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EU Votes For Universal Phone Charger
SmartAboutThings writes "The European Union has voted in favor of a draft legislation which lists among the 'essential requirements' of electrical devices approved by the EU a compatibility with 'universal' chargers. According to a German MEP, this move will eliminate 51,000 tonnes of electronic waste. The draft law was approved by an overwhelming majority: 550 votes to 12. At the moment, according to estimates, there are around 30 different types of charger on the market, but manufacturers have two years at their disposal to get ready for the new restriction."
"This is a backwards step because imposing a single charger stifles innovation, curbs research, and may impose extra costs on the consumer. The alternative and better action is to encourage diversity, competition and greater development..."
Seriously? How much "diversity" and "innovation" do you need in terms of a charger?
Yep. Apple has been the most significant holdout.
At this point every other phone I've worked with that's newly produced has either had mini-USB or micro-USB connections.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
This is not about the mechanical connector (you can always use an adapter cable). This is about those device manufacturers that verify via USB protocol that the charger is made by them too. So the device won't work with anything else regardless of the fact that the cable fits. The idea is that the check should be on the maximum current supported by the charger, not on its make and model.
The EU mandated microUSB charging ports on phones, thus reducing the "cable clutter" that existed 5-odd years ago.
Now, the EU is mandading the other end of the charging cable, the actual, physical charger is plugs into. Meaning, you'll only need a single charger, with a USB port in it, to charge your flip phone, your 4" mini-smartphone, your 6" phablet, and your 10" tablet.
Right now, each device has it's own charger, with it's own specs (how many volts at how many amps). And you generally can't charge a tablet using an older phone charger.
So you end up with a handful of different chargers in your drawer that you have to pick through to charge each device, or you end up with a drawer full of chargers you never use as you just plug everything into the most power charger you have (generally the one for the tablet).
Standardising on a single charger would eliminate all the extra chargers gathering dust in people's junk drawers.
The "other jack" is a USB 3.0 microUSB port. It's backwards compatible with the USB 2.0 microUSB port.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
No. He is. They are just his kind of clowns, so they don't look funny to him. That is the only difference.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
From what it sounds like, this legislation is simply the next stage of a law that has been around for years already, and with which Apple has complied since 2011.
Various European standards bodies made legally-binding agreements with Nokia, RIM, Apple, et al. back in 2009 to standardize on micro-USB within two years. Apple complied in 2011 by including a Lightning->micro-USB adapter in the box with all of its European models, and has done so for the last three years. Since that time, the rule has bubbled up the legislative hierarchy and is about to take effect across the EU for all manufacturers, regardless of if they were a party to the original agreements or not.
I.e. This law changes nothing at all for Apple. Moreover, even if it did, the timeline in the summary is incorrect. Member states of the EU have two years to adopt the legislation internally. Manufacturers have an additional year on top of that to abide by it. So even if Apple were forced to replace Lightning with micro-USB, it wouldn't need to do so until 2017.
Because microusb has an absolutely atrocious, finnicky connector. I hope they use practically anything but microusb.
MicroUSB was designed to put the wear on the plug (the cable), not the device. Or so they say. One year with Samsung Galaxy charging everyday - no problems so far.
Apples Lightning connector would be great, actually, or something very similar. Near unbreakably solid, easy to plug in our out, can be plugged in either way...
I thought the same until I read on forums about lightning connector corrosion.
Note, I'm not arguing that MicroUSB is a good standard for charging. But IMO it is better than no standard at all.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
This is what the European Union really does - they set standards so stuff works all over Europe, across borders and across vendors. Like GSM phones. In the past, over 20 years they moved the 220V and 240V countries to 230V. That was completed in 2003. Trying to get the whole EU to use the same AC power plug, though, was not successful.
So when will the Europoean Union mandate a single spoken language and that all cars must drive on the same side of the road?
my galaxy note 3 is microusb, but i think it needs more ma
at work we were looking at the chargers for different android phones and they were all different specs
Galaxy Note 3 uses MicroUSB 3.0 as standard charger (2.0A), but should still charge at a slower rate using a standard MicroUSB cord.
Most devices will draw the max the charger will allow if they see the data channels shorted. I assume the charger will go into current limit (voltage will start to drop) once the maximum output of the charger is reached. Different charges from different phones may be rated different, but most still should provide a charge (even if slower). If plugged into a USB host (computer) it may be limited to 500mA or less.
I thought this article was a dupe from 2009/2011 http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...
BS. Android phones would use USB charging anyway, it's the cheapest path.
The problem with MicroUSB is that it has three sides.
You put it in, and it doesn't fit, so you turn it over.
You put it in again, it doesn't fit, so you turn it back over.
Now it fits.
Apple complied in 2011 by including a Lightning->micro-USB adapter in the box with all of its European models, and has done so for the last three years.
They certainly sell an adapter, but it is not supplied in the box, at least in my experience of devices bought from Apple stores in the UK.
Why do they think this is a matter for governments to decide?
Same reason each country has a standard railroad track, a standard power outlet, etc. Letting industries decide on mutually incompatible standards largely serves to lock in consumers and also creates great inefficiencies in the economy due to incompatbility. Standardization would allow business like cafes & airports to offer charging solutions that fit all their customers, and it would produce less physical waste.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I read it as:
EU Votes For Universal Phone Charger
The draft law was approved by an overwhelming majority: 550 volts to 12.
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Wait, isn't this the SECOND time this standard was imposed, and didn't apple get a pass last time?
Why will it be different this time?
I'm betting Apple will issue another "E-waste" adapter to their ridiculous 30pin, and thumb their nose at this rule just like the last time.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Wait, isn't this the SECOND time this standard was imposed, and didn't apple get a pass last time?
Why will it be different this time?
I'm betting Apple will issue another "E-waste" adapter to their ridiculous 30pin, and thumb their nose at this rule just like the last time.
You are aware that by using the native adapter, Apple is able to operate outside the power ranges which the power-over-USB folks were willing to support because it would have been more expensive to make the power adapters smart enough to negotiate amperage with the device up to the levels Apple runs at, right?
In other words, the power-over-USB standard is pretty stupidly low powered, if you want to support faster charge cycles, so using this universal adapter and the "E-waste" adapter dongle is just going to mean Apple devices charge a lot slower in Europe than they do in the rest of the world. Just like all non-Apple devices don't tend to support fast charging, for lack of the ability to negotiate a much higher amperage between the charger and the device.
So it's not "thumbing their nose", so much as it is "can't you power-over-USB people ever agree on a useful standard?".
Regular USB will do 10 watts, 5 volts 2 amps. My Samsung phone uses just such a charger. Need more? The USB Power Delivery standard, which needs different cables, will handle up to 100 watts, that being 20v 5a.
USB PD was standardized in July 2012 so it has been around for awhile.
This is incorrect. There is no bidirectional negotiation between chargers and devices, nor are there any magic extra pins (at least for pretty much all Android and Apple products - dunno about Zune).
What there is is one USB charging standard, that basically says one thing and one thing only (that matters): if the data pins are shorted together (but otherwise not connected to anything), then the port is a Dedicated Charging Port. A DCP must meet certain voltage/current curve ranges and may be engineered to supply anywhere from 500mA to 1.5A (or more), with the voltage dropping as the device exceeds the charger's maximum. Devices are simply supposed to regulate current draw upwards until the voltage drops below a threshold, indicating the charger's capability. No digital negotiation takes place. Devices are limited to 1.5A charging current, which is quite typical for modern devices (and significantly better than the 500mA of a non-charging port).
There is a newer USB Power Delivery specification that is much more recent, supports higher powers, probably uses more complex negotiation (I haven't read it), and nothing implements it yet.
Then there's what Apple does - they have an incompatible implementation that uses resistors on the data pins in the charger to signal its current capability. Different resulting voltages mean different current levels. This is completely incompatible with the USB charging standard. Recent Apple devices (since the iPhone 3G or so) do support DCP chargers (to some extent - some charge more slowly, and I don't know about larger iPads?), but non-Apple devices will only charge at 500mA or worse from Apple chargers.
If the source can support it, the cable will handle it just fine.
Not necessarily. Some cheap cables don't have enough conductors to safely carry 2A. Also USB-PD is a power delivery extension that allows cables to identify their current limit using the ID pin originally added for OTG. These cables have the standard USB2 or 3 icon enclosed in a "battery" outline.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
My coworker assures me that this a known case of quantum superposition at macro scales. The USB plug is simultaneously in two different orientations at the same time. It was formerly only thought to happen to SVGA connectors when viewed from the side while uncomfortably squatting under a desk.
Someone had to do it.
If the source can support it, the cable will handle it just fine.
Not necessarily. Some cheap cables don't have enough conductors to safely carry 2A. Also USB-PD is a power delivery extension that allows cables to identify their current limit using the ID pin originally added for OTG. These cables have the standard USB2 or 3 icon enclosed in a "battery" outline.
There is a bug in the downstream power standard Intel chipset when used for USB-PD. You can't actually run it at 2A, or you have to only run it that way in ports that won't let you charge and communicate with the device at the same time, as a hard-wired option. We found this out designing the initial ChromeBox, which is why two of the back USB ports are not really that useful for charging.
If you're using something other than an Intel chipset in your PC, yeah; the TI USB-PD/OTG implementation works, although I don't think there's any laptop hardware or desktop hardware that uses it. I think it's mostly used in drives and drive enclosures.
Apple tends to get away with it because they use discrete electronics separate from the USB controller to handle downstream charging; of course, this makes their hardware more expensive, but it works, which some people value.
I'm not sure how many power bricks are intelligent enough to do the USB-PD negotiations.
There's some rather nifty drawing board plans for 100W power deliver for things like monitors, but so far, they've only been been demonstrates as FPGAs, rather than someone spinning them into silicon. The article on it is here: http://www.theinquirer.net/inq...