Why Powered USB Is Going to Fail

An anonymous reader writes "Patrick McFarland, famous Free Software Magazine author, has written a two part article about why Powered USB is not taking off at home. (part 2 is also available) He includes a lengthy history on why USB took off in the first place, and then continues on to explain what we gain by allowing Powered USB to power all our devices."

Comments

USB needs to add more firewire like stuff

[Joe The Dragon]

like offloading work from the cpu as the older and slow fire wire 400 bus is faster then the usb 2 bus and it can be used to link 2 systems together with out a special cable.

I sincerely hope powered USB fails

[Thagg]

I don't feel that computer designers should really have to think about some peripheral device sucking 50 watts out of a connection on the motherboard. If you want power, get a cord. If you want portable power, bring a battery. Just having one fewer cable on a desk is not a problem worth solving this way.

Laptops, for instance, are designed around very limited power budgets. If you plug a 1000 watt USB hair dryer into it, how long are the batteries going to last?

A solution I would be in favor of is building lower power peripherals. Building 500 GB flash hard-drive replacements than run on half-a-watt should be possible in a couple of years. Building very low power OLED displays should be possible. Building low-power devices is something that is a win in every possible way, and should be encouraged -- the USB power limitation is a great way to stimulate this!

That said, I'm really sorry I passed up the USB-powered heated typing gloves I saw in Shinjuku last fall...

Thad Beier

Re:I sincerely hope powered USB fails

[swillden]

I don't feel that computer designers should really have to think about some peripheral device sucking 50 watts out of a connection on the motherboard.

Why not? Sure it's another factor in motherboard design, but as long as the USB peripheral and the controller can negotiate the power demands, then it's easy enough to make sure it's not going to burn anything out. If a device would draw more power than the mobo would supply, the controller simply wouldn't power it. That would make USB-deliverable power another feature by which to compare mobos.

Just having one fewer cable on a desk is not a problem worth solving this way.

I disagree. Perhaps I would agree if it were only one cable, but it's not. It's often four or five cables. My desktop, for example, has two printers, a scanner, speakers and a monitor, plus the CPU, so that's six power cables and six data cables (including the network). Worse, the six power cables require two power strips (because the wall warts cover more than one outlet on a typical power strip), so there are an additional two cables, for a total of 14 cables under my desk, for that one computer. Powered USB, if done right, could conceivably eliminate both power strips and all but one of the power cables, so instead of 14 cables, I'd have seven. Even better, the routing of the seven would be cleaner, since all of the peripheral cables connect to the computer and the compute is the only one that connects to the wall. That's well worth doing.

Laptops, for instance, are designed around very limited power budgets. If you plug a 1000 watt USB hair dryer into it, how long are the batteries going to last?

Not long, of course, but if I want to do that, and if the laptop can deliver the juice (unlikely in your example, but we could construct another that was more feasible), why shouldn't I be able to? They're my batteries and the power in them is mine to spend as I please.

A solution I would be in favor of is building lower power peripherals. Building 500 GB flash hard-drive replacements than run on half-a-watt should be possible in a couple of years. Building very low power OLED displays should be possible. Building low-power devices is something that is a win in every possible way, and should be encouraged -- the USB power limitation is a great way to stimulate this!

Given the increasing move to portables and the apparently-insurmountable limitations of batteries, I think that problem takes care of itself. Low-power USB-powered devices would have an inherent mobility advantage that would drive their sales over hungrier devices. They'd also be cooler and quieter, which also tends to please buyers. There's no reason to impose an artificial barrier which makes classes of devices that can't quite reach the 0.5A mark completely infeasible.

Re:I agree

[jelle]

USB always makes me struggle which way to put the connector in. Firewire is a little better, but still, you'd think that the people who make connectors would be able to come up with either a connector that makes it obvious which way it goes in, or one where it doesn't matter how it goes in.

We're still in the 'connector stone-age' if you ask me...