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Westinghouse Commits to Green Plug's Universal A.C. Adapter
Ian Lamont writes "Westinghouse is the first major electronics manufacturer that has publicly committed to using a 'smart power technology' that will let people use a single universal adapter to power their laptops, cell phones and other electronics. The universal adapters, which use a technology developed by a startup called Green Plug, will act like a hub that several devices can plug into, and will also shut off the power supply when the device is turned off or has finished charging. The first are expected to go on sale in early 2009 for under $100, according to Westinghouse's CTO. Eventually, Westinghouse and other manufacturers that use the technology could stop shipping adapters with their products, because customers may already have universal adapters at home. However, some manufacturers may not be inclined to use universal power adapters: the article notes Apple gets supplementary revenue from the sale of proprietary connectors for the iPod and other devices."
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
As far as i know, only Motorolas' cells allows charging through the USB port. I might be wrong though.
igo already has this technology today. You can get them at RadioShack, as well as online.
Toshiba can also be charged via USB and Sony-Ericsson has the possibility but you need to activate it via a service menu in most of the phones.
Heheheheheheheh... It's an affectionate diminutive in common use, derived from "lap top" and ususlly used in reference to a lap top computer. :^P
Yeah, us nerds often make up our own words.
--Tomas
Blackberry as well. It's my favorite feature of my phone.
You are so boring that when I see you my feet go to sleep.
Someone has never seen Homestar Runner... I'll even give you the link http://www.homestarrunner.com/
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
The thing that really sucks about Motorola's USB charge support(at least on mine, could also be verizon's fault) is that it does some sort of check, in software, before accepting a charger.
The Motorola branded charger that came with it works fine, and computers with appropriate drivers work fine; but generic USB chargers and computers without drivers get a little "unauthorized" message and no charge.
I'm sure it enables business models or something; but whoever came up with that one needs to be garroted.
The only thing actually made by "Westinghouse" is nuclear reactors. The brand name is licensed out by CBS to Westinghouse Digital Electronics LLC, which is a front for Chi Mei Optoelectronics, a subsidiary of Chi Mei Corporation (Taiwan).
Chi Mei is probably the world's leading supplier of large LCD panels.
USB 2.0 added the ability to draw up to 1.5amps for charging capabilities (the minimum is 100 milliamp). usb 3.0 could up the amperage even more, but again, usb will only ever put out 5 volt DC.
fortunately there are a lot of devices that can run off 5 volt DC, so usb charging instead of wall brick is starting to take off. it's much cheaper to power off usb than to include a 'cheap' wall brick. only window's implementation of usb is 'broken' so that a device needs a device driver and must be in 'active' mode to charge.
besides, if you design the device to charge off usb, you can then 'sell' a brick that costs extra and not include one for the 'price' of the device. both saving money, and adding a revenue stream.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
No Chinese firm owns Westinghouse. The history of Westinghouse is a little convoluted, but it is basically now CBS. Westinghouse was originally called Westinghouse Electric Corporation. In the 90s they bought CBS and then later renamed themselves to CBS Corporation (which then sold itself to Viacom which then renamed to CBS Corporation). Currently, the Westinghouse brand is managed by a CBS subsidiary again called Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Various companies license the rights to use the brand. CBS is, of course, a publicly traded company headquartered in the United States (New York in particular).
So no, the parent is not "interesting".
USB devices have two levels of power they can draw - one very tiny amount, and a larger amount (guess which one charging your phone requires?)
When a USB device is plugged in, it only gets the minimal amount. If it needs more, it has to negotiate for it... and operating systems do this with a driver. If you have no driver (or the amount of power requested would overload the USB bus), the request for the higher power level is denied, and the phone doesn't charge.
Generic USB chargers just accept the request, unless it's for more than they can put out... which might have caused your problem... but it's not the phone that's at fault. (The phone needs what it needs, so if the charger can't or won't supply it, there's nothing the phone can do about it.)
Each adapter will act like a hub that several devices can plug into. Will these fancy $100 units power multiple devices at the same time, each using a different voltage? learn2read:
Green Plug's technology allows each device to communicate its individual power requirements to the power adapter, allowing several devices to share one adapter. Will it really handle an 85 watt load for a loaded laptop plus the dozen other devices that need simultaneous power for operation/charging? Do I get multiple smart power units at a hundred a pop instead of the cheapo $2 ones I use now? These deserve slightly better than a learn2read response, you might have had to use google and hit 3 links to figure out that they are licensing a technology (the plug) and making the firmware available to electronics makers. Just like you can get an el-cheapo power strip that would burn out running 6x space heaters or daisy chain 7 together to pop your circuit breaker, they hope to have plug vendors make all sorts of versions. You may have to read the product info to buy a plug that can run your whole house.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/10/swtched-on-green-plug-tries-to-replace-the-worry-warts-part-1/
In theory the price drops from $100 (of their reference plug) to whatever Kensington or Targus can make it for +2$ for licensing. It seems like apple had made it a valid revenue stream for pushing it's accessory chargers, I could see how it might be attractive to electronics makers that see including a wall wart as a service nightmare (for packaging, production, and replacement) as they just need to get the firmware to do the negotiations over a usb type cable. In previous releases the greenplug guys held the position that they make the device side bits free, and charge for the plug side smarts, although the quoted news blurb blurs that distinction.
My Verizon phone appears to have this "feature" too -- from the factory it will charge from USB, but the modified it to do some sort of check. Anyway, it won't charge from any normal USB source, and that's definitely a feature I'm looking for on all future phones, cameras, games ... I think USB will be a sort of ubiquitous charging source. I'd be interested if someone could confirm that's what Verizon did vs. just some freak glitch with my phone.
... well I'm guessing it's on purpose. Those guys are the worst (come on Android!).
Given the frequency of billing screwups I've had with Verizon
myselfmusic
My blackberry will charge off three chargers i own. My phone ignores the blackberry charger but works off the generic car adapter and the plugin adapter that came with it.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
iPod Touches are the same. A PC without the driver won't charge. Specifically the Touch won't charge until the PC driver sends a USB configuration is set to a non standard value and a vendor specific command is sent.
http://matt.colyer.name/projects/iphone-module/
A generic USB charger won't charge an iPod either, unless it supplies 2.5V on D+ and D-, not just 5V and ground. This is totally non standard of course and the Touch only requires it so you can't use a generic USB charger.
http://forums.ilounge.com/showthread.php?t=166847
I have a Win2k machine at work. New iTunes refuses to install on it and old iTunes doesn't have iPod Touch support. So because of all these obstacles Apple have strewn in my path I need to buy a charger to charge my Touch at work. As a point of principle I got a non Apple one. Some of the third party USB charger companies have learned the 2.5V trick and advertise themselves as "iPod Touch/iPhone compatible"
Actually the Touch annoys me so much I've gone back to using Winamp and a 2.5" hard disk in a USB case.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
USB devices have two levels of power they can draw - one very tiny amount, and a larger amount (guess which one charging your phone requires?) The computer will supply at least 5V 500mA to a device before it enumerates. That's why USB fans and lights, which don't enumerate but just leach power work. And if you look at a USB 2.5" hard drive it will typically have a Y cable with two USB plugs and one device plug. It does this because it needs about 1A to spin up. But for that to work one of the USB plugs must draw 500mA before enumeration because only one plug has an enumerable device behind it. The other plug is just there to leach power.
So even though the spec says that devices should not draw vast amounts of power before they enumerate no host device will enforce this restriction because it would break all those lights, fans and portable 2.5" hard drives. Designing devices which are pedantic about not drawing power until they have enumerated this just pisses people off, since they need to install drivers to get charging to work.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
When did Radioshack have anything like this?
Radioshack had "universal" adaptors, that basically had several different plugs, and you could select the voltage and polarity, so you could make it work with your device.
Green Plug uses the same plug for all devices, and when you plug in a device, the device and the power supply communicate. The device tells the power supply what its power needs are, and the power supply supplies that.
pins x & 4 are shorted (actually a small resistor) at the phone end on a Moto USB charger. You can easily mod a standard one to work, there's instructions on the web. E.g. http://pinouts.ru/CellularPhones-A-N/razrv3_charger_pinout.shtml
Other similar phones use different but similar schemes.
I went through the Green Plug website. Could this technology help a particular company with their family of products?
No information on power levels -- I could really use some information in I and V ranges. I could use some basic information about protocols. Is it designed for intermittent use, like charging, or can I design my widget to use one of these for full time operation?
I'd rate the website +5 for marketing speak and -200 for lack of technical detail that could give interested technical folks some basic information to decide whether to take this to the next level.
As I recall from my old RAZR and its manual, it would charge from any powered USB port unless the phone's battery was completely or nearly dead, in which case it required the Motorola charger.
I'd happily pay an extra $5 or $10 for a device if it had an iPod charge connector.
I travel a bit and it is a royal pain in the ass to have to have to carry multiple chargers. I'm up to 5 now - laptop, phone, ipod, ipaq, and camera chargers (yes, I could scale back what I take, but I don't want to; I use all those devices a lot on the move).
It is probably one of the most common electronic devices so I'm really surprised there's not more out there. I know Apple wants a cut, but I can't imagine its more than a couple of dollars per device and I'd HAPPILY pay the extra for it. In addition to the above 5 devices I have a billion more at home that I don't want either.
While I'd obviously much rather see some generic standard take hold, I can't see that happening because these add-on peripheral things are clearly such an awesome cashcow for consumer electronics makers. In the meantime, I'm happy to let Apple rule the roost.
Actually, Motorola phones check for a specific resistance across the ground shielding and pin 4. There really isn't anything software about it. A quick Google search provides a diagram (http://krhainos.tk/motoplug.jpg) so you can build your own.
Hal Porter said:
The computer will supply at least 5V 500mA to a device before it enumerates.
and got moderated Informative for it.
I don't know who did this moderating, but it must be someone who, like Hal Porter, does not know the USB spec.
A USB device may only draw 100 mA before it is enumerated.
When it is enumerated, it may negotiate more power with the driver, up to a maximum of 500 mA.
When it is connected via a USB-powered hub, the driver will decline this request, and current stays 100 mA max. Otherwise, you could draw 2A from any USB port by simply connecting 4 devices through a hub.
I used to have this same problem at work. We had a handful of dekstops and depending on which one's we were using I would charge my phone on the free one, jsut to stay out of the way. Yeah, it really sucked trying to remember which ones had drivers and which did not.
Then I discovered that Macs don't have any problem charging phones. You don't need drivers or any special configuration. not sure this is really viable solution for your situation but I figured I would contribute my information on the topic...
http://greenobyl.com/ please.... think of the children!!
One solution that I've heard of is to use a powered USB hub, not connected to a computer. It makes a handy charging station for multiple devices.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Enforcing the "100mA before enumeration" rule is silly though and that's why no USB host I have seen does it. OK, now I see your point.
If you follow the spec, your device will only draw 100 mA max before enumeration, and work under all circumstances.
If your device does not have the smarts to follow the spec, you become responsible for directly connecting it to a PC port without a hub.
Enforcing the "100 mA before enumeration" on the server side would indeed be silly.
But enforcing it on the client side (and thus equipping the client with the smarts to limit the current before larger current is allowed by the server) is sane.
It prevents equipment being blown up by users that do not know what combinations are and are not allowed on a specific set of ports.
You and I know that you can draw 500 mA from a USB port directly on the computer, but the average Joe will not be aware of that.
Allowing your device to draw 500 mA before enumeration will be convenient and work in most cases, but may very well lead to damage in cases that you and I consider stupidity on the side of the user, but which will occur nevertheless.
I don't know if auto-resettable overcurrent protection on USB ports is mandatory, but by allowing an un-enumerated device to draw 500 mA, you are assuming it is, or risk damage to your devices.
"While I'd obviously"
really? It's not that obvious from the text above that line.
"much rather see some generic standard take hold, I can't see that happening because these add-on peripheral things are clearly such an awesome cashcow for consumer electronics makers. In the meantime, I'm happy to let Apple rule the roost."
And it's definitely non-obvious here. If anything, I'd say it's obvious you love Apple (nothing wrong with that; certainly not calling you a fanboy or anything juvenile of the sort. I love Apple, in general, too.) and as a result of this love for Apple, will happily take it up the tailpipe from Apple when it comes to their connector (and as much as I love Apple - I do not love their connector.)
You are happy to let Apple rule the roost.. what roost is that? The 'mp3 player' roost? The 'smartphone' roost?
They may be the most popular in the former, and gaining a shitload of traction in the latter, but they're hardly ruling it.
Moreover, they're -way- off on ruling the power connector roost. Yes, they made a decent connector for power+data, congratulations Apple, even if ignoring that USB could already do this. Yes, they made a much -better- connector for power (+data) with the magnetic variant. That one I would *happily* include as a "must have" for universal power supplies if that type of connector becomes much more prevalent (patents and licensing on that from Apple are holding that back - good job Jobs, it keeps that 'exclusivity' aspect going.)
But while it isn't, and Apple is charging for licenses*, most manufacturers are not going to sell a universal power supply with an added Apple-licensed connector costing them $NNNNNNNNN when only a fraction of the users actually use the thing. They can throw in 8 different types of 5mm round plugs (this in itself annoys the hell out of me; they occupy the same space, only the inner diameter differs. wtf. but at least they don't have to pay any license money for it so I guess they stamp them out by the millions for cheap) and cover the vast majority of users and tell those who do have an iPod / iPhone / whatever to purchase a separate product.
* As of 2006/May/11 - couldn't spot a newer reference.
"Previously Apple charged 1.5% of the wholesale price per unit for use of their proprietary iPod dock connector, but as of yesterday (May 10th) the dock connector license is a flat fee of $4 USD."
$4 USD! On a simple universal charger of $29.99, that's 13%. And that is why most aren't going to include one in the base pack.
That said - companies might do well to offer one as an extra. For sale off of their website. $4+S&H+marginal profit. Question is whether Apple Legal is going to see that connector as a device on its own (thus the $4), or whether they say "oh no no no my dear man, that connector is to go with your power supply. So we will be charging you $4 per power supply."
But then, who's going to pay $4 + S&H + a marginal profit for a little plug nub (shiny, white and "Made for iPod / compatible with iPhone"-logofied as it may be) when you can get a full-on charger elsewhere for $10, and can then charge your iPod / iPhone in parallel with whatever non-Apple device you've got hanging off of your universal power supply?
As do most (all?) HTC phones. My s730 is charging through USB right now.
If you are near one - http://www.batteriesplus.com/ recycles ALL battery chemistries for free. And I mean, you can recycle a couple boxes. A pallet - well, that will have usually a $50 - $75 surcharge for driving a truck out to pick them up.