Author Topic: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices  (Read 66844 times)

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Online coppercone2

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Re: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
« Reply #200 on: June 15, 2022, 09:58:07 am »
actually I am convinced that this is retarded now, study a interconnects catalog to see innovation in interconnects, for instance very impressive connectors that are are not sensitive to alignment (1mm play for a 400A connection!).

and thats just something I randomly stumbled onto on digikey the other day. USB C is gonna look like knob and wire in the future
 

Offline f4eru

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Re: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
« Reply #201 on: June 15, 2022, 10:58:03 am »
"Let the market decide" :horse:
1) Market already settled on USB-C
2) Regulator agrees, and pushes the remaining resisting bad actors for the forseeable future, avoiding waste of resources for futile OEM agenda.
3) Regulator is smarter than usual, and lets USB consortium free to handle a compatible sucessor
4) if you wanna push your new standard foward, you'll have to argue with USB consortium how it is backwards and forwards compatible with all the usb-C hardware out there, and what added value it provides towards the standard.

Makes sense.
And more important, it sets the precedent as a warning to every company seeking to foolishly monopolize/monetize the design of a critical interconnect in the future: MAKE IT BLOODY OPEN, SO IT CAN BE ADOPTED BY OTHERS, and is an actual interconnect, and not just a waste of resources !! Winner takes it all.

Interconnects, as the nme suggests are meant to INTER CONNECT, not to bar from compatibility by using planned incompatibility as a tool for OEMs
« Last Edit: June 15, 2022, 11:22:54 am by f4eru »
 
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Offline Ed.Kloonk

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Re: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
« Reply #202 on: June 15, 2022, 11:17:25 am »
"Let the market decide" :horse:
1) Market already settled on USB-C
2) Regulator agrees, and pushes the remaining resisting bad actors for the forseeable future, avoiding waste of resources for futile OEM agenda.
3) Regulator is smarter than usual, and lets USB consortium free to handle a compatible sucessor
4) if you wanna push your new standard foward, you'll have to argue with USB consortium how it is backwards and forwards compatible with all the usb-C hardware out there, and what added value it provides towards the standard.

Makes sense.
And more important, it sets the precedent as a warning to every company seeking to foolishly monopolize/monetize a critical interconnect in the future: MAKE IT BLOODY OPEN, SO IT CAN BE ADOPTED BY OTHERS, and is an actual interconnect, and not just a waste of resources !! Winner takes it all.

But wouldn't all that just turn the USB consortium into the very same monster that everyone (apparently) hates?

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Offline f4eru

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Re: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
« Reply #203 on: June 15, 2022, 11:21:51 am »
If it gets slower than regulator writers, it will lose it's legitimation by regulators, yes.
That's kind of difficult to achieve, but probably doable.
« Last Edit: June 15, 2022, 11:24:59 am by f4eru »
 

Online JPortici

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Re: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
« Reply #204 on: June 15, 2022, 11:33:27 am »
"Let the market decide" :horse:
1) Market already settled on USB-C

For smartphones and high end laptops. There are many, many other gadgets that still use mini, micro or something else, which i why i welcome the decision of "everything USB-C", especially now that simpler,cheaper connecors that just expose USB 2.0 or power are widely available from even the "brand" distributors, which you are forced to use sometimes.
« Last Edit: June 15, 2022, 11:35:22 am by JPortici »
 

Online Zero999

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Re: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
« Reply #205 on: June 15, 2022, 12:34:28 pm »

I guess maybe someone that had always lived under a government that controls so many aspects of their life wouldn't understand, I don't know. Even my own government feels rather oppressive and mired in rules and regulations these days that I almost wish there was somewhere else to go and get away from it. I understand the need for some rules for things like protecting the environment, rules are a necessary evil but they ARE evil and I hate them.

I live in a country where the government consists of ordinary people and where the majority of the people in the country actually trust the government and feel that the people representing them are making decisions that we would do ourselves. This is also the case in many other countries in the EU. It's not perfect, but it works good enough and all statistics show that people living in the Nordic countries in EU are the happiest, most equal and free people in the world with least corruption etc. And EU is the largest peace project ever that has worked pretty much fine for 70+ years. I'm sorry for people living in oppressive and authoritarian countries. This knee-jerk opposition to government is totally strange to us, where the government actually helps people and makes our lives better. Of course there are some criticism all the time, but this belongs and is encouraged in a democracy. I have followed some of US politics and I can see where your views come from. My personal opinion is that you will never have equal human rights, less poverty and criminality unless you change some of your ways. Now this goes into politics, but it seems it has also much impact on technology. Very interesting how your government swayed forth and back e.g. about net neutrality.

What you describe is essentially Australia (albeit it's much colder there and you have better internet).

Both Finland and Australia are in the top 10 countries having the highest human freedoms.
I wouldn't say that. Australia is quite authoritarian compared to much of Europe, especially Scandinavia. The last two years have proven that. Whether it was proportionate, or not is another matter and is off-topic.

If someone cannot remember the dominat (smart) phones of the 2005 era (17 years ago), they are either very young or lived in an undeveloped area upto then, likely the poster is young and doesn't know the history of the market.

You made out like (smart)phones had USB all along, they really didnt. USB was in widespread consumer use and the phone manufacturers persisted with their proprietary connectors (even making new ones as linked above). Exactly what you and that poster say wouldn't/didn't happen. I'm not picking out some obscure minority brand here, those were the dominant players in the market and they went for profit ahead of standardization/convenience. They weren't all using 5V or USB power for charging which made 3rd party cables a minefield, that changed only with standardization to USB connectors on the phones.

That's quite an assumption. I'm in my mid 40s which certainly doesn't feel "very young" to me and I live in the northwest USA about 6 miles from Microsoft's headquarters so certainly not an undeveloped area and I've never seen a smartphone that didn't charge from a USB plug, either via an onboard connector or an included cable terminating in a USB plug with the proprietary (Apple) connector on the other end. The last phone I owned that had a proprietary charger was a flip phone and that was way back in 2007, prior to that I never had a mobile phone. Once again I'll reiterate that USB became the standard without any intervention from the government at all, the market decided that's what people wanted. There is still no requirement whatsoever on this and yet USB is everywhere.
Hang on, you're jumping forward past 2005 to 2007 when proprietary connectors on phones were still a thing...

I'll assume it has something to do with early phones that used a variety of barrel plugs. If so, I'm not ready to give law makers any credit for increasing convenience in my life (which is all that this law is about; simple convenience.) I'm certain that makers of smart phones would have included USB ports for communication purposes anyway. And, I'm just as certain that they would have used those ports for charging. No laws required. (For the record, I am not against all laws, just pointless ones that do more harm than good.)
This shows your age very starkly. Mobile phones traditionally had obscure brand (or model) specific connectors for power and serial (or USB) so that you had to buy the accessories from them and only them. In the bad old good old dark days, you couldnt even charge over USB and as the power adapter had a captive cable it was mutually exclusive: charge or transfer data.
That doesn't say anything about his age, I remember well the days when mobile phones had proprietary connectors, but they standardized without any government intervention at all. They did it because it made sense, USB became ubiquitous enough that it was no longer sensible in most cases to use custom connectors. These days Apple is the exception, however even they include a cable that terminates with a standard USB plug so the issue is moot.
USB was widespread well before smartphones used the standard connectors directly:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_Pop-Port
one easily documented example persisted until 2007, which links to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FastPort
continuing to 2010

While USB was in use since 1996 and was ubiquitous in the early 2000's as Microsoft had USB only mice from 2001 onward?
As I already said! So your experience was that phone(s) did have proprietary connectors in 2007. Yet USB was ubiquitous in 2000/2001. The market did not move to USB quickly or see the advantages, they bodged USB in on proprietary connectors rather than using the available mini USB. It was after 2007 with the release of micro USB that movement started and even then the EU didn't like the fractured solutions and moved to speed it up.
Does it really matter? Smartphones only became really popular, after the market had standardised on USB charging. Those who got phones with proprietary connectors were the early adopters.

Regarding the original topic: I have no love for the EU, or Apple, but it does seem a bit foolish mandating something which is already defacto. There are areas where legislation is necessary, such as minimum efficiency standards for lamps, as incandescent lamps didn't just cause excess pollution, but also gave consumers a raw deal, but this isn't on of them.
 
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Offline Miyuki

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Re: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
« Reply #206 on: June 15, 2022, 02:32:26 pm »
...
Regarding the original topic: I have no love for the EU, or Apple, but it does seem a bit foolish mandating something which is already defacto. There are areas where legislation is necessary, such as minimum efficiency standards for lamps, as incandescent lamps didn't just cause excess pollution, but also gave consumers a raw deal, but this isn't on of them.
:o
Why should laps have required efficiency? It should be an informed decision on what is better for you.
The incandescent lamp ban brought more harm than good.
When it came, there was no reasonable replacement for most uses readily available. CCFL was environmentally worse than Incandescent.
And today led light fixtures are way better so no one buys incandescent even when they are currently again widely available. "for special purposes"

Mandatory USB C/PD is on the other way a good thing, same as a unified EV charger. Look at Tesla, which can offer cars with that port in the EU, whereas in the US you have separate systems, even when now you can use converters, but it is not without issue
 

Online Zero999

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Re: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
« Reply #207 on: June 15, 2022, 03:07:49 pm »
...
Regarding the original topic: I have no love for the EU, or Apple, but it does seem a bit foolish mandating something which is already defacto. There are areas where legislation is necessary, such as minimum efficiency standards for lamps, as incandescent lamps didn't just cause excess pollution, but also gave consumers a raw deal, but this isn't on of them.
:o
Why should laps have required efficiency? It should be an informed decision on what is better for you.
The incandescent lamp ban brought more harm than good.
When it came, there was no reasonable replacement for most uses readily available. CCFL was environmentally worse than Incandescent.
And today led light fixtures are way better so no one buys incandescent even when they are currently again widely available. "for special purposes"

Mandatory USB C/PD is on the other way a good thing, same as a unified EV charger. Look at Tesla, which can offer cars with that port in the EU, whereas in the US you have separate systems, even when now you can use converters, but it is not without issue
How is CCFL environmentally worse than incandescent? It's got nothing to do with the mercury, because the lamp contains <5mg and more is released through burning extra coal, to power incandescent, even before other nasties such as CO2 are concerned.

The free market was tried and people still bought incandescent due to the cheaper upfront cost, but ended up paying more in the long run in higher energy bills.
 
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Offline Miyuki

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Re: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
« Reply #208 on: June 15, 2022, 04:01:10 pm »
How is CCFL environmentally worse than incandescent? It's got nothing to do with the mercury, because the lamp contains <5mg and more is released through burning extra coal, to power incandescent, even before other nasties such as CO2 are concerned.

The free market was tried and people still bought incandescent due to the cheaper upfront cost, but ended up paying more in the long run in higher energy bills.
Simple, people who were forced to buy one, won't buy expensive durable ones, but cheap ones, which in reality fail after about that same time as incandescents
It contains way more stuff than a tiny amount of mercury, you have that driver board and so.
And heat produced is most of the time not wasted in European conditions, so just more use of electric heaters.
There were plenty of cases where CCFL just did not make sense.
I know people are dumb and hate changes, but most people used them in cases where it makes sense to use such light.
 

Offline MT

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Re: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
« Reply #209 on: June 15, 2022, 04:26:31 pm »
No such thing as free market, its all regulated by politics in tandem with big gangster bisniss as it always was, Its a big club, and you aint in it!.
USB-C? obviously should not be enforced by dictate.

 
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Offline SilverSolder

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Re: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
« Reply #210 on: June 15, 2022, 04:46:28 pm »

For those who argue against standardising:   why not allow "the market" to decide the wall outlets?  Both the mechanical shape and the voltage/current should be up to "the market"!   It would be great to have the freedom of installing exactly the optimal kind of wall outlet everywhere, unencumbered by bureaucracy?    >:D
 

Offline tszaboo

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Re: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
« Reply #211 on: June 15, 2022, 05:19:02 pm »

For those who argue against standardising:   why not allow "the market" to decide the wall outlets?  Both the mechanical shape and the voltage/current should be up to "the market"!   It would be great to have the freedom of installing exactly the optimal kind of wall outlet everywhere, unencumbered by bureaucracy?    >:D
Come on, it limits innovation. With higher voltage you have less losses. Plus they can make smaller contacts now than all those years ago.
Also, responsible customers will choose the safe outlets, let's delete the safety requirements.
 

Online Berni

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Re: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
« Reply #212 on: June 15, 2022, 06:04:53 pm »

For those who argue against standardising:   why not allow "the market" to decide the wall outlets?  Both the mechanical shape and the voltage/current should be up to "the market"!   It would be great to have the freedom of installing exactly the optimal kind of wall outlet everywhere, unencumbered by bureaucracy?    >:D
Come on, it limits innovation. With higher voltage you have less losses. Plus they can make smaller contacts now than all those years ago.
Also, responsible customers will choose the safe outlets, let's delete the safety requirements.

Yep imagine how fast our kettles could boil water if only there was a company with the balls to say screw this pissant 230V standard outlet and make a kettle that runs directly from medium voltage transmission line power. Those 22kV could carry 350kW over the same 16A wires. Sure you might not have the outlet for it right know, but for a low one time fee they can send over a technician to install there revolutionary next generation outlet in your very own kitchen.

But isn't 22kV like really dangerous? Sure it might require a bit more care, but that's why you sign the waiver that the installation technician brings along conveniently. It is after all the consumers choice to use this revolutionary new technology that lets them boil a kettle in 5 seconds flat. The consumers know what they want, not some tight assed bureaucrat that thinks this high of a power is somehow 'too dangerous'
 
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Offline SilverSolder

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Re: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
« Reply #213 on: June 15, 2022, 08:12:16 pm »

ROFL!   :-DD

I might go for one of those 22kV kettles!  - I would absolutely be a responsible customer and ask my children to stay out of the kitchen when I make tea! 
 

Online Zero999

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Re: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
« Reply #214 on: June 15, 2022, 09:01:37 pm »
How is CCFL environmentally worse than incandescent? It's got nothing to do with the mercury, because the lamp contains <5mg and more is released through burning extra coal, to power incandescent, even before other nasties such as CO2 are concerned.

The free market was tried and people still bought incandescent due to the cheaper upfront cost, but ended up paying more in the long run in higher energy bills.
Simple, people who were forced to buy one, won't buy expensive durable ones, but cheap ones, which in reality fail after about that same time as incandescents
It contains way more stuff than a tiny amount of mercury, you have that driver board and so.
And heat produced is most of the time not wasted in European conditions, so just more use of electric heaters.
There were plenty of cases where CCFL just did not make sense.
I know people are dumb and hate changes, but most people used them in cases where it makes sense to use such light.
No CFLs last much longer than incandescent. The driver circuit is simple and even the cheap ones outlast incandescent.

I live in Europe and can confirm the heat is wasted. It's now summer and the extra heat is unwelcome and in winter, I'd rather use cheap natural gas, than expensive resistive heating.

Yes CFL didn't make any sense in some applications such as in an oven, or when it's briefly turned on for short lengths of time, but they're fine for most things.
« Last Edit: June 15, 2022, 09:23:03 pm by Zero999 »
 
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Online Someone

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Re: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
« Reply #215 on: June 15, 2022, 10:13:47 pm »
If someone cannot remember the dominant (smart) phones of the 2005 era (17 years ago), they are either very young or lived in an undeveloped area upto then, likely the poster is young and doesn't know the history of the market.

You made out like (smart)phones had USB all along, they really didnt. USB was in widespread consumer use and the phone manufacturers persisted with their proprietary connectors (even making new ones as linked above). Exactly what you and that poster say wouldn't/didn't happen. I'm not picking out some obscure minority brand here, those were the dominant players in the market and they went for profit ahead of standardization/convenience. They weren't all using 5V or USB power for charging which made 3rd party cables a minefield, that changed only with standardization to USB connectors on the phones.

That's quite an assumption. I'm in my mid 40s which certainly doesn't feel "very young" to me and I live in the northwest USA about 6 miles from Microsoft's headquarters so certainly not an undeveloped area and I've never seen a smartphone that didn't charge from a USB plug, either via an onboard connector or an included cable terminating in a USB plug with the proprietary (Apple) connector on the other end. The last phone I owned that had a proprietary charger was a flip phone and that was way back in 2007, prior to that I never had a mobile phone. Once again I'll reiterate that USB became the standard without any intervention from the government at all, the market decided that's what people wanted. There is still no requirement whatsoever on this and yet USB is everywhere.
Hang on, you're jumping forward past 2005 to 2007 when proprietary connectors on phones were still a thing...

I'll assume it has something to do with early phones that used a variety of barrel plugs. If so, I'm not ready to give law makers any credit for increasing convenience in my life (which is all that this law is about; simple convenience.) I'm certain that makers of smart phones would have included USB ports for communication purposes anyway. And, I'm just as certain that they would have used those ports for charging. No laws required. (For the record, I am not against all laws, just pointless ones that do more harm than good.)
This shows your age very starkly. Mobile phones traditionally had obscure brand (or model) specific connectors for power and serial (or USB) so that you had to buy the accessories from them and only them. In the bad old good old dark days, you couldnt even charge over USB and as the power adapter had a captive cable it was mutually exclusive: charge or transfer data.
That doesn't say anything about his age, I remember well the days when mobile phones had proprietary connectors, but they standardized without any government intervention at all. They did it because it made sense, USB became ubiquitous enough that it was no longer sensible in most cases to use custom connectors. These days Apple is the exception, however even they include a cable that terminates with a standard USB plug so the issue is moot.
USB was widespread well before smartphones used the standard connectors directly:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_Pop-Port
one easily documented example persisted until 2007, which links to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FastPort
continuing to 2010

While USB was in use since 1996 and was ubiquitous in the early 2000's as Microsoft had USB only mice from 2001 onward?
As I already said! So your experience was that phone(s) did have proprietary connectors in 2007. Yet USB was ubiquitous in 2000/2001. The market did not move to USB quickly or see the advantages, they bodged USB in on proprietary connectors rather than using the available mini USB. It was after 2007 with the release of micro USB that movement started and even then the EU didn't like the fractured solutions and moved to speed it up.
Does it really matter? Smartphones only became really popular, after the market had standardised on USB charging. Those who got phones with proprietary connectors were the early adopters.

Regarding the original topic: I have no love for the EU, or Apple, but it does seem a bit foolish mandating something which is already defacto. There are areas where legislation is necessary, such as minimum efficiency standards for lamps, as incandescent lamps didn't just cause excess pollution, but also gave consumers a raw deal, but this isn't on of them.
Sure, IF you only want to talk about smartphones.

That is what I keep separating, and people keep adding back in.

When was USB ubiquitous? 2000 ish
When were phones with USB charging ubiquitous? not until the late 200x's

Phones, regardless of smartness or not.

To try and frame the history of phones or portable electronics to only mass market smartphones is nonsense.

If you want to talk about mass market smartphones, why didn't they all have USB since they entered the market after USB was already ubiquitous? Apple in particular is still a hold out. The open market has not settled or solved this.
 

Offline NiHaoMike

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Re: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
« Reply #216 on: June 16, 2022, 02:18:35 am »
Yep imagine how fast our kettles could boil water if only there was a company with the balls to say screw this pissant 230V standard outlet and make a kettle that runs directly from medium voltage transmission line power. Those 22kV could carry 350kW over the same 16A wires. Sure you might not have the outlet for it right know, but for a low one time fee they can send over a technician to install there revolutionary next generation outlet in your very own kitchen.

But isn't 22kV like really dangerous? Sure it might require a bit more care, but that's why you sign the waiver that the installation technician brings along conveniently. It is after all the consumers choice to use this revolutionary new technology that lets them boil a kettle in 5 seconds flat. The consumers know what they want, not some tight assed bureaucrat that thinks this high of a power is somehow 'too dangerous'
22kV should do it in much less than 5 seconds. A mere 400V does it in 10 seconds.
Cryptocurrency has taught me to love math and at the same time be baffled by it.

Cryptocurrency lesson 0: Altcoins and Bitcoin are not the same thing.
 
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Offline SiliconWizard

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Re: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
« Reply #217 on: June 16, 2022, 02:18:48 am »
actually I am convinced that this is retarded now, study a interconnects catalog to see innovation in interconnects, for instance very impressive connectors that are are not sensitive to alignment (1mm play for a 400A connection!).

and thats just something I randomly stumbled onto on digikey the other day. USB C is gonna look like knob and wire in the future

Of course. And what about devices that would embed ONLY wireless charging in the future? Why force them to implement a physical connection? Getting rid of connectors altogether for mobile devices does make things much better for reliability and waterproofing.

As to USB charging per se, as others have pointed out, USB-C is a very complex mess and it's impossible that any device would implement all of it (at least concerning the power delivery part), so that would mean a possibly degraded charging when using it with a random charger. Which means, users can't expect the same performance from all "compatible" chargers. But that's already the case.

And, apart from Apple (which may be the main target at the moment?), most recent mobile devices DO already have USB connection for charging. The most recent ones do HAVE USB-C, but there still are some micro-USB out there. But guess what? Who cares, all you need is a fricking CABLE to connect it to any USB charging port. You may again just not get the best charging performance depending on the charger itself, but it'll work.

Anyway...
« Last Edit: June 16, 2022, 02:20:23 am by SiliconWizard »
 

Offline Monkeh

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Re: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
« Reply #218 on: June 16, 2022, 03:43:28 am »
And what about devices that would embed ONLY wireless charging in the future? Why force them to implement a physical connection?

Why indeed? To ask another why, why haven't you read the actual proposal?
 
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Online Zero999

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Re: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
« Reply #219 on: June 16, 2022, 08:27:54 am »
If someone cannot remember the dominant (smart) phones of the 2005 era (17 years ago), they are either very young or lived in an undeveloped area upto then, likely the poster is young and doesn't know the history of the market.

You made out like (smart)phones had USB all along, they really didnt. USB was in widespread consumer use and the phone manufacturers persisted with their proprietary connectors (even making new ones as linked above). Exactly what you and that poster say wouldn't/didn't happen. I'm not picking out some obscure minority brand here, those were the dominant players in the market and they went for profit ahead of standardization/convenience. They weren't all using 5V or USB power for charging which made 3rd party cables a minefield, that changed only with standardization to USB connectors on the phones.

That's quite an assumption. I'm in my mid 40s which certainly doesn't feel "very young" to me and I live in the northwest USA about 6 miles from Microsoft's headquarters so certainly not an undeveloped area and I've never seen a smartphone that didn't charge from a USB plug, either via an onboard connector or an included cable terminating in a USB plug with the proprietary (Apple) connector on the other end. The last phone I owned that had a proprietary charger was a flip phone and that was way back in 2007, prior to that I never had a mobile phone. Once again I'll reiterate that USB became the standard without any intervention from the government at all, the market decided that's what people wanted. There is still no requirement whatsoever on this and yet USB is everywhere.
Hang on, you're jumping forward past 2005 to 2007 when proprietary connectors on phones were still a thing...

I'll assume it has something to do with early phones that used a variety of barrel plugs. If so, I'm not ready to give law makers any credit for increasing convenience in my life (which is all that this law is about; simple convenience.) I'm certain that makers of smart phones would have included USB ports for communication purposes anyway. And, I'm just as certain that they would have used those ports for charging. No laws required. (For the record, I am not against all laws, just pointless ones that do more harm than good.)
This shows your age very starkly. Mobile phones traditionally had obscure brand (or model) specific connectors for power and serial (or USB) so that you had to buy the accessories from them and only them. In the bad old good old dark days, you couldnt even charge over USB and as the power adapter had a captive cable it was mutually exclusive: charge or transfer data.
That doesn't say anything about his age, I remember well the days when mobile phones had proprietary connectors, but they standardized without any government intervention at all. They did it because it made sense, USB became ubiquitous enough that it was no longer sensible in most cases to use custom connectors. These days Apple is the exception, however even they include a cable that terminates with a standard USB plug so the issue is moot.
USB was widespread well before smartphones used the standard connectors directly:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_Pop-Port
one easily documented example persisted until 2007, which links to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FastPort
continuing to 2010

While USB was in use since 1996 and was ubiquitous in the early 2000's as Microsoft had USB only mice from 2001 onward?
As I already said! So your experience was that phone(s) did have proprietary connectors in 2007. Yet USB was ubiquitous in 2000/2001. The market did not move to USB quickly or see the advantages, they bodged USB in on proprietary connectors rather than using the available mini USB. It was after 2007 with the release of micro USB that movement started and even then the EU didn't like the fractured solutions and moved to speed it up.
Does it really matter? Smartphones only became really popular, after the market had standardised on USB charging. Those who got phones with proprietary connectors were the early adopters.

Regarding the original topic: I have no love for the EU, or Apple, but it does seem a bit foolish mandating something which is already defacto. There are areas where legislation is necessary, such as minimum efficiency standards for lamps, as incandescent lamps didn't just cause excess pollution, but also gave consumers a raw deal, but this isn't on of them.
Sure, IF you only want to talk about smartphones.

That is what I keep separating, and people keep adding back in.

When was USB ubiquitous? 2000 ish
When were phones with USB charging ubiquitous? not until the late 200x's

Phones, regardless of smartness or not.

To try and frame the history of phones or portable electronics to only mass market smartphones is nonsense.

If you want to talk about mass market smartphones, why didn't they all have USB since they entered the market after USB was already ubiquitous? Apple in particular is still a hold out. The open market has not settled or solved this.
It took awhile for USB to become widespread on phones. That isn't an argument for government legislation. The market got there in the end, even if it did take awhile.
 

Online JPortici

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Re: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
« Reply #220 on: June 16, 2022, 09:43:28 am »
It took awhile for USB to become widespread on phones. That isn't an argument for government legislation. The market got there in the end, even if it did take awhile.

It just needed to be mandated from the EU in the late 2000s (i don't want to bother looking for the article again.)
 
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Online Simon

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Re: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
« Reply #221 on: June 16, 2022, 12:10:58 pm »
I was reffering to the compatibility of the phone and power supply and the phones ability to meet the regulations every time with any USB brick supply, if the USB power supply fails in it's own right then that is nothing to do with the phone. So any properly designed phone will pass EMC regs will pass with any properly designed USB brick. So having to supply a USB brick to meet regs is no excuse for making you buy a USB brick with the phone.

Last time I was in an EMC chamber the first words out of the mouth of the test engineer after we turned it on was: is it on?
It should be two separate devices.
Isn't it one of the original purposes of EMC to "guarantee" you can plug the device into the socket, and any phone into any charger?
But you test every device separately
I expect there is some reference USB PD against it phones are tested the same way as is standardized mains for testing

I bolded the relevant statements.

First, as opposed to the specifics of phones, consider the general case of any appliance with any appropriate generic power supply.

There are a few cases we can discuss:
1. A specific appliance provided with a specific power supply.
2. A specific appliance provided without a power supply.
3. A power supply tested as a separate product.

Case 1:
A system of some kind is designed and specified. The power supply is chosen for various reasons such as cost, availability, power, EMC levels, other standards, etc. The rest of the system is designed to whatever function it provides. The combination system is tested at an accredited EMC lab. The power supply and the appliance are electrically coupled, and appropriate tests are performed.

Case 2:
A system of some kind is designed and specified. The power supply is left out of the provided system for various reasons. Cost, etc. The system must be powered to operate, so a power supply is used. To the extent possible, the power supply is left out of the EMC tests. Therefore, other variations of the EMC test procedure are used. For instance, in Case 1 the LISN connects to the AC lines of the AC-powered power supply. In this case, the LISN connects to the DC lines between the two. This is a very different EMC situation, typically requiring additional filtering on the DC input of the appliance.

Case 3:
A power supply is designed for generic applications. It is EMC tested with some type of load. However, obviously not all combinations of loads can be tested. For instance, consider that the power supply has a switcher at some frequency. The load may be other switchers and any range of frequencies and draw characteristics, some of which may cause the power supply to have EMC problems that weren't found in the EMC lab.

Simon's statement fails at the term "properly". What defines that? In Europe, it's basically the CE mark. This doesn't mean some particular combination will pass.

Miyuki's statement fails at the term "guarantee". The EMC standards are meant to prevent one system from interfering with another. These systems could be two internal parts, which is where the system test comes in, or two independent systems, which is the purpose of both emissions and immunity testing. In the case of plugging in the power supply, the test is done to some generic loads. However, the specific load of the appliance may be out of the range that a specific power supply was tested to.

In general I have two takeaways:
1. It's a nice idea. There will be unintended consequences.
2. Is this really the biggest issue that could be addressed with e-waste?

I'll try to make it even simpler. Radiated emissions failures are of the device under test. If the phone passes radiated it has passed. It also needs to pass conducted. This is easily done if the phone circuitry that let's face it is a 5V/3.7V DC/DC. If that passes it has passed. The reason it passed was that there was enough filtering and capacitance in the power input to not draw power in spikes at some frequency but to draw power "as DC". If you are drawing power smoothly then as long as the power brick you plug into meets requirements you should be fine, there should not be any interaction. The power brick in turn will have enough output capacitance that some spiky current draw should not have adverse effects on the regulation or send it into some weird frenzy of radiated or conducted emissions.

If the power brick is shit and the combination of power brick and compliant phone fail, that has nothing to do with the phone manufacturer and they don't have to give a toss or supply a brick just in case. As far as I am aware there are no widespread cases of people having issues.
 

Offline PlainName

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Re: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
« Reply #222 on: June 16, 2022, 12:39:28 pm »
Quote
As far as I am aware there are no widespread cases of people having issues.

Actually no widespread cases of people reporting issues, which is somewhat different.

A common issue with USB power supplies is screwing up of touch screens. My bulk supply, which I used to think was pretty damn good, does this - a phone plugged in doesn't respond to touch properly, although I never actually noticed since it was hard to use the phone with a short cable so I always unplugged to use. But a Garmin SatNav was the same, and bad enough that I was on the verge of returning it as complete shit before I realised it was the PSU.

Apparently that PSU isn't a unique one-off. Another one would screw up my scope when it powered the lights over the bench, regardless of what I was probing or how. Took a while to track that one down as well, and I'm supposed to know about this kind of thing, so what's your average non-techy user supposed to notice?

I might also refer you to Powerline adapters, which really annoy RF fans but no-one else notices - another case where lack of reports doesn't mean lack of an issue.
 
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Online Simon

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Re: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
« Reply #223 on: June 16, 2022, 12:42:54 pm »
Have any of these adapters been properly EMC tested? I don't know what the standards would have done but I would hope you put a range of loads on the adapter. If they are passing tests but causing an issue well then legally everyone is in the clear and the legislators need to go and have another think about how to deal with it.
 

Offline PlainName

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Re: The EU is enforcing USB-C on portable devices
« Reply #224 on: June 16, 2022, 02:56:56 pm »
I have no idea! They are, of course, made in China so any CE mark would be suspect even if it existed :)

However, I don't think that's relevant - the point was that these are examples of problems that don't result in mass complaints, so the lack of complaints can't be taken as an indicator of no issues.
 


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