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It's just really not clear to me that regulators need to be mandating product design. I have no expectation, for example, that these same regulators will stay

It's just really not clear to me that regulators need to be mandating product design. I have no expectation, for example, that these same regulators will stay on top of this and revise it when USB-C stops being the preferred or best choice. Twenty years ago, we really DID have a snarl of competing and proprietary phone ports. It was a mess -- Blackberry chargers didn't work with Palm; most WinMo devices had their own ports; etc. It was ugly. Now, pretty much everything is either USB or Lightning. This is good! What problem is the EU solving here?

jonwinstanley 4y ago
Exactly. So silly. Plus Apple Watches have always been only charged via conductive, so it’s likely phones could have gone that way too within a short space of time if the lack of a data cable was deemed acceptable.
- jonwinstanley 4y ago
  Actually, if they go wireless then they don’t need to have USB-C. Only devices charged by cable need to have USB-C.
  - doikor 4y ago
    Even devices that charge with a cable do not need USB-C if they are too small to physically fit a USB-C port. Though at that point they wont fit a Lightning port either but instead some weird exposed charging pins or wireless charging.
- morsch 4y ago
  Maybe, but I wouldn't hold my breath. The fastest charging Android phones charge at >100 W, while wireless charging is currently at 10-15 W.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  I routinely charge my iPhone on a wireless charger. When I'm in a hurry, I plug it in. I don't want that option taken away, wireless is nowhere near fast enough yet.
  - mikkergp 4y ago
    I’ve also found wireless charging to be inconsistent at best, especially with a case. Half the time I come back and I didn’t place my phone in exactly the right place. Maybe it’s the quality of my chargers, but until I can buy a random charger on Amazon and assume it to be as reliable as an equivalent cable, I don’t think we can give up the cables.(fwiw my current charger is name brand)
    - pwinnski 4y ago
      This is why the last couple of generations of iPhones have supported "magsafe" charging, so the magnets line things up every time. Amazon has plenty of "magsafe" chargers for iPhones. To be clear, wireless charging with "magsafe" is still slower than using a cable.
- agloeregrets 4y ago
  I would highly prefer the watch didn't charge that way; it takes FOREVER.
  - ubermonkey 4y ago
    That's not my experience. I'd check cables and ports and see if there's something you can adjust. My watch charges pretty quickly.
dhzhzjsbevs 4y ago
Apples racketeering and monopolistic behavior? I think this is a step over the line for regulators but so is apples behavior for the last decade or two when it comes to repairability. Fuck em.
- Bud 4y ago
  The debate over Lightning, of course, has nothing to do with repairability. As an aside, you might want to take a few minutes to look up what "monopolistic" means.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  > Apples racketeering and monopolistic behavior? That's a bit over the top, don't you think? When Apple created the Lightning connector, the accepted alternative was micro-USB. And micro-USB is terrible, awful, no-good, crap. Many millions of people are happy Lightning existed to bridge the time before the rest of the world could design a slightly better small USB connector. Which, of course, might still not be as durable as Lightning, but it's good enough.
  - bni 4y ago
    Are you telling me there has been other "USB" cables before? No, USB-C came down from the heavens in the dawn of time and evil Apple has been using their evil proprietary lighting all this time, just out of spite to anger Android fanboys.
  - simion314 4y ago
    Apple could have at least attempted to standardize his port, but they did not because they charged money when a third pary uses their proprietary ports. So stop crying for poor Apple, they have paid PR people to defend them with better arguments anyway.
    - rootusrootus 4y ago
      How often does the world willingly standardize on something invented by a single company? Even if they had released it into public domain, USB-C was going to happen anyway.
zaarn 4y ago
You forget that everything now being USB or Lightning is in part due to the EU attempting to harmonize the market on USB before today. All the larger market leaders signed an agreement to move to USB, which Apple understood as "USB at the charger" apparently. But the EU pushing this for the past decades is responsible for almost everything being interoperable.
- samatman 4y ago
  - zaarn 4y ago
    That would be believable except Apple has been fighting the EU for years now over not implementing USB at all. Sure the charger has USB, but the phones they've release the last decade don't have a USB port themselves. Even when the industry leaders signed their agreements, Apple had to be the butt. I don't see how them shipping USB chargers with proprietary adapters at some point helps their case here. Apple didn't standardize anything at all here.
  - eole666 4y ago
    Apple who also has a recent history of being, since many years, the only company not selling phone and tablets with standard microUSB/USB-C port... I hope this regulation will finally kill their lightning port.
horsawlarway 4y ago
This always gets bought up, and it's always wrong. > I have no expectation, for example, that these same regulators will stay on top of this and revise it when USB-C stops being the preferred or best choice. They didn't write the law as "you must use USB-C" They wrote the law as "The industry experts need to pick A standard for charging, and all manufacturers should respect that choice" They are welcome to change it going forward, they just have to agree and consolidate.
- junofan 4y ago
  Where? The directive’s annex 1a very clearly states “USB Type-C receptacle, as described in the standard EN IEC 62680-1-3:2021.” https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/46755 https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/46755
  - realityking 4y ago
    The main directive (not the annex) states > With respect to radio equipment capable of being recharged via means other than wired charging, the Commission is empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 44 in order to amend Annex Ia in the light of technical progress, and to ensure the minimum common interoperability between radio equipment and their charging devices, by: (a) introducing, modifying, adding or removing categories or classes of radio equipment; (b) introducing, modifying, adding or removing technical specifications, including references and descriptions, in relation to charging interface(s) and charging communication protocol(s), for each category or class of radio equipment concerned.’; So the commission can adopt new standards trough a much lighter executive process. It does not require new legislation to update the standard.
- andrewla 4y ago
  This is not correct so far as I can tell -- the amendment to directive 2014/53/EU [1] says > Hand-held mobile phones, tablets, digital cameras, headphones, headsets, handheld videogame consoles and portable speakers, in so far as they are capable of being recharged via wired charging, shall: > (a) be equipped with the USB Type-C receptacle, as described in the standard EN IEC 62680-1-3:2021 ‘Universal serial bus interfaces for data and power - Part 1-3: Common components - USB Type-C TM Cable and Connector Specification’, which should remain accessible and operational at all times; To switch to a new charger type would require legislative action, not just industry experts changing their mind. That said, I actually strongly prefer this approach to allowing an industry self-regulating group to make these decision. [1] https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/46755/attachments/4/translations/en/renditions/native https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/46755/attachments/4/...
DannyBee 4y ago
"I have no expectation, for example, that these same regulators will stay on top of this and revise it when USB-C stops being the preferred or best choice." Why? Everything is usb or lightning because people complained, and everyone but apple listened to people. If USB-C is no longer the best thing, rather than complain to 10 companies, and hope they all agree, they will complain to regulators, and hope they agree. What precisely is the difference you see? The regulators are at least accountable in some sense to the people, the companies are not.
- scarface74 4y ago
  Yes, because regulators are the best people to design technical products.
  - DannyBee 4y ago
    They aren't designing anything, they mandate an overall requirement - "You must all use the same charge port". This is no different than any other customer - they are just representing the overall customers who would otherwise not have enough power or voice to achieve what they want. Also - if you don't want your industry regulated, maybe don't make a mess of it? Regulators rarely pay attention to things that are working super-well.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      If this had gone through the first time, we would have all been stuck with micro usb. Customers can choose to buy Android phones.
      - DannyBee 4y ago
        No, acutally, you would not have. You would have been stuck with a standard until they changed the standard. Which ... you are in the same boat now? Beyond that, this is the magical free market will fix everything. Despite all evidence to the contrary.
RandomWorker 4y ago
That was the whole point of USB —- it’s in the name Universal Serial Bus. We have to talk about the ewaste issue, which is massive score on the earth. The particular village in China where all our waste get recycled is just a horrible scene. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_waste_in_Guiyu https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_waste_in_Guiyu This is a small step, but standardization is a great thing towards less waste.
- criddell 4y ago
  USB is universal, but there are so many variations that it's not very clear. Does the EU mandate say which USB-C modes and variations have to be supported?
  - davoneus 4y ago
    Too many get caught up in the "USB-C" connector, and forget about the modes and power delivery. That said, AFAICT the May 2022 revision states (pg 6): "the devices should incorporate the USB Power Delivery (USB PD) standard (as described in the European standard EN IEC 62680-1-2:2021) and ensure that any additional charging protocols allow for full USB PD functionality (new annex Ia, part I)." Then the referenced: "EN IEC 62680-1-2:2021" standard specifies "To facilitate optimum charging, the specification defines two mechanisms a USB Charger can advertise for the Device to use: 1. A list of fixed voltages each with a maximum current. 2. A list of programmable voltage ranges each with a maximum current (PPS). The Device requests a voltage (in 20 mV increments) that is within the advertised range and a maximum current." But those regs get over my head quickly, so someone else may have better luck interpreting them.
    - criddell 4y ago
      This brings up an issue that Carl Malamud at public.resource.org has been fighting. The EU directive references a standard that costs $300 if you want a copy. You shouldn't have to pay to know your laws. If the EU is going to reference a standard owned by somebody else, they should purchase a license that allows them to publicly post the entire standard (AFAIK, they haven't done that). Or they could pass laws that say any standards referenced by law lose their copyright status. This would be a type of eminent domain for intellectual property.
manuelabeledo 4y ago
> It's just really not clear to me that regulators need to be mandating product design. Is not design per se, but essential functionality. Radio is also regulated. And this happens in many other industries as well, see cars and all the mandatory devices included in them.
yummybear 4y ago
They will "periodically" check if there are better standards. The USB-C will only be fully introduced by 2027. I think it's probable that at least as soon as they're fully introduced we need a new standard.
- samatman 4y ago
  - modo_mario 4y ago
    Are standardised wall sockets planned economy? Charging ports for cars? This has been a push for more than a decade now and the reason everyone aside from apple converges because of the brussels effect. From my perspective it has been great. The alternative isn't just plain competitive designs. It's also anticompetitive practices.
  - npteljes 4y ago
    It's bleak either way. If we don't regulate enough, companies will eat us alive, and if we overregulate, then the government will do the same. We're better off with some kind of balance between these two, and mandating the charging port like this worked out well so far in my opinion, and so, I welcome the upgrade too.
tasn 4y ago
They already do, in many ways. Specifically, they already mandate the type of power plug that electrical appliances must be sold with. I don't know where I stand on this ruling philosophically, but I'm looking forward to having accessories all use USB-C instead of having some for Apple and some for everyone else.
Hamcha 4y ago
It's not a new thing. Car design has been dictated by regulations for decades and while I'm sure it has definitely stopped some novel designs from getting out there, I think we can be mostly thankful that we don't live in a sea of heterogeneous (let alone hazardous) designs. Cars can still look cool, but not to the point of being a detriment. USB-C is a pretty lax standard (for good and bad) and at the end of the day, the ultimate reason regulators have to come into play is that the industry didn't deal with this issue internally.
- MrBuddyCasino 4y ago
  > Cars can still look cool compare cars from 40s-70s to what came after, its a different world you can argue it was worth it, but you can’t argue cars didn’t get homogeneous and boring in the process
  - themitigating 4y ago
    Cars within a particular period mostly have the same overall design just like today. There will always be exceptions of course, however take a look at some models from 1966 (Ad heavy site, sorry) https://www.ranker.com/list/list-of-all-cars-made-in-1966/reference https://www.ranker.com/list/list-of-all-cars-made-in-1966/re... I feel like you see one car from 1966 then notice how most cars today are similar, and use that difference.
  - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
    > compare cars from 40s-70s to what came after, its a different world Yeah. we understood that they not only pollute the environment and it's stupid to build cars the size of a starship, but also by 1973 the World (except the US) understood that oil is not for granted and fuel efficiency should be a thing. Also safety while we are at it, doesn't sound so bad...
  - Hamcha 4y ago
    You need to distinguish design trends from what the regulation enforced. The most obvious examples that come to mind: - Small cars aren't that small anymore to stop them from being blatant death traps. - A lot of the edges have been smoothed and curved to make impact with pedestrians less deadly (also killed pop-up lights and hood ornaments, which is kinda funny considering the Mercedes Benz hood ornament was sometimes jokingly described as a sight to aim for pedestrians) - Thick A pillars due to crash tests regulations While I can blame these for killing out novel or even trademark features of some vehicles lineups, I don't think alone they made everyone homogenize their design, it's just what the industry eventually converged on by themselves. Look at phones, there's no regulation on what a phone should look like, yet today phones are just a fancy screen, nothing like the incredible variety that Nokia alone sported back in the late 90s/early 2000s.
seydor 4y ago
> USB or Lightning This problem
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  Eh, Apple was moving devices over to USB-C already, they didn't need to be forced. The reason they've held out on the iPhone is because users will complain about new cables ;-). Either way they're going to get criticized. Apple gets credit for creating Lightning to begin with while we waited for something better than micro-USB to come along. I'm glad for USB-C, but damn, it sure took a while.
  - MikusR 4y ago
    Apple gets paid when other companies make lightning products.
    - rootusrootus 4y ago
      But they get paid quite a lot more when people pay thousands of dollars to buy their hardware.
  - iakov 4y ago
    Let's be honest here, the only reason why they "held out" is the MFi program and the sweet sweet money they receive for it. I'm happy to see EU put a stop to this practice.
    - rootusrootus 4y ago
      Unless you have numbers to back it up, their MFi revenue is peanuts compared to the metric shitload of money they make directly from their customers blowing a grand or more on a phone. I guarantee they prioritize customer satisfaction way, way above MFi revenue.
dingleberry420 4y ago
> What problem is the EU solving here? Everything works together, except Apple stuff.
- mikkergp 4y ago
  What does work together mean in this case, it’s not like we’re talking Ethernet where these devices are communicating to each other. Like I can’t use an android charger? Lightning to usb-c cables are pretty much standard. It seems like in the short term anyways this increases e-waste as all my old Lightning chargers become deprecated.
  - cowtools 4y ago
    I can just plug a usb-c dock and use my android phone with a keyboard and mouse if I wanted to. I could plug two android phones together with usb-c and transfer files from one to another. Apple's phones are quite locked down, and I think a big reason why is that proprietary lightning connector. When you have a usb port for charging, there is no excuse for not implementing the full standard software-side.
    - pwinnski 4y ago
      There is zero chance that an iPhone with a USB-C port is going to allow phone-to-phone file transfer. You have the cause and effect reversed.
  - dingleberry420 4y ago
    The other day a coworker's iphone battery was nearly empty. He did not have his charger with me. I offered that he could use mine, an usbc charger that has worked for my past 3 phones and also works with my laptop. He couldn't use it. Of course, not being an iphone user, I did not have an adapter. Neither did he, considering he forgot his charger. The iphone and the usbc charger did not work together.
    - pwinnski 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
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joenathanone 4y ago
>It's just really not clear to me that regulators need to be mandating product design Seat belts, air bags, maximum vehicle weight, maximum vehicle width... It's a very large part of what they do.
tokamak-teapot 4y ago
I'm not sure they are clear what they are solving. The statement says: "European consumers were frustrated long with multiple chargers piling up with every new device" This was solved by companies no longer providing chargers with new devices. When you buy a new phone, you use your existing charger, only buying a new one when you actually need it. If you buy a new iPhone, you get a cable that plugs into a USB-C charger. If USB-C is mandated on the phone end: * I'll spend the next 20 years realising I have the wrong white phone charging cable with me * I still won't trust random USB-C cables * I still won't trust random USB-C chargers But - let's just do it. Maybe in 40 years it'll have seemed worth it.
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  > If USB-C is mandated on the phone end: ever heard of adaptors? apple loves them and loves charging 29 dollars for them!
- mmastrac 4y ago
  > I'll spend the next 20 years realising I have the wrong white phone charging cable with me > I still won't trust random USB-C cables > I still won't trust random USB-C chargers My answer to all three of these is the same: Why? My phone charges with every crappy USB cable and charger. Heck, my laptop will trickle charge [!] off a crappy cable on a crappy airline USB-C port. There's one place where I'm very careful about USB-C: keeping the specific USB-C cables with my laptop with the chargers themselves, just in case I need the Thunderbolt capability. The TB monitor I bought has a specific cable that stays attached to it. From looking on AliExpress the last few weeks, TB 100W cables appear to be getting commoditized. It's likely this worry I have about keeping laptop C cables straight won't be a big issue for much longer. [!] Amusingly, my laptop won't actually charge off the _standard_ A/C plugs on most airplanes because the 100W charger blows a soft fuse that requires unplugging and replugging the A/C adapter!
  - nybble41 4y ago
    > [!] Amusingly, my laptop won't actually charge off the _standard_ A/C plugs on most airplanes because the 100W charger blows a soft fuse that requires unplugging and replugging the A/C adapter! To be fair, 100 W may not seem like a lot when you're used to plugging in to the national power grid, but it's a lot to ask for a non-essential system supplied by an off-grid generator shared by hundreds of passengers. And 100 W is the maximum allowance for In-Seat Power Support Systems according to the FAA, before any conversion losses in your power adapter; the actual amount available to you may be much less.
danielfoster 4y ago
This is absolutely correct. I think the EU could have used its time and money focusing on more important problems. The new legislation is the type of feel-good lawmaking that sounds good on paper but has no real impact on society.
- vidarh 4y ago
  The EU threatening manufacturers with regulation unless they settled on a format led to the end of different chargers for every phone model. It definitely had a direct impact on my life. Getting rid of different cables as well will make me very happy. "The EU" is not a singular entity. The tiny little parts of the EU doing most of the work on this combined with the tiny amount of time spent by larger parts of the EU seems well worth it to me.
  - danielfoster 4y ago
    The EU = the EU Commission. Aren't there much bigger issues impacting consumers such as right to repair, planned obsolescence, clean energy etc.? The law will not take effect until 2024, and in the meantime the industry has largely moved toward USB-C / wireless charging.
    - vidarh 4y ago
      The EU Commission is still not a singular entity. The commissioners are not the ones doing the underlying work on these things, and so many things happens in parallel. This was part of the EU Commission's 2020 work programme as one small sub-point among well over a hundred under one of the 43 main goals, as a secondary priority after a long list of climate and economic changes. You're of course free to disagree with their prioritisation, but this has hardly been a major part of the Commissions work. > The law will not take effect until 2024, and in the meantime the industry has largely moved toward USB-C / wireless charging. Even with respect to mobile phones this excludes a certain notable holdout that accounts for a large proportion of the market, and which have kept resisting the EU push for over a decade, and a number of smaller holdouts still sticking with micro-USB. But you'll note this extends way past phones, including to laptops where there's still a mess of different chargers. With respect to wireless charging, it makes little difference as long as long as most people still have cables as backup (indeed I've yet to see someone use wireless charging; I'm sure a few more uses it at home, but I for one have zero devices capable of wireless charging; it will not reduce waste anytime soon) I know for my own use, unnecessary cables and chargers still account for a large proportion of my electric waste because of the frequency of replacement, so for my part I welcome this.
908B64B197 4y ago
> What problem is the EU solving here? This isn't about solving an existing problem. As you pointed out, pretty much everyone standardized around micro-usb almost a decade ago. That's mostly because Apple launched the iPhone with a proprietary but standard connector (the original iPod connector). So while all other phone makers had a special adapter and cable for every model, you could plug an iPhone on anything that worked with an iPod. Even the original firewire cable from 2003 would work with it. What this is about is getting reelected and justifying to voters the usefulness of paying huge amounts of taxes to fund an EU-wide parliament. So they manufactured an (easy) problem to "fix". And it's going to be extremely popular since they'll be attacking and regulating "evil foreign tech giants".
krzyk 4y ago
> Now, pretty much everything is either USB or Lightning. This is good! What problem is the EU solving here? It makes charging more user friendly. e.g. just an hour ago my wife asked if she can charge her iPhone with the charger that I use for my laptop and Pixel 4. I had to say "no" - and that's the case even when Apple has USB-C in their laptops, why the odd iPhone (and airpods)? It is quite pleasing to be able to charge laptop and mobile (and wireless headphones or ebooks) with the same charger.

jonwinstanley 4y ago

Exactly. So silly. Plus Apple Watches have always been only charged via conductive, so it’s likely phones could have gone that way too within a short space of time if the lack of a data cable was deemed acceptable.

jonwinstanley 4y ago
Actually, if they go wireless then they don’t need to have USB-C. Only devices charged by cable need to have USB-C.
- doikor 4y ago
  Even devices that charge with a cable do not need USB-C if they are too small to physically fit a USB-C port. Though at that point they wont fit a Lightning port either but instead some weird exposed charging pins or wireless charging.
morsch 4y ago
Maybe, but I wouldn't hold my breath. The fastest charging Android phones charge at >100 W, while wireless charging is currently at 10-15 W.
rootusrootus 4y ago
I routinely charge my iPhone on a wireless charger. When I'm in a hurry, I plug it in. I don't want that option taken away, wireless is nowhere near fast enough yet.
- mikkergp 4y ago
  I’ve also found wireless charging to be inconsistent at best, especially with a case. Half the time I come back and I didn’t place my phone in exactly the right place. Maybe it’s the quality of my chargers, but until I can buy a random charger on Amazon and assume it to be as reliable as an equivalent cable, I don’t think we can give up the cables.(fwiw my current charger is name brand)
  - pwinnski 4y ago
    This is why the last couple of generations of iPhones have supported "magsafe" charging, so the magnets line things up every time. Amazon has plenty of "magsafe" chargers for iPhones. To be clear, wireless charging with "magsafe" is still slower than using a cable.
agloeregrets 4y ago
I would highly prefer the watch didn't charge that way; it takes FOREVER.
- ubermonkey 4y ago
  That's not my experience. I'd check cables and ports and see if there's something you can adjust. My watch charges pretty quickly.

dhzhzjsbevs 4y ago

Apples racketeering and monopolistic behavior? I think this is a step over the line for regulators but so is apples behavior for the last decade or two when it comes to repairability. Fuck em.

Bud 4y ago
The debate over Lightning, of course, has nothing to do with repairability. As an aside, you might want to take a few minutes to look up what "monopolistic" means.
rootusrootus 4y ago
> Apples racketeering and monopolistic behavior? That's a bit over the top, don't you think? When Apple created the Lightning connector, the accepted alternative was micro-USB. And micro-USB is terrible, awful, no-good, crap. Many millions of people are happy Lightning existed to bridge the time before the rest of the world could design a slightly better small USB connector. Which, of course, might still not be as durable as Lightning, but it's good enough.
- bni 4y ago
  Are you telling me there has been other "USB" cables before? No, USB-C came down from the heavens in the dawn of time and evil Apple has been using their evil proprietary lighting all this time, just out of spite to anger Android fanboys.
- simion314 4y ago
  Apple could have at least attempted to standardize his port, but they did not because they charged money when a third pary uses their proprietary ports. So stop crying for poor Apple, they have paid PR people to defend them with better arguments anyway.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    How often does the world willingly standardize on something invented by a single company? Even if they had released it into public domain, USB-C was going to happen anyway.

zaarn 4y ago

You forget that everything now being USB or Lightning is in part due to the EU attempting to harmonize the market on USB before today. All the larger market leaders signed an agreement to move to USB, which Apple understood as "USB at the charger" apparently. But the EU pushing this for the past decades is responsible for almost everything being interoperable.

samatman 4y ago
- zaarn 4y ago
  That would be believable except Apple has been fighting the EU for years now over not implementing USB at all. Sure the charger has USB, but the phones they've release the last decade don't have a USB port themselves. Even when the industry leaders signed their agreements, Apple had to be the butt. I don't see how them shipping USB chargers with proprietary adapters at some point helps their case here. Apple didn't standardize anything at all here.
- eole666 4y ago
  Apple who also has a recent history of being, since many years, the only company not selling phone and tablets with standard microUSB/USB-C port... I hope this regulation will finally kill their lightning port.

horsawlarway 4y ago

This always gets bought up, and it's always wrong. > I have no expectation, for example, that these same regulators will stay on top of this and revise it when USB-C stops being the preferred or best choice. They didn't write the law as "you must use USB-C" They wrote the law as "The industry experts need to pick A standard for charging, and all manufacturers should respect that choice" They are welcome to change it going forward, they just have to agree and consolidate.

junofan 4y ago
Where? The directive’s annex 1a very clearly states “USB Type-C receptacle, as described in the standard EN IEC 62680-1-3:2021.” https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/46755 https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/46755
- realityking 4y ago
  The main directive (not the annex) states > With respect to radio equipment capable of being recharged via means other than wired charging, the Commission is empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 44 in order to amend Annex Ia in the light of technical progress, and to ensure the minimum common interoperability between radio equipment and their charging devices, by: (a) introducing, modifying, adding or removing categories or classes of radio equipment; (b) introducing, modifying, adding or removing technical specifications, including references and descriptions, in relation to charging interface(s) and charging communication protocol(s), for each category or class of radio equipment concerned.’; So the commission can adopt new standards trough a much lighter executive process. It does not require new legislation to update the standard.
andrewla 4y ago
This is not correct so far as I can tell -- the amendment to directive 2014/53/EU [1] says > Hand-held mobile phones, tablets, digital cameras, headphones, headsets, handheld videogame consoles and portable speakers, in so far as they are capable of being recharged via wired charging, shall: > (a) be equipped with the USB Type-C receptacle, as described in the standard EN IEC 62680-1-3:2021 ‘Universal serial bus interfaces for data and power - Part 1-3: Common components - USB Type-C TM Cable and Connector Specification’, which should remain accessible and operational at all times; To switch to a new charger type would require legislative action, not just industry experts changing their mind. That said, I actually strongly prefer this approach to allowing an industry self-regulating group to make these decision. [1] https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/46755/attachments/4/translations/en/renditions/native https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/46755/attachments/4/...

DannyBee 4y ago

"I have no expectation, for example, that these same regulators will stay on top of this and revise it when USB-C stops being the preferred or best choice." Why? Everything is usb or lightning because people complained, and everyone but apple listened to people. If USB-C is no longer the best thing, rather than complain to 10 companies, and hope they all agree, they will complain to regulators, and hope they agree. What precisely is the difference you see? The regulators are at least accountable in some sense to the people, the companies are not.

scarface74 4y ago
Yes, because regulators are the best people to design technical products.
- DannyBee 4y ago
  They aren't designing anything, they mandate an overall requirement - "You must all use the same charge port". This is no different than any other customer - they are just representing the overall customers who would otherwise not have enough power or voice to achieve what they want. Also - if you don't want your industry regulated, maybe don't make a mess of it? Regulators rarely pay attention to things that are working super-well.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    If this had gone through the first time, we would have all been stuck with micro usb. Customers can choose to buy Android phones.
    - DannyBee 4y ago
      No, acutally, you would not have. You would have been stuck with a standard until they changed the standard. Which ... you are in the same boat now? Beyond that, this is the magical free market will fix everything. Despite all evidence to the contrary.

RandomWorker 4y ago

That was the whole point of USB —- it’s in the name Universal Serial Bus. We have to talk about the ewaste issue, which is massive score on the earth. The particular village in China where all our waste get recycled is just a horrible scene. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_waste_in_Guiyu https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_waste_in_Guiyu This is a small step, but standardization is a great thing towards less waste.

criddell 4y ago
USB is universal, but there are so many variations that it's not very clear. Does the EU mandate say which USB-C modes and variations have to be supported?
- davoneus 4y ago
  Too many get caught up in the "USB-C" connector, and forget about the modes and power delivery. That said, AFAICT the May 2022 revision states (pg 6): "the devices should incorporate the USB Power Delivery (USB PD) standard (as described in the European standard EN IEC 62680-1-2:2021) and ensure that any additional charging protocols allow for full USB PD functionality (new annex Ia, part I)." Then the referenced: "EN IEC 62680-1-2:2021" standard specifies "To facilitate optimum charging, the specification defines two mechanisms a USB Charger can advertise for the Device to use: 1. A list of fixed voltages each with a maximum current. 2. A list of programmable voltage ranges each with a maximum current (PPS). The Device requests a voltage (in 20 mV increments) that is within the advertised range and a maximum current." But those regs get over my head quickly, so someone else may have better luck interpreting them.
  - criddell 4y ago
    This brings up an issue that Carl Malamud at public.resource.org has been fighting. The EU directive references a standard that costs $300 if you want a copy. You shouldn't have to pay to know your laws. If the EU is going to reference a standard owned by somebody else, they should purchase a license that allows them to publicly post the entire standard (AFAIK, they haven't done that). Or they could pass laws that say any standards referenced by law lose their copyright status. This would be a type of eminent domain for intellectual property.

manuelabeledo 4y ago

> It's just really not clear to me that regulators need to be mandating product design. Is not design per se, but essential functionality. Radio is also regulated. And this happens in many other industries as well, see cars and all the mandatory devices included in them.

yummybear 4y ago

They will "periodically" check if there are better standards. The USB-C will only be fully introduced by 2027. I think it's probable that at least as soon as they're fully introduced we need a new standard.

samatman 4y ago
- modo_mario 4y ago
  Are standardised wall sockets planned economy? Charging ports for cars? This has been a push for more than a decade now and the reason everyone aside from apple converges because of the brussels effect. From my perspective it has been great. The alternative isn't just plain competitive designs. It's also anticompetitive practices.
- npteljes 4y ago
  It's bleak either way. If we don't regulate enough, companies will eat us alive, and if we overregulate, then the government will do the same. We're better off with some kind of balance between these two, and mandating the charging port like this worked out well so far in my opinion, and so, I welcome the upgrade too.

tasn 4y ago

They already do, in many ways. Specifically, they already mandate the type of power plug that electrical appliances must be sold with. I don't know where I stand on this ruling philosophically, but I'm looking forward to having accessories all use USB-C instead of having some for Apple and some for everyone else.

Hamcha 4y ago

It's not a new thing. Car design has been dictated by regulations for decades and while I'm sure it has definitely stopped some novel designs from getting out there, I think we can be mostly thankful that we don't live in a sea of heterogeneous (let alone hazardous) designs. Cars can still look cool, but not to the point of being a detriment. USB-C is a pretty lax standard (for good and bad) and at the end of the day, the ultimate reason regulators have to come into play is that the industry didn't deal with this issue internally.

MrBuddyCasino 4y ago
> Cars can still look cool compare cars from 40s-70s to what came after, its a different world you can argue it was worth it, but you can’t argue cars didn’t get homogeneous and boring in the process
- themitigating 4y ago
  Cars within a particular period mostly have the same overall design just like today. There will always be exceptions of course, however take a look at some models from 1966 (Ad heavy site, sorry) https://www.ranker.com/list/list-of-all-cars-made-in-1966/reference https://www.ranker.com/list/list-of-all-cars-made-in-1966/re... I feel like you see one car from 1966 then notice how most cars today are similar, and use that difference.
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  > compare cars from 40s-70s to what came after, its a different world Yeah. we understood that they not only pollute the environment and it's stupid to build cars the size of a starship, but also by 1973 the World (except the US) understood that oil is not for granted and fuel efficiency should be a thing. Also safety while we are at it, doesn't sound so bad...
- Hamcha 4y ago
  You need to distinguish design trends from what the regulation enforced. The most obvious examples that come to mind: - Small cars aren't that small anymore to stop them from being blatant death traps. - A lot of the edges have been smoothed and curved to make impact with pedestrians less deadly (also killed pop-up lights and hood ornaments, which is kinda funny considering the Mercedes Benz hood ornament was sometimes jokingly described as a sight to aim for pedestrians) - Thick A pillars due to crash tests regulations While I can blame these for killing out novel or even trademark features of some vehicles lineups, I don't think alone they made everyone homogenize their design, it's just what the industry eventually converged on by themselves. Look at phones, there's no regulation on what a phone should look like, yet today phones are just a fancy screen, nothing like the incredible variety that Nokia alone sported back in the late 90s/early 2000s.

seydor 4y ago

> USB or Lightning This problem

rootusrootus 4y ago
Eh, Apple was moving devices over to USB-C already, they didn't need to be forced. The reason they've held out on the iPhone is because users will complain about new cables ;-). Either way they're going to get criticized. Apple gets credit for creating Lightning to begin with while we waited for something better than micro-USB to come along. I'm glad for USB-C, but damn, it sure took a while.
- MikusR 4y ago
  Apple gets paid when other companies make lightning products.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    But they get paid quite a lot more when people pay thousands of dollars to buy their hardware.
- iakov 4y ago
  Let's be honest here, the only reason why they "held out" is the MFi program and the sweet sweet money they receive for it. I'm happy to see EU put a stop to this practice.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    Unless you have numbers to back it up, their MFi revenue is peanuts compared to the metric shitload of money they make directly from their customers blowing a grand or more on a phone. I guarantee they prioritize customer satisfaction way, way above MFi revenue.

dingleberry420 4y ago

> What problem is the EU solving here? Everything works together, except Apple stuff.

mikkergp 4y ago
What does work together mean in this case, it’s not like we’re talking Ethernet where these devices are communicating to each other. Like I can’t use an android charger? Lightning to usb-c cables are pretty much standard. It seems like in the short term anyways this increases e-waste as all my old Lightning chargers become deprecated.
- cowtools 4y ago
  I can just plug a usb-c dock and use my android phone with a keyboard and mouse if I wanted to. I could plug two android phones together with usb-c and transfer files from one to another. Apple's phones are quite locked down, and I think a big reason why is that proprietary lightning connector. When you have a usb port for charging, there is no excuse for not implementing the full standard software-side.
  - pwinnski 4y ago
    There is zero chance that an iPhone with a USB-C port is going to allow phone-to-phone file transfer. You have the cause and effect reversed.
- dingleberry420 4y ago
  The other day a coworker's iphone battery was nearly empty. He did not have his charger with me. I offered that he could use mine, an usbc charger that has worked for my past 3 phones and also works with my laptop. He couldn't use it. Of course, not being an iphone user, I did not have an adapter. Neither did he, considering he forgot his charger. The iphone and the usbc charger did not work together.
  - pwinnski 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

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joenathanone 4y ago

>It's just really not clear to me that regulators need to be mandating product design Seat belts, air bags, maximum vehicle weight, maximum vehicle width... It's a very large part of what they do.

tokamak-teapot 4y ago

I'm not sure they are clear what they are solving. The statement says: "European consumers were frustrated long with multiple chargers piling up with every new device" This was solved by companies no longer providing chargers with new devices. When you buy a new phone, you use your existing charger, only buying a new one when you actually need it. If you buy a new iPhone, you get a cable that plugs into a USB-C charger. If USB-C is mandated on the phone end: * I'll spend the next 20 years realising I have the wrong white phone charging cable with me * I still won't trust random USB-C cables * I still won't trust random USB-C chargers But - let's just do it. Maybe in 40 years it'll have seemed worth it.

peoplefromibiza 4y ago
> If USB-C is mandated on the phone end: ever heard of adaptors? apple loves them and loves charging 29 dollars for them!
mmastrac 4y ago
> I'll spend the next 20 years realising I have the wrong white phone charging cable with me > I still won't trust random USB-C cables > I still won't trust random USB-C chargers My answer to all three of these is the same: Why? My phone charges with every crappy USB cable and charger. Heck, my laptop will trickle charge [!] off a crappy cable on a crappy airline USB-C port. There's one place where I'm very careful about USB-C: keeping the specific USB-C cables with my laptop with the chargers themselves, just in case I need the Thunderbolt capability. The TB monitor I bought has a specific cable that stays attached to it. From looking on AliExpress the last few weeks, TB 100W cables appear to be getting commoditized. It's likely this worry I have about keeping laptop C cables straight won't be a big issue for much longer. [!] Amusingly, my laptop won't actually charge off the _standard_ A/C plugs on most airplanes because the 100W charger blows a soft fuse that requires unplugging and replugging the A/C adapter!
- nybble41 4y ago
  > [!] Amusingly, my laptop won't actually charge off the _standard_ A/C plugs on most airplanes because the 100W charger blows a soft fuse that requires unplugging and replugging the A/C adapter! To be fair, 100 W may not seem like a lot when you're used to plugging in to the national power grid, but it's a lot to ask for a non-essential system supplied by an off-grid generator shared by hundreds of passengers. And 100 W is the maximum allowance for In-Seat Power Support Systems according to the FAA, before any conversion losses in your power adapter; the actual amount available to you may be much less.

danielfoster 4y ago

This is absolutely correct. I think the EU could have used its time and money focusing on more important problems. The new legislation is the type of feel-good lawmaking that sounds good on paper but has no real impact on society.

vidarh 4y ago
The EU threatening manufacturers with regulation unless they settled on a format led to the end of different chargers for every phone model. It definitely had a direct impact on my life. Getting rid of different cables as well will make me very happy. "The EU" is not a singular entity. The tiny little parts of the EU doing most of the work on this combined with the tiny amount of time spent by larger parts of the EU seems well worth it to me.
- danielfoster 4y ago
  The EU = the EU Commission. Aren't there much bigger issues impacting consumers such as right to repair, planned obsolescence, clean energy etc.? The law will not take effect until 2024, and in the meantime the industry has largely moved toward USB-C / wireless charging.
  - vidarh 4y ago
    The EU Commission is still not a singular entity. The commissioners are not the ones doing the underlying work on these things, and so many things happens in parallel. This was part of the EU Commission's 2020 work programme as one small sub-point among well over a hundred under one of the 43 main goals, as a secondary priority after a long list of climate and economic changes. You're of course free to disagree with their prioritisation, but this has hardly been a major part of the Commissions work. > The law will not take effect until 2024, and in the meantime the industry has largely moved toward USB-C / wireless charging. Even with respect to mobile phones this excludes a certain notable holdout that accounts for a large proportion of the market, and which have kept resisting the EU push for over a decade, and a number of smaller holdouts still sticking with micro-USB. But you'll note this extends way past phones, including to laptops where there's still a mess of different chargers. With respect to wireless charging, it makes little difference as long as long as most people still have cables as backup (indeed I've yet to see someone use wireless charging; I'm sure a few more uses it at home, but I for one have zero devices capable of wireless charging; it will not reduce waste anytime soon) I know for my own use, unnecessary cables and chargers still account for a large proportion of my electric waste because of the frequency of replacement, so for my part I welcome this.

908B64B197 4y ago

> What problem is the EU solving here? This isn't about solving an existing problem. As you pointed out, pretty much everyone standardized around micro-usb almost a decade ago. That's mostly because Apple launched the iPhone with a proprietary but standard connector (the original iPod connector). So while all other phone makers had a special adapter and cable for every model, you could plug an iPhone on anything that worked with an iPod. Even the original firewire cable from 2003 would work with it. What this is about is getting reelected and justifying to voters the usefulness of paying huge amounts of taxes to fund an EU-wide parliament. So they manufactured an (easy) problem to "fix". And it's going to be extremely popular since they'll be attacking and regulating "evil foreign tech giants".

krzyk 4y ago

> Now, pretty much everything is either USB or Lightning. This is good! What problem is the EU solving here? It makes charging more user friendly. e.g. just an hour ago my wife asked if she can charge her iPhone with the charger that I use for my laptop and Pixel 4. I had to say "no" - and that's the case even when Apple has USB-C in their laptops, why the odd iPhone (and airpods)? It is quite pleasing to be able to charge laptop and mobile (and wireless headphones or ebooks) with the same charger.