasn't Apple probably going to do this anyway?
| rtkwe wrote:
| USB-C has been out and stable for years and they haven't so I'm
| not certain they're going to drop lightning for their phones
| any time soon. It's been a few generations of iPhone since they
| went with C on the iPad and I would have expected those to move
| together or more closely if they were interested in moving to
| USB-C on their phones.
| gadders wrote:
| I don't have an apple phone, but my daughter does, and I've
| always thought that mechanically at least the Apple connector was
| better because it had less bits to go wrong.
|
| USB C, like micro USB has that "tongue" piece that has to fit
| inside the end of the cable which always looks like it could snap
| off. The Apple connector is just a solid piece that goes in the
| end of the phone. No fiddly interlock pieces.
| scrumper wrote:
| The socket half of the lightning connector is actually pretty
| delicate inside: there are little tiny fingers that contact the
| strips on the plug. It's quite easy to damage those fingers and
| ruin the port when cleaning it out after exposure to dust or
| sand.
|
| Mind you my 7 year old broke the USB C connector on his Switch
| in much the same way. There's only so strong you can make
| something that small and dense with contacts.
| cesarb wrote:
| In all the discussions I've seen where people complain about
| USB-C, not once have I read about that tab snapping off, so it
| does not seem to be a problem in practice.
|
| The reason USB-C has the tab on the device is to have the
| springs, which are the bits which can go wrong the most, on the
| cable instead of the device. When they start to become loose,
| you only have to replace an inexpensive cable, instead of
| having to replace or repair the device. It also better protects
| the contacts on both the cable and the device (the contacts on
| Apple's lightning cable are exposed).
| snorlaxle wrote:
| It happened to me once. It was a cheap no-name hub so I don't
| really blame type c for it. I also haven't heard it happen to
| anyone else and most of my friends and family have an
| android.
| gadders wrote:
| It happened to me on a micro-usb phone, which is probably
| what makes me a bit warey of them.
| 369548684892826 wrote:
| The lightning connection does seem to have interlocking pieces,
| but the moving parts are in the socket rather than on the plug.
| The plug has grooves on the side to lock into the sprung clips
| in the socket.
| INTPenis wrote:
| It's good, but also worth mentioning that they're just now
| proposing to end the subventioned airplane fuel, and in that
| proposal they still want an exception for private business
| aircraft. Keep the pressure on your EU MEP.
| option wrote:
| Bureaucrats gonna bureaucrat ... What will happen when a company
| (outside EU for obvious reasons) introduces clearly superior
| standard? The EU will wait for its bureaucracy to catch up?
| dundarious wrote:
| There is no benefit to new standards coming out all the time in
| this domain. There is major benefit to standardizing for many
| years at a time.
| hda2 wrote:
| The same was once believed in south Korea with regards to
| online commerce and ActiveX. Their law left their
| infrastructure rigid, less secure, and incompatible with the
| rest of the world when everyone moved on.
| dundarious wrote:
| The USB standard and the processes and groups governing it
| are quite unlike those for ActiveX.
| kmlx wrote:
| > There is no benefit to new standards coming out all the
| time in this domain.
|
| actually, there are huge potential benefits for both the
| users and the company that launches them. faster charging,
| better ports, smarter cables etc etc etc
| qalmakka wrote:
| 2024? There's still plenty of time for them to remove the port
| altogether and go with just MagSafe/Qi. Which they control, and
| they still can get fees from.
|
| Trust me when I say that Apple will NEVER submit to this
| legislation, they will find every sort of obscure or arcane
| tricks to comply with it without actually doing it. It would set
| a precedent that legislating can change Apple's behaviour, which
| they clearly do not want to give. If they show the EU Parliament
| it's pointless to go after them, maybe they will not try to
| dismantle their monopoly on the App Store, which is clearly the
| next thing they will go after this.
| pfortuny wrote:
| In Europe, and this is well known, companies must comply with
| the intent of the law, especially on something related to
| customers and compatibility. This is very very different from
| the US legal system, which can be tricked "ad nauseam".
|
| Apple may well do what they please but there will be fines, and
| even prohibition of sales. Because the EU "knows" that it can
| be done without much burden and "sees" it as a benefit for the
| citizens. I agree in this case on both things.
| filoleg wrote:
| This is a nice fantasy and all, but how did that whole "In
| Europe [...] companies must comply with the intent of the
| law" work out for GDPR?
|
| As far as I am aware, all the big tech companies that were
| used as the primary reason for creating GDPR are still doing
| the exact same things (that people were upset about) they
| were doing back then (just in a legally compliant(tm) way now
| according to "the intent of the law").
|
| Not trying to take a dig at GDPR with this, it definitely
| made some tech companies to make some small concessions, like
| being able to export your data easier. But it would be
| difficult to argue that companies comply with GDPR according
| to the intent of the law, and not according to the letter of
| the law instead.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > Qi
|
| What a complete waste of energy would that be
| Hamcha wrote:
| If it's going down to a pettiness war, I don't think the
| legislators will give up that easily.
|
| Apple reacting in a petty way not only shows that the
| legislators were right on the money (while adapting shows they
| were forced, whether for good or bad) but gives them even more
| reason to push the buttons further.
|
| Digital Markets Act is definitely getting more fuel and
| attention after Apple's petty response to ACM's complaints in
| the Netherlands. [1]
|
| 1. https://developer.apple.com/support/storekit-external-
| entitl...
| urgentmessage wrote:
| you seem to think that annoying Apple creates welfare for EU
| citizens
|
| But it doesn't.
|
| Regulators may "win" a battle. But consumers lose big time.
| And I don't think bureaucrats should take precedence versus
| consumers.
| hda2 wrote:
| I think GP's point is that you almost never win when you go
| against regulators head-on. Ultimately, they're the ones
| who have the guns (i.e control imports, exports, and
| enforcement). Now that it got to this point, Apple _will_
| yield if it wants to continue profiting off those markets.
|
| I do agree that legislating technology this way is a big
| mistake on EU's part. This is basically South Korea's
| ActiveX law all over again, and like South Korea, the EU
| will eventually be left behind.
| Longhanks wrote:
| Apple and Google won when EU countries tried the
| centralized covid control tracing, and they both went
| "you're not going to get this". Some countries were
| furious, yelled they're going to force Apple, that the EU
| is going to force Apple, yadda yadda.
|
| Nothing prevailed. Apple and Google dictated the API and
| the EU countries submitted, because they did not have
| time to enforce their will.
|
| It is not Apple's, Google's, or America's fault that the
| EU has become so little innovative, rather hostile
| towards software developers and entrepreneurs, that they
| have no power in the digital world. And for the EU it is
| easier to blame american companies, instead of admitting
| failure and working towards creating an more enterprise-
| friendly hub in Europe.
|
| I mean, as others have noted, why isn't the EU regulating
| the other side of the connector? Why are there 3+ power
| plugs in the EU? Shouldn't this be regulated first, if
| the EU's argument of reducing electronic waste be
| considered? No, those aren't created by american
| companies.
|
| I'm sick of the EU, its constant attempts to circumvent
| privacy (such as the current legislation of ending end to
| end encryption for chats), while obviously lacking in the
| democracy department (why is the comission not elected?).
| Panoramix wrote:
| Nobody is losing anything over a proprietary crappy
| overpriced Apple solution
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| Then Apple will be fined billions until they yield, just as
| every other tech company has tried to do in the EU and failed.
| plonk wrote:
| They already use USB-C on macs and iPads. The only practical
| reason for Lightning to survive is existing iPhone accessories.
| It could have been on the way out even before this. Not sure
| the fight is worth picking.
| qalmakka wrote:
| > The only practical reason for Lightning to survive is
| existing iPhone accessories
|
| Do you have any vague idea how much money Apple makes from
| Lightning accessories? Every single thing that wants to use
| Lightning has to pay an Apple tax, and go through an
| incredibly cumbersome and expensive certification process.
| Letting that slip away from Apple's control means they lose a
| bit of control on their walled garden.
|
| Meanwhile, MagSafe is also an environment for accessories
| they can control, and they can use as a way to extort fees
| from accessory developers. Apple has only one goal in mind -
| their margins. Everything they do must be seen in function of
| that. It's clear Apple is going to remove every single port
| from the iPhone, they only have to find how.
| iainmerrick wrote:
| Why do new Macs and iPads have USB-C, then?
| ratww wrote:
| Yep. They'll just sell a dongle for the remaining
| accessories, just as they did with 30-pin.
| kalleboo wrote:
| Basically what I'm assuming is that Apple will adopt USB-C on
| the iPhone Pro models (since they need faster file transfer for
| the huge 4K ProRes video files anyway, and they were happy to
| adopt USB-C on the iPad "Pro" models early) and drop the ports
| completely on the non-Pro models.
| mort96 wrote:
| I wonder if they'll do that with all their "Pro" stuff. Like,
| would the AirPods be Qi-only or Lightning+Qi-only, with USB-C
| reserved for AirPods Pro? Or would they go USB-C across the
| board? Or does Apple imagine a world in which their ideal
| "Pro" customer, with their iPad Pro, iPhone Pro, MacBook Pro
| and AirPods Pro, keeps around a Lightning charger for only
| their earbuds while literally everything else uses USB-C?
|
| IMO, the only clean solution here is to go with USB-C across
| the board. But I also have no faith that will happen.
| ratww wrote:
| _> MagSafe /Qi. Which they control, and they still can get fees
| from_
|
| Apple doesn't control Qi.
|
| I charge my phone with a random $5 charger and it works quite
| alright.
| rbanffy wrote:
| They already use USB-C in the iPad line. What I imagine as the
| most likely outcome is keeping USB-C as an option for charging
| (as it already is - you don't _need_ to use MagSafe for
| charging any supported) and offering USB-C and /or wireless-
| only charging on phones. Being wireless-only on phones makes a
| lot of sense for ruggedness - a completely sealed iPhone could
| be easily used underwater.
| lekevicius wrote:
| I don't think this is the right take.
|
| - We already have reliable rumors that next-next iPhone (not
| this Sept, but next) will have USB-C port.
|
| - Qi is not a standard they control like Lightning either way.
|
| - Portless phone would be very unpopular (no fast charging),
| USB-C would be very popular. Apple would not choose to be
| unpopular just to watch the world hate them.
| glogla wrote:
| > - Portless phone would be very unpopular (no fast
| charging), USB-C would be very popular. Apple would not
| choose to be unpopular just to watch the world hate them.
|
| The same Apple which removed headphone jack so they can sell
| more dongles and wireless headphones?
|
| I can see them making portless phone just out of pure spite
| (maybe having cheaper version with port and not selling that
| in EU).
| kaba0 wrote:
| The headphone jack did take up a considerable amount of
| space and made waterproofing quite a bit harder. It't not
| like it was not a well-considered tradeoff. Companies don't
| work based on spite, but based on profit.
| spacexsucks wrote:
| mattnewton wrote:
| The existence of waterproof Samsung phones of the same
| thickness seems to disprove this line for me; it's not a
| coincidence that AirPods were released at the same time.
| Removing the headphone jack and was at least in part
| about the upsell to wireless headphones apple also makes.
| hda2 wrote:
| I concur. If anything, TRRS jacks should be easier to
| waterproof compared to other holes.
| spacexsucks wrote:
| lekevicius wrote:
| > I can see them making portless phone just out of pure
| spite (maybe having cheaper version with port and not
| selling that in EU).
|
| What kind of mindset is this? Sometimes Apple prefers
| aesthetics over practicality, but they are not a spiteful
| company (unless you are Nvidia), particularly when it hurts
| customers.
| ponow wrote:
| I don't accept the right of governments to intervene in what I
| and a seller agree to transact. It's an inalienable right where
| people care about such things. Definitely not in the EU.
|
| If you have a problem with pollution, then properly cost that
| pollution on an even basis, instead of picking and choosing deep
| pockets and other politically palatable targets.
|
| Man, the 2nd amendment is there for a reason.
| enkid wrote:
| The second amendment has absolutely nothing to do with this.
| This is the EU and the second amendment is about "bearing
| arms," not selling electronic equipment.
| ponow wrote:
| Also, that isn't my main point, about the (lack of) justice
| of such action by the EU. I am actually annoyed by
| incompatible cabling, but understand that the remedy is
| almost always worse than the disease, so reserve intervention
| to clear natural rights violations. The EU is an inadequate
| alternative to Consumer Reports, product reviews, and
| experience. Also, not everyone has the same values, so the EU
| is picking priorities for us, which is immoral.
| ponow wrote:
| Yes, it does: an armed populace is harder to push around.
| viktorcode wrote:
| In case if you didn't know, all modern Apple lightning chargers
| are USB-C chargers. It's the cable which is different.
| alexb_ wrote:
| inb4 the next iphone has no ports, and the excuse they give
| involves being waterproof or something
| rootusrootus wrote:
| That would be foolish, wireless charging is far too slow to
| replace cables anytime soon.
| akrymski wrote:
| This will finally make me seriously consider moving back to
| iPhones. I'm simply not willing to give up being able to charge
| my Android phone, M1 laptop, headphones, vape, shaver, oculus,
| etc with the same cable. I travel with 1 cable. It's life
| changing.
| ho_schi wrote:
| Instead of "enforcement" I would appreciate good "standards".
| This allows for improvement and reasonable exceptions. I would
| provide a "customer traffic light" informing about specific
| features.
|
| More specifically I would shift from implementation (How?) to
| actual requirements (What?). The implementation is a decision of
| the manufacturer. Examples: * User-replaceable
| batteries # By Screw? Coin? Flip/Notch on outside? Behind
| Backcover? Whatever. * Hardware-maintenance-manuals #
| Explosion Diagrams? Text? Step-by-Step? Whatever. *
| Locally user replaceable firm- and software! # By Thumbdrive? SD-
| Card? USB-Cable? Whatever.
|
| Historic example. Do we want enforce a specific engine type
| {turbojet, turbofan, turboprop) on planes or a specific noise
| level? The later! Similar for the EU-Cookie-Directive. They
| should have stated that tracking of users is forbidden (What) and
| not how to handle Cookies (How).
| hcal wrote:
| I'm probably overlooking an obvious answer, I'm not sure how
| you define this clearly. Using your noise level example, we
| know how to measure noise levels. It is straight forward to say
| your new technology complies with a noise regulation.
|
| How do you do that for a regulation like standardized
| connectors? Just say you can't use any non-open-standard
| connectors?
| mrtksn wrote:
| By the way, that's also how Tesla and all other cars have the
| same electric plug in EU(not the USB mandate but the car plug
| standardisation mandate).
|
| Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is what happens if
| better solutions are found. Will EU block innovation?
|
| That question is addressed in the Q&A:
| https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/QANDA_...
|
| In essence, they seem to believe that wired charging is mature
| enough for standardisation but further technologies can be
| implemented through "Radio Equipment Directive". In the same
| time, it appears that the wireless charging is unaffected because
| the tech is new and fast changing, therefore the manufacturers
| can include whatever wireless charging they see fit.
|
| It really boils down to "No funny cables, why don't you try
| wireless charging of your liking if USB-C doesn't cut it for
| you?".
| jeroenhd wrote:
| In the USA all modern electric cars also use the normal
| standard, except for Tesla. There were a few early offshoots
| and Tesla had good reason to come up with their own connector
| initially (no other plug could transfer that much power!) but
| these days everything has been pretty much consolidated.
|
| For charging your car at Tesla chargers that haven't been
| upgraded to the standard yet there are adaptors available from
| Tesla plugs to standard fast charging plugs.
|
| Older cars may need their weird custom connections but
| everything else has been pretty much been standardised. I don't
| know how much the EU decision has affected this, but it's not
| an EU exclusive feat.
| mrtksn wrote:
| There's this thing called Brussels effect where manufacturers
| pick to default to EU requirements instead of having
| different supply chains unless they absolutely have to.
|
| EU don't like the idea of manufacturers locking down their
| users through different standards. EU is a densely populated
| place with limited natural resources and free space,
| therefore cables piling up or 10 different types of charging
| stations are problems that EU cannot afford. EU trash being
| shipped to poorer countries is already a serious problem for
| example.
|
| Good to hear that in the US only Tesla was the outlier and
| the industry acted responsibly but unless regulated you can't
| guarantee that it will be like that or stay like that.
|
| Businesses love to lock down their users, Tesla chargers are
| a major selling point for Tesla and from EU perspective
| having multiple charging networks that cannot be made
| interoperable without a substantial modifications is a no-no.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| I don't really get this trash argument even though I hear
| it over and over. I throw away a higher volume of stuff in
| one or two average days than all the wall warts and phone
| cables I've ever owned probably add up to. I've been on
| smart phones since Blackberry, and I don't think all of the
| chargers and cables I've used over the two decades combined
| add up to a single trash can full.
|
| Interoperability sure.
| Someone wrote:
| > I throw away a higher volume of stuff in one or two
| average days than all the wall warts and phone cables
| I've ever owned probably add up to.
|
| I would think 'mass' is a better metric to use than
| 'volume'. Also, it's not only the waste, but also the
| work needed to make it, and I would guess that's a lot
| harder for electric chargers than for, say, the plastic
| bags that take up the bulk of the volume of trash.
|
| Also, "Others are worse" isn't a strong argument. Some of
| the large contributors to trash may not be completely
| unavoidable (example: plastic packaging). Because of
| that, it's not possible to significantly reduce the
| amount of waste by making a few cuts on the largest
| contributors of trash. You have to do it by making lots
| of small cuts. This is one of them, and also a relatively
| easy gain.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| I would think volume is a better metric because landfills
| don't really much care about mass.
|
| If you wanted to save trash you'd probably go after
| packaging. Ban disposable water bottles (or something
| less drastic like taxing them extra) and there's 50
| lifetimes of wall warts per person per annum.
|
| This just isn't really an enviromental problem. Or if it
| is, it's so far down the scale as to be pointless to
| prioritize over almost anything. It's really about
| competition.
| wfhordie wrote:
| > cannot be made interoperable without a substantial
| modifications is a no-no.
|
| This sentence seems to imply that one cannot charge their
| non-Tesla car with the Tesla charging network without
| substantial modifications.
|
| What do you mean by substantial modification? It is already
| possible for non-Tesla cars, in the United States, to
| charge at Tesla destination chargers with an adapter:
| https://qccharge.com/collections/jdapter-stub(tm)-tesla-
| station...
|
| There isn't anything particular magic about Tesla
| Superchargers, either. A simple adapter+some API for the
| app will open it right up.
|
| I'm not against standardization, btw.
| jsight wrote:
| True, and tbh, the adapters don't have to be particularly
| clunky. The CCS1 -> Tesla connector adapter is generally
| pretty elegant. Its not as nice as the Tesla connector
| itself, of course.
|
| Sadly, the US standard (CCS1) was heavily influenced by a
| desire for backward compatibility with J1772. Its not a
| great standard in itself.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| What if Apple finally comes out with wired mag safe for the
| iPhone? Does they count as wireless? Or would it be illegal in
| Europe because a wire was still involved even if the connection
| was magnetic?
| rektide wrote:
| I'd guess that they'd be required to implement both. If
| there's a USB-C charging option, I don't think the EU would
| prevent an additional magsafe charging. They havent banned
| wireless charging, for example. This is to insure an
| essential minimum compatibility (I hope/as I see it).
| arcticbull wrote:
| How about we wait until Apple comes up with a MagSafe
| connector for phones they want to use and the big bad
| regulators won't let them?
|
| Tim Cook has his own PR team, haha.
| ericd wrote:
| Don't you think this might discourage them from investing
| the R&D to make something that'll require a fight to
| release?
| arcticbull wrote:
| Since they've been using Lightning for about 10 years
| now, I'd say there's other things that are inhibiting
| their innovation. I suspect it has more to do with third-
| party accessory manufacturers. Unless you're suggesting
| that connector innovation requires at least a 10 year
| iteration cycle?
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| USBC can be made to be "MagSafe". When Apple only sold
| laptops with USB-C ports there were a bunch of MagSafe
| knockoffs sold for laptops. Although most of the time they
| would break eventually but it's not impossible. If it just
| was a special cord as long as you could use a regular USBC
| cord it seems like it would be compliant but IANAL.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Those solutions aren't very good, so I doubt Apple would go
| that route.
|
| Frankly, I'm expecting the lightning port to be replaced
| with a purely inductive/magnetic solution eventually, there
| probably will not even be a receptacle for it, just a
| wireless contact to the phone from the wire like how the
| Apple Watch can only charged.
|
| I'm guessing in that case, they would be exempt from
| providing a usb-c port since the phones would be
| technically purely wireless by that point. At that point,
| other vendors will follow and the EU will mandate Qi as the
| standard wireless charging solution since the USB-C mandate
| will be obsolete.
| seu wrote:
| > Will EU block innovation?
|
| Innovation is overrated. And standardising is not blocking.
|
| What we need more urgently than innovation is to stop creating
| so much waste, extracting so much stuff from the earth, and in
| general reduce consumption. Standardisation accomplishes at
| least some of that.
| throwaway92394 wrote:
| > Innovation is overrated. And standardising is not blocking.
|
| Hard disagree? Both lightning and USB C were massive
| improvements in durability compared to Micro USB - I'd argue
| lightning is still better in that regard, because there's no
| thin piece inside the phone that can break (did phone repair,
| and 99% of the time a "broken" iphone port was just stuck
| lint).
|
| USB C is not universally better then then Micro, namely it
| has a much larger footprint both on the connector side and
| the PCB.
|
| > Will EU block innovation?
|
| So my question is - if there's a new USB standard connector
| that's smaller, or is inside-out for better durability - is
| it now prevented from being used?
| jsight wrote:
| I really like what USB-C has done for peripherals and non-
| iphone devices, but I agree with you.
|
| I'd be fine with a new USB-D that fixed all these issues.
| USB-C is just mostly better than the other alternatives for
| Android and charging laptops. Its far from perfect.
| treesknees wrote:
| Granted this isn't the fault of the connector, but USB-C is
| certainly a mess. My Nintendo Switch uses USB-C charging,
| but I can't use my MacBook charger for it. There are
| different cables, ratings, etc. "make everything USB-C" is
| asking for confusion. As much as I hate having a different
| cable for every device, at least when I pick up a (Apple-
| branded) lightning cable, I know it will work correctly for
| my iPhone.
| patentatt wrote:
| Isn't the switch a notorious outlier and oddball with
| respect to its usb-c implementation though? I think it's
| more just that Nintendo screwed up one product than the
| standard is bad.
| treesknees wrote:
| It's certainly the most popular example of poor
| implementation. But one could argue that USB-C isn't even
| implemented and they just used the connector/form factor
| for their cable. I recall the RPI4 also having issues
| early on with power over USB-C.
|
| But that's precisely my problem with this - if we're
| forcing every device to merely adopt a USB-C port, that
| does nothing to ensure they're actually using USB-C
| specifications or interoperable. Game System X and Phone
| Y may only work with USB-C cables/chargers X and Y, which
| satisfy the requirement without fixing the compatibility
| problem.
| nybble41 wrote:
| > ...if we're forcing every device to merely adopt a
| USB-C port, that does nothing to ensure they're actually
| using USB-C specifications or interoperable.
|
| You certainly need more than just the physical port. IMHO
| the minimum reasonable requirement would be that the
| device must charge at near the maximum supported rate
| (minimum of the device's, cable's, and charger's
| advertised rates) with _any_ combination of compliant
| charger & cable. There wouldn't be much point in
| mandating the use of USB-C ports otherwise.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Are really the non-standard cables to blame here?
|
| How about non-removable batteries and unrepairable phones?
| Many phones would be still ok, but the non-removable
| (cheaply) battery means that they get replaced prematurely,
| because the cost of replacement is overlapping the price of a
| low/mid tear phones. Back in the day, you pulled the back
| cover off, put a new batter in, and the phone was as good as
| new. Same with other types of repair, especially the kinds
| where manufacturer just replaces the whole assembly just
| because of one small part malfunctioning.
| sva_ wrote:
| Probably several things. They're working on the battery-
| issue: https://repair.eu/news/the-european-parliament-
| calls-for-rem...
| gumby wrote:
| > Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is what happens
| if better solutions are found. Will EU block innovation?
|
| Previously the EU had a (non-compulsory) rule on micro A as the
| charging standard:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply
|
| Plus they leave the door open for a wireless alternative.
| Vladimof wrote:
| > Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is what happens
| if better solutions are found. Will EU block innovation?
|
| no... we also had the Micro USB standard because of Europe...
| smaryjerry wrote:
| Standards are a good thing but I'm not sure that we have
| reached this point where USB-C is functionally the best. If we
| could completely eliminate on all other types of connectors on
| not just phones but computers then I would say it's time to
| standardize. Unfortunately on my computer if I want a 4K
| resolution and frame rate that is way 300 hz then is it even
| possible that can be done over a USB-C connector? Hopefully
| some expert can chime in but display port or hdmi 2.1+ or
| multiple of those cables is what is used typically, and if
| USB-c worked perfectly why isn't that already replacing every
| single port on a computer? Phones will eventually be as fast or
| faster than the current computers, so why implement a
| limitation when it feels like phones are still at the baby
| steps in phone evolution? That is just data transfer and I'm no
| expert but I'm not certain either than charging has reached
| it's final form either. Am I wrong, is the USB-c connector
| capable of infinite data transfer rate as long as your cable is
| good enough?
| bluGill wrote:
| The constitution gives US congress the right to set standards
| for weights and measures, which unless you use a very strict
| reading says they can set charging standards. I wish they
| would. Tesla (and Nissan) as early movers 10 years ago can be
| forgiven for not adopting a standard charger, but now they need
| to update to the standard. (IIRC both are planning on it)
| golemotron wrote:
| Reading charging standards as "weights and measures" is on
| par with classifying bumblebees as fish.
|
| Not only aren't these strict readings, they aren't even
| sensible.
| kube-system wrote:
| Standardization of metering devices used in commerce is
| directly in the purview of Weights and Measures regulation.
|
| For example, NIST Weights and Measures division regulates
| the nozzle on the dispenser used for gasoline in the US.
|
| > Each retail dispensing device from which fuel products
| are sold shall be equipped with a nozzle spout having a
| diameter that conforms with the latest version of SAE J285,
| "Dispenser Nozzle Spouts for Liquid Fuel Intended for Use
| with Spark-Ignition and Compression Ignition Engines."
|
| https://www.nist.gov/system/files/documents/2019/12/06/00-2
| 0...
|
| A metering devices that dispenses electrical power is no
| different. https://www.nist.gov/pml/weights-and-
| measures/legal-metrolog...
| nybble41 wrote:
| Ensuring _accurate_ metering in the context of commerce
| is within the scope of "To ... fix the Standard of
| Weights and Measures". The specific form of the nozzle
| clearly is not, but they might justify it on the basis of
| some other enumerated power--the interstate commerce
| clause is frequently (ab)used for this sort of thing.
| Nothing technically requires every regulation produced by
| the NIST Weights and Measures division to be grounded
| exclusively in the Weights and Measures clause, though
| one could be forgiven for making that assumption.
|
| As dpratt remarked earlier[0], any interpretation which
| would deem nozzle size--or the specific form of an
| electrical connector--to be covered by the Weights and
| Measures clause of the Constitution would effectively
| cede unlimited power to the federal government. What
| _couldn 't_ they regulate under such broad rules?
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31654558
| kube-system wrote:
| I'm not saying that the regulatory power in this case is
| derived solely from the weights and measures clause, I'm
| countering golemotron's suggestion that it's a wholly
| unrelated topic. It's a topic so closely relevant to
| weights and measures that the regulatory division that
| currently regulates them bears that title.
| golemotron wrote:
| It's an overreach. "A pound is 16 ounces" is not the same
| as "cakes shall only be 5 ounces," i.e., a standard of
| measure does not extend to regulation of what is measured
| and what measures are permitted. An originalist court
| could fix this.
| kube-system wrote:
| That analogy does not hold up. A fuel dispenser _is_ a
| metering device. The scale at your grocery store that
| measures the weight of the cake is, likewise, an NTEP
| scale: https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/national-
| type-evaluat...
|
| These are very fundamental consumer protection
| regulations that have been solidly cemented in western
| civilization for many centuries now.
|
| >not extend to regulation of [...] what measures are
| permitted.
|
| That was exactly the point of that clause. The colonies
| all had their own system of measurement and it was a mess
| trying to do business. Now, congress did very little
| about it, but the founders intentionally reserved the
| right for them to fix that problem.
| golemotron wrote:
| The problem with your formulation is that there is no
| limiting principle. Perversely, the government could rule
| that a pregnant person is a metering device for gestation
| and establish standards.
| kube-system wrote:
| No, a pregnancy does not meter any commercial exchange of
| goods.
| larryett wrote:
| If only we had mandated VGA 20 years ago I wouldn't have to
| stress over all these different connections under my monitor.
|
| You can't possibly believe what you typed.
| dpratt wrote:
| If by "strict reading" you mean "any reading at all", I would
| agree.
|
| I'm not sure how the legal power to say "the unit of mass
| called the 'gram' shall be defined as the mass of a cube of
| pure water, one centimeter on each side" allows you to say
| "anybody that manufactures a phone must include the following
| physical and logical features." If you go off that
| definition, you're basically ceding pretty much unlimited
| power to the government.
| kube-system wrote:
| For phones, you're right.
|
| For cars, we have public metering devices that measure
| units of stuff and charge money. This makes it fall into
| the category of metering devices used in trade. And we do
| regulate those almost universally. You can't just put a
| different shape nozzle on a gas pump, for instance.
| [deleted]
| mmis1000 wrote:
| > Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is what happens
| if better solutions are found. Will EU block innovation?
|
| Usb typec wire from 65A(non e-marked wire) to 240A(the latest
| standardized e-marked wire) uses literally the same plug.
|
| Typec is the header but not the protocol. Even China phone
| vendor's proprietary high speed charging protocol use typec
| wire. And Intel's tb4 wire also use a type c wire. (the
| bandwidth of tb4 is definitely overkill for every phone ever
| made on the world for now)
|
| Force use of typec header and baseline charging protocol
| prevent innovation is just bs consider this didn't even prevent
| apple from making a MFA e-marked typec cable.(Or they don't
| want this to pass because they actually want to do this again?)
| izzydata wrote:
| It would be nice if we could limit new standards to once every
| 5-10 years. At which time people can submit new ideas for
| standardization approval and then the best one gets picked and
| everyone is required to switch. Backwards compatibility would
| probably score a lot of points.
| ciupicri wrote:
| Speaking of cars and standardization, I'm still waiting for the
| European Union to put the steering wheel on the left side of
| the car and while we're at it, make it mandatory to drive on
| the right side of the road.
| umeshunni wrote:
| In another generation, cars will be self driving and this
| will just be a code change.
| maest wrote:
| Is your point that since there exist a standard which
| occurred without government intervention, then the government
| should never intervene to create any standards?
| lrem wrote:
| Demographics seems to suggest that the prospect of
| unification is not unrealistic within our lifetimes.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > "No funny cables, why don't you try wireless charging of your
| liking if USB-C doesn't cut it for you?".
|
| it boils down to "as long as the USB-C is provided"
|
| anyway electric plugs have been a standard for decades, better
| options to supply energy have come out, the plugs have stayed
| the same.
|
| I don't understand the FOMO.
| mrtksn wrote:
| > it boils down to "as long as the USB-C is provided"
|
| Can you provide a source? AFAIK you can have a device without
| USB-C and only wireless charging.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| it's literally in the first page
|
| _in so far as they are capable of being recharged via
| wired charging, shall:_
|
| so you can have all the funny cables you want, as long as
| you provide the USB-C plug
|
| If there is no wired charging, there is no problem of funny
| cables.
|
| but companies are free to experiment all the kinds of wired
| charging they want, it's just more convenient to have a
| standard and they'll comply happily I guess, now that they
| are forced by the law and can stop competing on stupid
| stuff like charging cables.
| dfox wrote:
| There is a huge question of what exactly "are capable of
| being recharged via wired charging" means. Does the
| hidden Lightning connector on Apple Watch that most
| consumers don't even know is there count?
| lynguist wrote:
| Look, we have the headphone jack (6.35mm) stemming from 1877,
| and its miniature form (3.5mm) from 1960.
|
| It's ok to let USB-C live for another 60-100 years.
| mmis1000 wrote:
| It will probably last for very long consider 24 wire of type
| c is a lot compares to 4 of 3.5mm jack. And it can actually
| be repurposed by changing the protocol (software) ?
|
| Probably until someday that 24 physical wire isn't enough for
| a phone. (but the iPhone don't even use the usb3 yet, why did
| it even need these bandwidth?)
| CardenB wrote:
| This is a flawed comparison because the use cases for the
| former examples are very limited in comparison to USB C which
| is arguably evolving rapidly still.
|
| You could imagine if we had formed such a standard around USB
| A in the 90s and how it might have blocked the already high
| friction establishment of USB C and thunderbolt 3 standards.
|
| USB C currently seems more mature than USB A, so I can see
| where things ar ea bit subjective here, but it's not really
| possible to see where unrestricted development would have put
| us.
|
| I think I would have been more comfortable with simply
| banning lightning and micro USB than restricting to only USB
| C.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| This regulation is about charging - so power, not data /
| thunderbolt. And when it comes to charging USB C can
| delvier 100W, which is enough for any small gadget, phone,
| etc.
| bonzini wrote:
| The first version of the EU regulation suggested USB micro.
| There's a reason why it took ten years to go from
| suggestion to requirement.
| im3w1l wrote:
| The 3.5mm jack is not that good in my opinion. It fails too
| quickly. Less than a year for a portable device that bumps
| around in your pocket and reconnect a couple times a day. Now
| I still prefer it in many situations to bluetooth with its
| latency and packet drop issues, but I do think that a better
| jack could be made and is worth making.
|
| As for suggestions for improvements: it should not be able to
| spin, because spinning wears it down. Second, maybe some kind
| of latch to lock it into place.
| samatman wrote:
| > _Will EU block innovation?_
|
| It already has. Tesla's connector is nicer (you can call that
| subjective but it isn't) and the supercharging network in the
| US is deploying the clunky standard sort of connector as well.
|
| If EU legislation were universal, that would preclude any
| future where the superior connector is licensed and takes over
| from the crappy designed-by-committee alternative, because
| Tesla would be forced to stop manufacturing it.
|
| Legislators deciding who gets to be VHS and who has to be
| Betamax is bad, actually.
| moduspol wrote:
| This is the case I try to make to friends and relatives (non-
| EV owners) who insist that a common plug is a prerequisite to
| EV ownership.
|
| Standardizing against Tesla at any earlier point would have
| been a gift on a silver platter for legacy auto by slowing EV
| adoption, and it's Tesla's freedom to innovate that is why
| we're even having this discussion instead of theoretical
| questions about what EVs might be like in the future.
|
| I usually tell them to let Tesla solve the remaining edge
| cases (semis, trailer hauling, and charge speeds comparable
| to ICE fill-ups) before we start regulating. Setting things
| in stone now would be like standardizing on DSL as the only
| last-mile broadband in 2004. We don't want to do that.
| bonzini wrote:
| > charge speeds comparable to ICE fill-ups
|
| That's just impossible. Filling a 100 kWh "tank" in one
| minute requires 6 MW of power, plus all the power that goes
| into heat. The only solution would be replacing batteries
| on the fly but Tesla discontinued it.
|
| Moving stuff is inherently faster than chemical reactions
| (unless you're talking about explosions).
| moduspol wrote:
| It doesn't have to be equivalent. Just being comparable
| from a user experience and business case perspective
| would be enough.
|
| Getting it down to five minutes to fill to 80% may be
| sufficient. Right now it's 15-20 minutes.
| bonzini wrote:
| The problem is not just the time to charge a single car
| but the capacity in cars/hour.
|
| First, if a car takes five times longer to charge, you
| need a lot more space to cover the needs for peak days.
| This may not be a problem on highways (or in the US) but
| space in Europe is much more limited.
|
| Second, a smallish 6-pump filling station serves 150-200
| cars per hour. An equivalent charging station would need
| 12-15 MW which means working at 40 kV.
|
| Dealing with peak days is easy for filling stations, you
| just request gasoline trucks more frequently. For
| charging stations you need to build infrastructure that
| might hardly exist in more rural places, it's the same as
| sneakernet vs broadband.
| chroma wrote:
| It's hard to calculate how many charging stations will be
| needed. Most EV owners plug their cars in at home and
| wake up every day with a full charge. They only use
| charging stations for road trips. Also charging stations
| can be installed in far more places than gas stations.
| There are no hazardous fumes or massive fire risks. They
| don't require nearly as much maintenance or staff. For
| these reasons it's common to see charging stations in
| parking garages, in front of hotels, or even next to the
| beach[1].
|
| 1. https://imgur.com/a/vd4dStk
| mrtksn wrote:
| 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 unless it's the
| military. Let's agree to disagree.
|
| I like that the car plugs are the same everywhere in EU and
| want it to stay that way and enjoy the Tesla plugs on a trip
| to USA.
| potatochup wrote:
| 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)
| bonzini wrote:
| 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.
| afiori wrote:
| I would like to live in the alternative reality were all
| AC is three-phase AC; probably it would be uselessly more
| expensive for normal domestic stuff but it would be quite
| cooler.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| ericmay wrote:
| > EU is a densely populated place where having multiple
| charging networks of incomparable plugs will be horrible.
|
| In the short term, yes. In the long term however
| competition between these different standards will cause
| consolidation and overall technology improvement. The next
| step will be regulating wireless charging so that all
| devices have to use/do the same thing, rinse-wash-repeat.
|
| > 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 unless it's
| the military. Let's agree to disagree.
|
| A better way to think about this is that both "groups" can
| learn from one another. For example you could say that
| Europeans should be suspicious about USB-C manufacturers
| and advocates effectively being granted a monopoly in the
| name of convenience. Americans should better trust that
| certainly in the case of infrastructure it makes sense to
| have a single standard "plug" for electric vehicles because
| we really need as many people driving them as possible in
| the most convenient way.
| amluto wrote:
| > In the long term however competition between these
| different standards will cause consolidation and overall
| technology improvement.
|
| If you think that's a superior solution, then the
| regulation should actually support it: require that all
| EV charging connectors have a free published
| specification, disallow patents on them, and require that
| interoperability be permitted without cost or other
| penalty. (e.g. anyone should be able to implement both
| ends of the Tesla supercharging protocol such that
| Tesla's chargers would charge a competing car at the same
| prices that they charge Tesla's; similarly, a competing
| charger should be able to charge a Tesla.)
| ericmay wrote:
| I'm not opposed to this and personally think it's all up
| for discussion/debate and it should be discussed and
| debated. I'm excited to see what develops in this space.
|
| One nitpick would be:
|
| > e.g. anyone should be able to implement both ends of
| the Tesla supercharging protocol such that Tesla's
| chargers would charge a competing car at the same prices
| that they charge Tesla's; similarly, a competing chargers
| should be able to charge a Tesla.
|
| I think this sounds good, but one of the details here is
| ensuring that other manufacturers are able to actually
| build the products correctly so a supercharger doesn't
| light a car on fire or something due to faulty equipment.
| Who is at fault? How is it prevented? What are the legal
| agreements? Etc.
|
| On the pricing side though I'd have to strongly disagree.
| Tesla (or whoever) builds the infrastructure so they
| should be able to charge what they want. It's about the
| plug and interoperability of that standard, not
| infringing on the business model which I think goes too
| far. If they charge too much money, people won't use them
| and competitors will continue to emerge (I see new
| charging stations in Meijer parking lots being put next
| to Tesla infrastructure). There's no reason in my view to
| mandate pricing here and I think it would set back EV
| adoption to do so.
| kiawe_fire wrote:
| I was set to be all libertarian about this, but your
| suggestion is probably more level headed.
|
| There should be some common ground. Regulations that
| encourage innovation (perhaps even with timed financial
| incentives) while also ensuring that the best ideas are
| eventually freely adoptable across the board.
|
| Seems like, as with most issues, people take one extreme
| or the other, when a common sense middle ground could be
| found with proper planning and forethought.
| nybble41 wrote:
| > I was set to be all libertarian about this...
|
| Disallowing patents _is_ the libertarian solution, though
| it would be up to the customers to demand published
| specifications and official support for interoperability.
| dfox wrote:
| The original intention of patent system was to encourage
| open publication of inventions. It even still works that
| way for some verticals. The issue is that it also
| produced a system that it is profitable to game and thus
| there are patent attorneys who get by by writing the
| patent in as vague terms as is possible to pass by patent
| reviewers, and in these kind of adversarial situations it
| is quite obvious that the private sector will win over
| the government bureaucrats.
| nybble41 wrote:
| > The original intention of patent system was to
| encourage open publication of inventions.
|
| That is how it was sold to the public. Unfortunately the
| system was never designed with the proper structure and
| incentives to ensure that patents were only granted when
| doing so actually resulted in the publication of accurate
| details about useful inventions which would not have
| become known to the public anyway well before the patent
| period expired.
|
| In practice, if you think you can keep something a trade
| secret for more than 20 years without it being
| independently reinvented you'll do that and not file for
| a patent. Patents are thus useful only in those cases
| where a patent is expected to be _worse_ for the public
| than a trade secret, as they inhibit independent
| reinvention and reverse engineering for the duration of
| the patent.
| geysersam wrote:
| > being granted a monopoly
|
| Anyone can produce USB-C chargers. That's _not_ a
| monopoly. This will effectively _enable_ competition on
| the charging market, since the big players can 't bind
| their products to their own proprietary chargers anymore.
|
| Have you ever felt the Apple/Microsoft charger to be
| lacking in some way? Breaking easily, too long cords, too
| short, wrong color, too expensive? Congratulations now
| you can make and sell those better chargers. Before, this
| was not possible.
| ericmay wrote:
| Yes but all you're really doing is encouraging everyone
| to stay locked in to a _USB-C market_. This isn't
| enabling competition in the charging market, it's
| eliminating or hamstringing competing markets. You won't
| create a new charging apparatus because you're legally
| required to use USB-C.
|
| "What if we created a charging cable that did X,Y,Z?"
|
| "That would be cool but we have to use USB-C"
|
| > Have you ever felt the Apple/Microsoft charger to be
| lacking in some way? Breaking easily, too long cords, too
| short, wrong color, too expensive?
|
| No not really. In fact I've found most third-party
| products to be godawful. Good luck not buying something
| fraudulent on Amazon.com. But also, I'm not really sure
| what you are talking about. Companies sell charging
| equipment and cords now anyway.
|
| Everything has trade-offs. I'm skeptical of the necessity
| of this regulation, especially given that the only
| holdout that anyone cares about is Apple and they've been
| adopting USB-C in all of their products over time. One
| benefit though will be manufacturers won't include
| charging cables with new devices anymore. So that will
| further reduce waste. Wouldn't be surprised to see
| lobbying behind the scenes from companies such as Apple
| to implement regulations like this so they can save
| money. I kind of like this as an investor because now you
| can save money by not including a cable (or maybe you
| still do and it's just some cheap one for now) and then
| you go and up sell wireless chargers instead.
| mrtksn wrote:
| We can copy the US if the cable freedom gives birth to
| superior cables on the long run. EU stuff is't written on
| stone, it changes as it needs to.
|
| I guess In Europe we kind of like the idea of being able
| to overthrow the people in power if they screw us too
| much. It's much more socially acceptable to burn cars and
| occupy streets and decapitate politicians than shooting
| CEO's when you are really not happy with the way things
| work. It feels like you have control over the stuff going
| on in your country.
| ericd wrote:
| You're really ignoring the amount of inertia that a
| deployed fleet of cars creates. You can't just change
| standards with the snap of a finger once there are 10M
| cars in the field with it, once that happens, you're
| stuck with that standard for probably decades, as the
| downsides of changing it become much more acute than the
| potential upsides.
| mrtksn wrote:
| If the US comes up with the superior cables, EU will
| simply allow it be optional and the industry will
| retrofit as needed.
|
| Europe is very old, we are used to have old stuff laying
| around. Old building that definitely don't meet the
| modern requirements are everywhere. Besides, the states
| with Cable Freedom will also have all the obsolate cables
| when the industry finally comes up with the perfect
| cable.
| paulmd wrote:
| > Europe is very old, we are used to have old stuff
| laying around.
|
| So what's the problem with allowing lightning to exist,
| since as a standard it predated USB-C (and in fact was
| the impetus for the creation of the latter)? If we allow
| neighborhoods to keep their old power connectors without
| retrofit... why not allow lightning to continue to exist?
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| There's a difference between allowing old installations
| to continue existing and allowing mass manufacture of the
| old standard indefinitely. This legislation isn't going
| to touch anyone's old phones.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| All aside, it's pretending 'we' as civilians have any
| kind of influence in what the EU does. In reality it's
| just an opaque process ran by politicians where 99% of
| the electorate has no idea whatsoever how they got there
| or even what party they belong to.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Being densely-populated makes it _easier_ to have a range
| of different plugs, since there will be a range of
| alternatives, and you 'll be able to find the right one for
| you nearby.
|
| Consider the opposite of a sparsely-populated region, where
| the next charging point may be 50 miles away. In that case,
| having a random hodge-podge of competing connectors could
| have actual consequences.
|
| In practice though, there is not much of an effect either
| way. All parties have an interest in interoperability: car
| owners would have adapter to hand if this was a common
| problem, and charging stations would make themselves
| available to as many paying customers as possible.
| mrtksn wrote:
| When you have 24 official languages in 27 countries with
| no physical borders it doesn't end up having an even
| distribution of plugs but clusters of different types.
| There are no large wastelands of cheap land where every
| network can have a station, it's usually one station on
| each side of the road every 50km on the highways. In
| cities, a lot of things are retrofitted into medieval
| city structure so there's not much free space for all
| your charging needs.
|
| As a result, this will create artificial limits on where
| people can travel. EU is that much into standardisation
| because we want to remove these artificial limits created
| through the thousands years of history.
| afiori wrote:
| If the solution would be to use a lot of random adapters
| then we should simply standardize from the start.
|
| If 35% of ICE had square gas sockets and we had to keep
| around square-to-circle adapters the situation would not
| be better.
|
| An EV charging port is handful of metal rods with a
| handle.
| marssaxman wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Most of us are not billionaires.
| mrtksn wrote:
| You don't need to be. "We can't do anything about
| anything because the system is run by the billionaires
| and unless you are one, you have no power" narrative is
| not only false but also harmful.
| marssaxman wrote:
| Please pardon my inadvertent US-centrism! If you live in
| a country with a functioning democracy, of course it
| would make sense to participate. Here in the US, average
| citizens have little to no influence on policy:
|
| https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-
| poli...
| least wrote:
| This isn't the case in the US, either. How much influence
| do you think one person in the US, one of hundreds of
| millions of people, should normally have? Your power to
| influence policy is obviously going to dilute the further
| up the chain of government you go. You could involve
| yourself in local politics where the population of people
| is much smaller (and consequentially, your influence is
| much larger), or you could try to become a representative
| yourself.
|
| National politics in the US is certainly perverse, though
| it's probably just your US-centrism at work again if you
| think it's exceptional in this regard.
| ciupicri wrote:
| krzyk wrote:
| What's wrong with "charger thing"? I was waiting for that
| for years.
|
| And GDPR? Really?
| ciupicri wrote:
| It's not anyone's business what kind of phone I buy. If
| chargers pollute so much, just tax them and be done with
| it.
|
| I'll add to kukx's reason the fact that I can't access
| some websites anymore because who wants to spend time
| with bureaucracy so that the website is 100% compliant
| with GDPR?
| kukx wrote:
| Agree 100%. The cookie law is the most visible failure of
| these regulations. I feel like they should pay me from
| their own pockets each time I have to click the cookie
| banner. And by their own pockets I mean the money they
| got from other sources than taxpayers money. Of course
| someone will argue that the intentions were good. Often
| they are! But it does not make it much better.
| mrtksn wrote:
| What failure? Now everyone knows they are tracked and
| it's an actual issue.
|
| Besides, the websites could have chosen not to have that
| cookie window.
| Karunamon wrote:
| Most people are more bothered by the annoyance then some
| nebulous, intangible "tracking" that will likely never
| have a visible effect on their lives.
|
| Outside of high tech places like HackerNews, mention the
| tracking and you'll get a shrug, mention the cookie
| banners and you'll get a "yeah I hate that crap"
| samatman wrote:
| I'm not a citizen of the EU, so your various centrally-
| planned interventions in the world economy affect me
| without any possibility of representation.
|
| It leaves me hoping your economy becomes much smaller so
| Asia can start ignoring it. Or reform I guess, the vote is
| yours, not mine.
| mrtksn wrote:
| We all affect each other, a lot of American things have
| become de facto stands. Anyway, be careful what you wish
| because it might become real and you might find out that
| Asia is not the libertarian utopia.
| oblio wrote:
| If anything, Asia is generally more collectivist than
| Europe or the US.
| maest wrote:
| Would you happier if you were affected by European
| corporate actions instead?
|
| We live in a global economy, you are constantly affected
| by things happening thousand of miles away (e.g. Ukraine
| invasion bumped the price of gas across the world). Not
| sure why you're conflating that with the fact that these
| actions are "centrally-planned".
| theplumber wrote:
| Imagine different gasoline plugs...that would be stupid,
| isnt't it? Or different fuel formula for different car
| models or different AC sockets in the same house...
|
| Also I'm not sure why you hold Asia so dear. You may soon
| get some centrally planned standards from China in the EV
| market and not only(i.e online services such tiktok)
| tacitusarc wrote:
| I was unable to find any record of legislation forcing
| standardization of gas pump form factors. Also, in my
| experience different pumps operate at different rates. I
| think the fact that pumps tend to be quite similar is a
| result of their mechanical nature, where less precision
| is required.
| heretogetout wrote:
| Check this out:
|
| > (f) Every retailer and wholesale purchaser-consumer
| shall equip all gasoline pumps from which gasoline is
| dispensed into motor vehicles with a nozzle spout that
| meets all the following specifications:
|
| > (1) The outside diameter of the terminal end shall not
| be greater than 0.840 inches (2.134 centimeters).
|
| > (2) The terminal end shall have a straight section of
| at least 2.5 inches (6.34 centimeters).
|
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/40/80.22
|
| Edit: fixed formatting
| [deleted]
| afiori wrote:
| > different AC sockets in the same house
|
| cries in Italian...
| noahtallen wrote:
| I agree with you, but noting that fuel may not be the
| best example as you have both completely different fuels
| (like diesel) and different types of normal gas (premium)
|
| Still though, having the same "regular" gas at every
| single gas station is an underrated benefit!
| Lio wrote:
| How is this different from the American FAA dictating
| that all aeroplane toilets have to have ashtrays whist at
| the same time banning smoking on flights[1]?
|
| Should Europeans start hoping the US economy fails so
| that then FAA has less influence?[3]
|
| Really I don't think this is something that really
| matters in the grand scheme of things. USB-C is a good
| enough standard and I don't see Apple coming out with
| some great new alternative.
|
| From my perspective I have loads of broken Lightning
| cables but no broken USB-C ones. Also if something is
| going to break I'd rather the springs be in the cheap
| cable than the expensive phone socket as with Lightning.
|
| 1. Now you might think it's for people who break the
| smoking rule to have somewhere to put out their fags[2]
| but the "innovative" solution to that would be the sink.
|
| 2. You know that I know you know that's slang for
| cigarette, so stick to the point at hand please. :P
|
| 3. Just in case that's not blindingly obvious, the answer
| is NO, that would be terrible for everyone involved
| including both Europeans and Americans.
| chmod600 wrote:
| "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."
|
| Democracy is a very blunt tool. Very important when needed,
| but not good for fine tuning on any reasonable timescale.
| worik wrote:
| Democracy is not elections.
|
| Democracy is the freedom and right of involvement for the
| stakeholders (among other things)
|
| > Democracy is a very blunt tool. Very important when
| needed, but not good for fine tuning on any reasonable
| time scale.
|
| Very good for fine tuning at human time scales.
| chmod600 wrote:
| Let's say I invent a better connector tomorrow. Nobody
| other than me really knows if it's better or not. The
| only way for me to convince people is to get it out there
| in the market so people can try it.
|
| How does that work by voting or any other democratic
| activity?
|
| Others will be unconvinced that it's really better, for
| the same reason people are skeptical of startup ideas
| until they become mainstream. So nobody will want to
| update the standard. So I couldn't release it in the
| market to prove that it's better, because that would be
| "lock-in". And the idea would die.
| mcv wrote:
| I can imagine that car charging is still too new and fast-
| moving to enforce a single standard, unlike phone charging,
| where it's just ridiculous to have 3 separate standards.
|
| On the other hand, you're absolutely right that it doesn't
| help anyone if your car is incompatible with half of the
| chargers out there. Are adapter cables an option, perhaps?
| jsight wrote:
| Yes. Tesla has a simple passthrough adapter for CCS1.
| Other adapters are also possible.
| nybble41 wrote:
| Some adapters are more problematic than others. For
| example if the charger and the vehicle both expect the
| other side to initiate the charging process and withhold
| power until some voltage is detected then the adapter may
| need its own independent power supply to jump-start the
| charging process. Locks are another problem--some
| combinations would require the adapter to provide powered
| locking mechanisms for both sides. None of this makes an
| adapter _impossible_ , but it could be too expensive or
| unwieldy to be a practical solution.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| I presume you're talking about the J1772/CCS1 adapter
| that comes for free with every Tesla. This adapter is
| occasionally handy but it does _not_ allow fast (
| "super") DC charging. It's strictly a Level 2 AC adapter,
| which means it takes a few hours to charge your car
| fully.
|
| The CCS adapter that allows you to supercharge a Tesla at
| non-Tesla DC superchargers is not (yet) available in the
| US [0]. Tesla does make them and you can buy them in
| South Korea, but not in the US.
|
| [0] Except for a dodgy Chinese gizmo which I won't link
| to because it's reputed not to work reliably.
| agloeregrets wrote:
| On the other hand, companies building wholly proprietary
| infrastructure is just pure e-waste on the back of the
| citizens of those countries that ALSO limits innovation.
|
| Imagine a world where Ford cars use a different gas nozzle
| from a GM product in the US. The average person would have to
| pick and choose stations and if one were to go out of
| business, the lesser standard would encounter mass disposal
| and retrofit, all on the backs of consumers. The intent with
| these products is generally not innovation...it is lock in
| and licensing fees. The EU law in case here has a committee
| that reviews the standard yearly and accepts proposals.
| rubatuga wrote:
| We should also mandate the reduction of open source
| projects, after all there are too many competing standards.
| We don't want code to be wasted now do we? Let's start by
| banning the use of Tensorflow
| oblio wrote:
| That's just a dumb argument. Open source projects can
| just be forked with no monetary implications.
| treis wrote:
| >The average person would have to pick and choose stations
|
| Stations would just have two nozzles on their pumps.
| isignal wrote:
| What if Ford operates their own stations? Would they
| still have two plugs?
|
| (see: Tesla superchargers)
| delecti wrote:
| Well, three, because diesel pump nozzles are already a
| different standard.
| kibwen wrote:
| Well, eight, because you'd have two each for diesel and
| each of the three octanes.
| skykooler wrote:
| Diesel pump nozzles actually have multiple standards -
| there's one about the same size as a gas nozzle that's
| used for diesel cars and pickups, and a bigger one that's
| used for trucks and buses.
| aiisjustanif wrote:
| Imagine if we had this outlook towards plugs in houses in the
| US. Standardization is underrated.
| wumpus wrote:
| There are a bunch of different plugs in houses in the US,
| look at electric stoves and clothes dryers.
| [deleted]
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _look at electric stoves and clothes dryers_
|
| Those are 240V plugs, which are also standardized.
| vel0city wrote:
| They're all a part of the NEMA standard. The different
| plugs denote different capacities of the circuit and the
| requirements of the load. That way you can't accidentally
| plug a 30A device in a 15A circuit or you can't plug a
| 120V device into a 240V plug. If the wiring to your stove
| top is only 30A but you bought a 50A stove, you shouldn't
| be able to plug it in and just hope the circuit breaker
| trips before the wires melt to let you know you did it
| wrong.
|
| Its not like there's a plug for Samsung TVs, a different
| plug for Sonos sound bars, a different plug for a Sony
| alarm clock, a different plug for a Singer sewing
| machine, etc. They're all going to be a NEMA 5-15 plug
| since all of these things are ~120V and use less than
| 15A.
| kube-system wrote:
| Funny, because all of North America uses the NEMA standard
| and the EU uses a bunch of different plugs.
| krzyk wrote:
| 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.
| rand49an wrote:
| Probably why they are more conscious it's a problem then.
| pmyteh wrote:
| Yeah. The rollout of domestic wiring standards was pre-
| EU, and dealing with the entrenched incompatible
| standardisation gets in the way of the EU goal of a
| single market in goods and services. They _really_ don 't
| want more arbitrary standards that vary nationally.
|
| Of course, that's not quite the same as the laptop
| charger question where the fragmentation is between
| companies and less entrenched. But still.
| ehsankia wrote:
| I would rather have a shared and slightly less optimal cable,
| than a unique and "nicer" cable. USB-C is the perfect
| example, you can argue that lightning cable is actually
| nicer, but being able to charge all my different devices with
| a single cable is far nicer.
|
| If every company thought like Tesla/Apple, we'd quickly go
| down a very untenable road.
| mattmoose21 wrote:
| Having a car manufacturer dictate where you plug in is bad,
| actually.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _Legislators deciding who gets to be VHS and who has to be
| Betamax is bad, actually_
|
| Interesting example. Betamax was technologically superior,
| but lost out due to marginally higher costs. What makes you
| think Tesla's connector wouldn't suffer the same fate?
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| > If EU legislation were universal, that would preclude any
| future where...
|
| Your crystal ball seems broken. You could have said the exact
| same thing about micro-usb for phone chargers, yet somehow we
| ended up in the present.
|
| Hint: Your supposed critical flaw is incredibly obvious. So
| either everyone but you is an idiot or just maybe the people
| making laws have thought of that too...
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| I's absolutely true that Tesla's EV connector is better than
| CCS, and it's a pity that Tesla lost that battle.
|
| But it's also true that USB-C with PD is better than the
| alternatives in its space so occasionally the committees get
| things right.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> I's absolutely true that Tesla's EV connector is better
| than CCS, and it's a pity that Tesla lost that battle.
|
| Currently working at a company that makes CCS chargers. Can
| confirm the standard is an absolute shit show, the cables
| are heavy, and the plugs are a giant pain in the ass. But
| hey, it's the standard so that's what we make. Oh, and why
| TF do we have a PowerLine Communication chip to talk to the
| vehicle over (non-power) signal wires? A few CAN messages
| would have done the job. One of the stupidest communication
| standards ever.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Tesla's connector uses CAN over signal wires, and it uses
| the same power pins for both AC and DC which makes the
| connector light and sleek. If you think VHS is worse than
| Betamax, CCS is _more worse_ than Tesla 's connector.
| ddalex wrote:
| No it doesn't, in the legislation itself there is the
| provision of how to deal with technological advancements.
| taylodl wrote:
| Different countries already have many different rules for
| autos. That's why it's difficult to be a world-wide auto
| manufacturer: you have to comply with so many different rules
| from different countries. That's just the cost of doing
| business and has been for decades.
|
| If Apple believes USB-C is really that bad (which I don't
| think they do) - then they have the option of creating a
| handset only for sale in Europe or they can remove all
| charging ports and go wireless charging. I bet they go with
| USB-C charging and wireless charging.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| It makes sense for cars to have a standard connector so that
| they may be charged without any problem at any public
| charging station. After all, there is a standard fuel nozzle
| for ICE vehicles.
|
| On the other hand, this requirement to have an USB-C
| connector is pretty useless to downright counter-productive
| as it will indeed prevent innovation. It's just political
| hand-waving.
| ARandumGuy wrote:
| Sure, the Tesla connector is smaller, and a little sleeker.
| But from a functionality perspective, the plug types are
| basically identical. Both allow AC standard charging and DC
| fast charging. Electric cables aren't that complicated.
| chroma wrote:
| Compared to CCS, Tesla made a ton of smart decisions with
| their charging setup:
|
| - All Teslas have their charging ports at the rear left
| side. This means that charging cables can be very short.
| Longer cables would cause tangles, cost more, and be harder
| to cool.
|
| - Tesla's protocol has built-in payment. You plug in and
| charge. With CCS it varies. Sometimes you use a credit
| card. Sometimes you download a mobile app and sign up for
| some account. Sometimes the planets align and CCS's plug-
| and-charge works.
|
| - The CCS plug is much bigger. If you look at the connector
| sizes[1] or adapters[2], the CSS plug is comically huge.
| Tesla had to redesign the tail lights on the Model S/X to
| fit CCS Combo 2 ports.
|
| - Every exposed contact is a potential failure point, and
| CCS exposes more contacts than Tesla's charging port.
|
| - CCS has two different plug dimensions which are used in
| different regions, so a European CCS vehicle brought to
| North America will need an adapter (and vice-versa).
|
| - If your vehicle only supports AC charging, you cannot
| charge with CCS Combo plugs. They won't fit. Since some
| Teslas were made before the CCS Combo standard took off,
| older Model S/X's used a CCS Type 2 port. So now every
| Supercharger in Europe has two plugs: CCS Type 2 & Combo
| 2.[3]
|
| 1. https://teslatap.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/06/connector_co...
|
| 2. https://www.notateslaapp.com/images/news/2021/ccs-
| adapter.jp...
|
| 3. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eu-tesla-
| supercharge...
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > Legislators deciding who gets to be VHS and who has to be
| Betamax is bad, actually.
|
| They didn't make the decision. It's more like legislators
| observing that Betamax is failing and deciding that it's in
| everyone's best interests to tell Sony that they have to
| adopt VHS instead of creating confusion in the marketplace.
|
| > Tesla's connector is nicer
|
| Tesla's system only goes up to 400 volts. CCS goes up to 800
| volts. The higher voltage supports faster charging.
|
| (This is similar to Betamax's critical flaw. The smaller,
| more elegant Betamax tape compared to the clunky VHS tape
| meant that VHS could record 6 hours on a tape when Betamax
| was limited to about 3.5 hours on a tape. It also meant that
| feature length films were often recorded at slower tape
| speeds, thus meaning that prerecorded VHS tapes were often a
| better quality than the Betamax version.)
| theluketaylor wrote:
| CCS spec limits are actually 1000V and 500A. Electrify
| America uses 350A units, hence the 350 kW chargers (1000V x
| 350A). Lucid battery packs are 924V to maximize CCS
| capability.
|
| DC Fast charging has to match pack voltage, so with 400ish
| volt pack voltage Tesla gets big charging speed by
| providing extreme amperage. CCS is limited to 500A, so the
| best way to provide really fast charging is higher pack
| voltages.
|
| Higher voltage does have some benefits around heat and
| losses, but also has downsides like cost of electronics and
| installations over 600V generally require special
| electrical licensing.
|
| It's hard to deny the tesla connector is a lot nicer to
| work with (especially V3 with thin, liquid cooled cables),
| but I still wish my model 3 sr+ had CCS like euro cars. I'd
| love to be able to have more charging options.
| jsight wrote:
| I'm not sure that Tesla's connector is a limiting element
| there. The Tesla system can also go to higher amperages
| than CCS, which is an advantage. For example, the F150
| Lightning charging rate is hampered by its 400 volt CCS
| system. It can't do more than 200kw. That's creating a lot
| of the pressure to move to 800 volt.
|
| Tesla doesn't have a similar limitation and can do
| 250-300kw on the existing 400-450V cars.
| jsight wrote:
| > Tesla's connector is nicer (you can call that subjective
| but it isn't)
|
| I like the Tesla connector in the US, but in Europe, I'd
| argue that CCS2 is objectively superior. They need 3-phase
| power support and the Tesla connector doesn't support that.
| They also use a different CCS connector from the US. The CCS2
| connector uses a latching mechanism that is similar to the
| proprietary Tesla one. Its simple and very reliable.
|
| The US CCS1 system uses a dual latching mechanism. The cable
| and the car each have moving parts that are somewhat
| complicated. The cable side latch is a common failure point.
| It makes sense, given the desire to retain backward
| compatiblity with J1772 L1/L2 chargers, but I don't really
| think that was worth the tradeoff, tbh.
| dfox wrote:
| I would say that the IEC 62196-2 used by Tesla in Europe is
| the most sane EV charging connector design there is. It is
| standard (albeit in the fast charge mode it is apparently
| only used by Tesla), the connector is not ridiculously
| large and the whole mechanical design is derived from
| industrial power connector that can be used to power entire
| typical European household.
| mrzool wrote:
| A good enough standard that works for everyone > dozens of
| cutting-edge amazing technologies competing with each other
| and no standardization
| malfist wrote:
| How is tesla's connector nicer?
| bin_bash wrote:
| It's a _lot_ smaller, locks into the car while charging,
| and doesn't have an extra flap you have to open when using
| DC fast charging.
| jsight wrote:
| The CCS2 standard used in Europe and most of the world
| locks the cable similarly to Tesla.
|
| The CCS1 standard locks the cable using a little flap
| that folds down on top of the CCS1 latch to hold it in
| place. Its every bit as clumsy as it sounds, but it does
| mean there is a locked cable.
|
| Example CCS1 inlet: http://www.wind-
| works.org/cms/index.php?id=84&tx_ttnews%5Btt...
| objclxt wrote:
| > locks into the car while charging
|
| The EU plug locks into the car while charging. Not sure
| why you think it doesn't.
|
| There's also no obligation to have an extra flap, my
| Model 3 does not.
| thinkindie wrote:
| I second this. I'm frequently using the volkswagen ID.3
| and there is no way to unplug it unless you unlock it
| from charging station with the card you find it in the
| car (at least in Berlin).
| malfist wrote:
| Do those small improvement justify fragmentation of
| standards?
| amluto wrote:
| The locking feature is misguided. There should absolutely
| be a mechanical interlock to prevent unplugging under
| load. But no key should be required to unplug a home
| charger, and no key should be needed to plug in a charger
| once the charge port is open. As I see it, the only
| security goals should be:
|
| 1. At a public charger, one should have to authenticate
| to _either_ the car or the charger to interrupt an active
| charging session.
|
| 2. When using a portable charger of the sort that is
| owned by the car's owner, one should not be able to
| unplug the charger and thus steal it if one cannot
| authenticate to the car.
|
| And that's it. You _should_ be able to unplug someone
| else from a public charger that can reach multiple
| parking spaces once it finishes charging.
| IndrekR wrote:
| And this is exactly how the charging in EU works.
| arlort wrote:
| IIRC it doesn't even exclude funny cables as long as the option
| remains to use an USB-C cable too
|
| So if you really want I believe you could issue a double port
|
| Clunky for smartphones maybe, but should be trivial for larger
| devices
| mrtksn wrote:
| That's also my understanding.
|
| So Macbook Air 2022 with MagSafe charging will be completely
| legal as long as the USB-C can be used for charging.
| pooper wrote:
| That is good because I think as late as three years ago
| there was still at least one "laptop" (possibly more, only
| one I have heard of) which were heavy desktop replacement
| that required two power bricks during some gaming.
| arlort wrote:
| For that kind of power draw I think the proposal doesn't
| mandate anything anyway
| vel0city wrote:
| The tech for wireless charging is not really that new and isn't
| really changing a large amount. My Nokia 920 uses the same
| charging standard as the latest iPhones. iPhones can charge on
| the old charger I have, the 920 can charge on an iPhone
| charger. That phone came out a decade ago.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| > Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is what happens
| if better solutions are found. Will EU block innovation?
|
| The EU has no problem with updating to improved standards.
| First there was USB-Mini-B, then USB-Micro-B, now USB-C. I
| would expect some different connector to replace it in a about
| a decade and 100% wireless in two decades roughly.
| rektide wrote:
| 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-C.
| It's pretty mechanically fit & reliable, it has huge
| bandwidth (I think DisplayPort alt-modes can do 80Gbps?), it
| can transmit 240W in Extended Power Range variants. Someday
| perhaps. But I also think this might be here to stay for a
| long long time.
| gumby wrote:
| > Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is what happens
| if better solutions are found.
|
| Didn't the EU previously mandate micro USB A? I believe Apple
| included an adapter in the box for all EU SKUs.
|
| Edit: it was not compulsory:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply
| Starlevel001 wrote:
| [deleted]
| jjcm wrote:
| One thing I would love to see here is an end of life for this
| ruling. I.e. "effective as of 2024, but not enforced after 2030
| without renewal". Market saturation of the standard alone should
| be enough to get alignment on a single connector, following which
| it will require significant effort to deviate from it regardless
| of legislation. I'm still happy with this in the short term -
| very tired of having to juggle two types of charging cables. I
| just wish there was a bit of forward thinking involved here.
| kaba0 wrote:
| That would be indeed a worthwhile addition, though hopefully
| the legislation won't kill off a potential better update
| without it either.
| krageon wrote:
| > Market saturation of the standard alone should be enough to
| get alignment on a single connector
|
| Sure, but it's not. So this is not smart.
| specialist wrote:
| Hoorah! This will accelerate adoption of wireless charging. With
| each mfg doing its own thing.
|
| Lather, rinse, repeat.
| kashyapc wrote:
| 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 eliminate 'rogue'
| applications". The battery just doesn't charge.
|
| We've got premium support, so a Lenovo technician came two days
| later and replaced the motherboard. Great! The root cause: USB-C
| power port got short-circuited somehow. "This is a common problem
| with USB-C for power ports; I go around replacing 2 motherboards
| a week," the technician said.
|
| Now, the laptop's new motherboard worked fine for a week ... and
| I woke up this morning to notice the laptop's battery not
| charging at all (yes, _again_!), while the power cord is plugged
| in. I call up Lenovo, and the support guy confirms: "the power
| port seems to be short-circuited again, this time let's replace
| both the motherboard and also the power adapter". FFS, tomorrow
| morning I have long-distance travel, and I'm left with this
| bloody brick. Speak of timing.
|
| I want to think this is just plain bad luck, but the Lenovo
| support forums are full of similar problems, and two other
| colleagues independently confirmed the same issue. The Lenovo
| technician blamed this on USB-C. I wish they retained the more
| robust rectangular power port; but they're phasing them out to
| comply with EU regulation.
| helmholtz wrote:
| To me, the ideal solution is something that Apple had for ages,
| and now them and Microsoft both have. Magsafe. Use a nice,
| robust, safe laptop charger for most of your workdays, when
| things are routine and you have control over the environment.
| Then, if you're going to travel, and need to be ultralight, you
| carry your GaN compact, high-power travel power adapter with
| USB-C so you have one charger and one cable for all the things.
| I don't see why we have to give up magsafe for USB-C when we
| can have both.
| [deleted]
| fuzzybear3965 wrote:
| 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).
| oblak wrote:
| 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
| kashyapc wrote:
| I thought so too, that this may be Lenovo-specific. But the
| Lenovo technician claimed: "this is not Lenovo-specific, it
| happens with other laptops too". I just naively took his
| word. Good to know that it works reliably with other vendors.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| I don't think I've ever had a problem with laptop USB-C
| chargers. It may happen with other laptops but it's hard to
| estimate how big of a problem it is.
| riedel wrote:
| I have the same problem after a year or so with my Xiaomi Redmi
| Note phones (7 and 10). In the end it is sometimes easier to
| charge with a USB-A to USB-C cable, because USB-PD signalling
| easily breaks if the connector is worn out. I do not understand
| why we need more than 2 lines to charge.
|
| I also have a Lenovo X395 laptop this one has the problem that
| the USB-C socket is not deep enough to snap in. I am hoping it
| will die before the end of warranty. Because if not, it will
| die a week after.
|
| At least we can keep the chargers as all our devices will die
| early because we cannot charge them anymore
| kanetw wrote:
| Yep. If there's no port protection IC (and even then it might
| not catch it), if you unplug the USB-C connector you can
| potentially get 20V+ on the data lines. Goodbye data lines.
| jackewiehose wrote:
| > "this time let's replace both the motherboard and also the
| power adapter" [...]
|
| > I want to think this is just plain bad luck, but the Lenovo
| support forums are full of similar problems, and two other
| colleagues independently confirmed the same issue
|
| Oh no, I have to confirm this too. Had the same issue with my
| X1 Carbon Gen-9. They replaced the motherboard (and hopefully
| the power adapter). At least so far it's still working after a
| few months since repair.
|
| > and I'm left with this bloody brick
|
| Did you know you can charge (or at least power) the laptop via
| the other usb port, next to the power port? I was afraid to try
| that out by myself but their support asked me if I can do so
| and it worked.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| I would not blame entire global USB-C standard for issues of
| one manufacturer.
|
| Ie I have company HP laptop with USB-C charging, something
| aluminium 'elite', tiny and quite powerful for my needs (not
| in same room as me now). It works like charm, and since its
| not mine I treat it relatively very badly (no concern for any
| kind of protection, travelling on vacations full of sand like
| right now, its laying on the floor so kids play with it, bang
| on it, I sometimes roll with chair over it etc).
|
| since its a solid 65w charger it charges my laptop, my phone,
| wife's phone, our powerbank, our headlamps, my vaporizer,
| both our wireless buds, gopro, camera, and probably some
| other stuff. The only stuff it doesnt works on... micro-usb.
|
| Its really magical, the simplifying life a bit when usual
| (annoying) trend is of growing complexity. For once, thank
| you EU.
| kashyapc wrote:
| > Did you know you can charge the laptop via the other usb
| port, next to the power port?
|
| I knew, but would you believe: with the new motherboard, even
| that _other_ USB-C port is bricked, it doesn 't charge the
| battery either. :-( Speak of one-two punch.
|
| Thanks for confirming the original issue. I've been a Lenovo
| user for 13 years, mostly trouble-free, but this nuisance is
| incredibly untimely. I've already put in a request for a new
| replacement laptop when I'm back in 3-ish weeks.
| agilob wrote:
| USB-C is still copyrighted so it's really just forcing customers
| to pay for proprietary connectors?
|
| This also bans cheap phones like these
| https://www.androidpolice.com/nokias-newest-android-go-phone...
| modo_mario wrote:
| I don't think there's any licensing fees for the spec itself
| no? Only a small fee to the USB-IF non profit every year or 2
| years (and there's sublicensers) for the logo and vendor id
| which shows spec compliance (Which is the same for micro USB I
| believe so i can't think of any non proprietary connectors
| customers would go for regardless.)
|
| >This also bans cheap phones like these
|
| I'd assume those new phones get a new iteration or 2 or 3 by
| that time regardless. It tends to go quite fast in the phone
| market.
| lights0123 wrote:
| What do you mean? USB-C is covered by the same trademark
| licensing scheme (that isn't technically needed if you don't
| use the USB logo and use your chip's default vendor ID) as
| USB-A is, a $6000 one-time + $5000/year payment to USB-IF.
| warmwaffles wrote:
| Is this really that surprising?
| bearjaws wrote:
| You only need to pay for the logo & trademark usage, not the
| port.
|
| Even if you do pay, at $3500 for 2 years, spread across
| millions of devices, this amounts to pennies.
| orangepanda wrote:
| Oh I hope iPhone 8 will support iOs 17. Would be less than nice
| upgrading a year too early and being stuck on lighting for the
| next 7 years.
| rattlesnakedave wrote:
| Not a fan of this. I really like lightning. What happens when we
| have a new USB or connector standard?
| baisq wrote:
| No more innovation: USB-C or else.
| Youden wrote:
| What innovations are ruled out by mandatory use of the USB-C
| connector? It supports more power and data than a mobile device
| is ever really likely to need.
|
| All that's left is the physical form factor and I'm not sure
| there's a lot of room for improvement there, especially enough
| to justify the tons of electronic waste.
| pmontra wrote:
| I try to be devil's advocate with a sci-fi bullshit: a five
| seconds supercharger with a laser over a fiber optic cable
| (to keep the beam confined and not to burn stuff.)
| [deleted]
| bratbag wrote:
| It's not restricting to only USB-C. You can go beyond that with
| new innovations, but you need to maintain compatibly with it.
| rbanffy wrote:
| No more e-waste as well. And, as the regulation moved from
| micro USB to USB-C, it's clear that innovation is still
| possible, within regulations. That's also why you can't have
| jet-engine powered cars on the streets.
| frizlab wrote:
| Except for the millions of lightning cable already in prod?
| Adraghast wrote:
| No worries, there are also millions of iPhones with
| Lightning ports for them to be used with. (:
| withinboredom wrote:
| We have 5 apple devices and 3 lightning cables remaining. I
| have some 18-20 usb-c cables lying around.
| lm28469 wrote:
| So no more innovation either ? if we can't move out of
| existing tech because they're still in production
| frizlab wrote:
| It wasn't needed. There are no benefits of usb-c over
| lightning for the usage it has. It's not an evolution
| it's a change.
| lm28469 wrote:
| It's a long term plan for a universal system. The benefit
| is very clear, just a few days ago a friend asked to
| charge his iphone at my place, I don't own lightning
| cables, everybody owns ubs-c cables
| petre wrote:
| At least I won't have the problem of trying to plug a
| lightning cable into my USB-C phone in the dark.
| kalleboo wrote:
| They sell 1 TB iPhones that shoot 4K ProRes video. It
| also has terrible quality when used for video out
| connecting to a TV for e.g. a presentation. Lightning is
| wholly inadequate for modern devices.
|
| There's a reason they've transitioned most of the iPads
| to USB-C.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| It seems like all that's mandated is that a USB-C charger would
| be compatible. You can still run a proprietary protocol on top
| of it if you wanted or use a hybrid, proprietary connector as
| long as a standard USB-C charger would still work.
| midasuni wrote:
| I'd have preferred the requirement to be something that can be
| implemented with no parents or other controls. Invent lightning
| v2, great, you can use it as soon as the requirements for
| competitors to implement it are lodged in the appropriate place.
| badpun wrote:
| I wonder if nowadays it's really that much of a problem though.
| Modern cellphone chargers are mostly transformers with an USB 2
| socket. So, even if you have an iphone and an usb-c decice, you
| only need to have two cables with an usb 2 connector and not full
| two chargers.
| kanetw wrote:
| As a user, I liked USB-C. Until I had to implement this
| ridiculously overcomplicated garbage.
|
| To be spec-conform, you need at least 1 IC. You can theoretically
| hack a solution together with some resistors, but it's not spec
| conform. If you the high-speed lanes, add a mux/redriver to un-
| flip it.
|
| If you want power delivery (>15W), you need a PD controller and
| port protection (or a user will fry your data lines when they
| unplug the connector and put 20V on the data pins). 2 ICs right
| there, and one of them is basically a microcontroller, so you
| need to deal with more programming.
|
| If you want alternate mode, you need to implement the entire PD
| stack and a redriver/mux. That's 2-3 ICs right there that have to
| work together (so usually a single vendor). And not all of them
| support alt mode.
|
| Which, ok, fine. I'm not building a cost optimized product, I
| just want it to work well. Except literally none of the ICs are
| available. Because USB-C requires ICs for everything, it's all
| sold out (or total garbage that's not worth designing into a
| product, or requires vendor support to design the firmware, or or
| or).
| aristofun wrote:
| We need to create some "Reasonable & smart people against
| stupidity & politics" global comitee.
|
| We need to stop allowing stupid but loudly screaming minority to
| make bad decisions.
|
| First this idiotic cookie warning on each goddamn page, now this.
| Another small step to totalitarianism.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| It's just really not clear to me that regulators need to be
| mandating product design.
|
| I have no expectation, for example, that these same regulators
| will stay on top of this and revise it when USB-C stops being the
| preferred or best choice.
|
| Twenty years ago, we really DID have a snarl of competing and
| proprietary phone ports. It was a mess -- Blackberry chargers
| didn't work with Palm; most WinMo devices had their own ports;
| etc. It was ugly.
|
| Now, pretty much everything is either USB or Lightning. This is
| good! What problem is the EU solving here?
| dhzhzjsbevs wrote:
| Apples racketeering and monopolistic behavior?
|
| I think this is a step over the line for regulators but so is
| apples behavior for the last decade or two when it comes to
| repairability.
|
| Fuck em.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| HN loves to describe Apple as a monopoly, but it really only
| shows that HN readers don't know the definition of
| "monopoly."
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Apples racketeering and monopolistic behavior?
|
| That's a bit over the top, don't you think? When Apple
| created the Lightning connector, the accepted alternative was
| micro-USB. And micro-USB is _terrible, awful, no-good, crap_.
| Many millions of people are happy Lightning existed to bridge
| the time before the rest of the world could design a slightly
| better small USB connector. Which, of course, might still not
| be as durable as Lightning, but it 's good enough.
| bni wrote:
| Are you telling me there has been other "USB" cables
| before? No, USB-C came down from the heavens in the dawn of
| time and evil Apple has been using their evil proprietary
| lighting all this time, just out of spite to anger Android
| fanboys.
| simion314 wrote:
| Apple could have at least attempted to standardize his
| port, but they did not because they charged money when a
| third pary uses their proprietary ports. So stop crying for
| poor Apple, they have paid PR people to defend them with
| better arguments anyway.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| How often does the world willingly standardize on
| something invented by a single company? Even if they had
| released it into public domain, USB-C was going to happen
| anyway.
| simion314 wrote:
| The chance is larger the Zero, we can't even think of
| standardizing something if is proprietary and we have to
| pay some corporation outside our jurisdiction a lot of
| money. So Apple did not even try, as usual they tried to
| milk things as long as possible exactly how they done it
| with dating apps in some EU countries.
| zaarn wrote:
| You forget that everything now being USB or Lightning is in
| part due to the EU attempting to harmonize the market on USB
| before today. All the larger market leaders signed an agreement
| to move to USB, which Apple understood as "USB at the charger"
| apparently.
|
| But the EU pushing this for the past decades is responsible for
| almost everything being interoperable.
| samatman wrote:
| zaarn wrote:
| That would be believable except Apple has been fighting the
| EU for years now over not implementing USB at all. Sure the
| charger has USB, but the phones they've release the last
| decade don't have a USB port themselves. Even when the
| industry leaders signed their agreements, Apple had to be
| the butt. I don't see how them shipping USB chargers with
| proprietary adapters at some point helps their case here.
| Apple didn't standardize anything at all here.
| eole666 wrote:
| Apple who also has a recent history of being, since many
| years, the only company not selling phone and tablets with
| standard microUSB/USB-C port...
|
| I hope this regulation will finally kill their lightning
| port.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| This always gets bought up, and it's always wrong.
|
| > I have no expectation, for example, that these same
| regulators will stay on top of this and revise it when USB-C
| stops being the preferred or best choice.
|
| They didn't write the law as "you must use USB-C" They wrote
| the law as "The industry experts need to pick A standard for
| charging, and all manufacturers should respect that choice"
|
| They are welcome to change it going forward, they just have to
| agree and consolidate.
| peyton wrote:
| Where? The directive's annex 1a very clearly states "USB
| Type-C receptacle, as described in the standard EN IEC
| 62680-1-3:2021."
|
| https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/46755
| andrewla wrote:
| This is not correct so far as I can tell -- the amendment to
| directive 2014/53/EU [1] says
|
| > Hand-held mobile phones, tablets, digital cameras,
| headphones, headsets, handheld videogame consoles and
| portable speakers, in so far as they are capable of being
| recharged via wired charging, shall:
|
| > (a) be equipped with the USB Type-C receptacle, as
| described in the standard EN IEC 62680-1-3:2021 'Universal
| serial bus interfaces for data and power - Part 1-3: Common
| components - USB Type-C TM Cable and Connector
| Specification', which should remain accessible and
| operational at all times;
|
| To switch to a new charger type would require legislative
| action, not just industry experts changing their mind. That
| said, I actually strongly prefer this approach to allowing an
| industry self-regulating group to make these decision.
|
| [1] https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/46755/attachments
| /4/...
| mmastrac wrote:
| https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/QANDA
| _...
|
| "Any technological developments in wired charging can be
| reflected in a timely adjustment of technical requirements/
| specific standards under the Radio Equipment Directive.
| This would ensure that the technology used is not
| outdated."
|
| "At the same time, the implementation of any new standards
| in further revisions of Radio Equipment Directive would
| need to be developed in a harmonised manner, respecting the
| objectives of full interoperability. Industry is therefore
| expected to continue the work already undertaken on the
| standardised interface, led by the USB-IF organisation, in
| view of developing new interoperable, open and non-
| controversial solutions."
| andrewla wrote:
| I don't see how this is relevant -- this is a statement
| of principle. The fact remains that to update the
| standard, the "timely adjustment" would be made by the
| legislative body. Don't let the passive voice fool you
| here; this is not some dynamic industry-led process, it's
| just a non-binding commitment to update the regulations
| if the technology advances.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| Interesting, I may be out of date then. Previously all the
| RED proposals called for a common charger, but did not
| directly specify the charger required.
|
| It seems like wireless charging still falls into that
| category (they require some form of interoperability by
| 2026, but do not state the exact form).
| bestouff wrote:
| Well they asked everyone to agree on a standard 10 years
| ago, but that didn't happen (just because of Apple). So now
| they forcefully decided.
| morcheeba wrote:
| Yep. Apple came out with their own connector because USB
| Mini (where everyone else wanted to go) sucked. We got a
| robust, flippable connector. All in all, using only two
| kinds of connectors over 14 years (so far) seems far
| better than the industry average (proprietary, mini,
| micro, C)
| trasz wrote:
| 10 years ago USB 3 wasn't really a thing yet, and so it
| would be a significant downgrade compared to Lightning.
| mmastrac wrote:
| This is the truth of the matter. Apple has been dragging
| their feet on switching away from lightning.
|
| Why? No idea. It's a much slower standard, and puts the
| wearing parts in the port instead of the cable. USB-C is
| designed by committee, sure, but the port itself is
| better than lightning in nearly every consumer metric
| there is.
| thebean11 wrote:
| Isn't USBC more fragile because of the middle piece that
| lives in the port? Lightning has always felt sturdier to
| me, though not enough to warrant carrying different types
| of cables..
| vvatermelone wrote:
| The middle piece is thin and does look fragile, but you
| can't put any real side load on it. The outer wall of the
| connector takes that force before you can put any real
| force on the middle. Unless you're jamming a flathead
| screwdriver or something in it.
|
| Beyond that, the springloaded contacts are on the cable
| end with type-c, with lightning it's inside the phone. I
| don't think it's a particularly common failure mode, but
| having less moving parts in the expensive bit is
| generally a good idea.
| monocasa wrote:
| Apple gets a patent license fee on every lightning cord.
| If they switch to a standard they didn't patent, they
| lose a revenue stream.
| tradertef wrote:
| That is one of the reasons for Apple. Another one is to
| be able to sell their own cables to consumers at a
| premium price.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Apple has repeatedly said their phones are so thin that
| they don't have room for a USB-C port. This of course is
| total bullshit because many phones as thin or thinner
| than iPhones have USB-C ports.
| pwinnski wrote:
| USB-C is perfectly fine, and I'm happy to switch, but
| let's not go overboard. Lightning is still arguably
| better than USB-C.
|
| USB-C exists because Apple was in the process of creating
| Lightning. Also, in my experience, you seem to have the
| fragility point backward: the nub on lightning _cables_
| may break, but the port is fine, while the reverse is
| true for USB-C, where the fragile bit is in the port.
| peeters wrote:
| > They are welcome to change it going forward, they just have
| to agree and consolidate.
|
| That's not how innovation works. What motivation would they
| have to change it if all your competitors will change it
| step? This only hurts consumers.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| I think this is a pretty bad take.
|
| Not all that many companies are doing work for cable
| standards to begin with, and personally - as a consumer - I
| very much welcome the standardization on usb-c.
|
| The companies that _are_ doing work on communication
| standards aren 't normally selling the kind of devices
| covered here to consumers. It's more business to business
| and military applications. Further, charging in particular
| is a different beast than communication in general - you're
| not doing anything other than sending current down the line
| to fill a battery. there's only so many ways to do that,
| and I think it makes sense to consolidate them.
|
| Finally - the requirement only states that the device must
| include a usb-c port for charging. It makes no limitations
| on manufacturers including additional ports. So even if a
| direct to consumer device wanted to include a new port -
| they absolutely could, they just still have to allow
| filling the battery from usb-c.
| scarface74 wrote:
| If you as a consumer prefer USB-C, buy a phone using
| USB-C. Why have the government involved?
| pixl97 wrote:
| I hate to be snarky on HN, but are we from the same
| planet?
|
| In the vast majority of devices you accept what the
| manufacture gives you or you are out of luck, especially
| when everything these days is protected by some kind of
| intellectual property.
|
| This excuse is old and tired and tends to ignore that
| large manufactures purposefully make the customer
| experience worse for higher profits.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Yes and their plenty of phone manufactures that give you
| a choice of buying phones with USB-C.
| yladiz wrote:
| And plenty don't.
| sokoloff wrote:
| A: "I want to buy a phone with USB-C charging."
|
| B: "You should buy a phone with USB-C charging."
|
| A: "But I don't want anyone else to be able to buy a
| phone that doesn't have USB-C charging."
|
| B: "You should petition the government to make that
| illegal, I guess."
| scarface74 wrote:
| stale2002 wrote:
| Or instead of that, people could use their legal and
| democratic rights to enforce a standardization.
|
| If you don't like it, feel free to vote for something
| different. But apparently the people in the EU disagree
| with you, and believe that the world would be better off
| if they enforced a standard.
|
| > Do you really need the government to make your choices
| for you?
|
| A user does not have a choice to use USB-C with certain
| devices right now. That is why there is a law, that now
| allows users to choose that.
|
| If Apple doesn't like it, then I guess they can of their
| own free choice, choose to leave the EU.
|
| They do not own the EU. They can take the deal, follow
| the law, or shut down in the EU. Thats their choice to
| sell to that market.
| scarface74 wrote:
| A user is free to use a device with USB-C right now. A
| user is also not free to buy an iPhone that runs Android.
| Should the government also force all phones to support
| Android?
|
| I'm also not free to buy an iPhone with pink polka dots.
| Should the EU force companies to make that? I want all
| cars to support CarPlay. Shouid that be legislated?
|
| The "people" didn't vote for this. The same lawmakers who
| thought that an 11 chapter 99 section law would solve
| privacy issues and all it did was force users to deal
| with cookie pop ups.
|
| Yet one company made a 15 line rules change about
| tracking (Apple) and the entire ad industry had to do
| more to clean up their act and have admitted in their
| quarterly reports that it is impacting their business.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > That's not how innovation works
|
| Yes, exactly, this is how standardization works.
|
| Who cares about innovation in charging plugs form factor?
|
| Innovations should be innovative enough to get around the
| plug.
|
| Light bulbs have been the same for at least 80 years and it
| didn't stop innovation.
|
| Why do people are so scared about things that are only
| hypothetical, while this solves a real issue?
| ericd wrote:
| 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.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| How many more LED bulbs have been sold thanks to the fact
| that people don't have to replace the socket, just the
| bulb?
|
| Having a retro compatible socket drove the adoption of
| more energy efficient bulbs.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| 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 illegal to install random non-standard
| bulbs -> my last apartmentblock was built with some
| special, great, proprietary and patented LED-spesific
| socket. Guess what happened? 15 years on, the lamps
| started failing, and the manufacturere dropped production
| of anything for that socket!
|
| Now they need to replace like a thousands light fittings
| across the entire block, there is no way to get
| replacements. Some of them are in awkward places and will
| require a special vehicle to reach.
| sokoloff wrote:
| If this standardization happened in 1999, would we now
| all be walking around with the original [large] USB-B or
| DC barrel jacks on our phones? (Those were the
| standardized connectors of the day.)
|
| Do we believe given the track record of a new connector
| being introduced more frequently than once every 5 years
| just within the USB standardization process, that we've
| somehow reached the end of that road in practical terms?
| If we've reached the end of the road, by all means we
| could standardize and say "you have to use the pinnacle
| of USB connector type".
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| we have only standardized the need to supply one type of
| connector, nothing stops USB from evolving.
|
| I still use Ethernet at work, it's connected to the
| thunderbolt port through an adaptor.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Is it better if my phone has the mandated-
| by-[hypothetical]-1999-law original USB-B and a new-
| fangled USB-C?
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| Would it have been better if they settled on this?
|
| https://www.mouser.it/images/qualtek/hd/703W-00_SPL.jpg
|
| It has been working quite well in many electronic devices
| for decades...
|
| I don't see the usefulness of discussing things that have
| not happened.
|
| Is USB-C bad?
|
| That's the question you should be interested in.
|
| "The best is the enemy of the good."
|
| Saying that choices should never be made because we don't
| know what the future brings, is the same of saying that
| there's no point in living, because we are all going to
| die.
|
| Of course they did not settle on USB-B in 1999 because
| there weren't billions of devices using it and it was
| relatively new technology.
|
| Now it's a de facto standard already.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > Is USB-C bad? That's the question you should be
| interested in.
|
| Perhaps I'm at least equally interested in "when
| something _better_ than USB-C is available, do I think
| that should be allowed instead? "
|
| > Now it's a de facto standard already.
|
| That's all the more reason to not make it a de jure
| standard.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| >they just have to agree and consolidate.
|
| It's still not clear that having this be regulated is better.
|
| We don't have a port problem. We _used_ to have one, but it
| went away. It sure LOOKS like Apple will, eventually,
| transition away from Lightning on its own anyway.
|
| So why have regulators weigh in here at all? What's the
| point? What value is added?
| [deleted]
| joenathanone wrote:
| >It's just really not clear to me that regulators need to be
| mandating product design
|
| Seat belts, air bags, maximum vehicle weight, maximum vehicle
| width... It's a very large part of what they do.
| DannyBee wrote:
| "I have no expectation, for example, that these same regulators
| will stay on top of this and revise it when USB-C stops being
| the preferred or best choice."
|
| Why? Everything is usb or lightning because people complained,
| and everyone but apple listened to people. If USB-C is no
| longer the best thing, rather than complain to 10 companies,
| and hope they all agree, they will complain to regulators, and
| hope they agree.
|
| What precisely is the difference you see?
|
| The regulators are at least accountable in some sense to the
| people, the companies are not.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| I'm really not away of a lot of Apple people complaining
| about Lightning. I mean, I am one, and lightning doesn't
| bother me at all and never has.
|
| I don't see a consumer win here, basically. I see overreach.
| DannyBee wrote:
| They did complain, greatly, when apple first did it.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Yes, because regulators are the best people to design
| technical products.
| DannyBee wrote:
| They aren't designing anything, they mandate an overall
| requirement - "You must all use the same charge port".
|
| This is no different than any other customer - they are
| just representing the overall customers who would otherwise
| not have enough power or voice to achieve what they want.
|
| Also - if you don't want your industry regulated, maybe
| don't make a mess of it?
|
| Regulators rarely pay attention to things that are working
| super-well.
| scarface74 wrote:
| If this had gone through the first time, we would have
| all been stuck with micro usb.
|
| Customers can choose to buy Android phones.
| DannyBee wrote:
| No, acutally, you would not have. You would have been
| stuck with a standard until they changed the standard.
| Which ... you are in the same boat now?
|
| Beyond that, this is the magical free market will fix
| everything. Despite all evidence to the contrary.
| scarface74 wrote:
| So now we would have to wait years for lawmakers to
| approve the new standard?
|
| Yes, you are very free to choose an Android phone with
| USB-C if that's what you want - just like over 65% of the
| EU does.
| RandomWorker wrote:
| That was the whole point of USB --- it's in the name Universal
| Serial Bus.
|
| We have to talk about the ewaste issue, which is massive score
| on the earth. The particular village in China where all our
| waste get recycled is just a horrible scene.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_waste_in_Guiyu
|
| This is a small step, but standardization is a great thing
| towards less waste.
| mikkergp wrote:
| Won't this increase waste as lightning is deprecated?
| cowtools wrote:
| temporarily
| mikkergp wrote:
| Yeah but then there will be a new standard, I have to
| imagine waste is not the primary thing they are
| optimizing for here.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| Sure, but better now than in 5 or 10 years when there's
| more lightning cables out in the wild. Otherwise should we
| still be using lightning in 100 years?
| scarface74 wrote:
| https://learn.adafruit.com/understanding-usb-type-c-cable-
| ty...
|
| And we have always been at war with EastAsia.
| criddell wrote:
| USB is universal, but there are so many variations that it's
| not very clear.
|
| Does the EU mandate say _which_ USB-C modes and variations
| have to be supported?
| davoneus wrote:
| Too many get caught up in the "USB-C" connector, and forget
| about the modes and power delivery. That said, AFAICT the
| May 2022 revision states (pg 6):
|
| "the devices should incorporate the USB Power Delivery (USB
| PD) standard (as described in the European standard EN IEC
| 62680-1-2:2021) and ensure that any additional charging
| protocols allow for full USB PD functionality (new annex
| Ia, part I)."
|
| Then the referenced: "EN IEC 62680-1-2:2021" standard
| specifies
|
| "To facilitate optimum charging, the specification defines
| two mechanisms a USB Charger can advertise for the Device
| to use: 1. A list of fixed voltages each with a maximum
| current. 2. A list of programmable voltage ranges each with
| a maximum current (PPS). The Device requests a voltage (in
| 20 mV increments) that is within the advertised range and a
| maximum current."
|
| But those regs get over my head quickly, so someone else
| may have better luck interpreting them.
| criddell wrote:
| This brings up an issue that Carl Malamud at
| public.resource.org has been fighting. The EU directive
| references a standard that costs $300 if you want a copy.
| You shouldn't have to pay to know your laws.
|
| If the EU is going to reference a standard owned by
| somebody else, they should purchase a license that allows
| them to publicly post the entire standard (AFAIK, they
| haven't done that). Or they could pass laws that say any
| standards referenced by law lose their copyright status.
| This would be a type of eminent domain for intellectual
| property.
| krzyk wrote:
| > Now, pretty much everything is either USB or Lightning. This
| is good! What problem is the EU solving here?
|
| It makes charging more user friendly. e.g. just an hour ago my
| wife asked if she can charge her iPhone with the charger that I
| use for my laptop and Pixel 4. I had to say "no" - and that's
| the case even when Apple has USB-C in their laptops, why the
| odd iPhone (and airpods)?
|
| It is quite pleasing to be able to charge laptop and mobile
| (and wireless headphones or ebooks) with the same charger.
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| > It's just really not clear to me that regulators need to be
| mandating product design.
|
| Is not design per se, but essential functionality. Radio is
| also regulated.
|
| And this happens in many other industries as well, see cars and
| all the mandatory devices included in them.
| danielfoster wrote:
| This is absolutely correct. I think the EU could have used its
| time and money focusing on more important problems.
|
| The new legislation is the type of feel-good lawmaking that
| sounds good on paper but has no real impact on society.
| vidarh wrote:
| The EU threatening manufacturers with regulation unless they
| settled on a format led to the end of different chargers for
| every phone model. It definitely had a direct impact on my
| life. Getting rid of different cables as well will make me
| very happy.
|
| "The EU" is not a singular entity. The _tiny little parts_ of
| the EU doing most of the work on this combined with the _tiny
| amount of time_ spent by larger parts of the EU seems well
| worth it to me.
| yummybear wrote:
| They will "periodically" check if there are better standards.
| The USB-C will only be fully introduced by 2027. I think it's
| probable that at least as soon as they're fully introduced we
| need a new standard.
| samatman wrote:
| modo_mario wrote:
| Are standardised wall sockets planned economy? Charging
| ports for cars? This has been a push for more than a decade
| now and the reason everyone aside from apple converges
| because of the brussels effect. From my perspective it has
| been great.
|
| The alternative isn't just plain competitive designs. It's
| also anticompetitive practices.
| npteljes wrote:
| It's bleak either way. If we don't regulate enough,
| companies will eat us alive, and if we overregulate, then
| the government will do the same. We're better off with some
| kind of balance between these two, and mandating the
| charging port like this worked out well so far in my
| opinion, and so, I welcome the upgrade too.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > What problem is the EU solving here?
|
| This isn't about solving an existing problem. As you pointed
| out, pretty much everyone standardized around micro-usb almost
| a decade ago. That's mostly because Apple launched the iPhone
| with a proprietary but standard connector (the original iPod
| connector). So while all other phone makers had a special
| adapter and cable for every model, you could plug an iPhone on
| anything that worked with an iPod. Even the original firewire
| cable from 2003 would work with it.
|
| What this is about is getting reelected and justifying to
| voters the usefulness of paying huge amounts of taxes to fund
| an EU-wide parliament. So they manufactured an (easy) problem
| to "fix". And it's going to be extremely popular since they'll
| be attacking and regulating "evil foreign tech giants".
| tokamak-teapot wrote:
| I'm not sure they are clear what they are solving. The
| statement says:
|
| "European consumers were frustrated long with multiple chargers
| piling up with every new device"
|
| This was solved by companies no longer providing chargers with
| new devices. When you buy a new phone, you use your existing
| charger, only buying a new one when you actually need it.
|
| If you buy a new iPhone, you get a cable that plugs into a
| USB-C charger.
|
| If USB-C is mandated on the phone end: * I'll
| spend the next 20 years realising I have the wrong white phone
| charging cable with me * I still won't trust random
| USB-C cables * I still won't trust random USB-C
| chargers
|
| But - let's just do it. Maybe in 40 years it'll have seemed
| worth it.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > If USB-C is mandated on the phone end:
|
| ever heard of adaptors?
|
| apple loves them and loves charging 29 dollars for them!
| mmastrac wrote:
| > I'll spend the next 20 years realising I have the wrong
| white phone charging cable with me
|
| > I still won't trust random USB-C cables
|
| > I still won't trust random USB-C chargers
|
| My answer to all three of these is the same: Why? My phone
| charges with every crappy USB cable and charger. Heck, my
| laptop will trickle charge [!] off a crappy cable on a crappy
| airline USB-C port.
|
| There's one place where I'm very careful about USB-C: keeping
| the specific USB-C cables with my laptop with the chargers
| themselves, just in case I need the Thunderbolt capability.
| The TB monitor I bought has a specific cable that stays
| attached to it.
|
| From looking on AliExpress the last few weeks, TB 100W cables
| appear to be getting commoditized. It's likely this worry I
| have about keeping laptop C cables straight won't be a big
| issue for much longer.
|
| [!] Amusingly, my laptop won't actually charge off the
| _standard_ A/C plugs on most airplanes because the 100W
| charger blows a soft fuse that requires unplugging and
| replugging the A/C adapter!
| nybble41 wrote:
| > [!] Amusingly, my laptop won't actually charge off the
| _standard_ A/C plugs on most airplanes because the 100W
| charger blows a soft fuse that requires unplugging and
| replugging the A/C adapter!
|
| To be fair, 100 W may not seem like a lot when you're used
| to plugging in to the national power grid, but it's a lot
| to ask for a non-essential system supplied by an off-grid
| generator shared by hundreds of passengers. And 100 W is
| the _maximum_ allowance for In-Seat Power Support Systems
| according to the FAA, before any conversion losses in your
| power adapter; the actual amount available to you may be
| much less.
| mmastrac wrote:
| Oh yeah, that's totally fair. With a standard USB-C DC
| plug, however, the charger could negotiate a lower
| current and even provide power fairness across all seats
| to support the entire plane's load.
|
| My point was really that even the most entrenched
| "standards" are all just leaky abstractions.
| tokamak-teapot wrote:
| I'll have the wrong cable with me because I'm just bad at
| having the right stuff with me anyway. Adding to my
| confusion is fine though. I'll just buy particular colours
| or cable or put tags of them or something.
|
| I don't trust random cables to plug into my phone because
| I'm paranoid about getting hacked. I access some systems
| with sensitive data via my phone and I don't want to be the
| route of compromise.
|
| I don't trust random chargers not to set my house on fire
| while I sleep, or - worse - fail to charge properly and I
| don't have enough charge left to run the crossword app on
| my phone.
| tasn wrote:
| They already do, in many ways. Specifically, they already
| mandate the type of power plug that electrical appliances must
| be sold with.
|
| I don't know where I stand on this ruling philosophically, but
| I'm looking forward to having accessories all use USB-C instead
| of having some for Apple and some for everyone else.
| Hamcha wrote:
| It's not a new thing. Car design has been dictated by
| regulations for decades and while I'm sure it has definitely
| stopped some novel designs from getting out there, I think we
| can be mostly thankful that we don't live in a sea of
| heterogeneous (let alone hazardous) designs. Cars can still
| look cool, but not to the point of being a detriment.
|
| USB-C is a pretty lax standard (for good and bad) and at the
| end of the day, the ultimate reason regulators have to come
| into play is that the industry didn't deal with this issue
| internally.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| > Cars can still look cool
|
| compare cars from 40s-70s to what came after, its a different
| world
|
| you can argue it was worth it, but you can't argue cars
| didn't get homogeneous and boring in the process
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > compare cars from 40s-70s to what came after, its a
| different world
|
| Yeah. we understood that they not only pollute the
| environment and it's stupid to build cars the size of a
| starship, but also by 1973 the World (except the US)
| understood that oil is not for granted and fuel efficiency
| should be a thing.
|
| Also safety while we are at it, doesn't sound so bad...
| pixl97 wrote:
| Being that my modern car drives nearly 10 thousand miles
| before each oil change, gets at least 4x the gas mileage,
| easily drives over 200k miles before major maintenance, and
| won't turn me into hamburger if I get in a crash, I will
| argue its well worth it.
| Hamcha wrote:
| You need to distinguish design trends from what the
| regulation enforced.
|
| The most obvious examples that come to mind:
|
| - Small cars aren't that small anymore to stop them from
| being blatant death traps.
|
| - A lot of the edges have been smoothed and curved to make
| impact with pedestrians less deadly (also killed pop-up
| lights and hood ornaments, which is kinda funny considering
| the Mercedes Benz hood ornament was sometimes jokingly
| described as a sight to aim for pedestrians)
|
| - Thick A pillars due to crash tests regulations
|
| While I can blame these for killing out novel or even
| trademark features of some vehicles lineups, I don't think
| alone they made everyone homogenize their design, it's just
| what the industry eventually converged on by themselves.
|
| Look at phones, there's no regulation on what a phone
| should look like, yet today phones are just a fancy screen,
| nothing like the incredible variety that Nokia alone
| sported back in the late 90s/early 2000s.
| themitigating wrote:
| Cars within a particular period mostly have the same
| overall design just like today. There will always be
| exceptions of course, however take a look at some models
| from 1966 (Ad heavy site, sorry)
|
| https://www.ranker.com/list/list-of-all-cars-made-
| in-1966/re...
|
| I feel like you see one car from 1966 then notice how most
| cars today are similar, and use that difference.
| vel0city wrote:
| A 1964 Ford Galaxie 500 had a wheelbase of 119" and was
| 210" long.
|
| A 2021 Mustang Mach E has a wheelbase of 107" and is 188.5"
| long.
|
| Which one is humongous?
|
| Even if you looked at the original 1964 Mustang, its not
| _that_ much smaller than the Mach E which is a 5-door
| crossover. The '64 had a wheelbase of 108" and an overall
| length of 181.6", just 7 inches shorter for a coupe.
|
| Older American cars were often land yachts. The old family
| sedan of the 1960s are often larger than crossovers of
| today, they just don't sit as high.
| pwinnski wrote:
| The word was homogeneous, which means "of the same kind."
| vel0city wrote:
| Oof, I really misread that one.
| seydor wrote:
| > USB or Lightning
|
| This problem
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Eh, Apple was moving devices over to USB-C already, they
| didn't need to be forced. The reason they've held out on the
| iPhone is because users will complain about new cables ;-).
| Either way they're going to get criticized.
|
| Apple gets credit for creating Lightning to begin with while
| we waited for something better than micro-USB to come along.
| I'm glad for USB-C, but damn, it sure took a while.
| MikusR wrote:
| Apple gets paid when other companies make lightning
| products.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| But they get paid quite a lot more when people pay
| thousands of dollars to buy their hardware.
| iakov wrote:
| Let's be honest here, the only reason why they "held out"
| is the MFi program and the sweet sweet money they receive
| for it. I'm happy to see EU put a stop to this practice.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Unless you have numbers to back it up, their MFi revenue
| is peanuts compared to the metric shitload of money they
| make directly from their customers blowing a grand or
| more on a phone. I guarantee they prioritize customer
| satisfaction way, way above MFi revenue.
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| Exactly. So silly.
|
| Plus Apple Watches have always been only charged via
| conductive, so it's likely phones could have gone that way too
| within a short space of time if the lack of a data cable was
| deemed acceptable.
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| Actually, if they go wireless then they don't need to have
| USB-C.
|
| Only devices charged by cable need to have USB-C.
| doikor wrote:
| Even devices that charge with a cable do not need USB-C if
| they are too small to physically fit a USB-C port. Though
| at that point they wont fit a Lightning port either but
| instead some weird exposed charging pins or wireless
| charging.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I routinely charge my iPhone on a wireless charger. When I'm
| in a hurry, I plug it in. I don't want that option taken
| away, wireless is nowhere near fast enough yet.
| mikkergp wrote:
| I've also found wireless charging to be inconsistent at
| best, especially with a case. Half the time I come back and
| I didn't place my phone in exactly the right place. Maybe
| it's the quality of my chargers, but until I can buy a
| random charger on Amazon and assume it to be as reliable as
| an equivalent cable, I don't think we can give up the
| cables.(fwiw my current charger is name brand)
| pwinnski wrote:
| This is why the last couple of generations of iPhones
| have supported "magsafe" charging, so the magnets line
| things up every time. Amazon has plenty of "magsafe"
| chargers for iPhones.
|
| To be clear, wireless charging with "magsafe" is still
| slower than using a cable.
| agloeregrets wrote:
| I would highly prefer the watch didn't charge that way; it
| takes FOREVER.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| That's not my experience. I'd check cables and ports and
| see if there's something you can adjust. My watch charges
| pretty quickly.
| morsch wrote:
| Maybe, but I wouldn't hold my breath. The fastest charging
| Android phones charge at >100 W, while wireless charging is
| currently at 10-15 W.
| dingleberry420 wrote:
| > What problem is the EU solving here?
|
| Everything works together, except Apple stuff.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Are they also going to insist that Android manufactures
| support their phones for more than six months with operating
| system updates? Worrying about cables causing e-waste is
| instead of phones, is even more evidence of the technical
| ineptness of legislators.
| layer8 wrote:
| > Are they also going to insist that Android manufactures
| support their phones for more than six months with
| operating system updates?
|
| Yes they are, with a directive from 2019. See for example
| https://grunecker.de/blog/sales-of-goods-directive-and-
| digit..., search for "Update Obligations".
| scarface74 wrote:
| I don't speak German. But the best summary I found
| doesn't say that manufacturers have to support cell
| phones for 7 years with operating system or security
| updates like Apple has been doing.
| mikkergp wrote:
| What does work together mean in this case, it's not like
| we're talking Ethernet where these devices are communicating
| to each other. Like I can't use an android charger? Lightning
| to usb-c cables are pretty much standard. It seems like in
| the short term anyways this increases e-waste as all my old
| Lightning chargers become deprecated.
| dingleberry420 wrote:
| The other day a coworker's iphone battery was nearly empty.
| He did not have his charger with me. I offered that he
| could use mine, an usbc charger that has worked for my past
| 3 phones and also works with my laptop.
|
| He couldn't use it.
|
| Of course, not being an iphone user, I did not have an
| adapter. Neither did he, considering he forgot his charger.
|
| The iphone and the usbc charger did not work together.
| pwinnski wrote:
| This story would make more sense if you mentioned that he
| did not have a lightning cable with him. My iPhone X is
| currently plugged into a USB-C charger, no problem, but
| it's using a USB-C -> Lightning cable.
|
| It's the cable that's the issue.
| cowtools wrote:
| I can just plug a usb-c dock and use my android phone with
| a keyboard and mouse if I wanted to. I could plug two
| android phones together with usb-c and transfer files from
| one to another.
|
| Apple's phones are quite locked down, and I think a big
| reason why is that proprietary lightning connector. When
| you have a usb port for charging, there is no excuse for
| not implementing the full standard software-side.
| pwinnski wrote:
| There is zero chance that an iPhone with a USB-C port is
| going to allow phone-to-phone file transfer. You have the
| cause and effect reversed.
| frizlab wrote:
| As an European, I'm so mad at this law.
| messe wrote:
| Why?
| frizlab wrote:
| Lightning is a far superior plug than usb-c (don't tell me
| about data transfer, I don't care, I care about the
| durability and ease of plugging of the plug itself), I have
| MANY lightning cables (that I will have to throw away, how is
| that good for e-waste?), and in a more general sense the law
| basically forbids evolution. I am livid that they'd do
| something like that instead of working on actual stuff like
| forbidding mining which actually actively harms the
| environment, and depletes primary resources for idiotic
| reasons.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > that I will have to throw away, how is that good for
| e-waste?
|
| We are not most people. Most people get yet another
| lightning cable with every Apple device when they could
| just use the cables we all already have for other devices.
| I also have a bunch of lightning cables because each device
| came with one, but, at least, they stopped coming with
| power bricks.
|
| > I am livid that they'd do something like that instead of
| working on actual stuff like forbidding mining
|
| This is not an either/or thing. Other groups are working on
| doing that without causing supply chain collapses and
| crashing economies. It's a very complicated and chaotic
| system with tons of interesting emerging behaviors.
| rojcyk wrote:
| lm28469 wrote:
| So Apple should share its proprietary connector (good luck
| with that) for free (?) and everyone else should adopt it
| (good luck with that too) because _you_ bought a bunch of
| cables ? I don't see Samsung and the other big ones
| investing in a whole new connector for their entire lineup
| to please Europe, whereas apple already has usb-c devices
|
| They're both equally easy to use, lightning is just slower.
| Seems like it's just your personal case, I have 0 lightning
| cables and maybe 5 usb-c, it would be equally a waste to
| throw them away.
|
| Also, nothing forbids evolution, usb-c evolved a lot
| already, you just have to make it backward compatible. I
| haven't bought a usb cable since I got my pixel 3 and
| everything works just fine
| frizlab wrote:
| I never said I wanted lightning enforced though. I'm
| talking about evolution of the design of the plug, not
| its software specs.
| freddex wrote:
| Fair enough about your existing cables, but cables would be
| thrown away if we enforced Lightning, as well (probably a
| lot more, but I have no numbers on that). I don't really
| get the arguments of durability and ease of plugging, both
| cable types seem very easy to plug. As for durability, that
| seems to depend on cable quality and not on the USB C
| standard.
|
| As for evolution/innovation, sure, that's a real downside.
| Seems like a quite small price to pay though because it is
| just about charging. And if I understand this correctly,
| you can still innovate and add Super Charge 3000 to your
| device, it just needs to have USB C charging as well, and
| you need to be able to opt out of getting yet another
| charger with your new device.
|
| As for working on actual stuff: They can do both -
| Regulating mining would be great, but this is also good.
| frizlab wrote:
| Sadly, they actively refused to work on mining IIRC. I
| think it's what's making me the more mad (and sad)
| really. They're willing to work on stuff that don't
| matter at best/make thing worse depending on PoV (because
| in all honesty imposing a specific plug does not matter,
| the market had _already_ chosen USB-C), but working on
| stuff that would actually do good, that they won't.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Apple already moved the ipad and macbook to usb-c charging,
| and have stated the iphone after next would be usb-c
| anyway. I doubt this changed Apple's plans a bit. In fact,
| Apple's decision might have been the driver for the EU to
| move on this.
|
| Anecdotally, while I've had usb-c connectors break off
| about as often as lightening ones, the lightening cables
| seem to just stop working sometimes, and I've never had
| that with even cheap usb-c cables.
| jwilk wrote:
| Archived copy without GDPR nag screen:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220607105048/https://www.engad...
| DocTomoe wrote:
| Coming from the same European Union in which virtually every
| single member state has different wall sockets.
|
| This does not inspire confidence.
| maccard wrote:
| The problem with USB-C is that you can't just pick up a device
| cable and power brick and expect them to work together. As an
| example, my Apple 96W USB-C charger doesn't charge my nintendo
| switch. The cable that came with my phone doesn't charge said
| fully Mac when used with the 96w charger. There is no indication
| of incompatibility between these devices until you realise they
| don't work. This is going back to the dc jack era where you end
| up with these [0] guys with various tips and dials that all meet
| the USB-C "standard" for a connector but don't work.
|
| [0] https://www.amazon.co.uk/EFISH-Multifunctional-
| Transformer-2...
| jayd16 wrote:
| >you can't just pick up a device cable and power brick and
| expect them to work together
|
| I never understood this sentiment. That would be even more true
| if USB-C wasn't the standard so I don't really understand the
| complaint. Obviously "same shape" isn't an indicator that it
| will "just work" for USB-C, so why would we expect that to be
| the case for anything else with modern complexity?
|
| It would be nice if fits == works but that's just not a world
| we live in, USB-C or not.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Because USB has always been, "if it fits, it works (possibly
| with a driver)". Maybe not explicitly, but it was widely
| understood to be that. USB-C, OTOH, with all its modes and
| whatnot, make it so I can't tell what my device supports, and
| a driver installer won't fix it.
|
| Basically, things that require extra ICs are now being shoved
| into "one connector for all" thing with no way of telling
| them apart.
| varajelle wrote:
| > if it fits, it works
|
| No, that was already not the case with USB 3 devices not
| working when plugged in a USB 1 slot. Not made easy when
| some computer or hub have both USB 3 and USB 1 port on the
| same machine and you must remember the color code.
|
| I recall that one time when I tried to configure the bios
| of a computer and the keyboard wouldn't work in the bios
| because it was connected to the "wrong" usb port that was
| not powered in that stage of the boot
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Except if you use Lightning. It just works.
| pkulak wrote:
| Because it's not an open standard any only support low-
| power devices. If we gimped USB-C to only support 5 volts,
| it would work everywhere too.
| AprilArcus wrote:
| iPhone fast charging over lightning runs at 9 volts.
| ProZsolt wrote:
| ... and uses USB-C on the other end of the cable
| [deleted]
| Aerroon wrote:
| The previous chargers did work that way though.
| jayd16 wrote:
| USB charging usually works unless you care about max watts.
| Apple chargers would be different based on the brick. Lots
| of barrel chargers were not compatible.
| WinstonSmith84 wrote:
| Not sure about Nintendo, but my macbook charger is charging
| perfectly fine my (Android) smartphone, and I don't even take
| my Android charger when traveling (charging at decent pace but
| unfortunately not in "very fast" mode). Either way, this is
| quite ironic in regard to the so-called Apple ecosystem and
| iPhone users still having to carry their own charger in 2022
| jethro_tell wrote:
| Well, no, doesn't apple make 1/3 of their money on cables and
| dongles? that's like the whole point. It's not some sticky
| customer issue that they just can't work out, it's clearly a
| straight profit decision and the customer comes last in that
| matrix.
| thefz wrote:
| I've always found that charge works, sometimes it's not as fast
| as it can go, but it works.
| maccard wrote:
| "not as fast as it can go" is selling it short. I have an old
| 5w usb charger that I found in my drawer and plugged an A to
| C charger from it into my 2016 MacBook Pro, and it "worked"
| by some definition of worked - the laptop thinks it's
| charging, however it's 19x below what the charger that came
| with the device outputs, so it's clearly not fit for purpose.
| r00fus wrote:
| I have the same issue with my Wahoo Elemnt Bolt v2. It has
| USB-C charger, but doesn't work with Apple's USB-C cable or my
| M1 30W brick. I need to use the cable that came with the Bolt
| (amusing is USB-A -> USB-C).
| alkonaut wrote:
| Then at least one isn't USB-C? Or the spec isn't good enough?
|
| The regulation (I hope) is about actually adhering to USB-C,
| not merely shipping with USB-C connectors. And the bar to pass
| should be to be able to use a large stack of USB-C chargers and
| work.
| samiru wrote:
| > The problem with USB-C is that you can't just pick up a
| device cable and power brick and expect them to work together.
|
| We clearly need more regulation.
| maccard wrote:
| Indeed, but this isn't the regulation we need unfortunately
| varajelle wrote:
| We need more color codes and symbols maybe?
| maccard wrote:
| Honestly I think we need different ports. My laptop can
| already draw more power than the charger that came with
| it can provide, it's insulting for it to pretend it is
| charging when I plug a 5w a to c charger into it.
|
| Enforcing USB pd as a standard would be another
| acceptable one.
| stewx wrote:
| The issue with the Nintendo Switch is that Nintendo designed
| their own faulty USB-C charging implementation rather than
| merely using the reference design. It's not a failure of the
| spec, it's a failure to adhere to the spec.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16706803
| mrjin wrote:
| It's obviously the failure of the spec. Why cables with
| different capabilities have to look exactly the same? Put the
| looking aside, I wondering if anyone can tell what's the
| exact differences between different specs? USB standards are
| already a mass, USB-C just made things 10 times if not 100
| times worse.
| jethro_tell wrote:
| lol, no they just didn't implement the spec.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| 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 simple that
| even the worst manufacturers manage to do a good enough job,
| and it's something you can trivially DIY if you need to.
|
| Now compare that with USB-C. So many moving parts that can go
| wrong and so much corners that can be cut by unscrupulous
| manufacturers. Not to mention that even the most expensive
| devices (Apple) don't give you any visibility on what type of
| cable/charger/etc you have even though that information is
| technically available to the device (that's how it negotiates
| power delivery) which is extremely confusing even to tech-
| savvy people.
| vilhelm_s wrote:
| USB-C is infamous for being complex like that, but I think
| the charging part is basically fine? People talk about the
| Nintendo Switch often, but I have never heard any _other_
| example of something where the charging didn't work, so I
| think maybe it's a rare exception.
|
| (This is distinct from the "fast charging" mode(s?), which
| does seem to have compatibility problems. But in that case,
| the failure mode is that device charges slowly, which is
| probably not a big issue for the kind of small
| phones/gadgets that the EU regulation targets. The previous
| standard was micro-USB, which can't do fast-charging
| anyway.)
| oneoff786 wrote:
| I plugged my switch into my laptop and the switch started
| to charge my laptop. I thought it was funny.
| bratbag wrote:
| Thats a very strange statement to make.
|
| Should complex things not have a spec?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| My point is that I don't like USB-C because it tries to
| do everything and manufacturer must implement that
| "everything" properly which adds cost & frustration.
|
| Compare USB-C power delivery and the 12-pin cable &
| connector with USB-A's 4 pins and a resistor on the data
| lines to communicate allowed current draw, or even a
| barrel jack with the standard 19V ~3A PSU and no
| negotiation at all. Which one is the easiest to build
| (hint: one is easy enough to DIY) and which one is more
| reliable?
| tmhrtly wrote:
| Power and ground wires alone don't cut it sadly when you're
| dealing with much higher wattages. There needs to be a
| level of negotiation between the host and the charger to
| decide on a specific power (current & voltage) that both
| can support.
|
| In USB-A this was accomplished through a hodge-podge of
| different resistances applied across data lines, not
| officially part of the standard but just done by
| manufacturers. USB-C is a huge improvement on this.
|
| I do agree however that the cable-labelling situation is
| awful. Maybe some kinda tier system could help. Every
| charger, cable and device could have a class. The charging
| rate is the lowest of the three. E.g. a "Class 5 cable will
| charge up to 200 watts and has a pink end". If you pair
| that with a Class 2 charger (say, 50 watts) and a class 3
| laptop (100 watts) you'll be limited to charging your
| laptop at 50 watts.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > I do agree however that the cable-labelling situation
| is awful.
|
| The new rules mention that and aim to fix it by demanding
| clear labels.
| falcolas wrote:
| I'd like to see where the labels are put. It's not like
| there's a lot of room on a cable for legible printing.
| And any kind of plastic flag wont last.
| Aerroon wrote:
| You mean the ones on the _packaging_?
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> It's still not a great spec if it's so complex that you
| can screw it up._
|
| People and companies can screw thing up royally regardless
| of spec complexity when there's no review/oversight
| involved. That's not a valid argument.
|
| If you want to force and check adherence to a spec you need
| to involve certification authorities (TUV, SGS, UL, etc.)
| but then widget prices would increase dramatically.
|
| Edit: to address the child comments below: who gets to be
| the judge of the complexity of the spec? If Nintendo fucked
| it up but some EE students can get it right through side
| projects on github, does that make the spec complex or does
| that make Nintendo incompetent (lacks a HW
| review/qualification process)?
|
| The spec could be as simple as _" white wire goes to
| positive terminal, black wire goes to negative terminal"_
| and there's still the chance of an implementation fuckup in
| the design pipeline, especially in large projects/companies
| with distributed siloed teams like Nintendo due to poor
| internal communication, if there is no proper internal
| review/qualification process in the design loop.
|
| Edit 2: I looked at the USB-C charging specs and they're
| easy enough to understand for any graduate EE and for any
| company who's had some basic experience with USB as a
| whole, let alone 100 year old multi-billion HW
| conglomerates like Nintendo.
|
| IMHO, Nintendo's USB-C charging fuckup is 100% on them. I
| wish people would stop needlessly defending them here.
|
| Edit 3: Also, what if Nintendo intentionally chose not to
| follow the spec in order to force the users to use and buy
| only original parts from them? Either way, incompetence or
| malice, you really can't blame the spec here.
| mrjin wrote:
| Just pick a couple of those USB-C docks on the market and
| check how many are actually working for you. I used over
| 10 different USB-C docks from different vendors. It
| doesn't matter which vendor, they all have various
| issues. They might be perfectly fine for some machines
| but lots lots of troubles for some other machines which
| are also perfectly fine with some of the other docks. I
| have never seen something worse than that.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> Just pick a couple of those USB-C docks on the market
| and check how many are actually working for you._
|
| 1) How is it the spec's fault that random OEMs go to
| extreme cost cutting measures in order to price dump
| themselves to the bottom by not following the spec? Of
| course they won't work properly.
|
| But again, for the 100th time, that's not the specs fault
| that manufacturers actively choose to ignore it.
|
| If a driver chooses to knowingly run a red light, is it
| automatically the fault of the spec (the highway code) ?
|
| 2) You're moving the goalposts. We are talking about
| USB-C charging spec here that's super easy to follow, and
| Nintendo didn't, not USB-C docs with display-port and
| other fluff. So this dock example doesn't apply to
| Nintendos' refusal to follow the charging spec.
| Spivak wrote:
| Looks this isn't that complicated, what people want is
| the ability to know that I all conforming USB-C cables
| are identical and can be interchanged freely. I don't
| give two shits about the devices at the ends not being
| able to negotiate or different power bricks charging
| faster or slower.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| Well, if a spec has no validation procedure,
| compatibility enforcement or certification, what's even
| the point? If the switch isn't actually working as
| intended they shouldn't be allowed to call it usb-c.
| There should be some minimum mandatory requirements. I
| haven't studied these spec, but if there exists a min
| spec to qualify to call yourself USB and the switch case
| isn't covered, OR, there's no minimum spec, it IS the
| spec's fault.
| iainmerrick wrote:
| Hmm, maybe the EU could step in and help regulate this
| stuff!
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> Well, if a spec has no validation procedure,
| compatibility enforcement or certification, what's even
| the point?_
|
| What is the point of anything then? Most pieces of tech
| we take for granted are an unregulated bundle of specs
| that more or less work together with one another most of
| the time well enough to be valued at several trillions
| and be in every household.
|
| If you want to regulate and certify every USB-C cable in
| your household then increase prices would stop the
| adoption of any such tech and you would then complain
| about the costs and over-regulation.
|
| The EU is already regulating USB-C into place. How much
| more regulation do you want?
|
| Let's not let 'perfect' be the enemy of 'good'. Remember
| 20 years ago when every phone and electronic widget in
| your house came with its own proprietary cable and
| proprietary interface and included CD with proprietary
| Windows-only software to work? Yeah! Lost the original
| cable/dock with the proprietary 20-pin connector? Good
| luck with that mate.
|
| Yes, USB-C still has teething problems due to
| manufacturers cutting costs and fighting tooth and nail
| against standardization so they can keep their walled
| garden rent seeking models of the past (remember Sony
| shoving their proprietary Memory-Stick everywhere despite
| SD cards having won?), but despite these issues, we've
| never had it so good in terms of cross-compatibility as
| we have it today and this push for USB-C everything is a
| step in the right direction.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| The USB consortium seemingly refuses to do anything that
| would hamper adoption, even if it's bad for consumers.
| They could make a list of icons that products can put on
| if they support. So a cable that supports 15W charging
| would indicate it with a little icon on the product or
| packaging. Then mandate a testing procedure, where
| failure to follow it or lying about the results is
| trademark infringement.
| adrr wrote:
| Issue I had with docks is that I was using the wrong
| cable. You need a thunderbolt cable that can support
| higher wattage.
| remus wrote:
| I think it's a reasonable point. A more complex spec is
| going to be harder to implement correctly.
| falcolas wrote:
| And more expensive to boot.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| It is a valid argument because the more complicated the
| spec, the easier to mess up the implementation.
| RF_Savage wrote:
| Wasn't USB-C power delivery spec 600pages long on
| release?
|
| And now with the addition of the 48volt high power
| charging mode it is even longer with more requirements.
| kaba0 wrote:
| Do you have any reason to believe that they "screwed up"
| due to a spec being complex, over much more likely
| explanations like.. they simply didn't want to follow the
| spec?
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _I understand the complexity for data, but for power I
| wish it was as simple as power & ground wires and that's
| it._
|
| The minimum requirements are that you have to support the
| USB 2.0 protocol:
|
| > _While BC1.2 is still supported over USB Type-C because
| it depends on the USB2.0 lane, a significantly simplified
| and higher power current capability mechanism is also
| implemented. This simplified approach involves resistor
| pull-down / pull-up relationships. These pull-down/pull-up
| resistors are connected to the CC wire and the upstream
| facing port (UFP) must monitor the voltage on the CC1 and
| CC2 pins in order to detect the current sourcing capability
| of the down- stream facing port (DFP) it is connected to.
| This is a substantial improvement over the complicated
| handshake mech- anisms involved with USB BC1.2._
|
| > _The basic USB Type-C current capabilities are Default
| USB (500mA for USB2.0 and 900mA for USB3.0), 1.5A@5V, and
| 3A@5V._
|
| * https://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/appnotes/00001953a
| .pd...
| interestica wrote:
| 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.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| 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.
| interestica wrote:
| This is the information I needed. Thank you!
| maccard wrote:
| And how am I supposed to know that when looking at a device
| that has a USB-C port for charging, and the instructions on
| the charger [0] say "Nintendo Switch can be charged by
| plugging the AC adapter into the console's USB Type-C
| connector."
|
| [0] https://store.nintendo.co.uk/en_gb/-nintendo-switch-
| power-ad...
| outadoc wrote:
| > New Annex (Part I): It requires that mobiles phones and
| the similar radio devices, if they are capable to be
| recharged via wired charging, are equipped with the USB
| Type-C receptacle and, if they also require charging at
| voltages higher than 5 volts or currents higher than 3
| amperes or powers higher than 15 watts , incorporate the
| USB Power Delivery charging communication protocol.
|
| Nintendo will have to get its crap together and properly
| support Power Delivery, the burden is not on you.
| gpderetta wrote:
| You are not supposed to, but it seems to me that the blame
| is on Nintendo, not with USB-C.
| xxpor wrote:
| Nintendo always does something that's JUST slightly off
| with their consoles that make them annoying as hell to
| use.
|
| With the switch it's the screwed up USB-C implementation
| and the fact that you can't use bluetooth headphones (it
| has BT support, but only for the controllers)
|
| With the DS, the wifi only supported WEP, not WPA, even
| though WPA2 had been released by the time the DS came out
|
| The Wii famously didn't support HD output.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| The Switch was updated to support BT headphones, with the
| caveat that you can only have 2 BT controllers
| simultaneously connected with the headphones, and the
| controllers can't be switched while headphones are in.
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| The reason for the limitation is bandwidth and latency.
|
| Multiple devices on one Bluetooth controller have to
| timeslice in 4 millisecond (iirc) chunks. Audio devices
| in a high quality mode consume a substantial amount of
| the overall bandwidth. It also doesn't matter if your
| packet consumes the full size of a chunk of not, all of
| them are equally sized. You'd have to do two audio chunks
| and one controller chunk * 2 controllers to maintain a 60
| Hz sample rate on the controllers.
| dottedmag wrote:
| By trying, returning the device (ouch for the shop), and
| then complaining to your local enforcer of Radio Equipment
| Directive (ouch for the manufacturer).
| rbanffy wrote:
| According to this regulation, it seems devices and cables
| must be clearly marked as for what they can do.
| maccard wrote:
| The only comment I could see in the article on that topic
| is this:
|
| > the EU simply said that "consumers will be provided
| with clear information on the charging characteristics of
| new devices, making it easier for them to see whether
| their existing chargers are compatible.
|
| Which is super disappointing, as the person who wrote TFA
| clearly didn't read anything other than the press
| release. The actual supporting documentation is here [0]
| and says:
|
| > on the packaging or a label, manufacturers would have
| to provide information on specifications relating to
| charging capabilities, in line with annex Ia (amended
| Article 10(8) RED). This includes a description of the
| wired chargers' power requirements (the text displayed
| should read: 'The minimum power delivered by charger
| shall be equal or higher than [xx] watts') and
| specifications on charging capabilities ('USB PD fast
| charging' and an indication of any other supported
| charging protocols).
|
| Which is still not great - this doesn't cover cables for
| example, and it doesn't guarantee that it will be printed
| on the device. Here [1] are apples chargers in the UK -
| unless they're side by side it's impossible to tell which
| one of those chargers is which, and even at that unless
| you know for sure one of the devices is X, its' really
| quite difficult to tell.
|
| [0] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/
| EPRS_BR... [1]
| https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/accessories/all/made-by-
| apple?...
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > It's not a failure of the spec, it's a failure to adhere to
| the spec.
|
| Which means 1 spec is not sufficient for interoperability
| vineyardmike wrote:
| Creating a spec that people don't want, can't, or can't
| afford to adhere is a failure.
|
| I don't recall ever seeing prior USB devices fail at
| adherence.
|
| The problem is that USB C is a massive spec with a lot of
| things that aren't always needed in it (display, pd, high
| data speeds etc). You can either design your product to
| implement a lot more things (eg Macs) or skimp out and cause
| confusion (Switch). By breaking the standard, people
| effectively have to buy your charger or cables to know it'll
| work. If I have to either buy a high end product or buy
| cables and chargers only from the original brand, we aren't
| really any better off with this.
| camdat wrote:
| >I don't recall ever seeing prior USB devices fail at
| adherence.
|
| Really? You've never seen a power only micro-usb cable
| (missing 2 bus lines)? I have dozens from all types of
| devices that use USB as a charging only connector.
|
| This has been a problem with every USB iteration (hard to
| have the U in USB if you aren't able to handle a wide
| variety of applications), but I vastly prefer it to the
| early 00s when you might have 5 different cables to each
| "specialty" application.
| bpfrh wrote:
| I think any protocol that wants to implement a wide range
| of features will be complex.
|
| Afaik if you don't need these you can just implement the
| parts you need e.g. charging.
| tankenmate wrote:
| Sure we are, if they don't conform to the spec then they
| can't get a CE mark; which then means it can't be sold in
| the EU and the device misses out on a 350~400M person
| market.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Or maybe Nintendo just decided that they didn't care. I
| really don't see how any technical specification could be
| expected to physically prevent everyone in the world from
| deliberately implementing it partially or incorrectly. I
| don't doubt that USB-C might be technically complicated and
| confusing compared to alternatives and predecessors, but I
| find it very difficult to believe that Nintendo engineering
| gave it their best shot and simply couldn't manage to do it
| correctly.
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| rbanffy wrote:
| It looks like Nintendo would have to fix that in order to
| comply with the regulations. The bare minimum, if I read it
| correctly, is to label the port and charger making it clear
| what their limitations are.
| miohtama wrote:
| My Macbook Pro charger charges Nintendo Switch, so maybe this
| was fixed later? Switch is 2017 device.
| mattnewton wrote:
| For me, it will charge but not power the dock for playing
| on a TV.
| univerio wrote:
| There's a specific PD profile (15V IIRC) that your
| charger needs in order to be able to power the dock, and
| older MacBook chargers didn't have it.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I have a launch-model Switch, and it still has trouble
| charging even on latest firmware. It's very possible that
| this is one of the "Mariko" fixes; Nintendo silently
| released a refresh of the Nintendo Switch before the OLED
| model was announced, dubbed the Mariko models. These had a
| number of changes, including but not limited to:
|
| - New, more secure boot sequence
|
| - Updated Nvidia Tegra board
|
| - ~20% better battery life
|
| - Reinforced chassis design
|
| It seems likely that they took the opportunity with Mariko
| to redesign their charging ICs to be more tolerant. I
| heartily recommend looking up some of the more subtle
| differences between the models too, it's really interesting
| to see how Nintendo updated a mass-market product without
| anyone really noticing.
| jnovek wrote:
| Just to make this thread a bit more aggravating, I have
| two pre-Mariko switches -- at least they both have the
| Nvidia Tegra vulnerability, anyway -- and I have yet to
| see either fail to charge on random USB-C cables and
| chargers.
|
| As another poster mentioned, however, they will only dock
| with the OEM charger.
|
| Seems like whatever is happening with the OG switch USB-C
| implementation it's not straightforward.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| When docking, the Switch specifically wants 15V/2.6A [1].
| Any less and it won't dock. There are some third-party
| vendors which have somehow circumvented this requirement,
| though [2].
|
| [1] https://switchchargers.com/how-nintendo-switch-
| charging-work... -- scroll down to "Nintendo Switch Dock"
|
| [2] e.g. https://skullnco.com/collections/nintendo-
| switch/products/ju... and
| https://www.gulikit.com/productinfo/506086.html
| izacus wrote:
| The change has to have come earlier, my pre-Mariko Switch
| had no troubles charging from multiple phone, MacBook,
| tablet and 3rd party USB-C chargers.
| smoldesu wrote:
| It's interesting, that _does_ seem to be what people are
| reporting... I wonder if that suggests that an IC
| redesign came before Mariko but after launch?
| izacus wrote:
| I'd say there was a firmware update of the USB-C chip
| somewhere early to fix bugs.
| DeRock wrote:
| I have a device from launch, and remember for the first
| while this didn't work, but now does. It must've been fixed
| at some point with a SW update.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| It may not be fully compliant to the spec but it does always
| charge in my experience. It will charge eventually from most
| any usb-c charger, including Apple's. But, a docked switch
| requires 15V and not all chargers will provide it, or maybe
| they just don't provide it to the off-spec switch. Similar
| story with the HDMI output of the dock. It took a bit of
| research to buy a charger and HDMI adapter that work with
| both my switch and macbook, but it was possible and it's nice
| for travel.
| mmis1000 wrote:
| It's even funnier that. Even your charger have 15v. The
| dock something failed the handshake and require you to
| unplug and plug again to trigger the 15v. I think the
| switch is just not spec compliant. That shouldn't happen on
| a device that implement the spec properly.
| onphonenow wrote:
| I thought they'd made Micro-USB a standard.
|
| Funny to see them go to a "new" standard based on market
|
| I like lighting better (audio latency on lighting is fantastic)
| than USB-C.
| mig39 wrote:
| The funny thing is that when this was first proposed by the EU,
| the connector they proposed was the USB-Mini connector. Imagine
| if that had been successful.
| bluescrn wrote:
| So will USB-D be announced before then?
| marticode wrote:
| USB-C is highly extensible (some would say way too much), I
| doubt we will need to make a connector that is physically
| incompatible anytime soon (although I'm sure the standard will
| be upgraded for more speed/uses)
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > I doubt we will need to make a connector that is physically
| incompatible anytime soon
|
| Didn't USB-C already do that to itself? I suppose that
| depends on how narrow the definition of "physically
| incompatible" is. But IIRC you can't buy a perfect do-
| everything USB-C cable today, because some USB-C use cases
| are flat out incompatible with others.
| xeromal wrote:
| I believe those are just shitty implementations of the
| spec. If you buy high quality gear with high quality specs,
| it should work ok.
|
| The Nintendo switch is a pile of shit though.
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| You can - AFAIK a real Thunderbolt 4 cable will carry
| anything that can be carried over a USB-C port.
| cesarb wrote:
| At the cost of being shorter and stiffer; a cable which
| can only use USB 2.0 and 3A charging can be longer and
| thinner. And there are also buggy devices (like the first
| hardware revision of the Raspberry Pi 4) which
| incorrectly short the two configuration pins together and
| can only work with less capable cables. But other than
| that, I agree: a passive Thunderbolt 4 cable can be
| considered a "perfect do-everything USB-C cable".
| Vladimof wrote:
| I'm still waiting for a round USB connector... But either way,
| that's good... it means that Apple will have to keep a connector
| on their devices and not go 100% wireless (not that I would ever
| use one of their devices)
| happy_path wrote:
| Can't they give a free adapter when selling an iPhone?
| mojuba wrote:
| Exactly my thought. That would save many kilotonnes of
| lightning chargers and cables from being thrown away (and
| replaced with USB-C ones for no good reason really).
| easton wrote:
| Well, there's at least one good reason: I can use my MacBook
| charger to charge my iPhone without having to carry two
| cables around.
| akmarinov wrote:
| That's very interesting, not because the new iPhone would have a
| USB-C, but due to the fact that Apple continues selling older
| phones.
|
| Currently they sell the SE, 11, 12 and 13
|
| By 2024 they will be selling a SE, 13, 14 and 15. Will they
| rework the SE, 13 and 14 to get USB-C? Will they stop selling
| them just in Europe?
|
| That's potentially a lot of money left on the table.
| sxg wrote:
| They will almost certainly be grandfathered in. Legislation
| nearly never retroactively applies to things created before the
| legislation itself.
| ryathal wrote:
| That's a pretty huge leap. Just because a design existed
| before regulation doesn't mean you can keep making it after
| the regulation. I would be surprised if Apple was allowed to
| keep selling non-USB-C phones manufactured in winter 2024 or
| 2025. They will likely be allowed to sell existing inventory,
| maybe offer refurbished phones that aren't compliant.
| dan1234 wrote:
| As I read it, the new laws are concerned with the chargers more
| than the devices being charged - if Apple just includes a
| lightning to USB-C cable (as they already do for the 12),
| wouldn't that be enough to satisfy the legislation?
| ajmurmann wrote:
| I keep hearing that this is about waste, primarily chargers,
| as you point out. I wonder if the best solution is to just
| include neither a charger nor a cable. At this point I have
| USB chargers and cables for every situation in my life and
| any additional cable or charger would just be a waste, no
| matter if USB-C or -A. Have just the people who still need
| more chargers or cables buy those (or maybe reverb outlet
| covers with chargers built-in). Everyone else can safe some
| money and reduce future garbage.
| est31 wrote:
| For cars, changes like these are phased in multiple steps. For
| each car model, companies mass producing cars have to obtain a
| permit for the model. Then, they are allowed to sell those
| cars. At which point the individual owners get their cars
| registered at the government office.
|
| The phasing in happens by first requiring it for permits for
| new models. The manufacturers can still build and sell older
| models. A few years later, the rule also applies to all first
| registration of new cars, to prevent car manufacturers to avoid
| the new rules by keeping to produce an older model.
|
| IDK if something similar exists for electric household devices.
| For the famous light bulb ban, they introduced it via import
| and manufacturing restrictions, so you could still _sell_ the
| light bulbs, and still can today, but you can 't either build
| new light bulbs or (legally) get light bulbs from outside of
| the EU into the EU.
|
| You could do the same for phones, just ban the imports at a
| specified date in the future so that the hardware can be
| readjusted in time.
|
| Anyways, this only affects one manufacturer (Apple) and they
| don't have as much of a market share here as in the US.
| akmarinov wrote:
| Apple sells 50 million out of 250 million phones in the EU.
|
| Imagine if their revenue drops by 20%...
| est31 wrote:
| With your numbers, that'd be 4% relative to the entire
| market, which is definitely something that Apple and the
| other phone manufacturers can deal with.
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| I see a lot of negativity and nitpicking in the comments, and I
| for one welcome the idea. Wired charging is a mature technology,
| USB-C is extensible enough, and most manufacturers have already
| adopted it as a de facto standard. Only Apple seems to be
| reluctant, and only on their cellphones and perhaps some of their
| headphones.
| bilekas wrote:
| I really have no idea other than financial reasons why Apple have
| not already moved over, considering (IIRC) USB-C is ~100x faster
| than lightning and even supports higher wattage too ?
| r0snd0 wrote:
| konschubert wrote:
| Is this really what we as a society should spend our focus on?
|
| What percentage of landfills are phone chargers?
|
| 0.01% maybe?
| mmastrac wrote:
| Don't forget random wall warts, random laptop power supplies,
| etc. All of these random DC power standards have been brutal
| for creating e-waste. I try to keep my power supplies organized
| and I have a few boxes full of them with various voltages,
| currents, etc.
|
| The forcing function of laptops and other hardware needing to
| work off the common USB-C PD levels will drastically improve
| the situation. GaN tech is getting cheaper all the time, and
| the PD chips required to make all of this tech work are super
| cheap.
|
| Eventually I hope we end up with USB-C-at-the-wall alongside
| power ports as a standard.
| sylware wrote:
| wait, we need 3 USB-ports: one for the external displayport
| panel, one for charging, one for the mouse and the keyboard.
| mrjin wrote:
| Oh well. I just returned 3 USB-C hubs in a row, one almost fried
| my computer. Since the introduce of USB-C, I have more cables
| than ever. There are virtually so many types of USB-C cables with
| different capabilities and all looks almost exactly the same.
| Some cannot handle charging current of 2A or less. Some might be
| able to do 3A, some maybe 5A. And some of it is USB 2.0, some are
| USB 3.x 5Gbps, 10Gbps, 20 Gbps or maybe even 40 Gbps. Some have
| DP-Alt mode, some don't. It's simply a random combination of any
| of the previous stuff. I wish I had read the specs and labeled
| them correctly. Now I have a whole bunch of them and I cannot
| tell which can do what except very few long thick ones for my
| monitors.
| [deleted]
| danieldk wrote:
| _It 's simply a random combination of any of the previous
| stuff. [...] Now I have a whole bunch of them and I cannot tell
| which can do what except very few long thick ones for my
| monitors._
|
| Get a Thunderbolt 4 cable, they can carry Thunderbolt 3,
| Thunderbolt 4, every USB protocol up to and including 4, DP
| alt-mode, and 100W power delivery. Moreover, most of them are
| clearly marked. The Apple cables are expensive, but some other
| good brands (like CalDigit) offer them at reasonable prices.
|
| _I just returned 3 USB-C hubs in a row, one almost fried my
| computer._
|
| Most USB USB-C hubs (USB-C is only the connector) are terrible.
| Even many premium brands (like Satechi) often use cheap Chinese
| reference designs that will fry themselves pretty quickly,
| cause a lot of interference, and have all kinds of annoying
| limitations (mostly because they use 5 or 10 GBit/s USB 3
| standards).
|
| Since I have switched to quality Thunderbolt Docks, I haven't
| had any issues.
| thorncorona wrote:
| > Since I have switched to quality Thunderbolt Docks, I
| haven't had any issues.
|
| Do you have a list of quality docks? Or how you determine
| what a quality dock is?
| Wohlf wrote:
| I've tried several through work, so far Dell has been the
| only ones that just worked with everything. Lenovo was fine
| for most things, HP didn't even work with the laptop it was
| designed for.
|
| I think the biggest thing is how much power the dock
| provides and how much attached devices need.
| danieldk wrote:
| Mostly checking reviews and specs. My wife and I both use a
| StarTech dock at work and we have two at home. So far no
| issues with our Macs.
|
| One thing to watch out for (when you are using a Mac) is to
| avoid Docks with a Realtek NIC. They use a generic USB
| driver on macOS that adds CPU load and usually only reaches
| 700-900MBit. Intel I210 NICs are great, they use PCIe over
| Thunderbolt and have a native driver.
| chenzhekl wrote:
| Just curious. If there is a seemingly better connector emerged in
| the future, could vendors experiment it on new devices on their
| own? Or do they have to first submit a proposal to the regulator
| and then deploy it to the device after the proposal has been
| accepted? I am afraid that the latter could harm innovation.
| gardaani wrote:
| Apple is already doing that on MacBooks. They have USB-C
| connectors for charging (that will be mandated by the EU law in
| the future) and they have a MagSafe connector (their
| innovation).
|
| They can do the same for iPhone: one USB-C connector for
| charging and one innovation connector.
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| From the FAQ:
|
| "Any technological developments in wired charging can be
| reflected in a timely adjustment of technical requirements/
| specific standards under the Radio Equipment Directive. This
| would ensure that the technology used is not outdated.
|
| At the same time, the implementation of any new standards in
| further revisions of Radio Equipment Directive would need to be
| developed in a harmonised manner, respecting the objectives of
| full interoperability. Industry is therefore expected to
| continue the work already undertaken on the standardised
| interface, led by the USB-IF organisation, in view of
| developing new interoperable, open and non-controversial
| solutions."
|
| https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/QANDA_...
| xenadu02 wrote:
| In other words: no, you can't make certain kinds of
| innovations without begging permission first.
| binarynate wrote:
| As an American, it's strange to see people applaud such
| overreaching regulation that will stifle innovation. This really
| underscores and makes me appreciate the differing regulatory
| philosophies between the EU and the US.
| binarynate wrote:
| Also reminds me of this Paul Graham tweet:
|
| https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1231699385525903360
| phabricator wrote:
| As an American, I'm surprised to see so much lip service paid
| to reducing waste in our country and then describing a
| universal plug as "overreaching regulation that will stifle
| innovation."
|
| Want to roll back the styrofoam ban too? Lots of new
| innovative (and greener) packaging resulted.
|
| (you could have just edited your first reply to include the
| appeal to authority)
| binarynate wrote:
| The plug itself its fine, it's the government mandating
| that it's illegal to use alternatives that's overreaching.
| I believe people should have the choice to decide and try
| better alternatives. That's how innovations are made.
|
| > Want to roll back the styrofoam ban too?
|
| That's different because it bans one thing rather than
| declaring a single material as the only legal one. A better
| analogy would be if a state passed a law declaring
| cardboard as the _only_ legal packing material and
| outlawing everything else. Also, the styrofoam ban is a
| state law, not a federal law. I don 't personally feel
| strongly about a styrofoam ban, but if your state wants to
| try that, that's fine with me.
|
| > (you could have just edited your first reply to include
| the appeal to authority)
|
| Who cares?
| thinkindie wrote:
| What I don't understand from Apple - they have already made the
| move to USB-C with laptops (ditching the Magsafe - that was way
| more practical than the USB-C connector), why resisting this much
| for the iPhone/iPad/etc? I understand that they have additional
| revenue streams by licensing lighting to accessories
| manufactures, but still...
| hoistbypetard wrote:
| They've moved most of their laptops back to Magsafe now.
| nuccy wrote:
| They didn't move, they added an option to select: USB-C or
| Magsafe-2 (it is incompatible with original Magsafe BTW),
| both work fine.
|
| I've actually switched to Macs already when USB-C was
| introduced (late 2016), so I totally missed the original
| Magsafe. I recently got a new Macbook Pro 16, which has
| Magsafe-2. I never used it before and for my use-case I don't
| see much use for it now either. At least at home and in the
| office I have external displays, which with single USB-C
| cable get the signal and charge the Mac. Before it was
| definitely better than any other laptop charging connector,
| but advantages USB-C provides overwhelm Magsafe use for me.
| tempoponet wrote:
| To clarify: Magsafe 2 was introduced in 2012. You missed
| the original Magsafe _and_ Magsafe 2. Old adapters (but not
| the oldest) will work with the latest Macbooks.
| hoistbypetard wrote:
| Good point. I forgot they still charged over USB-C as well.
|
| I need to work, not infrequently, from the dining table
| with a laptop plugged into the wall. I have two large
| boisterous dogs and two not-so-large but still boisterous
| children. They occasionally tear around the house, and the
| dogs have snagged a cord and destroyed a laptop by pulling
| it off the table back in the old pre-magsafe days. Magsafe
| prevented damage to multiple laptops for me.
|
| While I love the single-cable docking angle of USB-C, I'd
| give it up for magnets if I needed to. For my thinkpad, I
| actually have one of those magnetic USB-C cables to use at
| that table.
| TravelPiglet wrote:
| Magsafe is back
| dankboys wrote:
| Apple's argument behind keeping the lightning connector is that
| it offers a superior standard of waterproofing than the USB-C
| can provide. The iPad and MacBook, to my knowledge, don't make
| any claims about being waterproof.
|
| (Not to say anything about the veracity of the waterproof
| argument, just that they make it)
| breckenedge wrote:
| MagSafe is back on new models, and Lightning is physically
| thinner than USB-C.
| doikor wrote:
| > Lightning is physically thinner than USB-C.
|
| The thinnest smartphones on the market currently are all
| USB-C phones so that does not really seem to be an issue.
| These are a good 2mm thinner then the thinnest iPhone ever
| made.
| nuccy wrote:
| A surprise for me was that lightning is only USB2 and one-
| sided, so at any moment it is plugged half of the pins is
| unused. Additionally it has exposed wires, in case of charger
| failure, USB-C provides a better protection.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| At the same time, it is starting to look like USB-C is
| still not going to be more robust than Lightning
| connectors. A vast improvement on micro USB, to be sure,
| but still. Recall that Lightning came out 12 years ago, and
| the alternative was micro-USB. It's so much better that we
| can actually debate it relative to USB-C today, which is
| high praise.
| micv wrote:
| Some Lightning devices use both sides to get USB3 speeds. I
| really have no idea why Apple have left other devices at
| USB2 performance. It doesn't make an awful lot of sense to
| me.
| eddieroger wrote:
| Because what's their incentive to do better? Most people
| only use the port for charging, which has no data speed,
| and the number of people who sync via wire is lower than
| ever and declining. USB2 was good enough for a long time,
| and it's not like it changed.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I expect Apple to do away with the lightning port
| eventually and just ship MagSafe (the phone kind)
| chargers with their phones for a completely wireless
| phone with no holes at all. We aren't there yet (many
| people still like wired headphone solutions vs
| Bluetooth), but maybe in 2-3 years?
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| The exposed wires make lightning easier to plug into a
| phone than USB-C: you don't have to line up the lightning
| connector with its port as precisely as you do USB-C
| because the connector is slightly smaller than the port,
| whereas it is almost flush in USB-C.
| thinkindie wrote:
| I completely missed that part. What I don't understand is
| then why Apple doesn't open source their solution if they
| think they are superior and they care about the environment.
| Same with lighting.
| scarface74 wrote:
| The only iPad that still uses lightning is the $329 cheap one.
| Leo_Verto wrote:
| I like the theory that Apple is trying to keep Lightning on
| their phones until they can make an entirely wireless iPhone
| happen, but the failure of AirPower [1] was likely a factor in
| delaying this transition further than planned.
|
| [1]: https://www.macrumors.com/2019/03/29/apple-officially-
| cancel...
| Majromax wrote:
| > I understand that they have additional revenue streams by
| licensing lighting to accessories manufactures, but still...
|
| Bingo. It's not the charging, it's the port itself. But the fee
| and lock-in also apply to data-using accessories.
|
| Wired iPhone headphones aren't compatible with other phones,
| for example, and if you've purchased (e.g.) an expensive FLIR
| phone-mounted thermal camera, then you're less likely to jump
| to the Android/USB-C ecosystem at your next phone upgrade.
| darklion wrote:
| I always enjoy seeing the "Apple doesn't want to give up the
| money" takes.
|
| How much money does Apple make from their licensing? Point me
| to even one estimate that shows me the money that Apple makes
| on the Lightning port licensing, and what fraction of its
| overall profit, loss, or even revenue, that the Lightning
| licensing comprises.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I don't think it's fees. Relative to what they earn directly
| from customers, fees are a pittance. I figure they have
| exactly two reasons, both plausible, to be reluctant to
| switch the phone over to USB-C.
|
| The first is size -- lightning is thinner than USB. But other
| phones have USB-C, so this is probably not that big a hassle.
|
| The second is their customers. For every customer that wants
| USB-C on their new phone, a dozen more want all their
| existing accessories and cables to continue to work when they
| upgrade their phone.
| badwolf wrote:
| 2 is a big point. This is supposedly about e-waste, but
| will force everyone to trash all their old cables and
| accessories even faster now.
| dontlaugh wrote:
| I'm sure they have other reasons, but as a user I much prefer
| the ergonomics of Lightning ports. They're smaller and simpler
| mechanically.
| franciscop wrote:
| The problem is that for security with electricity the bits
| that provide the electric current should be female terminals
| (protected) while the ones that receive it male (you can
| touch them). Apple doesn't follow this and you can easily
| touch the charged ports of the charged device, which is not a
| problem since it's very low voltage, but in USB-C connectors
| that can reach up to 240Watts so that's a no-go.
| kasey_junk wrote:
| As a consumer I much prefer lightning to usbc. And would prefer
| apple open it.
|
| That said it's moot. I've got a mix of everything in my house
| and some of it won't be upgraded for a very long time.
| stevenalowe wrote:
| "EU reaches deal" is misleading. "EU politicians made a deal over
| the objections of manufacturers" would be more accurate.
|
| What happens when your awesome new product won't work with mere
| usb-c? You get to lobby politicians for a decade to update the
| standard
|
| This is a destructive decision that unfortunately will
| effectively bury evidence against it, ie all the things that
| won't happen because of it
| dontbenebby wrote:
| Awesome! I recently put off buying an adapter I lost for one
| device, and just started using an old USB battery with the
| correct connector to charge it up outside my home instead, I was
| THAT annoyed with the fact I need to hurt my back and stress my
| mind dealing with all these... ports.
|
| This is a positive example of the EU influencing American
| technology companies.
|
| (I say that as someone considering getting an EU passport though,
| so I might be biased.)
| lekevicius wrote:
| As a European, I'm very happy.
|
| USB-A has been with us for over 20 years. It's only disappearing
| because of USB-C, and USB-C seems to have room to grow. I
| wouldn't be surprised if it will still be the most popular
| connector in 2035, and not just because "legislation stops
| innovation".
|
| Making sure there are no weird exceptions to a very good port is
| reasonable and good.
| 2000UltraDeluxe wrote:
| The idea's nice. I'll still have about 30 unusable micro-USB
| chargers lying around, though.
| asutekku wrote:
| Sure, doesn't still mean we should stagnate and be forced to
| use tech that is basically obsolete for a modern world's
| requirements.
| rob_c wrote:
| I wouldn't stand on the hill of this is obsolete tech,
| there should be more devices built with power efficiency
| from the ground up as well as less focus on the USBC
| charges your phone faster. This is more about usbc will
| charge every device you have in a few years so no reaching
| for custom chargers. Usbc->X cables however are another
| matter nothing is stopping HP making a custom usbc->HP port
| for their laptops for instance
| [deleted]
| spacexsucks wrote:
| Basically obsolete. As someone who uses a 7 yr old ipad, a
| 10 yr old windows phone and a 9 yr old Nexus 7 this is hot
| garbage
| asutekku wrote:
| Just because you are using old tech with a connector
| that's prone to break and is not able to transfer data
| quickly doesn't mean everyone else has to.
| erddfre3423 wrote:
| Everyone else should not have a choice to buy new
| equipment as cheap as they can do today, whenever they
| wish. That's simply not sustainable.
| kalleboo wrote:
| Interesting, I've never seen a charger with microUSB
| permanently attached, all my chargers have a USB-A port where
| you can change the cable.
|
| In any case, you can just stick tiny plug adapters on all
| your chargers. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07G54XXZZ/
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I have an old Blackberry charger that has the cord
| attached, and I'm pretty sure I also have some old Samsung
| charger that's the same. But they're clearly quite rare.
| 2000UltraDeluxe wrote:
| I've got a whole bunch of them, actually. Luckily, they
| can be repurposed for older Pi models.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| Off the top of my head, the Official Raspberry Pi Power
| Supplies, for both the microUSB and USB-C variants are
| permanently attached cables.
| pornel wrote:
| Cables, not chargers.
|
| Your chargers are USB-A, and you can make them usable with an
| A-to-C cable.
|
| There are no chargers with micro-USB output port (USB never
| specified such thing). Micro-USB has been designed to make
| cables essentially disposable (and not meant to be hardwired
| into any device), because the more robust side of the
| connector is in the device's port, and the fragile side is in
| the cable.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > There are no chargers with micro-USB output port
|
| https://www.amazon.com/CanaKit-Raspberry-Supply-Adapter-
| List...
| floxy wrote:
| >There are no chargers with micro-USB output port
|
| https://duckduckgo.com/?q=microusb+AC+adapter&t=ffab&iar=im
| a...
| mlyle wrote:
| > There are no chargers with micro-USB output port (USB
| never specified such thing
|
| I have several chargers with a brick and a permanently
| attached micro-USB cable that came with devices. One from
| Samsung; a couple from Grandcentral; a few for Raspberry
| Pis.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > Micro-USB has been designed to make cables essentially
| disposable [..], because the more robust side of the
| connector is in the device's port, and the fragile side is
| in the cable.
|
| In my experience, this wasn't true. I had both a tablet and
| a phone that had the charging port fail. If I didn't apply
| a constant sideways force on the cable, it wouldn't charge.
| Tried other cables to make sure it wasn't a bad cable, but
| still had the same problem.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| That's how progress works though. Would you rather be stuck
| with micro-USB technical limitations to this day instead?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| This almost certainly prompts a USB-C iPhone followed by a
| portless one. (I don't think they're thin enough yet for
| USB-C to be structurally compromising.) In the box will
| either be no charger or a wireless charger with a USB-C port,
| thereby technically meeting the requirement.
| rob_c wrote:
| Great until you have some "sales rep" in a supermarket dealing
| with a Karen who's device won't charge fast enough off a 10W
| USBC charger that fundamentally isn't the same as a 60W one.
| kalleboo wrote:
| That's not new to USB-C though, there was already a wide
| range of charging speeds on USB-A
| rob_c wrote:
| Kind of is new when all of the specs rely on cable
| capability and not all manufacturers label different cables
| differently. The spec for what it is, is a mess, but it's a
| nice, nay, highly desirable form factor.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| Yeah, but now there are the bonus points for a "fastish"
| USB-A charger (QC something, that puts out ~20W) which
| won't do anything to a laptop that requires "PD", even
| though the 20W would be enough to at least slowly charge
| the battery while off.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| Legacy fast charging was always a mess of competing
| proprietary standards. A charger adhering to one standard
| (e.g. Samsung AFC or Oppo VOOC) wouldn't fast charge a
| phone using a different standard (e.g. Qualcomm QC or
| Apple 2.4A).
|
| https://www.androidauthority.com/fast-charging-
| explained-2-8...
| D13Fd wrote:
| It does stop innovation in things like lightning and MagSafe.
| And it doesn't fix the multiple charger issue either, because
| so many manufacturers don't adhere to the USB-C standard that
| any combination of charger + cable + device has an unreasonably
| non-zero chance of not working or even damaging the device.
|
| So in the end we still have to have multiple chargers, but now
| we can roll the dice on which one works with or damages which
| device because they all use the same connector.
| Majestic121 wrote:
| It does not stop innovation like MagSafe :
| https://www.amazon.com/Magnetic-Adapter-Connector-
| Transfer-C...
|
| I'm not sure what you mean by 'unreasonably non-zero', but
| I've been sharing chargers between Macbook, XPS 13 and
| Thinkpad with no concern, + a charger from amazon.
|
| Some charger are less powerful than others, so charge is not
| always as quick, but in real life it does not matter : it's
| still charging fast enough in any combination, and for the
| last year the only reason I have multiple chargers is to have
| one at home and one at work, but any laptop works well on all
| chargers.
| D13Fd wrote:
| I don't think an adapter is the kind of innovation HN users
| are looking for.
|
| I've fried at least one USB-C device, a high-end wireless
| headset, seemingly by connecting it to a name-brand USB-C
| charger that had some kind of incompatibility with the
| headset.
|
| Plus, even among Apple chargers, some USB-C chargers will
| support fast charging, and some won't, regardless of their
| rated wattage. Plus some will and will not support fast
| charging via a wireless charger (either a MagSafe wireless
| charger or an Apple Watch charger). There are a lot of
| charging incompatibilities in the current state of USB-C,
| even among devices from a single manufacturer.
| kansface wrote:
| You shouldn't use a lower wattage charger so it goes.
| Majestic121 wrote:
| I have seen it in some forums as well, but do you have
| any explanation links about why that may be ?
|
| I have trouble finding relevant information that is not
| some random dude on a forum speaking very confidently one
| way or another without much data to back it up, and I
| don't see why that would cause any harm other than
| charging more slowly, eventually to the point of
| discharging if you consume a lot of power (which is a
| pretty tolerable downside).
| closetohome wrote:
| I assume it's just people being impatient. Using a lower
| powered charger is arguably better for battery longevity.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| By the way, it's been talked on HN a lot when USB c comes
| up, it you shouldn't use those magnetic cables. The
| "magnetic disconnect" motion can cause arcing and static
| electricity that can theoretically damage the thing they're
| plugged into. Especially if you leave the exposed pins on
| the device as you use it unplugged.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| How did MagSafe historically handle this? The pogo pins
| may've been recessed, but they were still exposed to the
| elements.
| X-Istence wrote:
| There's communication between the device and the power
| brick. When the communication stops the power stops being
| delivered. Not sure how Apple is doing that these days
| with the MagSafe USB-C they have introduced on their
| laptops since you can plug the other end into any and all
| USB-C capable chargers.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > So in the end we still have to have multiple chargers, but
| now we can roll the dice on which one works with or damages
| which device because they all use the same connector.
|
| Doesn't really matter. Just charge with any charger that's
| USB-C compatible. If it breaks the machine just RMA it. It
| didn't adhere to the spec so file a complain to the EU
| commission in charge of these charging standards as well.
|
| Wait what was the point again? Ohh E-Waste reduction.
| Aerroon wrote:
| And when that happens I lose all the data on the device and
| access to a device for months at a time.
|
| And all I gained from this is that I will have to buy a
| cable separately from the device itself now.
|
| But hey, at least I'll only get 5 new cables in a decade
| instead of 10! Such incredible savings.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| > It does stop innovation in things like lightning and
| MagSafe
|
| I think avoiding "innovation" in the form of yet another
| connector is USB C's mission.
|
| Apple just released a USB C to MagSafe cable, where is the
| problem?
|
| Lightning isn't innovation it's pure vendor lock in complete
| with embedded cable chips to enforce it.
|
| Any improperly designed device can damage other devices,
| suggesting it's somehow particular to USB C is specious.
| mlyle wrote:
| > that any combination of charger + cable + device has an
| unreasonably non-zero chance of not working
|
| These issues have evaporated for me in the past couple of
| years. The only devices that I have in use that are still
| finicky are Nintendo Switch, and it's my understanding that
| newer models have fixed these problems, too.
|
| My only complaints are that I wish my MBP would draw 10W from
| non-PD USB, instead of 5W (not _really_ a USB-C problem), and
| my kids ' laptops that have USB-C ports but don't support
| USB-PD and only charge from coaxial power adapters.
| grishka wrote:
| Apple can keep selling laptops with MagSafe because they are
| _also_ capable of charging via the USB-C ports. Same with
| phones, they can add whatever wireless charging technology
| they want, it 's the wired charging port that is required to
| be USB-C.
| kstenerud wrote:
| Alright, so before more folks freak out even more at this, there
| are a number of knee-jerk reactions that could be mitigated by
| reading up on this a bit before tossing thunderbolts.
|
| The main reasoning for this is to cut down on waste from
| incompatible chargers. This will bring charging more in line with
| other standardized products such as AC power cords, twisted pair
| networking, SD cards, M.2 SSDs, and all of those wonderful things
| that come from standards that everyone follows.
|
| Can no one continue to sell charging products for stuff that's
| already out there? Obviously you can continue to support existing
| stuff. This rule applies to power drawing products, not the
| chargers (products sold in 2024 must charge from USB-C, but you
| can continue selling non-USB-C chargers for older stuff already
| in consumer hands).
|
| Will it stop innovation? Of course not. New innovations can be
| brought forth in the same way they are with the other standards
| mentioned above: developed in a harmonised manner, respecting the
| objectives of full interoperability (in this case led by the USB-
| IF organisation).
|
| Is USB-C a complicated standard? Yep, but then again most
| companies manage to produce working and interoperable stuff just
| fine.
|
| Are there companies that break the standard? Yes of course -
| there are always bad actors and careless implementations. But
| consumer laws will prevent them from selling their crap in the
| European market. This is what standards enforcement is for (the
| CE marking, for example).
|
| Are HNers going to look for extreme and unlikely cases and
| anecdata to ride their hobby horses on this? It wouldn't be HN
| without it!
| theptip wrote:
| I think your analogy isn't right. None of those standards are
| mandatory. Would M.2 have come out when it did if you needed to
| change the law to permit it to be used over SATA?
|
| USB-C is already a standard just like all your other examples.
| This law forbids using other standards.
|
| > New innovations can be brought forth in the same way they are
| with the other standards mentioned above: developed in a
| harmonised manner
|
| I think you are confused about how consumer product innovation
| happens in the real world. You don't form a committee and
| convince them that your new product is better. You bring
| something new to market and if it succeeds, you make money and
| gain market share; like Apple did when they brought out
| Lightning. Even if you are building a new standard like M.2,
| you are still competing with other standards, all of which can
| be chosen by your customers as they deem appropriate. By
| definition it is now harder to innovate on charging cables
| simply because you can't try something new.
|
| It is perfectly fine to say "I don't think we need to
| prioritize innovation in this sector any more; eWaste is more
| important than innovation". I wouldn't even argue with that
| claim in the short term. But it's not credible to deny that
| this will have a negative effect on innovation. That is always
| the impact of regulation like this. If nothing else, startups
| are now forbidden from experimenting with this variable.
| kstenerud wrote:
| > None of those standards are mandatory
|
| AC power cord standards ARE mandatory. The other standards
| don't require enforcement because the industry has already
| converged on the standards and didn't need a push.
|
| This will be the equivalent power cord standard for DC
| devices. However, unlike AC power cords, USB-C also transmits
| data, and will thus require further innovations (much like
| the innovations in twisted pair networking).
|
| Will there be less innovation? In a small way, yes, because
| nobody can unilaterally push some new power cable standard by
| leveraging their market dominance. But then again, market
| dominance usually results in protectionism instead of
| openness (lightning cable, memory stick, Beta, etc), so such
| innovation would have been a dead-end e-waste producer
| anyway.
|
| What big players CAN do now is influence the newer standards
| to adopt their (free and open) innovations, like they do with
| all other standards out there. The great thing about open
| standards is that the rising tide lifts all boats.
| pydry wrote:
| >But it's not credible to deny that this will have a negative
| effect on innovation.
|
| Why? What consumer friendly innovations in charging have we
| had since USB C came out that this law would have made
| illegal if it were introduced from the start?
|
| >That is always the impact of regulation like this.
|
| I think it would be fair to say that if we could point to
| examples of useful innovation in the past that would have
| been killed by this legislation. But can we?
| simion314 wrote:
| > By definition it is now harder to innovate on charging
| cables simply because you can't try something new.
|
| Sure you can, because you have to support the standard but
| Apple could invent HyperSuperCoolRoundedCornerCharger and put
| it as an alternative, if it charges hyper super faster then
| the standard the customers will prefer it and buy the super
| expensive platinum Apple Genuine DRM protected charger and
| Apple makes money, customers are happy and if Apple wants to
| drop the standard USB they can just standardize their cool
| shit and it will become the new standard.
| theptip wrote:
| To be clear, if USB-C charging is mandatory, you cannot
| have an alternative charging port, unless you want to have
| multiple ports on your device, which is (I think obviously)
| absurd. By requiring USB-C, you forbid other port types
| from being used. So this regulation is forbidding Apple
| from using their Lightning connector, and also forbidding
| any other vendor from introducing an alternative. Without
| revision it presumably also forbids anyone from using USB-D
| if/when that comes out.
|
| Ironically the mode of experimentation from Apple that
| you're describing as desirable is the current state of the
| world, and is the thing that is being forbidden here; this
| regulation is explicitly targeted at getting Apple to stop
| using their alternative
| "HyperSuperCoolRoundedCornerCharger" as you put it, and to
| change their product to use USB-C.
| geraneum wrote:
| This is an unrealistic view of how current standards are
| introduced, approved and adopted. Interesting that you
| mentioned Apple, when they are using their significant market
| share to push lightning down their customers throats. The
| standards mentioned, are approved mostly by consortiums of
| big enterprises. So in a sense, there's already a committee
| that evaluates and passes them. You also find the usual
| suspects among them i.e. Apple, IBM, HP, Google, etc. there's
| no small startup there.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| Melatonic wrote:
| FINALLY
| mlindner wrote:
| Imagine they had made this dumb decision back when Micro USB was
| the standard. We would have never gotten anything better than
| Micro USB. Governments shouldn't be in the market of mandating
| that a specific technical standards must be used as it freezes
| innovation.
|
| Also purely in terms of usability, the Apple thunderbolt plug is
| easier to clean and less error prone on insertion as it self-
| centers.
| nayuki wrote:
| Thunderbolt has the same connector as USB-C. Surely you mean
| Apple Lightning.
| samzub wrote:
| It looks like they did at the time :
| https://www.engadget.com/2010-12-29-european-standardization...
|
| I think standardization does not harm innovation. With more
| actors working on the same standard, it can evolve and get
| better while consumers are able to reuse hardware (here, phone
| chargers)
| mlindner wrote:
| > I think standardization does not harm innovation.
|
| Standardization isn't the problem. Enforced standardization
| is the problem. Standardization is beneficial when done by
| the industry because it's a collaborative process where
| everyone works together to create standards that are mutually
| beneficial. When the government comes in and enforces an
| already created industry standard it becomes impossible to
| change or improve it. This has happened in many industries
| where things are now done "just because" as the law enforced
| a now very outdated standard.
|
| And no, the government doesn't create standards, they all
| come from industry originally.
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