EU Regulators To Study Need For Action on Common Mobile Phone Charger (reuters.com)

EU regulators plan to study whether there is a need for action in the push for a common mobile phone charger following a lack of progress by phone makers towards this goal, EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager said. From a report: The European Commission has been pushing for a common charger for nearly a decade as it cited the more than 51,000 tons of electronic waste yearly from old chargers as well as the inconvenience to consumers. iPhone and Android users have long complained about using different chargers for their phones.

Comments

Yes, about power connectors

[tepples]

Correct. This EU study relates to the different connectors used by different makes and models of mobile device. Smartphones use three (USB micro-B, USB C, and Lightning), dumbphones and laptops generally use different sizes and voltages of barrel connector, and handheld video game consoles have their own proprietary power connectors (GBA SP/Nintendo DS, Nintendo DS Lite, Nintendo DSi/3DS).

Re: too late

[Zorpheus]

The micro USB connector on most phones already the result of this EU initiative. I am not sure where they see need for more success of their initiative, maybe for laptops or they really mean iPhones.

Re:Do they mean the cable?

[txoof]

Even among the non-Apple devices there are still issues. The USB-Micro standard is fragile, uni-directional and has skinny-ass wires that can't cary much current for fast charging. The USB-C standard is anything but standard with a mixed bag of features and compatibility from device to device.

Apple's Lightening charger is nice that it works for all of Apple's recent handhelds and is reversible, but is incompatible for all the new laptops (USB-C). The Listening cable is also only good for ~2A of current meaning that fast charging is right out. But what good is a charging cable that only works one line of devices?

USB-C *could* be great and last us for the next 10 years if only the industry could standardize the standard. It would also be great if you could count on USB-C cables actually being 100% compliant and not worry that your E-Bay special was going to toast your new phone, or burn down your house. Judging by the plethora of shitty cables out there, I would guess that the standard is simply too expensive or too difficult to comply with.

I would definitely welcome a standard that could do something about the giant box of standard, half-standard, and proprietary cables that I've accumulated. We can do it with headphones and lights and HDMI cables (sort of), why can't we do it with phone and laptop chargers?