[HN Gopher] EU law mandating universal chargers for devices come...
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EU law mandating universal chargers for devices comes into force
Author : belter
Score : 260 points
Date : 2024-12-28 21:20 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.france24.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.france24.com)
| out_of_protocol wrote:
| Nothing about USB-PD in the law? Charging at 5W is not funny
| Const-me wrote:
| I'm not sure it matters; I hope market economy should do the
| rest. I believe it's slightly cheaper to manufacture a device
| with a single USB-C port which supports PD, compared to a
| device with two ports, one 5W USB-C and some other port for
| faster charging.
|
| A reason to not demand USB-PD, such law would prevent upgrades
| to later better version of that thing.
| orra wrote:
| > A reason to not demand USB-PD, such law would prevent
| upgrades to later better version of that thing.
|
| Can we apply some common sense please? You're right that not
| allowing revised standards would be silly. So, they simply
| update the law to reference newer versions of the standard.
| https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg_del/2023/1717/oj
| cortesoft wrote:
| How is a better standard going to be developed, though?
| Manufacturers aren't going to innovate, since they aren't
| allowed to sell anything besides USB-C.... so who is going
| to do the research and development for better designs, and
| how are we going to compare different possible improvements
| if manufacturers aren't allowed to try out anything new?
| rocqua wrote:
| Stabdards development is very much done to push
| regulators to adapt new things. The incentive is either
| to be able to develop new products that give a reason to
| upgrade, or royalties from the standard, or patent
| license money.
| robin_reala wrote:
| They are allowed to try out new stuff as long as the
| baseline is also met. Hence no problem for Apple with
| MagSafe for example, because their laptops also have
| USB-C charging.
| sofixa wrote:
| > I hope market economy should do the rest
|
| Like it resulted in standardising on USB C? Oh wait, the EU
| had to force everyone.
|
| > A reason to not demand USB-PD, such law would prevent
| upgrades to later better version of that thing
|
| The EU has got you covered, there are provisions on updating
| the mandated standard.
| ChocolateGod wrote:
| The legislation covers radio equipment up to 100W, also power
| delivery is directly mentioned.
|
| _For 'fast' charging, the radio equipment listed in Part I of
| Annex Ia, if it can be recharged by means of wired charging at
| voltages higher than 5 volts, currents higher than 3 amperes or
| powers higher than 15 watts, must: (a) incorporate the USB
| Power Delivery (USB PD), as described in the standard EN IEC
| 62680-1-2 (as referenced in Annex Ia); and (b) allow for the
| full functionality of the said USB PD if it incorporates any
| additional charging protocol.
|
| 26. Is a radio equipment allowed to support a higher charging
| power (e.g. 40 W) when using a proprietary charging protocol
| than when using USB PD (e.g. 30 W)?
|
| The RED (in its Annex Ia, Part I, point 3.2), ensures
| interoperability with different charging protocols. For that
| purpose, radio equipment which is subject to the 'common
| charger' rules must 'ensure that any additional charging
| protocol allows for the full functionality of the USB Power
| Delivery referred to in point 3.1, irrespective of the charging
| device used.'*
|
| Source: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
| content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ:C_202..._
| wcoenen wrote:
| This is about Directive (EU) 2022/2380[1]. It does mention USB-
| PD:
|
| > _In so far as they are capable of being recharged by means of
| wired charging at voltages higher than 5 Volts, currents higher
| than 3 Amperes or powers higher than 15 Watts, the categories
| or classes of radio equipment referred to in point 1 of this
| Part shall:_
|
| > _3.1. incorporate the USB Power Delivery, as described in the
| standard EN IEC 62680-1-2:2021 "Universal serial bus interfaces
| for data and power - Part 1-2: Common components - USB Power
| Delivery specification";_
|
| [1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
| content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv%...
| orra wrote:
| This hopefully means the end to standards-violating nonsense
| like SuperVOOC? Originally SuperVOOC wasn't USB-PD compatible
| at all. Now, AIUI, SuperVOOC is partly USB-PD compatible, but
| only to lower wattages.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| Why would it? If you can charge the phone with PD, but also
| with proprietary standards that offer something better it
| would meet the regulation. Seems like the best of both
| worlds.
| orra wrote:
| No, what you describe is not better. Quite the opposite.
|
| First, USB PD is capable of much higher wattages than
| what SuperVOOC artificially caps USB PD to.
|
| Second, proprietary charging standards are not compliant
| with the USB specification, so it didn't meet the
| regulation.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| Again, why would it be worse? There's very real benefits
| to some of the proprietary standards that you can't get
| from PD. Just because PD offers higher wattage doesn't
| mean the overall charging is faster. If you have to
| generate a ton of heat to convert the incoming power to
| voltage that the battery can take, it will hinder how
| fast you can charge your phone. This is especially
| problematic at higher voltages.
| bmicraft wrote:
| But that's just another bullshit excuse to stay
| proprietary.
|
| SuperVOOC doesn't really do anything special that isn't
| also achievable using the PD PPS (programmable power
| supply) specification.
| polski-g wrote:
| Would be nice if this was extended to almost all products, using
| PD instead of the 5W.
|
| I have 20 different barrel plug wall warts in a crate used for 20
| different routers, switches, and other misc DC-powered products.
| transpute wrote:
| Fixed voltage PD-to-barrel cables help fill the gap.
| vvanders wrote:
| If your voltage matches one of the PD levels they work okay
| but many common voltages like 12v usually end up being very
| charger dependent. I've got one of the 12v pd triggers that
| on 9/10 of the PD enabled charges I've used just drops to 9v.
| transpute wrote:
| For auditing real-world behavior, some USB-c cables (and
| interposers) have tiny displays to report live
| voltage/current.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| Wow, TIL, thank you!
|
| I had thought briefly that something like this should exist,
| but then dismissed the thought, since such devices would be
| too much to hope for in the current environment of corporate
| enshittification. Slight amount of faith in humanity
| restored.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Fun-busting fact: 12V output was removed from USB-PD spec
| at some point, and not every chargers support it.
| wolrah wrote:
| Yes, the USB Power Delivery 2.0 spec traded the 12 volt
| level for 9 and 15 volt levels, so not all PD 2.0 capable
| chargers support 12v output as there are very few devices
| that actually natively use PD 1.0 12v mode. Almost all
| devices requesting it are so-called "trigger" devices
| used to adapt older equipment to run on USB power.
|
| I have a fun-restoring fact for you though: USB PD 3.0 in
| 2018 added a feature called Programmable Power Supply
| which allows a device being powered to request any
| voltage from 3.3 to 21 volts in 20mV increments. As
| support for this feature is required for a product to
| carry the "Certified USB Fast Charger" logo it's pretty
| much standard on any decent charger. I have yet to
| encounter a single PPS-capable charger that didn't also
| support the fixed 12v mode.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| TBH, wall warts with voltage selector and 10+ detachable
| types of barrel connectors predate corporate
| enshittification, which is probably what makes PD variant
| possible.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| There is also the reverse [0] for turning an old notebook
| charger into a USB-C one
|
| [0] https://aliexpress.com/item/1005006000000778.html
| dtgriscom wrote:
| How long would it take to charge a Tesla over USB-C?
| cmbuck wrote:
| Assuming a 50kWh Tesla Model 3 charging via USB C PD 3.1 EPR
| 240W, it would take around ~104hrs (4.3 days) to increase
| battery SoC by 50%.
| xethos wrote:
| Considering how frequently my fiancee and I drive, 10% per
| day of the base model's ~400km range would actually be
| enough
| oatmeal_croc wrote:
| That's not entirely true - the Tesla has a few hundred
| watts of overhead when charging - so a 240 W charger would
| probably not get over that hill. You could maybe keep the
| screen on and watch a movie while connected via USB-C.
| plagiarist wrote:
| I agree. I have decided to just never buy another thing that
| cannot be powered by Type C or C13/14. Maybe exceptions for
| PoE, I guess, if I had to use an ethernet cable on it anyway.
| mark-r wrote:
| Sounds like a product idea, an ethernet cable with a USB C
| jack to tap the power.
| lmpdev wrote:
| Unless I'm missing something, all of those are consumer
| electronic devices under 100W and are now obliged to be power-
| able by USB-C in the EU
|
| This legislation wasn't primarily trying to kill Lightning, it
| was trying to kill the 2.1mm DC barrel jack
| foxglacier wrote:
| No because they're not portable, don't use it for charging,
| and are not included in the list of devices that it applies
| to. Even a cordless phone is not considered portable because
| you can't use it very far from the base station.
| iagooar wrote:
| We are saved now.
| codeulike wrote:
| Recently bought an ipad mini 6th gen and I notice that although
| it seems to have a USB-C charge port, if you use a regular old
| USB-C to USB-A cable and wall-wart it only charges to 75%. You
| have to use the apple-supplied USB-C (at both ends) cable to
| charge to 100%. Not sure what is going on there exactly but it
| seems like malicious compliance.
| Retric wrote:
| Or as this hasn't been widely reported something else is going
| on...
|
| Try different chargers, there's a lot of defective hardware out
| there. Also it's at 80%, but there's a setting on iPhones and
| possibly iPads etc that avoids charging to 100% to preserve
| long term battery life if you're going to leave the device
| plugged in long term.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I don't know about iPads, but my iPhone shows a message when
| the delayed charge thing is active. I think it's even one of
| those always on notifications you can't swipe away.
| xethos wrote:
| Delayed charge (waiting to charge fully or charging the
| last ~20% slowly to just-in-time for your alarm) is a
| different setting, though I don't recall the name for the
| "Only charge to 80%" one
| NikkiA wrote:
| "battery saver"
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| Can you tell an iPhone to only charge to 80%? I only have
| the "optimized charging" option, which is the delayed
| one.
| reshlo wrote:
| Yes.
|
| > To change your charging option with iPhone 15 models
| and later, go to Settings > Battery > Charging and choose
| an option. You can choose a charge limit between 80
| percent and 100 percent in 5 percent increments.
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/108055
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| OK, that explains it, mine is an older model. Wonder why
| this setting doesn't apply to them...
| somnic wrote:
| Yeah, USB-C is a bit of a nightmare when it comes to knowing
| what a given cable can actually do.
| freehorse wrote:
| Well, all cables can charge at least. It is not a usb-c
| problem but an apple and /or charger manufacturer one.
|
| My bet would be sth about the voltage the charger provides.
| codeulike wrote:
| Its not the setting. It charges fine to 100% with the same
| wall-wart and a tiny usb-a to usb-c adapter then the apple
| cable. But not happy with my regular usb-a to usb-c cable
| (that works fine with everything else). Or any of the other
| cables in my house. A message pops up about non-compatible
| cable. I suspect the ipad has been designed to be
| deliberately fussy. I'm in europe, if that makes any
| difference.
| nicbou wrote:
| I charge my iPad Mini with a variety of chargers, all the way
| to 100%. None of my cables are from Apple, only some of my
| (USB-C) chargers are not from Apple.
| huijzer wrote:
| Sounds great. Very good charger for battery life.
| delichon wrote:
| Agree. I bought a "Chargie" just to get this feature, and it
| doesn't work with my wireless chargers worth a darn. I would
| pay at least $40 x 5 units for chargers that reliably stop at
| 75% with no software required.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| What? Isn't that a function of the device? The only
| alternative would be to start discharging at 75%, and I
| don't want my batteries to constantly cycle while plugged
| in. I leave them plugged in so they'll run off of wall
| power.
| Marsymars wrote:
| > The only alternative would be to start discharging at
| 75%
|
| Not necessarily, Chargie lets you configure minimum
| charge, minimum charge for a cycle, time to charge, etc.
|
| In practice, what it looks like for my devices:
|
| 1. I plug in my phone when I go to bed. 2. Phone charges
| to 40% (if it's not already >40%) and stops charging. 3.
| At 5am or so, the phone is still at ~38%, it then charges
| to 80% and stops. 4. I get up and my phone is still at
| ~78% charge.
|
| For devices with more software capabilities than phones
| (e.g. macOS) you can use software (e.g. Al Dente) that
| will cap the charge level _and_ run off wall power. In
| practice this means that if I plug my laptop in at 90%
| charge, it will take weeks to drop to 80% since it 's
| running off wall power, and unless I'm doing particularly
| high power-draw things the drop to 80% comes down to the
| battery's self-discharge rate.
| Marsymars wrote:
| I have some Chargie units, but found them finicky enough
| with the bluetooth connection that I've abandoned them for
| devices' built-in 80% charge limit, even if the exact
| charging pattern isn't quite what I'd like.
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| It's likely that your wall-wart doesn't provide enough watts to
| fully charge your iPad mini, and/or that there's some reason
| the USB-A side of that cable isn't adequate for what the iPad
| mini needs.
|
| If you want to test, consider trying with a non-Apple wall-wart
| for which the rated wattage is equal to or greater than the one
| which Apple provides with your iPad mini and which uses a USB-C
| connection rather than a USB-A one. If it comes with a USB-C to
| USB-C cable, use that, otherwise get one that supports USB-C PD
| and enough watts to match the iPad mini's needs.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| That can't be the explanation. Batteries use fewer watts as
| they get close to full.
| dijit wrote:
| That's not fully true, and even if it's partially true in
| some cases (this depends on the chemistry of the battery):
| volts and watts aren't the same thing. You can be fully
| capable of supplying 5v@2.4A and not capable of supplying
| 12v@1A which are the same number of watts.
|
| Battery tech is a horrible black hole that is not very fun
| to dig into, chargers are a little bit more transparent:
| with markings for various voltages and amperages printed on
| the device.
|
| iPad batteries output 3.7v if I'm not mistaken, but I'm
| unsure what they charge with.
| Filligree wrote:
| A 3.7V nominal li-ion battery would peak at about 4.5V
| while charging. A bit high, but a well designed circuit
| should be able to do that off 5V. Besides, 75% is far
| short of where the voltage starts to spike.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > iPad batteries output 3.7v if I'm not mistaken, but I'm
| unsure what they charge with.
|
| For those not familiar with the tech, the term "3.7v
| battery" means that it is about 4.2 volts when full.
| Black hole indeed.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I would expect much bigger issues and failure to charge
| at all if there's not a reasonable voltage on the USB
| line.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >volts and watts aren't the same thing. You can be fully
| capable of supplying 5v@2.4A and not capable of supplying
| 12v@1A which are the same number of watts.
|
| For the layman, the equation is Volts x Amperes = Watts.
|
| Where if we use the common water examples: Voltage is
| electric charge ("water pressure" or "volume of water"),
| Amperage is electric current ("water flow rate"), and
| Wattage is electrical energy ("amount of water
| transferred").
|
| 2V x 6A, 4V x 3A, 1V x 12A, 12V x 1A and similar are all
| 12W but they are obviously very different in nature.
| Pyxl101 wrote:
| More ... peak voltage or something like that?
| paxys wrote:
| Are you sure it is because of the cable? By default Apple
| devices only charge to 80% when you plug them in and then do
| the final 20% later around when they anticipate you are going
| to unplug it.
| codeulike wrote:
| Its not that. It shows a message about 'non compatible
| cable'. And when I use the apple cable it quite happily
| charges to 100% with no quibbles. And the non apple cable is
| a good quality one that works fine with everything else. I
| suspect the ipad has been designed to be deliberately fussy.
| sgerenser wrote:
| Our household has a number of iPads and never had an issue
| with any non-Apple usb-c cable I've used to charge them
| with, mostly Anker branded but one or two AmazonBasics or
| Cable Matters brand. I've never seen an incompatible cable
| warning, my suspicion is it's a cable that doesn't have the
| right signaling to go above 5V, so it's stuck charging at
| 5V and the iPad prefers to charge at 9v or 12v.
| codeulike wrote:
| Right maybe, but why make the ipad so fussy? Why cant it
| chill at 5v? I am suspicious of the design decisions made
| here
| ceejayoz wrote:
| You're sure it's not the "optimized battery charging" feature?
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/108055
| hk1337 wrote:
| I don't believe it's the cable as much as the charging brick
| that is causing that. I have that issue with a MacBook Pro,
| using the Apple provided cable plugged into a usb-c port on my
| power strip. If I use the power brick, it charges fine.
| guerrilla wrote:
| I can't beleive I'm seeing this on HN. This is really a fuckup
| of the industey if they're even confusing technical people.
|
| A lot of phones only charge to 80% to wave battery life. You
| can change this setting. Spread the world.
|
| I wonder how much they pay in tech support because of this one
| thing.
| codeulike wrote:
| When I use the apple cable it charges to 100% with no
| quibbles
| hyperdimension wrote:
| > This is really a fuckup of the industey if they're even
| confusing technical people.
|
| Honestly, we're not that great.
| newdee wrote:
| I have a number of quality, 3rd party USB PD rated cables which
| work without issue on iPhone 16, iPad Mini 6g, MacBook Pro.
| Both with and without 1st party chargers. Admittedly the
| options for consumers in the USB-C space are a confusing mess,
| but I've never had problems with stuff from brands like Ugreen
| or Anker where USB-PD support is specifically advertised.
| youngtaff wrote:
| I've got a 6th gen iPad Mini, it charges to 100% using an Anker
| charger and no-name USB A-C cable
| ggreer wrote:
| I understand the reasoning behind this law, but I'm not sure if
| it's a good idea in the long term. Had the EU passed a similar
| law a decade ago, they would be stuck on mini or micro USB today.
| There will probably be some plug that is superior to USB-C at
| some point. How will the EU switch to it? Only the big players
| (Apple, Samsung, Sony, etc) have the power to lobby for a change.
|
| If the goal of this law is to reduce electronic waste, it seems
| like a better solution would be to tax electronic waste. That
| would discourage other kinds of e-waste (like those adapters for
| micro SD cards) while still letting manufacturers to choose other
| connectors for niche use cases. It would also make it possible
| for companies to move to a new standard without waiting for the
| EU to allow it.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Easy, you have a USB-C port on the top of your phone and the
| proprietary port on the bottom, duh.
|
| - EU regulators
| mavhc wrote:
| Do you assume laws cannot be updated?
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Considering the number of stupid laws that haven't been
| updated, and the conflicting interests every time an update
| is proposed, I answer that it can be safely assumed the law
| will never be updated in most circumstances.
| ajuc wrote:
| The assumption that a law that directly influences millions
| of people daily lives and has close to 0 direct budget
| costs associated with it won't be updated when it becomes
| counterproductive is quite funny.
|
| Are you American per chance?
| ggreer wrote:
| The EU's cookie law still requires a banner for everything
| except "strictly necessary cookies",[1] which means you must
| have a banner if you use cookies to save preferred language,
| default location, or any internal analytics data (such as New
| Relic, Datadog, etc).
|
| So yes, I think updating the law will take a significant
| amount of time.
|
| 1. https://gdpr.eu/cookies/
| okanat wrote:
| GDPR isn't the cookie law. It is a law regulating storage
| of personal data overall. The banners are a result of greed
| and incompetence. The companies made stupid amount of money
| by closely profiling every single individual using cookies
| and fingerprinting. They are in malicious compliance and if
| the behavior continues the regulation may become more
| stringent.
| ggreer wrote:
| I never said the GDPR was the cookie law. I was just
| linking to a site that summarized the actual law. If
| storing preferred language in a cookie (without any
| uniquely identifying info) does not require a cookie
| banner, then I'd be happy to be corrected on that.
| troupo wrote:
| If it cannot be linked to you, it's no longer PII, and
| doesn't require consent.
|
| As easy as that.
| kalleboo wrote:
| You don't need an intrusive banner on page open. You just
| need consent.
|
| If the user is saving a setting like a language
| preference, just put "by saving this preference you agree
| for us to store the setting" next to the option/OK button
| (it's really implicit just like their shopping cart
| example, but this is if you want to be really paranoid)
| carlosjobim wrote:
| You're linking to a fake website made by the private
| company behind Proton Mail, that tries to present itself as
| an official EU site. What they claim will be in their own
| financial interest, and not what the GDPR law says.
|
| From the horses mouth:
|
| "GDPR.EU is a website operated by Proton Technologies AG,
| which is co-funded by Project REP-791727-1 of the Horizon
| 2020 Framework Programme of the European Union. This is not
| an official EU Commission or Government resource. The
| europa.eu webpage concerning GDPR can be found here.
| Nothing found in this portal constitutes legal advice."
| mlunar wrote:
| You do not need a banner, you need informed consent. I'm
| sure there are other ways of getting consent other than a
| half screen pop-up with a big red accept button on first
| visit, but they probably won't get 70% "opt in" rate.
| roenxi wrote:
| Law: The optimum behaviour is annoying banners.
|
| Companies: Annoying banners.
|
| Legislators: Mission Accomplished. A win for the good
| guys!
|
| Situation persists for at least a decade.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| A more accurate version:
|
| Law: You have to get some form of affirmative consent if
| you want to do specific often-abused things.
|
| Companies: We'll do it in the most obnoxious way possible
| ("here are our 853 technology partners... no, there's not
| a 'deselect all' option, have fun clicking") so people
| blame the law instead of the industry that didn't want to
| allow consent at all.
| morsch wrote:
| There's always a deselect all option (or rather, the
| equivalent "accept only the technically required ones"),
| because it's required by law. Sometimes the operator
| tries to hide the option. That, too, is illegal.
| LaGrange wrote:
| I so wish that "our 1234 trusted partners" was an
| exaggeration.
| krior wrote:
| Maybe I am dense but I cannot find the requirement for
| cookie-banners in your link.
| remram wrote:
| Selecting the language you want actually sounds like
| "functionality that has been explicitly requested by the
| user" who "did a positive action to request a service with
| a clearly defined perimeter". This is clearly allowed.
|
| https://ec.europa.eu/justice/article-29/documentation/opini
| o...
| ggreer wrote:
| Section 3.6 says that UI customizations such as language
| preferences are only exempt if they last for a session
| (no more than a few hours). Anything longer requires a
| cookie notice, though they do claim that a less prominent
| notice than a modal is acceptable.
| troupo wrote:
| There's no section 3.6.
|
| It doesn't say only a few hours.
|
| The optimum behaviour under the law is not to show a
| cookie banner. It's not to collect copious amounts of
| data.
|
| You only had 8 years to learn about the law, and you
| still remain willingly ignorant and misinformed about it.
| ggreer wrote:
| Page 8 of the PDF[1]: 3.6 UI customization cookies
|
| > These customization functionalities are thus explicitly
| enabled by the user of an information society service
| (e.g. by clicking on button or ticking a box) although in
| the absence of additional information the intention of
| the user could not be interpreted as a preference to
| remember that choice for longer than a browser session
| (or no more than a few additional hours). As such only
| session (or short term) cookies storing such information
| are exempted under CRITERION B.
|
| It specifically says that a consent notice is required
| for UI customization cookies that persist more than a few
| hours, and it gives an example of preferred language as
| one of those UI customizations.
|
| 1. https://ec.europa.eu/justice/article-29/documentation/
| opinio...
| troupo wrote:
| > Page 8 of the PDF[1]: 3.6 UI customization cookies
|
| What's "Opinion 04/2012 on Cookie Consent Exemption"
| adopted on 2012, 4 years before GDPR?
|
| Edit On top of that, actual quote:
|
| --- start quote ---
|
| "They may be session cookies _or have a lifespan counted
| in weeks or months, depending on their purpose_
|
| ... _addition of additional information_ in a prominent
| location (e.g. "uses cookies" written next to the flag)
| _would constitute sufficient information for valid
| consent to remember the user's preference for a longer
| duration_ ,
|
| --- end quote ---
|
| 12 years since this opinion, 8 years since GDPR, and you
| still have no idea about either.
| remram wrote:
| Sounds perfect to me.
| pm3003 wrote:
| Low-level EU Regulations like this take approximately 3 years
| to be drafted and adopted (validated).
|
| A whole decade is often needed if the member states consider
| a new mandate is needed, typically a directive or regulation
| or treaty clause giving the EC authority and a framework to
| regulate something.
|
| Any update to this regulation will have to wait at least 3
| years _after_ a new standard has been agreed on. And there
| will probably be a period for adoption by the industry,
| typically 2 years. So at least 5 years after everyone has
| agreed what is needed. It most probably won 't be updated for
| the next 25 years.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I'm always confused when I see someone talking about laws and
| regulations as something you can't change.
|
| Care to explain why? If in the land of cable freedoms they come
| up with something noticeably better, they can just change the
| law to allow it.
|
| Am I missing something?
| wmf wrote:
| Legislatures have limited bandwidth and they tend to consider
| a topic "closed" once they have passed a law. So flawed laws
| often stick around for decades.
| okanat wrote:
| That's why laws are written in broad strokes and redirect
| exact specification to regulations written by regulatory
| committees, at least in Continental Europe (i.e. Civil Law
| system). You don't need to make new laws just update
| regulatory text.
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| Regulations to address the ambiguities and gaps in
| legislation, or to update them within specifically
| legislated boundaries, happen often in common-law systems
| too.
| nforgerit wrote:
| The problem is that those regulatory committees always
| put some kind of idealistic nonplus ultra standards into
| the regulations without respecting the real world.
|
| "Sorry kids, no kindergarden here for you because the
| regulator requires us to build parking space for SUVs and
| obeying this means we can't build enough parking space
| for all your parents which would break another rule. So
| we'll do nothing."
| Timon3 wrote:
| And what are the "idealistic nonplus ultra standards" in
| the concrete USB-C example we're discussing?
| nforgerit wrote:
| Parent was discussing systematic issues and I was
| answering to that. In fact, what I'm getting downvoted
| for (the problem of outsourced over-engineered
| regulations that frequently contradict each other) is
| openly discussed, at least in Germany.
|
| Maybe you should check yourself in "seeing anti Europeans
| everywhere".
| Timon3 wrote:
| Sure, but here we have a concrete example of a regulatory
| committee making a rule that apparently doesn't do what
| you fear. So it seems like it's certainly possible for
| regulatory committees not to do what you described?
|
| I get your point, but painting with such broad strokes
| honestly just poisons the discussion. If you're rejecting
| everything on principle by applying a slippery slope, why
| should people care about your position?
|
| Lastly, I'm not sure I understand what "seeing anti
| Europeans everywhere" you're talking about, could you
| expand on that?
| bmicraft wrote:
| Parking minima are a distinctly American phenomenon.
| nforgerit wrote:
| Not at all. E.g. Germany requires housing projects to
| build "enough parking lots" for newly built flats[0]. The
| result is that flats either don't get built at all or
| "green surfaces" (or playgrounds) get transformed into
| parking lots.
|
| So the _real world_ result is, as a society, we favor
| parking lots over homelessness or green surfaces which is
| contradictory to pretty much everything else we're
| discussing. These laws are from times in which the
| legislator thought of them to be a good idea. Times have
| changed, the regulation hasn't and nobody is talking
| about exactly those issues. There's plenty more of those
| examples which can only lead you to the conclusion that
| most finely granular regulation is rather harmful than
| helpful.
|
| [0] https://dejure.org/gesetze/LBO/37.html (German, it
| might be different from federal state to state)
| realityking wrote:
| Of course these get revisited (e.g. here[0] for your
| example) but in the case of parking spots there's a
| sizable pro-car lobby.
|
| 0: https://www.stuttgarter-
| zeitung.de/inhalt.landesbauordnung-b...
| MattGaiser wrote:
| It is more that they never get around to addressing many of
| them, as legislators/regulators have limited bandwidth. Tons
| of things just fall off the wagon.
| nemo44x wrote:
| You're missing a thing called regulatory capture.
|
| 1) no one will invest in new charging technology because it's
| an uphill battle to be approved
|
| 2) entrenched charger organizations with political
| connections will resist change. Their existence depends on
| it. You will only see change as they use regulations to
| starve upstarts and acquire their tech Pennie's on the
| dollar.
|
| But the good news is Europe invents almost nothing today so
| they can just have a friendly debate on which American or
| Asian tech to standardize on.
| mrtksn wrote:
| What Europe does is to educate talent, then that talent
| goes to America and works hard. Then their inventions come
| to Europe to get standardized. Meanwhile, Europe is making
| good money by investing in America, without the mess of
| being an experimental zone.
|
| Notice how there are barely any names like John or Henry on
| those research papers or patents. It's even a hot topic
| lately, acknowledged by the tech titans. As they say,
| Americans don't do much and even if the legal entity is in
| the US, the capital and the talent is actually from Europe,
| China and India.
|
| Unfortunately, it appears that with the rise of Maga Europe
| will eventually have to provide its talent a place to
| experiment things but the techies are fighting hard to
| prevent that.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Europe doesn't matter. At all. It's a dying and
| increasingly irrelevant place. Sorry but true.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Look who was consuming propaganda on Twitter all day :)
| frikskit wrote:
| This is a pretty obvious and desperate attempt to comfort
| yourself. Take the intellectually honest road and
| question why Europe (I'm European myself) has gotten
| itself into this sorry state and then try to do something
| about it.
|
| In what way is Europe not in the mess of the experiment
| that is AI? It seems to me that it has all the exact same
| problems, without any of the benefits (the jobs,
| experience and money) that comes with it.
|
| What you are claiming is as dumb as saying that Europe
| fixed climate change by blocking drilling in Europe and
| buying oil and gas from the Saudis instead.
| mrtksn wrote:
| It's just a swing into a recent hot topic and talking
| points around it, don't read too much into it. Everybody
| knows that US and EU are both way behind Asia and this EU
| is lagging behind USA due to regulations is just a meme,
| not more relevant than if Poutine is healthier than
| french fries.
| frikskit wrote:
| Ok I won't read too much into it. That said, I think
| every responsible European and especially parent has a
| duty to take problems seriously.
| mrtksn wrote:
| The problem is misrepresented in online discussion. For
| example, typical argument is that EU doesn't have TOP10
| companies by market cap and US has half of it but when
| you think about it market cap doesn't mean much and even
| if it did it would have ment capital concentration which
| is not a good thing by European culture. We don't want to
| have some ultra rich giant companies when everyone else
| tries to survive by the scraps, we actively try to
| redistribute wealth and are proud of our better gini
| coefficient. Europe is so not into this stuff that the
| "startup guys" of Europe on social media who are raving
| for accelerationism are just small businesses with a
| revenue of a restaurant on a high street but they think
| that they are early stages of Musk or Bezos. They just
| don't get it.
|
| IMHO just look at the stuff you care about and forget
| using proxies like GDP or market value etc. For example,
| US has the largest companies by market cap but they are
| excited to have Taiwan opening a plant in USA that will
| produce chips on a few years old tech when Taiwan and
| Korea have the cutting edge stuff.
|
| Examples are numerous, it goes above and beyond
| everything. China is not behind US in AI, in fact in some
| areas US is already trying to catch up. Tesla has
| enormous market cap but Chinese brands already displaced
| them in actual product sales. Americans think that self
| driving cars will be ready to go mainstream soon when
| China already has those disrupting their taxi sector.
| Apple is about to become $4T company but Chinese and
| Koreans have all the cutting edge tech and Apple is
| faltering.
|
| In military front USA boosts about how much money they
| spend on military only to find out that they are just
| paying more than they should and can't match Russia on
| ammunition.
| frikskit wrote:
| While I may disagree on the overall trajectory and
| importance of some of these topics. I really appreciate
| your response, in spite of my semi-aggressive earlier
| responses.
|
| I think it's false to think that the value of these
| companies is just their salary. It's about experience.
| Many of today's businesses exist because their founders
| were given the chance to gain experience somewhere else.
| I can't expect the next Volkswagen to come from a country
| where entrepreneurship is constrained to starting a
| bistro.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Oh don't worry about it, I haven't perceived as that
| aggressive.
| ggreer wrote:
| There are a lot of laws and not all of them get updated, as
| regulatory bodies only have so much time, attention, and
| political capital. The EU's cookie law still requires a
| banner if your site uses a cookie to store something like
| preferred language or default location (even if it's not tied
| to a specific identity), as those aren't considered "strictly
| necessary" cookies. GDPR's right to be forgotten hasn't been
| updated to stop abuse by people who want to hide their past
| crimes or controversial behavior. The EU's laws on self-
| driving vehicles still restrict maximum lateral acceleration
| and lane change behavior, forcing vehicle manufacturers to
| gimp their software in the EU.
|
| The new USB-C law could be improved significantly if it was a
| tax instead of a mandate. There is a dollar value associated
| with the cost of recycling proprietary chargers. Taxing that
| would be a source of revenue for the EU and allow other
| chargers for purposes that we can't predict today. The
| current law is purely a cost center for both governments and
| manufacturers. And since everyone agrees it will need to be
| updated at some point, it's the law equivalent of tech debt.
|
| I'm surprised at the responses I've gotten considering how I
| didn't say I was against this law. I just said I'm not sure
| if it's a good idea in the long term. And so far, the replies
| haven't engaged with most of my points. The EU's mandate
| helps big companies at the expense of small ones, does
| nothing to discourage electronic waste unrelated to chargers,
| and makes it harder to switch to whatever will come after
| USB-C. Yes it's possible for the EU to change the law, but
| considering they've started with a flawed law and they
| haven't updated quite a few other laws, I would bet against
| this law getting updated promptly.
| daveoc64 wrote:
| >The EU's cookie law still requires a banner if your site
| uses a cookie to store something like preferred language or
| default location (even if it's not tied to a specific
| identity), as those aren't considered "strictly necessary"
| cookies.
|
| This simply isn't true, and your source for this is biased
| as another commenter has stated.
|
| The EU website has the exact legal definitions:
|
| https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/dealing-with-
| customers...
| ggreer wrote:
| I'm happy to be corrected on this, but your source says
| nothing about the kind of cookies I mentioned. Examples
| of strictly necessary cookies are auth sessions and
| shopping cart contents, not preferred language or default
| location. Paragraph 25 of the law states[1]:
|
| > Where such devices, for instance cookies, are intended
| for a legitimate purpose, such as to facilitate the
| provision of information society services, their use
| should be allowed on condition that users are provided
| with clear and precise information in accordance with
| Directive 95/46/EC about the purposes of cookies or
| similar devices so as to ensure that users are made aware
| of information being placed on the terminal equipment
| they are using. Users should have the opportunity to
| refuse to have a cookie or similar device stored on their
| terminal equipment.
|
| Is storing preferred language or default location
| strictly necessary, or just a legitimate purpose (and
| thus requires consent)? The EU has had since 2009 to
| clarify this, but many sites (including the news article
| about the USB-C law) interpret it to mean that consent is
| required, and thus have cookie banners for these things.
|
| If you can't agree that the cookie law is a bad law that
| either needs to be repealed, clarified, or made more
| strict, then I don't know what to tell you. It's a
| perfect example of a well-intended law that causes more
| problems than it solves. And it's a perfect example of
| the EU failing to update a law with clear flaws. I don't
| know if the USB-C law will have a similar outcome, but
| considering the EU's track record, I'm not confident it
| will be a good thing in the long term.
|
| 1. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
| content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32...
| cccbbbaaa wrote:
| > The EU has had since 2009 to clarify this
|
| They did, back in 2012. See point 3.6 here: https://ec.eu
| ropa.eu/justice/article-29/documentation/opinio...
|
| More recently, see point 49 here (in French): https://www
| .cnil.fr/sites/cnil/files/atoms/files/lignes_dire...
| ggreer wrote:
| Section 3.6 specifically says that you need a cookie
| consent notice if you save preferred language for more
| than one session (a few hours).
| umanwizard wrote:
| Lightning is already better than USB C, and yet a new law has
| been passed banning it.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| For definitions of "better" that don't consider its being
| proprietary, perhaps.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Yes, indeed, some things about it are better and some
| worse. Which means it's good for consumers to have a
| choice, and more importantly, for companies with a track
| record of good taste in designing high-quality
| smartphones to have a free hand.
|
| I trust Apple to make decisions that lead to a phone I
| enjoy using a lot more than I trust the EU regulatory
| bureaucracy to do so.
| kelnos wrote:
| Consumers don't have a choice, though. Up until recently,
| if you wanted an iPhone, you get Lightning, and that's
| it. That's great for you, since you believe it's the best
| cable/connector for you. But if someone wanted something
| different, they had no choice, unless they wanted a
| different kind of smartphone. And I don't think someone
| is going to make an iPhone -> Android switch simply
| because of the cable. That's a bit absurd.
| Qwertious wrote:
| What makes it better? Last I checked, the specs were
| objectively worse.
| Timon3 wrote:
| It's entirely legal to add a Lightning port to a device.
| Why do you think that was "banned"?
| bmicraft wrote:
| Lightning is worse to the point where it isn't even funny
| - 480Mb/s vs 120Gb/s data transfer - 9V? vs 48V
| - 2.4A? vs 5A - resulting in 18W vs 240W -
| proprietary vs open.
|
| Youre calling the connector supporting 13.3x the power and
| 250x data transfer while being an open standard and almost
| the same size "worse".
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| Just stupid Americans saying Stupid American stuff.
| jayelbe wrote:
| >Had the EU passed a similar law a decade ago, they would be
| stuck on mini or micro USB today.
|
| They did and (surprise!) we aren't.
|
| https://www.slashgear.com/micro-usb-formally-chosen-as-cellp...
| ggreer wrote:
| The EU didn't mandate micro USB. It was a voluntary standard
| and it considered a manufacturer to be in compliance if they
| shipped an adapter (which is what Apple did). The fact that
| it was voluntary and allowed adapters is why USB-C managed to
| take off. Also it took until 2021 before the EU decided they
| needed to change the standard.
| ciupicri wrote:
| Then how come iPhones didn't have mini or micro USB?
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| Lightning was a superior plug to USB-C and I, for one, am
| annoyed that Apple is dropping it.
| fredski42 wrote:
| I am curious about this supposed superiority. Can you
| explain?
| wao0uuno wrote:
| It has a nice click when plugging in even on my 4 yo
| device. Lasts forever. Every cable feels the same and fits
| perfectly because they are all made to a standard. I have
| USB-C cables that are too loose or too tight. I have USB-C
| cables that click and that are so mushy I sometimes need to
| double check if they are in. USB-C wiggles in the port more
| than Lightning does. Lightning was a great connector both
| by design and because of the strict control Apple had over
| it. Am I sad it's gone? Not really, but it was nice to have
| it when everyone else was stuck with micro usb <vomits>.
| wordofx wrote:
| Despite what people think. Lightning port survived way
| longer than usb-c ports do. I've seen phones with the usb-c
| port with broken middle bit. Go wobbly and lost contact on
| the board in the phone.
|
| Let's not even get into the terrible standard of usb-c
| where no 2 cables are the same. Some cables work on some
| devices...
| freehorse wrote:
| > Lightning port survived way longer than usb-c ports do
|
| Apple's manufactoring is usually more robust than most,
| so I doubt this is due to usb-c itself of the
| manufacturer. Personally I have seen bad usb-a port but
| never usb-c (and usb-c ports are supports to last for at
| least 10000 insert cycles, as per the standard).
|
| > no 2 cables are the same
|
| We can either have a single port supporting a variety of
| protocols, or, roughly, a port for each protocol.
| Considering the mostly hierarchical relationship between
| protocols, I very much prefer the former. Two usb-c
| cables are not be the same in order to sustain low prices
| for the lowest end of the protocols, else every cable
| would have to be a thunderbolt 5 cable costing 100$ or
| whatever. The problem is not the existence of the
| protocols, but the companies that make confusing
| marketing and the fact that the usb standards namings of
| the protocols is bad (see usb3.1 gen 2) (probably
| intended so by the same companies, but do not have any
| evidence or anything). Otherwise things are not that
| complicated.
| freehorse wrote:
| Well, considering the messy state of the different charging
| ports, that would not have been a bad idea either. I do not
| think it would have stopped usb-c from taking over, in the same
| way that the current legislation does not prevent revising it.
|
| Standardisation is a good thing over all, and, for good or for
| worse, it often requires governmental entities to move it
| forward. If anything, it also creates a leveling field that
| promotes innovation for what really matters. Only big tech love
| the alternative, as part of sustaining an oligopolic status.
| lucubratory wrote:
| Praying to God that this means I can get a USB-C Kindle Oasis at
| some point in my life.
| n144q wrote:
| > "all of our devices are touch-forward which is what our
| customers are comfortable with."
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/16/24272009/amazon-disconti...
|
| (which I consider as complete nonsense.)
| jsheard wrote:
| Kobo still has you covered if you want physical buttons and
| USB-C, at least.
| n144q wrote:
| Will consider that when this one dies. The problem is that
| it doesn't, and works just as well as 5 years ago.
| paxys wrote:
| You won't. The Oasis line has been discontinued.
| cyberax wrote:
| I suggest de-Kindle-ing yourself. Kobo or anything else with
| Koreader is great.
|
| I had contacts with people in the Kindle unit (I used to work
| at Amazon), and apparently the focus is on making as much
| profit as possible. So the Kindle ecosystem is probably going
| to be on the downwards spiral pretty soon.
| dvh wrote:
| So... ( _looks over the shoulder_ ) ... what do you guys think
| about omitting 5k1 pull-up resistors on CC1/CC2 pins?
| sschueller wrote:
| If you leave those off you won't get any power sent to your
| device.
| qwe----3 wrote:
| If you connect it to a USB A with an adapter it will work,
| right?
| hashworks wrote:
| Yes. I have multiple devices with this issue.
| MaxikCZ wrote:
| Wiat, I recently obtained a thermal camera with USB C that
| charges only woth USB A -> USB C cable, but not with any
| C->C cable. Am I understanding correctly that adding a
| pullup resistor to the camera could solve it?
| sschueller wrote:
| The USB-C spec added cc1 and cc2 which allow a device to
| tell the host what voltage to provide. Since not all
| devices need special voltages and an extra IC cost money
| there is the option to tie both cc1 and cc2 to a 5.1K
| pulldown resistor each. This tells the host to deliver 5V
| at max 3A.
|
| The maker of your device like many just switched the
| connector from microUSB to USB-C not reading the spec.
|
| So yes, if you add 2 pulldown 5.1k resistors your device
| should also charge off a USB-C host. That may however not
| be worth the effort as to how small USB-C connectors pin
| footprints can be.
| sschueller wrote:
| Yes. USB A has no cc pins so it will always provide 5V but
| it may not provide the full 3A which USB-C will.
| smarkov wrote:
| This is a step in the right direction but still doesn't address
| my biggest concern with e-waste - the battery.
|
| Because almost none of the electronics you buy come with a
| replaceable battery, the second you buy something and use it on a
| regular basis it's destined to die and be thrown out within the
| next 4-8ish years due to the battery degrading and becoming
| increasingly more dangerous to keep around. Something that might
| be in perfect working condition and could be used for another 10
| years has to be thrown out because of one single component.
|
| I understand that batteries come in all shapes, sizes,
| capacities, yada yada, but imagine if we had standard
| rechargeable batteries like we have standard non-rechargeable
| batteries and things were built in a way where you could easily
| replace batteries like we could on phones a decade ago. You would
| double or triple the lifespan of a ton of things.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > You would double or triple the lifespan of a ton of things.
|
| Until they get dropped in the toilet.
|
| Phones have gotten more waterproof as the batteries have gotten
| more permanently secured (not to mention induction charging).
| It's not a spurious correlation.
| smarkov wrote:
| I'm not denying that there are some trade-offs, but I'm also
| not strictly speaking about phones here. Think electric
| toothbrushes, trimmers, Bluetooth speakers and the other
| endless amounts of electric things with rechargeable
| batteries that don't have the space constraints of a phone.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| > electric toothbrushes
|
| If anything, sealing electric toothbrushes is even more
| paramount than a phone. The normal use case is literally
| getting it wet through use.
|
| Also, anecdotally, I've never had a sonicare toothbrush
| battery die. They still last weeks after many many years of
| use.
| smarkov wrote:
| It's not my area of expertise so I might just be
| delusional here, but from my understanding phones are
| difficult to make waterproof if they had replaceable
| batteries because they require a massive lid that spans
| across the entire phone while having a limited amount of
| thickness to work with and also because they have some
| expectations about the depth at which they remain
| waterproof. You don't necessarily have these constraints
| with a toothbrush. You can have a small opening at the
| bottom where you insert a tall battery and have plenty of
| height left to make a waterproof hatch. You're also
| unlikely to submerge your toothbrush in more than 50cm of
| water, like in the event of dropping it in the bathtub.
|
| > Also, anecdotally, I've never had a sonicare toothbrush
| battery die. They still last weeks after many many years
| of use.
|
| Sure, these exist too, though it doesn't reflect the
| majority of items which cheap out on all components,
| including batteries.
| eviks wrote:
| It's also easy to seal, so that paramount concern also
| doesn't justify waste. And non-anecdotally we know
| batteries die in years, not decades
| kelnos wrote:
| It's weird to me that your line of thinking is actually a
| thing. It is not difficult to make a water-tight battery
| compartment for an electric toothbrush, but also make it
| trivial to open up and replace the battery. Hell, I just
| did a quick search for "electric toothbrush AAA battery",
| and these things exist and presumably work fine.
|
| I feel like modern phones and the marketing around them
| (mostly from Apple) has pushed this nonsense that it's
| difficult to make water-resistant or water-proof
| electronics that still have a user-replaceable battery.
| Unfortunately this marketing seems to be working. Worked
| on you, at least. Gaskets, o-rings, and pressure seals
| are old, time-tested technology.
|
| Admittedly it isn't as easy to make a water-resistant
| smartphone as it is to make water-resistant electric
| toothbrush. But it's far from impossible.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| A toothbrush doesn't have the same space constraints, so
| they can just have relatively large seals, and they seal
| a relatively small opening (enough to fit a AA battery
| through).
|
| It might well be possible to do this in a phone, but this
| sort of reasoning to come to that conclusion seems
| faulty. Like saying "Phones should be able to blow
| buildings apart. After all, tanks do it, so it's clearly
| possible."
| Semaphor wrote:
| > Also, anecdotally, I've never had a sonicare toothbrush
| battery die. They still last weeks after many many years
| of use.
|
| It's the same for me, the whole toothbrush died two times
| shortly after warranty ended, with the battery having no
| issues. Not touching sonicare ever again. The cheap
| honeywell Chinese whatever brand is far more reliable for
| a small fraction of the price.
| NikkiA wrote:
| My (oral b) toothbrush uses 2*AA batteries and manages to
| be waterproof enough just fine.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Each of the items you've highlighted are also quite likely
| to encounter water.
| vincnetas wrote:
| but you don't go diving with your bathroom devices. they
| need just splash protection which is not that complicated.
| i bet inventive competitor can come up with how to solve
| this problem efficiently and be rewarded by market.
| e12e wrote:
| > Phones have gotten more waterproof
|
| Tell that to the Ericsson t888 I washed (phone turned on) for
| a full cycle at 60C. After drying out for a few days it
| worked fine.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| OK? A modern iPhone or Apple Watch doesn't _need_ drying
| out after a dip, let alone days worth.
| mr_toad wrote:
| iPhones are only water resistant. I wouldn't recommend
| putting one through a wash cycle.
| OptionOfT wrote:
| I never understood that. Apple claims (for the iPhone Pro
| Max):
|
| > Rated IP68 (maximum depth of 6 meters up to 30 minutes)
| under IEC standard 60529
|
| But then, the fine print says:
|
| > iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are splash, water,
| and dust resistant and were tested under controlled
| laboratory conditions with a rating of IP68 under IEC
| standard 60529 (maximum depth of 6 meters up to 30
| minutes). Splash, water, and dust resistance are not
| permanent conditions. Resistance might decrease as a
| result of normal wear. Do not attempt to charge a wet
| iPhone; refer to the user guide for cleaning and drying
| instructions. Liquid damage not covered under warranty.
|
| What is the difference here between being water proof and
| water resistant?
|
| Is it because water proof is permanent and resistant is
| time based?
|
| Doesn't that mean that nothing is water proof? A
| submarine then is also only water resistant, because they
| have depth limits.
|
| Lastly, they're advertising something, but then stating
| it's not covered under warranty. Doesn't that go against
| the Warranty of Merchantability?
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| iPhone and submarines have different limitations.
| Submarines have a depth limit because they are (mostly)
| empty shells at very high pressure and the hull implodes,
| which is not the case of iPhones. For iPhones, being
| submerged for extended periods of time water will slowly
| get in at very low rates, but given enough time it will
| accumulate to significant quantities to do damage.
| eviks wrote:
| It wasn't a dip?
| jcgl wrote:
| The Samsung Galaxy S5 was IP67, with a fully toolless, user-
| replaceable battery (not to mention SIM card!).
|
| That was back in 2014.
| ksenzee wrote:
| That was a great phone. Still miss it.
| madmask wrote:
| The battery of my diving torch is removable.. and of course
| doesn't flood after 40 meters dives. This is a marketing
| excuse
| wolrah wrote:
| I am certainly very pro-removable-battery, but I feel like
| it's a safe bet your diving torch uses a round screw-on
| battery cover that is easy to get a reliable seal with even
| pressure across the whole thing compared to a flat
| rectangular opening like a phone battery. They are not
| comparable.
| vincnetas wrote:
| it looks like you thinking about the excuses not the
| solutions. if you can't solve this problem does not mean
| that there is no one in the market who can't. and so we
| as consumers will reward the one who can't solve these
| new constraints presented by regulations.
| madmask wrote:
| Yes, that's true it's a round screw on cap on the torch.
|
| However, my casio G-Shock often comes with me and it's
| only protected by a flat surface pushing on a gasket
| through 4 tiny screws.. the battery inside is a coin
| shape.
|
| So I still think that's an excuse.
| econ wrote:
| It's not hard. Can make a disk shape battery that can be
| screwed into the back of the phone with a flat
| screwdriver.
| goodpoint wrote:
| That's not relevant. Your phone does not need to work for
| a long time underwater. The phone can be perfectly
| waterproof even if there's water between phone and
| battery.
| Too wrote:
| Same with GoPros.
| edflsafoiewq wrote:
| EU regulations requiring portable batteries to be
| removable/replaceable by the end-user take effect February 18,
| 2027.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| I'm going to assume something got lost in this game of
| telephone because this otherwise sounds like an oxymoron: Of
| course a "portable" battery would be removable and
| replacable.
| edflsafoiewq wrote:
| The battery in my phone is portable (I carry it around) but
| not removable without specialized tools.
|
| It's REGULATION (EU) 2023/1542 if you want to read it.
|
| > 'portable battery' means a battery that is sealed, weighs
| 5 kg or less, is not designed specifically for industrial
| use and is neither an electric vehicle battery, an LMT
| battery, nor an SLI battery
|
| > [...]
|
| > A portable battery shall be considered readily removable
| by the end-user where it can be removed from a product with
| the use of commercially available tools, without requiring
| the use of specialised tools, unless provided free of
| charge with the product, proprietary tools, thermal energy,
| or solvents to disassemble the product.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| I think I see where I got tripped up. Essentially,
| they're saying all batteries in portable electronics will
| be portable by 2027 and defined as so-and-so; not that
| batteries today are portable and will be made compliant
| as defined so-and-so.
|
| Because I think we can all agree: The battery on an ICOM
| walkie-talkie is portable, the battery in an Apple iPhone
| is not portable.
| mark-r wrote:
| No, we cannot all agree. I think your definition of
| "portable" is not compatible with most people's. You seem
| to be conflating portable and removable; those are two
| different properties that do not have to coexist. If the
| battery in your iPhone was not portable, you would not be
| able to move your iPhone.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Given no further context, when I hear "portable battery"
| I think of a battery that is portable in itself. An
| iPhone is portable, but the battery embedded in it isn't.
| Contrast the battery pack that something like an ICOM
| walkie talkie would have, which is portable in itself.
|
| Other ways to see it: An Electron program is portable, a
| .exe program is not portable; they are both programs. A
| stick of RAM is portable, soldered RAM on a motherboard
| or in a CPU is not portable; they are both RAM.
| aqme28 wrote:
| Why "given no further context"? One of the people you
| replied to gave the EU regulations defining "portable."
| That's context.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| The comment I replied to mentioned "portable batteries"
| will be required to be "removable/replaceable", which
| sounds like an oxymoron because the entire point of a
| portable battery is that it's removable/replaceable.
|
| The proper understanding was that electronics
| ("appliances") will become required to have portable
| batteries, because most batteries in them today are not
| portable.
|
| If I'm still not coming across, let me put it this way:
| "Portable" in "portable iPhone" is a modifier on
| "iPhone", it is irrelevant with regards to the iPhone's
| battery which as of today is decidedly not portable
| anyway.
|
| If I'm _still_ not coming across: An iPhone being
| portable does not mean its battery is also portable.
| mark-r wrote:
| You're coming across just fine. The problem is that you
| made a sweeping generalization that "I think we can all
| agree" when it is obvious that we cannot. Your definition
| does not make sense to me, just as mine does not make
| sense to you. Neither one matters anyway now that there
| is a legal definition that must be adhered to.
| zuminator wrote:
| The definition of "portable" that's germane here is the
| statutory one that was quoted above:
|
| > portable battery' means a battery that is sealed,
| weighs 5 kg or less, is not designed specifically for
| industrial use and is neither an electric vehicle
| battery, an LMT battery, nor an SLI battery;
|
| > 'portable battery of general use' means a portable
| battery, whether or not rechargeable, that is
| specifically designed to be interoperable and that has
| one of the following common formats 4,5 Volts (3R12),
| button cell, D, C, AA, AAA, AAAA, A23, 9 Volts (PP3);
|
| When words are defined statutorily, that supersedes any
| "common sense" use of the word with respect to the
| sections governed by that statute.
|
| It further goes on to state:
|
| > Any natural or legal person that places on the market
| products incorporating portable batteries shall ensure
| that those products are accompanied with instructions and
| safety information on the use, removal and replacement of
| the batteries. Those instructions and that safety
| information shall be made available permanently online,
| on a publicly available website, in an easily
| understandable way for end-users.
|
| So the goal is for all portable batteries to be
| removeable. However there's an exemption ("derogation")
| for devices intended to be used around water or washable.
| Most high end phones these days are to some extent
| submersible, which raises the question of whether this
| will exempt them from the user-replaceable requirement.
| BadHumans wrote:
| Portable battery is the exact wording.
|
| https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-
| room/20230609IP...
| smarkov wrote:
| Huh, I've heard about this for a while but for some reason
| thought it was strictly regarding phones, maybe because
| they've been making the biggest headlines about it. Looking
| forward to it then.
| Reason077 wrote:
| Apple have already been taking steps to comply with this,
| with new "electrically-induced adhesive debonding" glue used
| to secure the iPhone 16 battery, instead of the problematic
| "stretch to remove" adhesive strips.
|
| Apparantely this makes it significantly easier to change the
| battery compared to previous models:
|
| https://www.macrumors.com/2024/09/11/apple-makes-
| iphone-16-b...
| maeil wrote:
| I'll believe it when I see it. With the way the EU has been
| going, good chance it will get shelved before it goes into
| effect.
| Kbelicius wrote:
| What other rules have been shelved after the date of it
| coming to effect have been announced?
| Someone wrote:
| That is not 100% correct. The wording (https://www.europarl.e
| uropa.eu/RegData/docs_autres_instituti..., page 55) is
|
| _"portable batteries incorporated in appliances shall be
| readily removable and replaceable by end users or by
| independent operators"_
| alkonaut wrote:
| That's not very clear. How easy is "readily"? I replaced a
| few and found the biggest obstacle being the glue they use
| to keep them in place inside (they must sit in compartments
| larger than the battery since it changes size). But would
| it be enough to not have glue and instead Velcro there?
| Would still require plugging and unplugging tiny cables and
| screwing out 20 tiny screws. Or does "readily" mean
| "hatch"? Not so sure people want hatches...
| whitehexagon wrote:
| Standardized and widely available batteries would also be a
| huge step forward. Like the old nokia phone batteries that
| you could pick up anywhere.
|
| Recently I started buying gadgets that have 18650 batteries,
| seems about the only standard around, but trying to buy the
| batteries has been a challenge. I even tried a couple
| European Amzn stores, but they only seem to have third party
| suppliers. It put me off from buying the MNT Reform even
| though I love the concept.
|
| And the 18650 USB torch I bought has some stupid propriety
| magnetic connector on one end, so I'd say any such
| legislation should include both ends of these charger cables.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| > trying to buy the batteries has been a challenge
|
| Huh? I had no trouble getting 18650 batteries in the EU.
| They're everywhere, both protected and unprotected cells;
| lots of brands to choose from, including cheap unbranded
| ones. You can even get ones with built-in USB-C socket for
| charging.
| kelnos wrote:
| The thing that really annoys me is that batteries in most
| phones are indeed replaceable, but so many people just trash
| their phone when the battery life gets bad. Sure, many/most of
| these phones don't have a _user_ replaceable battery, but even
| for high-end phones you can get the battery replaced for under
| $100 (and that 's on the high end; for many you can get it done
| for half that).
|
| I don't know if this is an education problem or what. Maybe
| manufacturers make it less obvious that you can get batteries
| replaced, because doing so would hurt sales of new phones. I
| dunno.
|
| Sure, in an ideal world standardized batteries would be
| available off the shelf, and regular people could replace
| theirs with standard or even no tools. But honestly, I don't
| think the world we live in is _that_ terrible when it comes to
| this.
| kalleboo wrote:
| I think a lot of people _want_ a new device and use the
| battery getting weak as an excuse to justify the expense
| kelnos wrote:
| And if batteries were trivially replaceable, I'm sure
| they'd come up with a different excuse: not enough storage
| space, "it's getting slow", this year's model has a much
| nicer camera, blah blah blah blah.
|
| It's not that I'm not sympathetic toward wanting the new
| shiny. I've been there and done that and generated my share
| of e-waste. But I've managed to (mostly!) get off that
| treadmill. I only got a new phone last year because my old
| one stopped getting security updates. The new one will (in
| theory) be supported for 7 years, so, barring loss or
| catastrophic breakage, I should be good until 2031.
| rvense wrote:
| I think this is changing simply because the rate of
| change for phones has slowed down like it did for
| computers. Just like a 2014 computer is a lot closer to a
| 2024 computer than a 2004 computer was to a 2014 computer
| in 2014, a five-year-old phone is a lot less outdated
| than five years ago.
| hulitu wrote:
| > not enough storage space, "it's getting slow",
|
| Surely wrinting better software will help. /s
| san1t1 wrote:
| After happily replacing the battery in a ten year old
| phone, six months later it was obsolete due to the 3G
| network switch off; the device was no longer capable of one
| of it's primary functions; making and receiving phone
| calls.
| squigz wrote:
| I think this is indeed a problem of awareness - and I'm sure
| you're right that companies wouldn't go out of their way to
| let users know they can do so - but also one of
| trustworthiness: I think a lot of people don't trust third-
| party repair shops because they feel it's sketchy or unsafe
| in some way. If phone manufacturers were like, "Here's a list
| of our trusted third-party repair shops and the parts they
| can fix" I imagine a lot more people would get their stuff
| repaired.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| Yeah, that's surely part of that. There are authorized
| service centers in major cities, but that's not very
| accessible for a lot of people. When I got my battery
| replaced, it meant 2 trips to a 100 km distant city (no
| same day replacement) which also meant a day without my
| phone. I could have opted for an unauthorized repair shop,
| but again there's the problem with trust, these often seem
| quite sketchy.
| edflsafoiewq wrote:
| Hopefully not trashed. There's always the second hand market.
| Krssst wrote:
| Unfortunately, after a few years lack of security updates
| will also force plenty of users to upgrade.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| I could have had someone replace the battery in my Moto G%+ a
| couple of years ago. But it would have cost at least 800 NOK
| (about 80 USD). Instead I bought a Moto G30 for 1 200 NOK
| (about 120 USD) which has a better camera, faster processor,
| and more storage space.
|
| Mobile phones haven't yet reached the point of diminishing
| returns on power, cameras, etc., so it doesn't yet make
| economical sense for an individual to keep the old devices
| working. I have kept the Moto G5+ and I use it as an internet
| radio and to listen to podcasts so it isn't a complete waste.
| Unfortunately the battery is now in such a poor state that I
| have to keep it on a timer to cut off charging frequently to
| avoid overheating.
|
| Android could of course make batteries last longer by giving
| the user control over the charging regime.
| thayne wrote:
| For a 4-5 year phone "under $100" still might be more than
| the phone is worth.
|
| And then there is the other problem that an old enough phone
| is no longer getting software updates, including security
| updates either.
|
| Yes, it is still probably less than buying a new phone but
| you don't know how long it will be before another component
| dies. If replacing the battery gives you another 4-5 years it
| might be worth it, but if something else is going to break in
| a couple months, probably not.
| econ wrote:
| It seems possible to document issues and [partially] brick
| it until a security update is purchased.
|
| Then we could begin forcing manufacturers to sell security
| updates regardless of the age of the device.
|
| Lots of questions and puzzles here that would be
| interesting to figure out.
| gruez wrote:
| >Then we could begin forcing manufacturers to sell
| security updates regardless of the age of the device.
|
| Who's going to pay for those updates? It's hard for the
| economics to work out. It makes sense for handset makers
| to pour engineering resources into developing and
| maintaining operating systems when there's millions of
| customers. How are you going to scrape together enough
| money when there's only a handful of customers?
| thayne wrote:
| It doesn't have to be that expensive to continue
| supporting old devices. If all your devices use the same
| software, and new versions don't add new hardware
| requirements it wouldn't be that hard to continue
| supporting old hardware.
|
| But in the current ecosystem every device has its own
| medley of custom firmware and software that gets
| abandoned when the maker stops selling that version, and
| the makers are incentivized to stop updates to drive
| customers to buy new devices.
| erremerre wrote:
| I am going to say something that I haven't found anywhere but
| it has been my experience with every single battery
| replacement I ir somewhat close had.
|
| The new battery, even if it's Samsung original, it isn't as
| good as new, it is better than the old one, but not anywhere
| close as first day phone.
|
| Why? No idea. I imagine that although the battery is new it
| was built circa when the model was in production and somehow
| that has affected its capacity.
|
| So you get a phone, you pay 60/80 euros, and you get maybe,
| two hours more of battery when a new phone would give you 6
| or 7.
| ggreer wrote:
| Removable batteries are a trade-off. They improve repairability
| and device longevity, but they increase manufacturing costs,
| reduce the effectiveness of waterproofing, and increase
| customer support issues. Battery contacts can degrade or become
| loose, causing phones to power off unexpectedly when handled
| roughly. Customers buy cheap 3rd party batteries and then
| complain to the phone manufacturer when battery life is poor.
| In some cases, 3rd party batteries malfunction and damage the
| phone (or even cause injury), and the customer blames the phone
| manufacturer. Samsung and Apple don't want to see news articles
| about their phones blowing up, even if it's obviously not their
| fault. And yes, they do tend to sell more phones if they use
| integrated batteries.
|
| Rather than mandating a specific solution, a better strategy
| would be to tax electronic waste so that manufacturers have
| more financial incentive to make phones that last longer. It
| might also be helpful to limit the liability of anyone who
| sells phones with removable batteries, or have more standards
| for battery manufacturers, as most malfunctions will be due to
| 3rd party batteries.
| mmis1000 wrote:
| Most phones don't have battery that is removable. But they
| are indeed serviceable. The battery alone is generally about
| 10 to 20 usd. And depends on where you are, add the service
| fee. Your phone is again good for 2 or 3 years. It's really
| just a tiny portion of new phone consider high end phones
| today went up to 1000~1500 usd range.
|
| The official vendor normally have an artificially high
| service fee because they want you to buy a new one instead
| which is much more profitable. But servicing it in third
| party vendors isn't that expensive.
| ggreer wrote:
| That's true, but it's also true that the inconvenience of
| paying $50-$100 and not having your phone for a day (and
| risking it being damaged) is enough to cause quite a few
| people to buy a new phone.
|
| I've replaced the battery in most of my phones over the
| past decade, but that's because I don't like the larger
| form factor of new phones. Right now I'm on the iPhone 13
| mini. Before that I had a 2nd gen iPhone SE (the same form
| factor as the iPhone 5). If I could get the form factor of
| an iPhone 4 and the specs of a modern phone, I'd probably
| be willing to pay $1,000. Unfortunately, like the headphone
| jack enthusiasts, people with my preferences are too small
| of a market segment to be worth going after.
| zaroth wrote:
| That doesn't mean the first phone is waste! There's
| nothing wrong with wanting to buy a new phone.
|
| The law won't reduce smartphone ewaste. It will just
| satisfy the people who want removable batteries over
| sleaker design.
|
| The battery is serviceable and it can be done quite
| easily and cheaply. In fact it's done billions of times
| over.
|
| Really just nanny state regulation, which as typical,
| will not bring any benefit and impose tremendous
| compliance costs and actually make some products worse.
| Qwertious wrote:
| If people will replace their phone over a one-day wait,
| then there should be lots of dirt-cheap refurbished
| options.
| maeil wrote:
| > That's true, but it's also true that the inconvenience
| of paying $50-$100 and not having your phone for a day
|
| Not sure about the US or Apple, but over here if you go
| to Samsung a battery replacement generally takes less
| than an hour.
| hulitu wrote:
| > Most phones don't have battery that is removable. But
| they are indeed serviceable
|
| It depends on costs. When both service and a new phone cost
| 120 EUR, guess what will the user prefer ?
| vincnetas wrote:
| well, batteries must be also certified. so yeah if you buy
| black market discarded faulty batteries on random site, you
| can expect a problem. of course catching all these sellers of
| crappy fake certified batteries becomes the responsibility of
| market regulator, but that is their job as far as i can tell.
| merb wrote:
| Before the iPhone came we actually had replaceable batteries
| on most phones and it worked really well. Battery contacts
| degrading is definitely not a problem for a phone that has a
| lifetime of maximum of like 7 years. Yes waterproofing
| becomes harder but it is not impossible. Manufacturing costs
| are also not an issue since most phones have margins beyond
| 300%.
| fragmede wrote:
| How do you get a margin over 100%?
| Qwertious wrote:
| If you spend $100 making a phone and sell it for $200,
| you have a margin of 100%. If you sell it for $800, you
| have a margin of 700%.
| fragmede wrote:
| that's markup, not margin. At $200, the margin is 50% -
| (200 - 100) / 200 = 0.5.
| tgma wrote:
| _Most_ phones sold have very low and sometimes negative
| margins, actually. The high-end phones arena which Apple
| dominates is actually a minority of total phones sold.
| hulitu wrote:
| > reduce the effectiveness of waterproofing
|
| If your phone has a hole (usually the charging port), the
| water will get in.
| viraptor wrote:
| That's just wrong. A port is not necessarily a hole through
| the case. It may be just a concave area. The water doesn't
| necessarily get in through ports either - there's lots of
| water-tight designs there.
| Dilettante_ wrote:
| That's like saying you get water into your brain through
| your earholes when diving
| bmicraft wrote:
| The Galaxy S5 had a replaceable battery and IP67 10 years
| ago. It's not that hard.
| econ wrote:
| Many repair shops will put old or cheap batteries in your
| phone. Even if they buy an expensive one they don't
| necessarily know what it is.
|
| There are a lot of waterproof connectors on the market. They
| pretty much all work but if a standard is chosen it will
| absolutely be one that works.
|
| I've used a good few battery powered tools, even cloths. If
| any manufacturer made [say] a drill with a glued battery I
| wouldn't use it if you paid me for it. You just walk to the
| charger, swap the battery and get back to whatever you were
| doing. There is nothing special about phones that deserves
| special consideration.
|
| I wonder if the battery can be smaller if you can easily
| bring a few extra. My cameras have very small ones 700mah-ish
| specially when compared to the size of the camera. It is
| never a real issue. Just bring more batteries. Say phones
| have 4-5 times the mah and last 8 to 30 hours. You could
| slide on a battery with a bump and get 60 hours or a slim one
| with only 4-15 hours. That will eventually outperform the
| degrading cell.
|
| I don't know where innovation is at but I imagine we could
| see new batteries with much better size to power ratio. If
| you already have the newest phone it would be a no-brainer.
| guerrilla wrote:
| You have the money. Buy things with replacable batteries.
| Fairphone 5, Google Pixel, Saksung Galaxy Xcover. These are all
| good phones. Encourage your friends to get them too. Let's make
| it the norm. Boycott locked-down unfixable hardware.
| portaouflop wrote:
| Often for me not the hardware was the bottleneck but the
| software - I had some old phones which became unusable
| because half of the essential software would not work anymore
| on the outdated android versions - same with iPhone, it gets
| updates for some years but if I can't use e.g my banking app
| the phone is useless - these ungodly apps are half the reason
| I am forced to use this machine in the first place...
| guerrilla wrote:
| Then you definitely want a Fairphone 5. It currently comes
| with Android 14 (originally 13) and will be updated until
| at least 2031.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| This is great, but not guaranteed. I consider it a _best
| effort_ to do the right thing.
| guerrilla wrote:
| It's literally guaranteed. What do you mean?
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| There is no guarantee the company will be around to do
| it. It is usually a better chance with larger companies,
| but there is no guarantee anywhere.
| portaouflop wrote:
| Hm given that the Fairphone is about 4 times as expensive
| as any phone I ever owned I am not sure if I want to make
| that commitment.
|
| Also 2031 is just 7 years away - my current refurbished
| iPhone that I got for 100 bucks is supported until 2028.
| openplatypus wrote:
| My Google Pixel has nothing replaceable... At least not by
| end user.
|
| After checking service manual I am sure I won't be doing
| anything on it myself.
|
| Sure, if battery dies, I service it with a 3rd party.
|
| I wish I got Fairphone.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Wow, sorry for the misinformation. I misremembered. Yes,
| I'd definitely choose a Fairphone over an Xcover. (I did
| this time). The Xcover is very repairable compared to most
| phones but still a pain in the ass (plus locked bootloader)
| compared to a Fairphone.
| ktosobcy wrote:
| The problem is the same as with "compact" phones - there are
| only few models so the choice is very limited and they are
| usually "so-so" (or have other issues).
|
| The problem is, as always, with marketing - it's easier to
| sell "this is newer/better because <x> parameter is higher"
| [1] so we have gigantic phones with more megapixel cameras
| and higher waterproof rating though I'd argue that more
| people would be affected by dying battery than by lack of
| waterproofing... (no data to back it though). Anecdotally I
| were changing all my previous phones because the batter was
| dying and never in 20 years had issue with phone being
| sumberged...
|
| Those are just dumb trends :/ I would love for a phone that
| has lumia design - it was polycarbon/rubbery, had easy access
| to battery and yet was super sturdy and I didn't feel the
| need to buy yet another cover because, to bump the margins,
| whole effin world is going "premium".
|
| Same with cars so you have less and less choice for a normal
| sized city-car and everything has to be "crossover" or
| "SUV"... ffs...
| postepowanieadm wrote:
| EU cant deal with single use e-cigarettes! Just think about how
| much e-waste they generate, for years nothing has been done
| about it. On the contrary: when recently Polish government
| considered banning them, they have stepped down because it
| would require notifying the EU(also "lobbying" aka corruption.
| One person present at the meeting when the matter was discussed
| couldn't recall on whose behalf he was there, but treated to
| sue if called a lobbyist).
| raverbashing wrote:
| I think Ireland has banned single use vape devices, seems
| like Poland had a different issue
| alkonaut wrote:
| Which devices don't have replaceable batteries? No iPhone had a
| battery that couldn't be replaced for maybe 10% or the purchase
| cost or so. Why do people consider a smartphone with a degraded
| battery "e-waste"? Just go have the battery replaced?
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| My Asus ZenFone 3 - I cannot find a battery for it, so it is
| now permanently connected to an USB cable doing other stuff
| than being a mobile phone.
|
| There is a huge diversity in phone and battery models, it is
| easy to find a replacement for some, difficult or impossible
| for others.
| oulipo wrote:
| At least for e-bike battery, that's precisely what we're
| building at https://get.gouach.com :)
| sylware wrote:
| next, restore noscript/basic (x)html interop on all
| critical/utility web sites.
| remram wrote:
| And remove the need for cookie warnings on official government
| websites. Like, why are you using tracking so invasive that it
| needs the warning, on a government site.
| sylware wrote:
| All that to avoid a cryptographic session id in the URLs
| being displayed in the web browser address bar... and the
| user does not care. Sad.
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| I wonder what this means for the iPhone SE (3rd gen). It's still
| in production, will they stop selling it in the EU?
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Yes
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/28/24330733/apple-pulls-lig...
| zzo38computer wrote:
| See gemini://bbs.geminispace.org/u/stack/23176 for some other
| notes about USB, including some notes about charging with USB-C,
| and about the regulations in EU.
| noname120 wrote:
| Readable link:
| https://portal.mozz.us/gemini/bbs.geminispace.org/u/stack/23...
|
| TL;DR -- short blog post where the author complains that USB-C
| cables are not equivalent. No technical information or dive
| whatsoever, and nothing about EU regulations.
|
| Definitely wasn't worth figuring out how to access gemini://.
| w00kie wrote:
| All this talk of "universal chargers" gets on my nerves: you're
| not mandating anything about chargers, just the cable
| connections.
|
| Phone chargers have already been made universal for years,
| they're all USB-A or C. Stop saying we're revolutionizing the
| charger industry, we're just standardizing the fucking cable.
| humptybumpty wrote:
| This regulation has been known about and in the works a long
| time, so it drove device manufacturers to unify their devices
| over their model generational upgrades leading up to this
| moment. They didn't do it voluntarely.
|
| Smooth transition was the intent - not costly surprise for
| manufacturers over night.
|
| Remember, we started from: - USB-A
|
| - Micro-USB
|
| - Mini-USB
|
| - USB-C
|
| - Lightning
| fredski42 wrote:
| Nobody seems to be talking about the port in the charger itself.
| Does the regulation also specify USB-C for the other side?
| Y-bar wrote:
| The European Commission has a section in the Q&A about that[1]
| where they say that the charger side of things will be
| regulated in the Ecodesign Regulation.
|
| Ecodesign will regulate things like power delivery, which
| includes charger and PoE efficiency and characteristics.
|
| 1
| https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_...
| aio2 wrote:
| Great question, I have never noticed that.
| userbinator wrote:
| Instead of mandating something straightforward like fixed-voltage
| barrel plugs, they settled on horribly overengineered and complex
| USB-C. Typical bureaucracy.
|
| All we needed was the equivalent of
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_60320 for low voltage devices.
| progbits wrote:
| So my phone would need a power connector and a separate data
| connector? No thanks.
|
| This bureaucracy has only standardized something everyone
| except a single stubborn, different-thinking company was
| already using for years.
| userbinator wrote:
| Phones can stay with USB like the vast majority were already
| using. I'm referring to laptops, where a 20V barrel plug was
| already a de-facto standard, and other devices that have no
| business being anywhere near USB.
|
| _everyone except a single stubborn, different-thinking
| company_
|
| ...and if the only purpose of this law was to go after one
| company (which I personally don 't agree with the decisions
| of, but this is the wrong way to do it), that reflects even
| worse on the bureaucracy.
| Kbelicius wrote:
| > Phones can stay with USB like the vast majority were
| already using.
|
| You are forgetting that the stance of EU was known for more
| than a decade, if not two, at this point so when you say
| "were already using" you are actually saying "they were
| aware that this day would come so the majority agreed on
| using USB".
|
| > I'm referring to laptops, where a 20V barrel plug was
| already a de-facto standard
|
| What do you mean by standard? These connectors come in
| various sizes and pin configurations, there is no standard
| to speak of. I don't think that I've ever seen laptops of
| different manufacturers to be able to use the same charger.
| userbinator wrote:
| _What do you mean by standard? These connectors come in
| various sizes and pin configurations, there is no
| standard to speak of._
|
| There's only a small number of them, easily convertible
| with a passive adapter; but some of the ones with an ID
| chip do need to go away, preferably replaced by resistor-
| sensing for higher power outputs.
|
| _I don 't think that I've ever seen laptops of different
| manufacturers to be able to use the same charger._
|
| The actual manufacturers are Compal, Inventec, Pegatron,
| Wistron, etc. and they can definitely use the same
| charger.
|
| The point I'm making is there was already a convergence
| towards a simple de-facto standard for laptops, one that
| has been in existence for over 2 decades. Yet the EU
| decided to force them to change to the most complex
| standard, with far more fragile connectors.
| pm3003 wrote:
| I fully agree with this.
|
| Another example: Shokz had to switch from their magnetic
| connector to USB-C for the OpenRun bone conduction
| headphones. I think it makes no sense given the small size
| of their device and it makes it less durable (there is a
| small cap to protect the USB-C from water, which is easily
| broken) and probably one reason they don't market it as
| IP68 anymore.
| gsliepen wrote:
| USB-C is already a de-facto standard, supports a wide range of
| voltages and with enough current to be able to charge even
| beefy laptops. You also don't have to support all the
| complexity; if you just want to power a simple device that
| needs 5V with at most 1A or so, then you only need two
| resistors on that device.
|
| Sure, it has some issues in some of the more complex cases
| (mostly because not all USB cables have all the wires they
| should), but I don't see any alternative that will give an
| overall better experience.
| mentalgear wrote:
| It took a decade, but the EU has finally achieved what no other
| major union of countries has done: mandating a single universal
| connector. As the world's largest single consumer market (500
| million people), this decision sets a global standard, with the
| rest of the world following suit.
|
| The delay was largely due to intense lobbying from manufacturers,
| especially Apple, which profited significantly from licensing
| their proprietary Lightning port.
|
| Next up on the EU's list for 2026: Easily Changeable Batteries
| (you know, what every cell phone 20 years ago had before Apple).
| tgma wrote:
| > profited significantly from licensing their proprietary
| Lightning port.
|
| How significant? Doubtful it moves the needle for Apple.
|
| People often forget Lightning is much superior to microUSB
| which was the alternative at the time (also mechanically
| superior to USB-C), and that Apple was instrumental in
| widespread USB-C adoption by taking a heat for the longest time
| on their butterfly MacBooks.
|
| And yes, while I am happy with USB-C today, I totally believe
| mandating it does stifle innovation. Imagine if we mandated
| microUSB in 2010.
| randunel wrote:
| Which other company sells short USB cables for PS60?
| tgma wrote:
| Are you referring to Apple Thunderbolt cables? They are
| active cables with circuits in them. Otherwise, I am not
| sure which cable you are referring to that sells for that
| much.
|
| I understand as a consumer you get emotional and pissed,
| but even if true, that is a drop in the bucket and not
| "significant" profit for Apple.
|
| The true value of MFi licensing to Apple would be
| influencing the accessory market, not peanuts in dongle
| sales.
| bmicraft wrote:
| $5 Type c cables also have "circuits" in them. It's not
| that hard or expensive to implement an e-markee chip.
| tgma wrote:
| If you think it is the same, then you are free not to
| purchase the cable from Apple. Either way to claim that
| such cable constitutes "significant" revenue to Apple
| Inc. is just hyperbolic/preposterous.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBWnb0ZIlEA
| econ wrote:
| The revenue is in one more chain locking the user into
| the ecosystem. Hard to quantify.
| randunel wrote:
| You're taking things literally, but the point is that
| everything is overpriced with apple and they're getting
| away with it because of the cult following they've
| cultured and are now milking. In my previous comment, I
| simply picked one of the ridiculous things cult followers
| pay for.
|
| They're going to keep milking their followers no matter
| how ridiculous each point seems when someone puts it in
| writing. That's how "the needle moves".
| Terretta wrote:
| It's hard to do this:
| https://www.lumafield.com/article/usb-c-cable-charger-
| head-t...
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| There are about 10 different types of usb c cables, not
| all of them are certified at 40 Gbit.
| burnerthrow008 wrote:
| Not the same thing. Thunderbolt cables have amplifiers in
| the plugs (that's why they get hot...)
| dijit wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| Lightening was most likely a combination of:
|
| * The connection interface was superior to USB-A Micro/Mini
| in both size and reliability - and this was the contemporary
| connector in 2012.
|
| * They had undergone a physical connector change only once,
| and it was not received well by vendors.
|
| * USB-C was not anywhere near ready for the iPhone 5, and the
| 40 pin would not do well in that type of device.
|
| * USB-C and Lightening are _comparable_ on size and
| reliability (saying nothing about speed) - so even after USB-
| started gaining adoption there was not a strong incentive to
| switch over. It wasn 't superior.
|
| * USB-C charging only would be fine, but people would expect
| drivers for storage, HDMI, radio docks etc. Easy to undersell
| this effort in hindsight.
|
| I also doubt that it was a profit motive.
|
| let's not forget that Apple themselves helped design USB-C
| and pushed for it to be the standard. I guess they couldn't
| wait for it to be ready, and given the iPhone 5 came out in
| 2012 and the first commercially successful USB-C devices came
| in 2016 I guess they were right.
| tgma wrote:
| Precisely. The irony is that almost all non-MacBook
| computer still come with at least one USB-A port to this
| day. If it weren't for Apple pushing USB-C only on the
| MacBook, that connector's universal adoption as the primary
| data/video interface wouldn't have been as widespread. They
| legitimized the connector by forcing it on MacBook users.
| callc wrote:
| > I also doubt that it was a profit motive.
|
| One of the most profitable companies in the world trying to
| build more of a moat of incompatibilities with the rest of
| the non-apple world with no profit or ulterior motive? /s
|
| Once a for-profit company gets large enough doing anything
| other than "maximize profit up to the point of illegality"
| becomes a Herculean task. It's a natural consequence of
| capitalism, greed, and large organizations.
|
| Good on EU for being a counter-balance force
| viraptor wrote:
| > People often forget Lightning is much superior to microUSB
| which was the alternative at the time
|
| At the time, yes. But not for years now. Apple could've
| changed the path by opening this as a standard but choose not
| to.
|
| > Imagine if we mandated microUSB in 2010.
|
| Apple would include an extra/expanded connector like a number
| of other device producers. Then they'd talk to the other
| large companies about moving to a new standard just like the
| currently introduced law proposes. This is not a "you must
| use usb-c" law, but rather "you must figure out how to get
| along" law.
|
| Also, this pretty much happened, just without regulation. EU
| at the time effectively said "figure it out, or else" and
| microUSB became a standard for years. Now they felt like they
| need to push harder.
| burnerthrow008 wrote:
| > Apple could've changed the path by opening this as a
| standard but choose not to.
|
| Sure, and Apple could have shipped a free pony to every
| child on earth. But expecting them to do so is childish.
| viraptor wrote:
| It's not for our benefit. They had a better connector and
| decided to keep it proprietary. If they made it an open
| standard, there's a chance the regulation would be
| enforcing lightning for everyone. They don't get to both
| keep it proprietary and complain about being forced to
| sell standard things.
| tgma wrote:
| > This is not a "you must use usb-c" law, but rather "you
| must figure out how to get along" law.
|
| No, this is exactly "you must use USB-C law." Please don't
| reframe it as a strawman.
|
| > Apple would include an extra/expanded connector like a
| number of other device producers.
|
| They did mandate such thing IIRC, just not forced directly
| on device, which is a slightly better IMO, to mandate how
| something is sold rather than dictating how the device
| should be built.
| viraptor wrote:
| It's usb-c currently with an explicit: if there's a
| consensus, it can be changed. See point 9 of https://eur-
| lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv%... I
| mean, the point of the regulation is not usb-c. It's
| literally called a harmonisation directive, with a
| currently chosen implementation.
| tgma wrote:
| That literally means you have to change the law first,
| then innovate.
|
| If you read it any other way, you'd be naive.
|
| Good luck getting to "consensus" with the low end Android
| manufacturers who do not give a flying fuck about the
| customer experience and want to save $0.02. It just won't
| happen before they are forced to do it by the market
| competition, which won't happen now.
| viraptor wrote:
| It has already happened. This is a change to usb-c from
| the previously enforced micro-USB which was also done by
| the EU. So it can be done again.
|
| > Good luck getting to "consensus" with the low end
| Android manufacturers
|
| Are they going to be more influential than Apple? Because
| this change happened even with Apple opposing it. And I
| really don't believe others have a stronger voice in
| Europe.
| raverbashing wrote:
| > This is not a "you must use usb-c" law, but rather "you
| must figure out how to get along" law.
|
| Correct, thanks for reading the actual regulation
|
| It does specify USB-C as the common charger port for now,
| of course (with support for future charging protocols over
| USB-C). And it does allow for technological evolution
|
| (And of course the margin of improvements in wired charging
| diminishes over time - I think such regulation would have
| been more problematic before USB-C came along)
| greatgib wrote:
| So superior that I did rarely see a lightning cable that
| didn't had its connector broken in one or two years
| maximum...
| tokinonagare wrote:
| I had to change a lightning cable once, after years of
| daily use, and it wasn't the connector the issue. I wonder
| what was the people owing the cable you saw did with
| them...
| tgma wrote:
| Mechanically broken? I have never seen a Lightning break or
| get too loose in years. I've used both connectors
| extensively. USB-C I've faced loose female connectors,
| broken female connector to the degree that it heated up the
| MacBook because it generated interrupts for kernel to
| handle. On the male side I've seen bent cables and of
| course even without mechanical failure there are cables
| that should work and just don't for different use cases
| (Charge but no data. Data but no alt mode video.)
|
| We should look at data but USB-C anecdotally have been an
| order of magnitude worse for me and people around me.
| alkonaut wrote:
| I'm happy to have batteries glued to my smartphone
| (replaceable, but only in the sense the main logic board is
| replaceable) if it saves even a few % in weight, rigidity or
| how waterproof it is. The times when phones had battery
| _hatches_ were the dark ages. I used 2-3 batteries in every
| smartphone I used and the replacement was always cheap ($50 or
| so). That's enough. Adding the possibility to user-replace it
| for half that by adding some design compromise like a hatch
| wouldn't be interesting to consumers. For every battery
| replaced, how many screens are replaced? 3? Yet no one seems to
| be talking about making it easier for end users to replace
| screens?
| josho wrote:
| The real next step is standardizing battery sizes. Think of
| all the other gadgets that have replaceable batteries. (Eg.
| Power tools)
|
| Most of those batteries are standard at the wholesale level.
| But a thin plastic layer added to house the battery makes it
| proprietary due to the connection interface. And now it's a
| world of incompatible batteries and price gouging for
| replacement batteries.
| tgma wrote:
| I guess the real next step is to keep selling thick old
| devices as the EU SKU and modern innovative stuff to the
| rest of the world. Apple already has to do that on the
| software side for their AI features. Given the current
| GDP/capita trajectory of the EU, that is likely all they
| will be able to afford anyway. :)
| Rexxar wrote:
| I recommend you to read this Aesop's fable: https://en.wi
| kisource.org/wiki/The_Fables_of_AEsop_(Jacobs)/T...
| tgma wrote:
| Except your analogy does not hold because you can simply
| choose not to buy the product with the connector you
| don't like or can no longer afford as a result of
| socialism.
|
| It appears much harder to opt out of said socialism
| without leaving the country though, so read that again
| with this pretext perhaps?
| duncanfwalker wrote:
| Standardisation can lead to innovation or be an
| innovation in itself. Think about containers - shipping
| containers or docker containers - the most exciting
| innovation in phones is not in the form of the chargers
| or batteries.
| tgma wrote:
| Sure. Standardization led to USB-C which is great.
| Mandate led to nothing and is bad and unnecessary.
|
| Arguably achieved nothing as Android was already on USB-C
| and Apple too on everything but iPhone and would have
| switched anyway soon for speed reasons regardless.
| Arguably, the switch was too early and a disservice to
| iPhone users.
| huijzer wrote:
| > The real next step is standardizing battery sizes. Think
| of all the other gadgets that have replaceable batteries.
| (Eg. Power tools)
|
| I don't think we are at that point yet. There is still a
| lot of innovation happening in batteries on the cell and
| pack level. Cell sizes are mostly standardized indeed, but
| packs not. For high performance and reliability, you might
| want to glue those cells in-place. Or some manufacturer may
| decide to use a more capable battery management system,
| which then requires more space. I think that enforcing
| standardization would be a major hindrance for innovation.
|
| > price gouging
|
| Can we stop using this term? It's a meaningless word used
| by politicians to scapegoat businesses. If they really
| wanted to solve problems, they would go after monopolies or
| cartels. Both hinder competition and thus make it less
| likely that the consumer gets a good deal. "Price gouging"
| on the other hand is about whether a price is "fair" or
| not. Unlike monopolies or cartels, there is no clear
| definition for "fairness". I can call something fair while
| you would call it unfair. You cannot solve people being
| unfair to other people, but you can solve a lack of
| competition. So that's where the aim should be.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| Right, and unless there is some significant barrier to
| entry, whether a natural moat created by past performance
| by the company, or an unnatural moat created by some kind
| of corruption, price gouging alone makes it easier for
| competitors to enter the market since there is some slop
| available in the market rate for whatever good it is.
| econ wrote:
| 50 is not cheap. There are a lot of phones not worth a $50
| repair. They work just fine if it wasn't that they need to be
| charged often. Disposal is also a problem. They have their
| own bin here.
| alkonaut wrote:
| I was thinking a smartphone from $500 at least.
| econ wrote:
| You are thinking of the new price. I mean second hand
| value. In mint condition a phone from a few years ago is
| almost worthless. If it has scratches, a small crack or a
| dirty charge port it isn't worth anything anymore. You
| can buy the same model without the defects (and a
| reasonable battery) for less than the battery swap costs.
| freehorse wrote:
| If we assume a batter needs replacement, that is likely
| to be years after a new phone. A years old used phone
| with an old battery will usually have a bad battery too,
| though. It is more about whether older hardware is worth
| it to invest with a new battery in the first place.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| Sure, but that's objectively more environmentally
| wasteful than just replacing specific components,
| convenience be damned.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Old phones are refurbed and sold. New screen and battery
| and it's often as good as new. A 5 year old iPhone 11
| with a new battery and screen is great value at maybe
| $200. It's important that the battery replacement done at
| those shops is easy enough otherwise the used phones
| become waste rather than refurbished. But whether my mom
| can replace the battery I don't feel is very important.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Waterproofing being a problem was always a myth. The Samsung
| Galaxy S5 was IP67 certified and had a removable battery.
|
| I think this removability is part of a broader push for the
| EU to become a circular economy - at the end of life of the
| phone the user would discard the device and battery into
| separate bins.
|
| That is at least the official goal regarding EV batteries and
| there are efforts underway to make it happen.
| alkonaut wrote:
| It still compromises something I'm sure.
| Weight/thickness/rigidity or something else. The phone
| already has a hatch for the battery: the shell. If it takes
| 1 hour to replace a battery or 30 seconds feels like it
| doesn't matter since you need to replace the battery every
| 5 years and in that time you are likely to take it apart
| for screen repair anyway.
|
| Perhaps my lack of understanding comes from using more
| expensive phones? I use iPhones and keep them for 5 years
| and usually replace 1-2 screens in that time. And since the
| phone is $1k new it feels completely irrelevant if a
| battery replacement costs $50 to have it done at a shop or
| $25 do do myself. If I used a $200 phone there could be a
| difference of course.
| RadiozRadioz wrote:
| GP comment: factual statement using a specific device as
| a counterexample
|
| Parent comment: handwavy "still compromises something",
| but can't be certain what, then gives a personal
| anecdote.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Of course it's a design drawback. Otherwise it would be
| the design.
|
| The drawback could be as simple as "higher cost to
| manufacture" or "higher risk of consumers using
| incorrect/third party batteries". I'd argue the latter is
| a real problem, but everyone might not agree.
|
| As for parent comment it was about an android phone. I
| never used or owned one so can't comment.
| piaste wrote:
| The 'drawback' could also be "unnecessarily extends the
| product's lifetime and hurts sales of next year's model".
| Pfhortune wrote:
| > The drawback could be as simple as "higher cost to
| manufacture" or "higher risk of consumers using
| incorrect/third party batteries"
|
| This wouldn't be an issue if we had some kind of
| standards around batteries for cellphones rather than
| making unique batteries for every single model.
|
| If you could just buy a "Type B" format phone battery for
| a phone this would eliminate the issue. It would be
| similar to the charger market, where different
| manufacturers could compete. This is _toward_ the market
| economics that capitalists so love, unless they're
| benefiting from market capture of proprietary parts.
|
| One-off designs are wasteful and drive up costs and drive
| down quality.
| aranelsurion wrote:
| Adding another datapoint: My iPhone 11 is 3 years old
| (from Apple Center brand new) and battery is already at
| 73%, prompting me to replace it.
|
| Phone costed me 600EUR, replacement after recent Apple
| price hike costs another 100EUR. I'm already considering
| just buying another iPhone next year since replacement
| costs so much.
|
| Since my first Nokia 5110 I've replaced 0 screens, 2-3
| screen protectors, 1 keypad, and so many batteries. Ofc
| this is all anecdotal, for me batteries, lack of updates
| and non-extendable storage have been the main reasons
| killing otherwise perfectly useable iPhones.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| 100 euro doesn't sound all that much to spend on a
| consumable like a phone battery that will keep it alive
| for at least another three years...
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Apple does not guarantee waterproofness after 1 or 2 years,
| so it's a bs argument again
| soulofmischief wrote:
| FWIW it took me 15 minutes to replace the screen on my Pixel,
| took some basic tools but it's a reasonable tradeoff for
| waterproofing. The battery seemed like an easy swap as well,
| though I didn't need to at the time. Smartphone repair kits
| should be sold right along the phones.
| illiac786 wrote:
| It makes it sound like you don't care what the downside
| exactly is, which in turn makes you sound very proselytic and
| not interested in any discussion.
|
| Yes replaceable batteries make your phone thicker, ok. The
| upside outweighs this downside by a far margin for me.
|
| The reason it does not exist is definitely not because people
| do not want it, it's because it ensures a higher revenue to
| smartphone constructors, it is basic capitalism (and I don't
| mean capitalism is bad, it just will always tend to maximise
| profit, it's its nature)
|
| Finally, it is less wasteful to be able to replace
| components.
|
| And to add an anecdote: replacing my battery on my iPhone was
| so complicated that the apple technician broke the screen (it
| was replaced free of charge) and it cost me 50% of the
| residual value of my phone. Wasteful and expensive, in
| summary. Replaceable batteries would solve this.
| oulipo wrote:
| At least for e-bike battery, that's precisely what we're
| building at https://get.gouach.com :)
| oloila wrote:
| Every battery is changeable. The fact that you can't replace
| them without a screwdriver and a heat gun doesn't make them
| irreplaceable. You're also unlikely to fix the TV, but you have
| no questions about it.
| ravendug wrote:
| This is stating the obvious without addressing the point. It
| is implicit that we are discussing user replaceable
| batteries. Your average user does not own a heat gun or the
| knowledge of how to use it to replace their own battery.
| Removing the requirement for the majority of users to have to
| take their phone to a technician to do the replacement will
| undoubtedly result in less eWaste. To the best of my
| knowledge, my TV does not contain a consumable battery which
| is core to its primary function. Sure the display panel and
| other components may have a finite lifetime but these are
| long enough to not be considered consumables by either
| consumers or manufacturers like batteries are.
| burnerthrow008 wrote:
| I would wager that at least 50% of the population owns a
| heat gun. They just call it something different.
| oloila wrote:
| User-replaceable batteries will require additional space on
| your phone's body. I'm not willing to trade convenience for
| a rare battery replacement case.
|
| If you want - you can buy modular phones, pay for that,
| don't force other people
|
| And I'll go and pay a couple dozen bucks for this work,
| like all normal people. But eco-activists are starting to
| say that eWaste is caused by non-replaceable batteries, not
| by the obsolescence of devices. No one will change the
| battery in an outdated device, even if it is replaceable.
| arez wrote:
| eWaste is caused by all kinds of things and one thing
| that is easily solvable is replaceable batteries. I also
| hope that it will be forced for all phones, people
| shouldn't be able to pay a little extra to destroy the
| planet
| oloila wrote:
| I remember well the time of replaceable batteries, they
| were changed much more often than they should have been.
| More batteries are changed - more lithium waste. And I
| also remember very well how when the phone fell, these
| batteries flew out and were damaged, and I also remember
| well how these batteries burn from mechanical damage and
| they cannot be extinguished, because it is a chemical
| reaction.
|
| There are pros and cons everywhere, so far I see more
| cons.
| audunw wrote:
| I have replaced more screens on my phone than batteries.
|
| I don't feel like focusing on fixing things at home is the
| best way to ensure device longevity.
|
| Creating a demand for technicians that can replace all
| kinds of things on our phones makes it so there's always
| some phone repair shop nearby. Every mall I frequent has
| one. This creates a lower threshold for keeping the phone
| alive no matter what goes wrong with it.
|
| The battery on my last phone outlasted the phones useful
| lifespan, so it's not like batteries on modern phones is a
| part that's particularly likely to need replacement. Every
| user is different of course, some go through a lot more
| charge cycles. But then there's others that often break
| their screens. Or their charge port. If all these things
| should be easily user replaceable without tools, the phone
| would become very bulky.
|
| I feel like we're pretty close to a good compromise, now
| that Apple has a program to do these kind of replacement at
| home if you want. It's really not that difficult.
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| A battery is a 'consumable component'. The closest thing to a
| consumable component in a TV is capacitors, which can live as
| long as two or three decades.
| Stevvo wrote:
| "As the world's largest single consumer market (500 million
| people)"
|
| What, China doesn't exist? India too?
| goodpoint wrote:
| On HN only US exists.
| speleding wrote:
| Those changeable batteries were horribly unreliable! I've had
| over a dozen different brand of phones and eventually they all
| started to black out occasionally when the connections got
| corroded or otherwise loosened up. I really hope soldered
| batteries stay an option or I will be buying my phone outside
| the EU.
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| Outside the EU, in many cases, device batteries will also be
| user-swappable.
|
| Companies like Apple greatly prefer (well, when they're not
| petulantly trying to show the EU who's boss) to ship one
| design to the whole world. It's a nuisance to have separate
| design processes, manufacturing processes, marketing
| materials, etc.
|
| This is why, once it became affordable, the entire industry
| started making auto-switching power supplies.
|
| Unless hardware manufacturers finagle a way to continue
| selling soldered batteries in the EU, user-swappable
| batteries will become the norm again.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Apple profited from their phones, nothing was close to as good
| as lightning when it came out. They showed the world how nice
| it would be with a simple reversible charger.
|
| Thankfully usb c is standardized but it wouldn't have happened
| nearly as quickly without Apple.
| frikskit wrote:
| How is Europe the largest single consumer market at 500 million
| people? Are you unaware of China, and also India? What am I
| missing? Even if you measure in economic size and not
| population, you're still wrong.
|
| I'm also curious, how and when will it be decided that it's
| eventually time to move onto a new/better standard? If the law
| came into force 20 years ago, would we still be stuck with the
| standard of that time? Who decides when a new standard is worth
| upgrading?
|
| Edit: I see now others mentioned China already.
| skerit wrote:
| I'm kind of annoyed none of the articles I've read about this
| have mentioned the agreement the European Commission made with
| several smartphone manufacturers back in 2009, which came into
| effect around 2011: that's when (most of) the manufacturers
| agreed to ditch proprietary connectors in favor of (micro-) usb.
|
| Sure, it wasn't a law. And we went from micro-usb to usb-c, but
| I've read so many articles claiming "the end of a drawer filled
| with different chargers is here!", when that basically already
| happened over 10 years ago.
|
| Some Flemish articles about this:
| https://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf29062009_040
| https://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20110208_104
| oloila wrote:
| "State regulations" is a synonym for underdevelopment, which
| Europe already has enough of, thanks to previous regulations
| raverbashing wrote:
| Yes because the pre-usb charging world was so great and
| innovative /s
|
| Hey remember when the Motorola Razr wouldn't charge on a
| regular USB port unless you had a specific driver (or had to
| use the actual charger?). Amazing innovation
| oloila wrote:
| Yes, all the innovations of today are the result of that wild
| world of that era. Before you become mature, you must have
| problems of growing up
|
| No one regulated the number of mobile operating systems, and
| there were really many of them, even before the era of
| smartphones. Now there are 2 main ones and a couple of
| outsiders, all the rest died in the competitive struggle
| raverbashing wrote:
| Except most of that "innovation" didn't move to sane
| connectors by themselves, it was due to exactly the same
| pressure from the EU, that was beginning to propose such
| regulation
|
| The only manufacturer that didn't do anything about it was
| Apple
| nickfromseattle wrote:
| My laptop, phone and headphones are USB-C.
|
| Now give me USB-C on my watch, face trimmer, electric salt/pepper
| shakers, and every other gadget.
| sgerenser wrote:
| Electric salt/pepper shakers!? This is a thing I did not know
| existed.
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| I knew about electric grinders (battery powered), but I am
| now curious about electric shakers.
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