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For a few shining years, you could basically charge any device with a micro-USB cord. I guess we're going back to having a culch drawer full of one-off proprie

For a few shining years, you could basically charge any device with a micro-USB cord. I guess we're going back to having a culch drawer full of one-off proprietary connectors.

azernik 8y ago
Nope. We're just in the middle of a transition to USB-C. Even this isn't a total lockout, it's just a restriction of certain (potentially damaging-to-the-device) features.
- ryanianian 8y ago
  And to be fair the USB-C transition is an utter disaster. You can't tell really at all what capabilities a given USB-C device or even cable has by its appearance. I have a mess of black and white USB-C cables and every time I try to hook up a random USB-C accessory or plug in my USB-C laptop to its 85watt charger I have to check to check if it's charging or transferring data at full-speed. I've resorted to adding a bit of white nail-polish to the cables that I know transfer at full speed and power. And good luck finding a quality USB-C hub that actually fulfills any of the promises of "only need to plug in one cable to run everything on your laptop at full-tilt."
  - chx 8y ago
    > You can't tell really at all what capabilities a given USB-C device or even cable has by its appearance. I wrote this up at https://superuser.com/a/1200112/41259 https://superuser.com/a/1200112/41259
  - Jyaif 8y ago
    For me USB-C is briliant. Can charge everything (Laptop, Tablet, Nintendo Switch) except my iphone.
    - ryanianian 8y ago
      It "can charge" most things but maybe not at full-speed. E.g. only high-quality USB-C cables can charge at a full 85 watts. This is especially annoying with laptops where if you're doing CPU-intensive things you may end up with a dead battery at the end of the day even if you've been plugged in the whole time. So USB-C is nice if all you're doing is charging low-wattage devices. But whenever you're doing anything else, all bets are off as to whether your particular (device-a, cable, device-b) combination will work as you'd expect or not.
    - gambiting 8y ago
      It's a shame that the Nintendo Switch is on this list, because it's the shittiest of the devices to ever have a USB-C port. It's a pure lottery if it will charge with a given charger/cable - Nintendo should have never been allowed to receive USB-C certification for the lousy implementation that they have.
  - kylec 8y ago
    I’ve picked up a bunch of Apple’s Thunderbolt 3/USB-C cables: https://store.apple.com/xc/product/MQ4H2AM/A https://store.apple.com/xc/product/MQ4H2AM/A They’re not cheap, but in my experience they do everything: Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1 10Gbps, and up to 100W power delivery. Now I don’t have to worry about whether the cable supports what I want to do.
  - lexicality 8y ago
    Have you ever even found a USB-C hub that has more than one USB-C port on it? The closest I've mananged to find is https://www.belkin.com/us/p/P-F4U090/ https://www.belkin.com/us/p/P-F4U090/ which has a whopping two whole ports on it.
delecti 8y ago
Which years were those? Mini-USB didn't die out quite quickly enough to make room for Micro-USB before USB-C came onto the scene, so I've had to have at least 2 of those 3 for most of the past decade. My entertainment center currently has to deal with all three, and I have to deal with Micro and C just about everywhere else (most things are Micro except my phone which is C). I think this is a bit of a rose colored look back on things.
- AdmiralAsshat 8y ago
  2011-2016ish. I had the following devices, all of which could be charged by micro-USB: - HP Touchpad - Samsung Galaxy SII - HTC One (M7) - Nexus 7 (2013) - HTC One M9 Some had quick charge, some didn't, some could be charged wirelessly via proprietary or Qi standards, but they all could fall back on Micro-USB when they needed to. Now I'm on a GS8, which means I need a USB-C cable and a micro-USB to keep my phone and tablet charged, but luckily they both support Qi charging, so I can usually get away with just tossing the wireless charger pad into my bag and be good for the day.
  - plopz 8y ago
    I'm always amazed at how many devices people seem to have. I got a Samsung Galaxy Nexus in 2011 and just replaced it with a Moto G5 Plus in 2017. Both have micro-USB.
    - AdmiralAsshat 8y ago
      Not so much when you look at them as a progression: GS II -> HTC One M7 -> HTC One M9 -> GS8 HP Touchpad -> Nexus 7 If I had been able to unlock the bootloader on either of my HTC devices, I'd probably still be using them with a custom ROM of some kind. But that's Verizon for you...
- m52go 8y ago
  All my mobile devices...5 Android phones, a Kindle, and everything else I own use Micro-USB. I haven't needed anything else for the past 10 years.
bdcravens 8y ago
I know during that time some of the Samsung phones I had wouldn't charge with any random cable. One (S3 I think) typically required a much higher quality cord (so I had 2 categories of micro USBs) and the s5 used a 21-pin cord (though I believe you could use the micro USB side with a standard cable)
- berbec 8y ago
  You could. Iirc, my S5 used that cable for usb3 connectivity, which it couldn't do at the same time as charging!!
tdb7893 8y ago
You can still do charging perfectly fine, it's just not the highest speeds. For charging phones where I'm generally sitting somewhere for a while normal speed charging is fine so while it's annoying it doesn't really affect many consumers much
- secabeen 8y ago
  It's actually better for your battery to charge at the lower rate, from what I've been told.
trhway 8y ago
>For a few shining years, you could basically charge any device with a micro-USB cord. thanks to the EU regulation which enforced it when proliferation of custom chargers became unbearable. I wonder how that Google's charger lock-up will work in EU given the regulation. Or may be Google does this only in US?
stetrain 8y ago
Another way to look at it is that currently you can put a large number of devices (Android or iPhone) on a Qi compatible charging pad and it will charge. It's enough of a standard that it's being built into cars, which was almost never done with a fixed micro-USB or lightning dock. All you really need to know is if the phone supports "wireless charging", and if it does it will charge on a Qi pad. Yes there are variances in compatibility with different charging rates but the same was true of USB and it was never so universal across devices.
- tinus_hn 8y ago
  About six years ago quite a lot of cars had the wide 30 pin iPod charging/playing cables built-in.
  - stetrain 8y ago
    Yep, that's true. Since the Android + iPhone ecosystems came aroud most went to just having USB-A ports, and now some are doing USB-C. I know some Tesla models include a phone dock but the actual cable is interchangeable and just goes back to a normal USB-A port in the console.
    - rconti 8y ago
      Yup; our 3 came with 2 cables for the 2 phone slots; 1 USB-A to lightning and 1 USB-A to USB-C (wait, now I'm doubting myself.. maybe the 2nd cable is USB-A to micro-USB). Anyway, point is, it has one of each, so if you have 2 phones of the same type, you'll find an active community of folks trading one for the other.

For a few shining years, you could basically charge any device with a micro-USB cord. I guess we're going back to having a culch drawer full of one-off proprietary connectors.

azernik 8y ago

Nope. We're just in the middle of a transition to USB-C. Even this isn't a total lockout, it's just a restriction of certain (potentially damaging-to-the-device) features.

ryanianian 8y ago
And to be fair the USB-C transition is an utter disaster. You can't tell really at all what capabilities a given USB-C device or even cable has by its appearance. I have a mess of black and white USB-C cables and every time I try to hook up a random USB-C accessory or plug in my USB-C laptop to its 85watt charger I have to check to check if it's charging or transferring data at full-speed. I've resorted to adding a bit of white nail-polish to the cables that I know transfer at full speed and power. And good luck finding a quality USB-C hub that actually fulfills any of the promises of "only need to plug in one cable to run everything on your laptop at full-tilt."
- chx 8y ago
  > You can't tell really at all what capabilities a given USB-C device or even cable has by its appearance. I wrote this up at https://superuser.com/a/1200112/41259 https://superuser.com/a/1200112/41259
- Jyaif 8y ago
  For me USB-C is briliant. Can charge everything (Laptop, Tablet, Nintendo Switch) except my iphone.
  - ryanianian 8y ago
    It "can charge" most things but maybe not at full-speed. E.g. only high-quality USB-C cables can charge at a full 85 watts. This is especially annoying with laptops where if you're doing CPU-intensive things you may end up with a dead battery at the end of the day even if you've been plugged in the whole time. So USB-C is nice if all you're doing is charging low-wattage devices. But whenever you're doing anything else, all bets are off as to whether your particular (device-a, cable, device-b) combination will work as you'd expect or not.
  - gambiting 8y ago
    It's a shame that the Nintendo Switch is on this list, because it's the shittiest of the devices to ever have a USB-C port. It's a pure lottery if it will charge with a given charger/cable - Nintendo should have never been allowed to receive USB-C certification for the lousy implementation that they have.
- kylec 8y ago
  I’ve picked up a bunch of Apple’s Thunderbolt 3/USB-C cables: https://store.apple.com/xc/product/MQ4H2AM/A https://store.apple.com/xc/product/MQ4H2AM/A They’re not cheap, but in my experience they do everything: Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1 10Gbps, and up to 100W power delivery. Now I don’t have to worry about whether the cable supports what I want to do.
- lexicality 8y ago
  Have you ever even found a USB-C hub that has more than one USB-C port on it? The closest I've mananged to find is https://www.belkin.com/us/p/P-F4U090/ https://www.belkin.com/us/p/P-F4U090/ which has a whopping two whole ports on it.

delecti 8y ago

Which years were those? Mini-USB didn't die out quite quickly enough to make room for Micro-USB before USB-C came onto the scene, so I've had to have at least 2 of those 3 for most of the past decade. My entertainment center currently has to deal with all three, and I have to deal with Micro and C just about everywhere else (most things are Micro except my phone which is C). I think this is a bit of a rose colored look back on things.

AdmiralAsshat 8y ago
2011-2016ish. I had the following devices, all of which could be charged by micro-USB: - HP Touchpad - Samsung Galaxy SII - HTC One (M7) - Nexus 7 (2013) - HTC One M9 Some had quick charge, some didn't, some could be charged wirelessly via proprietary or Qi standards, but they all could fall back on Micro-USB when they needed to. Now I'm on a GS8, which means I need a USB-C cable and a micro-USB to keep my phone and tablet charged, but luckily they both support Qi charging, so I can usually get away with just tossing the wireless charger pad into my bag and be good for the day.
- plopz 8y ago
  I'm always amazed at how many devices people seem to have. I got a Samsung Galaxy Nexus in 2011 and just replaced it with a Moto G5 Plus in 2017. Both have micro-USB.
  - AdmiralAsshat 8y ago
    Not so much when you look at them as a progression: GS II -> HTC One M7 -> HTC One M9 -> GS8 HP Touchpad -> Nexus 7 If I had been able to unlock the bootloader on either of my HTC devices, I'd probably still be using them with a custom ROM of some kind. But that's Verizon for you...
m52go 8y ago
All my mobile devices...5 Android phones, a Kindle, and everything else I own use Micro-USB. I haven't needed anything else for the past 10 years.

bdcravens 8y ago

I know during that time some of the Samsung phones I had wouldn't charge with any random cable. One (S3 I think) typically required a much higher quality cord (so I had 2 categories of micro USBs) and the s5 used a 21-pin cord (though I believe you could use the micro USB side with a standard cable)

berbec 8y ago
You could. Iirc, my S5 used that cable for usb3 connectivity, which it couldn't do at the same time as charging!!

tdb7893 8y ago

You can still do charging perfectly fine, it's just not the highest speeds. For charging phones where I'm generally sitting somewhere for a while normal speed charging is fine so while it's annoying it doesn't really affect many consumers much

secabeen 8y ago
It's actually better for your battery to charge at the lower rate, from what I've been told.

trhway 8y ago

>For a few shining years, you could basically charge any device with a micro-USB cord. thanks to the EU regulation which enforced it when proliferation of custom chargers became unbearable. I wonder how that Google's charger lock-up will work in EU given the regulation. Or may be Google does this only in US?

stetrain 8y ago

Another way to look at it is that currently you can put a large number of devices (Android or iPhone) on a Qi compatible charging pad and it will charge. It's enough of a standard that it's being built into cars, which was almost never done with a fixed micro-USB or lightning dock. All you really need to know is if the phone supports "wireless charging", and if it does it will charge on a Qi pad. Yes there are variances in compatibility with different charging rates but the same was true of USB and it was never so universal across devices.

tinus_hn 8y ago
About six years ago quite a lot of cars had the wide 30 pin iPod charging/playing cables built-in.
- stetrain 8y ago
  Yep, that's true. Since the Android + iPhone ecosystems came aroud most went to just having USB-A ports, and now some are doing USB-C. I know some Tesla models include a phone dock but the actual cable is interchangeable and just goes back to a normal USB-A port in the console.
  - rconti 8y ago
    Yup; our 3 came with 2 cables for the 2 phone slots; 1 USB-A to lightning and 1 USB-A to USB-C (wait, now I'm doubting myself.. maybe the 2nd cable is USB-A to micro-USB). Anyway, point is, it has one of each, so if you have 2 phones of the same type, you'll find an active community of folks trading one for the other.