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Why Don't PDAs and Cellphones Use USB?
evolutionaryLawyer asks: "I have a RazrV3 phone and the charging interface is USB. This means if my cell phone is dying I get to pull a USB cable out of my bag, plug it into my laptop and charge it wherever I am, and at the same time data transfer is possible. This got me to thinking, why do all these cellphones, PDAs, and other devices use funky data and power interfaces when USB 2.0 is capable of providing both data and power in a universal format? I cannot think it is to sell cables, because I am sure they lose a lot of that to 3rd parties, not to mention that it has to be more expensive to design and manufacture these proprietary formats. Look at the PSP, it has both a power port, and a USB 2.0 port. Why shouldn't they cut out one?" While such a question is better asked of the cell phone manufacturers, it is unlikely that the average consumer would be able to get a straight answer. Can you think of plausible reasons as to why companies might be bypassing usable standards for their own proprietary cables, especially given the fact that there are third-party cables out there for just about every make and model of PDA or cellphone?
I would think it's because there are power outlets in just about every building, but not USB ports.
"pr0n": An anagram of "porn," possibly indicating the use of pornography. - www.microsoft.com
they dont like their 'connectors' to be like anyone elses...
"this is the gloaming"
radiohead
By not putting standard interfaces on, people are forced to pay for ringtones, where if they had USB, they could just drag a MIDI right to the phone.
Nothing for you to see here, Please move along.
Most phones also also have an rs-232 serial connection and some of the other pins are used for the initial programming (data lines to the eeprom?). If the phone just needed power and usb, I would agree that the proprietary connector should be avoided.
Ever seen what they charge for their sync cable? Surely they'll miss their 30$ and 40$ if you can get a plain old usb cable for 1$....
---- Fear the mighty TsEA
People just LOVE camera phones these days, and by not putting standard connectors on, consumers are forced to pay outrageous prices for data servece, where if they had a USB cable, they could just mount it as a drive and drag the JPEGs right off the phone.
Companies goals are to make money, not please the customer.
Nothing for you to see here, Please move along.
Maybe they were just waiting for linux to fully support it (as opposed to partially support it.)
Basic and simple answer, USB adds complexity. If the phone had only a USB plug, it would have to be a USB host to be able to allow things like corded headsets and such to attach. Then the headsets would have to be more complex, going from somethign that just passes analog data over the right pins on the connector to a full digital headset.
Power wise, USB really can't do more then 500mA of power at 5V. This is fine for cell phones like my T610 that get 450mA from the official charger at 4.7V. But for devices like the PSP, it would mean 4 times as long to charge, as the PSP power adaptor pushes out 2A or power at 5V.
A: Because they can? Regardless, Sony would have a weird proprietary version within a month of the rest of the industry picking a standard. They'd call it Secure Sync (R), and charge you $85 for the privilege of not being to upload MP3s.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
The separate power plug requires a wall wart. They could instead use a different wall wart which ended in a USB plug with power pins only, I bet. Then one wall wart would work with any device, you wouldn't have to worry about plugging the cell phone into the PDA's wall wart and fry the innards.
But USB power is limited. It might be too limited for recharging a cell phone.
Infuriate left and right
Cellphone companies make a huge profit on the accessories. Even when there are thrid-party cables, most consumers will simply buy the original manufacturer's cables when the phone is purchased.
It's 500mW max iirc, which is enough to keep most portable devices running, but would make charging really slow.
If they were to go to a standard connection Firewire might be nice at 12-60Wats.
But in the mean time, they'll generally use custom connectors for charging.
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
USB is limited to 2.5W of power. If a device needs more power than that, you can't run it from USB power.
--
Twoflower
If I can make my own ringtones and zip 'em over to my cellphone using USB, why would I ever buy the phone company's $1.99 tones?
No USB due to revenue loss. "We wouldn't want ease of use or flexibility for the consumer, would we? No no, we need to stick it to our customers... Stick it until they die."
Mayhap this is why cellphone tech is lightyears ahead in Europe and Asia, because the greedy bastards in charge know the limit?
Most of the connectors on PDAs and cell phones handle a lot more than just power and an interface for a computer. More often than not, on cell phones the connector supports a variety of handsfree devices (case in point: my motorola v60i). Most PDAs also have some sort of proprietary expansion port to connect peripherals, because standard interfaces between types of devices simply do not exist, as it would pose a nightmare for developers. Imagine trying to create firmware for a device that's supposed to work with an extremely wide range of hardware and software configurations. It's just not realistic.
Perhaps we need a set of standards governing PDA and cell phone peripherals...
My other Sig is
From http://www.usb.org/developers/usbfaq/#pow1
1. How much power does a system in S3 need to supply to USB?
----
A: 500mA per USB port. See section 7.2.3 for the details of device behavior during suspend and resume.
----
Presumably this has something to do with it. HTH. HAND.
Camera phone? Take all the photos you like, but it's X cents per photo to get them of your phone. Address book backup? Sure, it's only X dollars a month for automatic backups! Want games on your Java enabled phone? Sure, we have a selection here for $4.99 per game per month (sorry, you can only select from this menu). Want some GREW games? We have those too (sorry, you can't code your own, BREW is proprietary).
Handset manufacturers would love to put these features in for users, but they don't because then the cell phone companies won't sell the phones and wont support them if purchesed through other channels.
jX [ Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler. - Einstein ]
I also have a V3, and its USB power can only be used to "top off" an already existing charge. if you ever get the phone to a dead state, a USB port is useless. The usb charging doesnt begin until the software in the phone requests power from the port.
another problem, is that to charge a dead phone you need a motorola(TM) razr(TM) usb charger, which arent very redily available yet.
another problem is that a USB port cant provide enough juice to both charge the phone, and make a call. if you talk on USB power, your phone will eventually go into a totally dead state (see above for how fun that is).
yet another problem, is that file transfer over USB isnt possible (it might be with additional software). I can exchange ringtones and pictures only via bluetooth, and can sync a phone book only with USB. totally wierd.
Cell phone companies sell the phones to cellular carriers, who resell them at a loss (at best breakeven on a cheap phone). Perhaps at the beginning of life on an exclusive hot phone the carrier might make some money, but most phones are sold at less than the company paid for it. Accessories (and contract replacement phones are sold at a huge markup (>50% or more) to offset some of the initial loss on the phone. If the end user can buy cheap accessories for their new phone from a third party, the cellular company is out even more, hense the non standard connectors.
If you don't believe me, go find one of Nextel's SEC filings such as this one, go to page 54 and do the math yourself. Nextel paid $2.0 billion for handsets and accessories in 2004, and sold them for $1.4 billion. (The second line relates to an accounting gimmick Nextel previously used to minimize this cost). The three following explanatory paragraphs explain that the handsets are subsidized, but accessories are sold with gross margin (not subsidized).
Nextel's subsidies might be larger than other phone companies (due to only a single supplier), but all of them sell phones at a loss.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Probably the biggest reason why cel phone makers etc use their own cables, at least the wall wart for charging, is to ensure that the power coming into the phone is exactly right.
By supplying a proprietary charger they can know that you won't accidentally damage the phone.
I've never checked, but I'd wager that the power on a USB port can have a lot of variation, especially if you're using a cheapo $6.99 USB hub from Big Lots.
Three Squirrels
Why sell one power cable for the lifetime of the user, when you could sell one power cable for every cell phone they buy! They also make profit on accessories such as car adapters. If you never had to buy another car adapter again then they would be out a few bucks times millions of users = big money loss.
Apple did a good job of this with the iPod. There is no power cord for it, just a firewire AC adapter and a firewire cable.
A whole usb port can only source about 500mA across all connected devices at 5V. This is not a whole lot of power, it would take forever to completely charge a li-ion battery off of that and require some interesting circuitry. It is enough to top-off a battery, or charge smaller ones. but cell-phones use a lot of power. as power consumption on phones goes down, we might see full charging from USB more often. But it will take some engineering to do right.
http://notanumber.net/
Hey,
Not even a cradle on the 7100 series. Uses a regular USB cable (rectangular plug to the micro plug). Same cable I use to connect to my Sony digital camera. It syncs and charges over it. Even the wall charger is a USB cable with a transformer on the end. It is quite nice to charge off the computer this way.
I do wish it had a cradle, as the plugging and unplugging is a little annoying (the plug is on the left side of the unit). Great for portability though.
-m
http://www.invisik.com
USB is a fairly large plug for a PDA or a cell phone, its not exactly small, but its not big either. There is the smaller USB cables (its USB-B I think), but those are not as common.
Besides, selling propraitary cables makes them money.
It's more complicated to use USB power as you're supposed to tell the hub how much power you're going to draw before suddenly trying to suck down anything.
The current USB charger cables out there are just a bit of wire with a USB plug on one end and whatever plug you need at the other end. It assumes that the laptop/computer will always supply power and be capable of supplying everything it needs. If you plug in your T68i on a bus powered hub then you'll get some interesting problems.
Could it be because a female USB port is to plug devices into, and that any device plugged into such can demand up to 500ma of power from the device with the port?
Sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, you'd have Cletus trying to plug his USB 2.0 camcorder into the cell phone, and ruining either or both of the devices.
Plugging a cell phone into a USB port is ok, plugging *almost anything else* into a cell phone's USB port is a recipe for disaster.
There was a time when USB didn't exist. There will be a time when 2.x is supplanted by 3.x, etc.
Line strength, ee considerations, connector size/design are sloving evolving, but they do evolve. By having a multitude of designs, each device can solve the problem as they best see fit. Adherance to a connectivity standard is but one design issue. I like USB 2.0, but when 3.0 comes out, I sure don't want my device to wait for a "market shift" before I can get one. I want them to compete ruthlessly for ever-better designs.
it's a wireless device
The real question isn't the physical characteristics of communication, but the digital. Your phone is meant to be wireless, remember? Shouldn't you be able to sync via it's internet capabilities? The medium has better hurdles to span in making it's digital connectivity faster, richer and more universal.
Excepting cellphones, most devices I see use a readily available round power connector. The transformer is clearly marked with the polarity and electricial info. One can just measure the size and hit up any electronics supplier and find a matching connector.
I can also see it as protection, if you can physically connect up a USB-power only cable to something that isnt expecting power on its USB port then someone will do so and destroy it.
Who would have thought that cables would be the printer ink of the cell phone industry?
Why not use USB? Because fucktards designed the USB jack to be rectangular, and you have to look up its ass everytime to figure out which side that little plastic spacer is on. That's crappy and prone to breakage.
(sweetly:) Next question please?
I have a cable for my Treo 650 that will allow it to charge via USB. This is both a cell phone and a PDA. This is also, by no means, the only cell phone or PDA that can be changed via USB. You just need to get the right cable.
I would not want to wait to charge my Treo via USB, though. It takes forever! I forget what wattage the USB port is limited to, but it's far less than the real charger for my Treo.
I don't find USB any more annoying than other connectors in that respect. With DB connectors one side is a bit shorter than the other and that isn't very obvious. PS2 mouse and keyboard connectors are circular. North American standard AC power connectors are polarized with one prong just a bit larger than the other.
I hold up the other end of a typical USB cable as an example of a good design. I haven't found any way to screw that up yet.
Yup, I used to work for Sony. When it comes to consumer electronics they offer high quality devices with drastically overinflated prices. When it comes to anything they classify as a "PC" device they offer shit support/warranty, less features, rebranded technology, the cheapest crap hardware they can find with the right specs, and a REALLY overinflated price.
Pick any desktop pc in sony's product line. Replace each piece of hardware with the best hardware out there that meets the same list of specs, add 400 for putting the pieces together. The price in every case would half or less than half of what Sony charges for their version with parts of lower quality than those found in a POS dell or gateway.
There are problems with USB 2 when it comes to power. What do you get, 5v, 500ma? Not enough to do much with. True, there are devices as large as flatbed scanners that can run entirely off this power, but it's not much.
If you try to come up with USB 3, however, and specify that it should supply more power, the problem will be that maybe the computer can't supply that much due to its power supply and requirements, etc. Which brings me to the next point: USB 3 should have some sort of specification that says a computer can decide how much power to supply through USB, based on factors like its own power usage. Then, when you plug in a device, it would automatically figure out if it has enough power or not, and perhaps a message could pop up on the computer, telling you that you're trying to overload the USB power supply.
Of course, then you'd have to take into consideration the gauge and insulation of the USB wire itself, and you'll end up with the need to put a tiny chip into compatible wires which would tell the computer what the max current carrying capacity of that cable is rated at. This all sounds quite complicated, but there's no reason why a computer can't push more power out of a USB port if all these things are taken into consideration, and all the proper power handshaking takes place from the USB port down the chain (if there are hubs, etc. in the way) all the way to individual devices. Also, you're probably not using all devices in max-power-usage mode at the same time, so the devices might talk to each other and enter power-save mode when necessary to allow other devices to be used.
This seems, again, like a very complicated solution looking for a problem, but it shouldn't be too difficult to do for next-generation USB devices, and the advantages are pretty big: Right here on my desk, I have a 6-outlet strip that isn't enough. Currently plugged in are my laptop, Mac Mini, 17" display, ethernet hub, and printer; These are just the computer peripherals. I also have, in the same area, a phone charger, small television, desk lamp, and DVD player. I need a USB hub for the Mac Mini because there simply aren't enough ports on it for all the crap I'd like to have plugged in at one time; therefore, I have so far refrained from buying a USB hub. There are not enough outlets on this wall to handle all of this. If I add another strip, I'll probably blow a fuse if all of this is on at the same time. A new USB protocol which takes into consideration a whole range of power options, negotiated in real-time by the devices themselves as they are plugged in, used, and removed, and taking into consideration the power-supplying capability of the computer, the capacity of the wires themselves, and the usage of the devices, really offers an opportunity to remove many plugs from many devices that would otherwise need them, and to greatly reduce the number of wires running across and under many desks; This would require more careful engineering by already-overworked electronics engineers who are concerned about power consumption, but I believe that with added innovation, increased customer demand for this kind of service, and the advances made each day in semiconductors, this will provide so much value for the consumer that it's worth it.
I wish they'd use that at both ends and provide some way to lock it in. The USB cable from my laptop is the only one that tends to fall out when I pull it off the nightstand.
:(
Of course if it locked, I'd just drag the hub off too
(Oh FYI those tiny $10 usb hubs from walmart do work well, amazingly enough, although their max cable length seems to be about 9 feet for high speed data transfer)
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Almost every recently made cell phone has a USB charging cable available.
:)
An even higher portion of modern PDAs do.
Both the palmOne Treo 600 and 650 smartphones have USB charging cables available for reasonable prices. I'm not quite sure why they don't come with one by default, the "standard" sync cable is kind of crappy.
As to not using standard USB connectors on the phone - They're the wrong form factor. USB connectors are WAY too large, especially considering that numerous other connections (audio I/O, serial I/O) also need to be available, hence requiring a higher-density connector.
I love my BoxWave miniSync. Charges, syncs, and retracts to a tiny little package, and I got it WITH a car USB power adapter for 2/3 the price of any of palmOne's cables.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
C'mon... stop being so logical. You're scaring me! :D
The friendliest digital photography forums on the net!
I had a similar question in my journal http://ask.slashdot.org/~gmletzkojr/journal/. I repeat it here for you reading ease...
Today is Thursday, and I am into my usual week of travel to NJ from Tuesday morning to Friday afternoon. Today I am wondering the topic of cell phone chargers. Why are there so many different interfaces to phones via the charger? I am thinking of this because my charger is sitting home, 4 hours away. And my battery is nearly dead. Now I know that I can just go to Wal*Mart and pick up a new one (even though I hate Wal*Mart with everything that I am), but that isn't the point. When my car battery goes dead, I don't have to go back to VW in order to get the battery charged - I can just to to any charger and amazingly, it recharges the battery. When my flashlight goes dead, I don't need to call Maglight and wait 6-8 weeks for Maglight batteries - any local store with D cells works. So why is it that we can stand to have cell phones everywhere, but not have even a universal charger interface in the phone?
I for one welcome our new [insert main topic] overlords.
Some providers want the same/same type of power cable across their product lines. For example, I can buy two different chargers for my phone - one from the handset company and one from the service provider. The bricks are identical but the plugs are different.
Part of this is the branding or design philosophy of the service provider. In my case, they got it right. Their connector is much easier to use than the one the handset company sells.
I wanted to be able to transfer data off of my cell phone. I also wanted to be able to add my own ring tones.
I found a phone that let me do this. I got the MPX220 smart phone. This phone connects through USB both for charging and data tranfer. I just plug in and drag an mp3 or midi to the phone and I have a new ring tone. My phone also plays music. I have minor complaints about some of the software but overall I'm very happy with this phone.
Stop whinning about your phone. Get a better one. Phone you want is out there. If you look around you can even get phones like this free with a two year contract.
The RazrV3 is for people who want style more than functionality.
Just buy a blackberry. Leave the toy phones for the kiddies.
+++OK ATH
The restrictions on phones over in the US is ridiculous. I got an NEC e616 flipphone in February with all the goodies (dual video cameras, mp3, video calls, 3G network @ 384Kbps) for just under $200 Aust with 3 Mobile. It includes a USB cable and there are no file restrictions on this phone other than content bought through the 3 services (music videos, etc) cannot be copied or moved. And the calendar automatically synchronises over the 3G internet connection with my PC. American mobile carriers are an absolute joke, simple as that.
To make a proper USB port on a cell phone, it must be able to supply 500 mA at 5V through the USB port. This actually exceeds the power usage of the phone itself, and therefore drastically reduces battery life when a power-needing unit is attached. Even though the power usage could not reasonably be attributed to the phone, most people will definately blame the *phone* for "running out of power way too soon".
I would like one though - imagine putting a printer on the camera phone, or putting a real keyboard on it to type SMS'es at the office.
Black holes are where God divided by zero
I have a really cool 5 port 10/100 Switch with Uplink that come out-of-the-back with both a 5V DC plug & and cool little USB to DC plug.
So you can power it off the mains or if out in the field from the USB port on a laptop, I even powered it off my iRiver IH340. Which was pretty cool.
I just wish this could be done on all devices.
I work with Shitty Palm Zire 21,Zire 71, Zire 72,Treo 600, T3 & T5..., all with different power supplys and USB leads its a fucking joke....
I got a Blackberry 7510 at work recently. It comes with:
USB to micro USB cable
Standard microphone/earpiece to standard connector
USB to power outlet adapter
No propritary connectors or cables.
Works great and I can't mash the adapter easily.
I also have a V3, and its USB power can only be used to "top off" an already existing charge. if you ever get the phone to a dead state, a USB port is useless. The usb charging doesnt begin until the software in the phone requests power from the port.
The problem here is that an actual computer needs to be told to provide power to the device by the device itself. A totally dead device clearly cannot do that. However, anything above totally dead, including when it is "off" has enough juice to talk to the computer and tell it to ramp up the power output to charge. Even a trickle of charge would be enough. It does work.
another problem, is that to charge a dead phone you need a motorola(TM) razr(TM) usb charger, which arent very redily available yet.
You mean other than the AC adapter that comes with your phone?
The miniUSB port on the thing is the *only* connection the Razr has. The AC adapter just provides power to that connection regardless of WTF the phone asks for. It's just a simple transformer.
And for charging it from a computer, any standard USB->miniUSB cable works.
another problem is that a USB port cant provide enough juice to both charge the phone, and make a call. if you talk on USB power, your phone will eventually go into a totally dead state (see above for how fun that is).
Most cell phones are like this. They don't charge while talking. I've never seen one that isn't like this, in fact. Generally it's because they use more power to communicate than the power port provides, even when you have a dedicated power port. The use of USB power connectors isn't the problem there.
yet another problem, is that file transfer over USB isnt possible (it might be with additional software). I can exchange ringtones and pictures only via bluetooth, and can sync a phone book only with USB. totally wierd.
File transfer is possible over the wired connection. More so than over the bluetooth, in fact, as you need the wired connection to be able to flash the phone with new software and such. Check out motorola.howardforums.com for more info.
And the phone book sync works fine over USB. You can send/receive VCF files using the OBEX object transfer without any extra software other than the bluetooth stack, and do complete syncs if you have the right software to deal with it.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I wouldn't use it on a day-to-day basis, but when I travel, it's all I need. I get about 2 days worth of usage on my Treo 600, so plugging it into a USB port at the end of the day means that I wake up in the morning with a fully charged phone as well as a fully charged laptop.
It's also good to top off the phone if you forget to charge it, which I've been known to do every so often. Sure, it's not ideal, and if you've got a dead phone, it's the crappiest charging solution you can come up with, but most of the time, it's very convenient, and that more than makes up for trickle charge.
Raptor
"Procrastination is great. It gives me a lot more time to do things that I'm never going to do."
I was looking at car chargers for my SP when I found one from Pelican. It has a self-winding cord with a USB port on the end which I can use to plug in to a computer(won't do data obviously) or to a special lighter plug for the car that has a USB port. It makes a perfect travel charger as it's much smaller than the standard AC adapter, even with the car connector. It works perfectly and doesn't even need any power to negotiate a USB signal like the phones that some others have mentioned. I agree that this kind of thing is something that more devices should standardize on.
Every single cellphone and PDA I've ever owned used USB. None of the phones came with a USB cable but the option was out there.
My current phone has a USB cable option, but it also has bluetooth, so I don't really need USB anymore... but it's there if I do.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
Most likely reason for requiring a separate power cord... USB and USB2.0 only provide +5V power... any device requiring more than 5V to charge or run won't be able to be powered via USB.
Stop using phones made 5 years ago.. ;)
'mmmmmmmmm.... forbidden donut'
You say you've got a 6 outlet power strip, eh? I've got a 10 outlet stip with an extra 4 outlet plugged into it below my desk.
Most of the time, only 3-5 outlets are being used, but it's nice not to have to climb down there and unplug stuff.
Anyway, my real point is that common networking protocols could provide intelligent power supply to devices. If you're dealing with severely limited voltages, it's close to having limited bandwidth. When one device wants to charge it could request access to the charging channel, all other devices hear the request come through and throttle back their usage allowing the requesting device to charge.
Channel conflict resolution might be tricky due to hidden stations when there's a hub in play... but I think it a workable solution could probably be built inside of 6 months using a derivative of the MAC protocol that every computer already uses. Will it ever happen? I don't know, what do you think?
Personally I have a PDA that both charges from USB and charges TO other devices. It also acts as both USB client and USB host.
It's a Fujitsu Loox 720 - look into it.
I mean it..
Best Buy
Circuit City
Radio Shack..
none of them stock IRDA adapters of any flavor.
PDA's with IR sure-- nothing for the IRDA port on your PC...
No- IRDA is not common enough in the USA
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
You're stupid.
And here I was thinking it might get rated "funny" or "insightful," but noooooooooooooooooo.
-- Boycott Shell
I laughed everytime I read this! It's definitely the dumbest plug of all.