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- cross-posted to:
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cross-posted from: https://jlai.lu/post/3226934
The wait is finally over. From 2024, USB-C will be the common standard for electronic devices in the EU – and we have already seen the impact !
It means
- 🔌The same charger for all phones, tablets and cameras
- ⚡ Harmonised fast-charging technology
- 🔄Reduced e-waste
One charger to rule them all.
Now, a reality.
Learn more about the #EUCommonCharger here: https://europa.eu/!hwjj3G
Unbundling the sale of a charger from the sale of the electronic device .
The ‘common charging’ requirements will apply to all handheld mobile phones, tablets, digital cameras, headphones, headsets, portable speakers, handheld videogame consoles, e-readers, earbuds, keyboards, mice, and portable navigation systems as of 2024. These requirements will also apply to laptops as of 2026. Such transition periods will give industry sufficient time to adapt before the entry into application.
Consumers will be able to purchase a new electronic device without a new charger. This will limit the number of chargers on the market or left unused. Reducing production and disposal of new chargers is estimated to reduce the amount of electronic waste by 980 tonnes yearly
Producers will need to provide relevant visual and written information about charging characteristics, including information on the power the device requires and whether it supports fast charging. This will help consumers understand if their existing chargers meet their new device’s requirements and/or help them select a compatible charger. Combined with the other measures, this will help consumers to limit the number of new chargers purchased and save at least €250 million a year on unnecessary charger purchases.
L’attente est finalement terminée. À partir de 2024, l’USB-C deviendra la norme commune pour les appareils électroniques dans l’UE – et nous avons déjà vu son impact !
Cela signifie
- 🔌Le même chargeur pour tous les téléphones, tablettes et appareils photo
- ⚡ Technologie de charge rapide harmonisée
- 🔄Réduction des déchets électroniques
Un chargeur pour les gouverner tous. Maintenant, une réalité. Pour en savoir plus sur le #EUCommonCharger, cliquez ici : https://europa.eu/!hwjj3G
Les exigences de « charge commune » s’appliqueront à tous les téléphones mobiles portables, tablettes, appareils photo numériques, écouteurs, casques, haut-parleurs portables, consoles de jeux vidéo portables, liseuses électroniques, écouteurs, claviers, souris et systèmes de navigation portables à partir de 2024. Ces exigences s’appliquera également aux ordinateurs portables à partir de 2026. De telles périodes de transition donneront à l’industrie suffisamment de temps pour s’adapter avant l’entrée en application.
Les consommateurs pourront acheter un nouvel appareil électronique sans nouveau chargeur. Cela limitera le nombre de chargeurs sur le marché ou inutilisés. On estime que la réduction de la production et de l’élimination des nouveaux chargeurs permettrait de réduire la quantité de déchets électroniques de 980 tonnes par an.
Les producteurs devront fournir des informations visuelles et écrites pertinentes sur les caractéristiques de charge, y compris des informations sur la puissance requise par l’appareil et s’il prend en charge une charge rapide. Cela aidera les consommateurs à comprendre si leurs chargeurs existants répondent aux exigences de leur nouvel appareil et/ou les aidera à sélectionner un chargeur compatible. Combinée aux autres mesures, cette mesure aidera les consommateurs à limiter le nombre de nouveaux chargeurs achetés et à économiser au moins 250 millions d’euros par an sur les achats inutiles de chargeurs
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I’m really curious to see the knock on effects of this legislation down the road. There’s bound to be issues at some point where the USBC law stifles something somewhere, and there’s bound to be someone that finds a way around it somehow.
I like the uniformity to reduce ewaste in particular, but wish rules like this could be more nimble.
I’m mostly curious about the laptops part because many laptops with discrete GPUs and high power components often come with 125 watt or more charging bricks, which is pushing the limits of USB Power Delivery without more specific cables and chargers. If someone launches a laptop (well more like a portable workstation) that needs 200-300 watts how’re they going to power that over USB C, and what kinds of malicious compliance are we going to see for these edgecases?
My Dell 7560 mobile workstation is powered by USB C when connected to the docking station, which is rated at 230 watt as I recall.
I’m hoping the legislation doesn’t forbid dual charging ports, where the device has usb charging which works as well as it can, and then a proper charging port. My current laptop has that configuration.
Because there’s also the issue of durability. A barrel power connector can freely rotate which can absorb a lot of stress when the laptop is moved around. I think a usb-c cable that’s used the same way would fail a lot sooner, especially with all the delicate wiring it has in comparison.
USB PD can currently do up to 240W. From what I understand, there’s still more headroom, so if/when devices need more power they can continue to extend the standard.
The EU law defers to USB IF and allows them to update the standard, so if there’s newer better ports for mobile devices released then it can basically be rubberstamped, plus protocol updates for USB C devices are not impeded at all.
The only plausible near-term issue would be if somebody else created a more compact and robust port with equivalent capabilities (and that will likely take some time) which they want to put as the only port in some devices covered by the regulation.
I don’t think this will impede innovation or getting better speeds. Just as we have done with USB-A, we will just implement new generations with faster speeds in the same form factor and they will have backwards compatibility.
This is my big concern as well. This works because USBC is good, but imagine if they’d done this ten year ago with something like microUSB or FireWire?
Yes. The Commission tried to get manufacturers to adopt this voluntarily for years. They almost all did. Almost. Basically, this needs to be binding legislation just for Apple.
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I needed this comment like I need a hole in the head
No baguette for you, Kevin!
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It’s a brand new account and the comment doesn’t any sense. I assume it’s a troll and you can just disregard it
More justification:
- The post has an English version, so it should be fine for any community or instance specific rules.
- Having French means that this post can reach more people, especially in the region where this news is relevant
- Languages aren’t cringe
Thank a lot 😁👍
i wasn’t sure i followed the rules and on mobile it’s hard to double check. So if we can do bilingual post, it would be fun to discover new languages. 😁
But on moderation side it may increase modo workload…
That’s true about moderation. In the past I’ve used Google translate to get an idea of what’s being said
I’ve also seen discussion about implementing automatic translations that either run locally on your device, or get cached to the server (in whichever languages the users want / admins set)
Automatic translation ? Very cool as long we can read the original text. :D
For me, i manage a minetest server and it was very diffucult, there were polish, turkish…lot players were young and couldn’t speak any english word. And it was crazily difficult because i wanted to help them, then explain why i decided and it was a very difficult experience to maintain a good multilingual community with young people along my server own rule.
Very hard :( I hope i will succed one day.
nice troll account 👍
Some Chinese manufacturers are already working on undermining this by releasing 12V non-PD devices that use the plug. Those devices are not compatible with regular chargers and if you use their power supply for something else that device will be destroyed (because it’s designed for 5V not 12).
The sale of those things will not be legal in the EU so no need to worry.
One of those devices is currently shipping to me via AliExpress… passed import without any issues.
Well, it’s not 2024 just yet. And besides that, I don’t think it’s possible to completely control everything that gets imported, but I reckon it’s going to be a rather rare occurrence in the future.
I reckon it’s going to be a rather rare occurrence in the future.
Tech illiterate folks who lack the sense to get concerned by how cheap stuff on AliExpress is (or more accurately, Temu in my MIL’s case) will get burned by this for sure
Cool, we’ll have a proper laugh at you when you try to get a refund when it burns your house down
You would think you would know, when you buy from AliExpress, which states specifically that it is shipping from OUTSIDE EU and is IMPORTING DIRECTLY.
It can’t really be any others fault but your own.
Its like saying “You said drugs are illegal but i just got them from my dealer without issue.”
You can buy all sorts of stuff that violates IP laws from ali express too…
To be fair, that is true of a lot of dropship stuff on Amazon and EBay already. Claiming EC marking and the like they just don’t meet. The EU needs to come down hard on these market platforms. It’s unfair on legitimate manufacturers and bad/unsafe for consumers.
Can you share a good source here, i will enjoy reading it :)
This is a good video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByxMSOXVyrc
Thank a lot :)
i mean, you likely already could get some out-of-spec chinese chargers… that’s Always been a risk when goong for low quality stuff!
I really like this. Being able to just buy bunch of newest generation Type-C and using it everywhere is awesome.
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The best part is that you can help your friends. :3
That’s what I was hoping but here in the US it’s still difficult to find charging blocks with multiple USB-C ports, and they’re targeted to high end devices, and we still have too many devices with older and nonstandard connectors. I know it’s not our standard but was certainly hoping theEU could create some sanity for all of us
It’s not difficult to find though it can be expensive. I’ve been using Anker multi port type c chargers for years
it’s still difficult to find charging blocks with multiple USB-C ports
They exist but you won’t find them on the shelf of overly cheap chargers at the grocery store or gas station. Seems most of them cost around $50 or more if they’re worth using. Personally I’ve had good luck with Anker (which I just saw in a target electronics section yesterday!), and I’ve heard good things about uGreen on Amazon.
I currently use a 65 watt gAn charger with 3 ports when I work from home to keep my work laptop topped off plus my phone and one other bonus USB C device. My work laptop complains about the low power charger if I have anything else plugged in but is otherwise fine, and it keeps everything nicely charged at a very rapid pace
Angler has done great products for sure, but how about a cheap 3 port: so far I have my phone, watch and Kindle on usb-c, and only the phone can use any significant power. The three together can use at most , say 30w, and I’d be happy with much less since I just need it fast enough to charge overnight
I got my current charger for about $35 on sale, and it seems the prices are slowly falling, but you certainly have to hunt around a bit. On the upside they seem to now cost less than 3 separate similar quality chargers. I’d say do some hunting around especially online and see what you can find
Huh, sure enough, I quickly found a no-name charger for <$20 with three usb-c ports, totaling 35w. (Actually seems too cheap to trust, but it’s great to see it exists). It looks like there is much better choice/availability than when I last looked back in September
I can’t wait for this to be a thing - we may not have any such requirements in the US but should get some advantage.
I’m just frustrated that it doesn’t seem to be happening yet. Back in September I got a new iPhone with USB-C and wanted to jump directly to USB-C everywhere, but it’s pretty rare outside of phones. I know the older full sized USB is capable for small devices, as is mini usb and micro usb, but it’s really frustrating to have to buy so many cables when we could have had a standard
I had a similar issue so I went ahead and bought converters. Now I have at least a buffer of one cable I can convert to either USB A or micro B.
USB C just means I now have to have USB cables with 6 different connectors instead of 5.
Was it really necessary to include the french 🥖 🏳️part?
Appât faible, pote.
Yes
reduced e-waste
Well I wish the products would be bloody cheaper as well when there’s no charger in the package, but no…
Brussels effect at work!
Wonder when they plan on changing from USB-a to USB-c on airplanes too
Damn, how long does it take to charge a whole airplane over USB?
No wonder air travel is so expensive!
As long as your phone doesn’t come with an airplane as its charger I don’t think that is covered by this. But airplanes are refitted on a regular basis, so maybe they will change all the ports within the next decade…
I wish smartwatches were included too so that I could travel with just one charger and one cable. I guess waterproofing a USB-C port is not that easy though (for the ratings those watches usually have).
Agreed.
Until then:
Your smart watch has a charging port? All mine (going back to the Moto 360) have always been charged wirelessly.
Actually I wrote smartwatch but I meant GPS watch. I recently bought a Garmin and there’s no wireless charging for it.
What about wireless charging with a USB C wireless charging pad?
Yeah. Wireless charging helps some of that, especially if the pad is itself connected through a USB-C cable.
Ideally, in my mind, someday phones themselves will be able to charge wireless devices, so we’ll connect the phone through the USB-C cable and place the watch on top and they’ll both be ready to go in the morning.
My phone has reverse wireless charging.
It’s slow and terrible, but does workSome phones can already do that, like wireless powershare (Samsung)
Yeah mine does, I love it. I just want it to be standard.
it’s definitely looking like it will be standard. the new iPhones do it too.
Google phones had and maybe still have it. There was an ad about it of one of their phones charging an iPhone.
What about little pucks as a compromise?
Or ideally, a single standsrdised one
I can relate to this. I’ve got a Garmin and I’m traveling currently. The best solution I could find was to get a Garmin - USB-C adapter with a little loop at the end, so I tied it to my existing USB-C cable and can plug in the adapter whenever I need to charge my watch.
Let’s get the next debate going and standardise on either a 2 pin euro or 3 pin UK socket now 😂
I’m afraid its worst than you think 😂
And another thing. In fact 3 pins is a security measure. 2 pins is for low powered device. I forgot if it was to prevent power outage or something else.
I like the brown one. Why aren’t we all switch to that lil smiling face? :)
The schuko plug is widely adopted over here in Italy too. Usually for computers and appliances with high current requirements (ovens, refrigerators)
Denmark is switching to the EU standard plug too, like Germany and Sweden, I think it’s mandatory in new housing.
The third pin is for grounding devices. Devices that aren’t guaranteed by design to stop the user accessing live voltage need a ground wire.
In the UK all devices need the ground pin on the plug. Even if a ground isn’t required on the device. Sometimes they are plastic. UK plugs use the longer ground pin as a key that opens the ports to the live and neutral wires. This makes it difficult for children to insert metal things into the live port.
Very cool, thank for the lesson 😁👍
So we should adopt UK plug as long it’s not the driver’s rule.
They are as an inverted pic of french civilisation. For example their food 😋 (i’m joking)
Excellent idea! If only they weren’t so disgustingly bulky 😂
And absolutely hideous to stand on!
The have more features than the average plug.
They were initially designed to be installed by the user (initially devices were sold without plugs). So you could unscrew and rewire them easily.
They also have fuses inside them that are user replaceable. This allowed the UK to use wiring systems in the wall that use less cooper - saving money. It also makes the devices safer. Each device has its own fuse adding redundancy and allowing for smaller fuses for lower powered devices.
The size is the price we pay for safety and repairability.
Very insterresting, thank a lot :)
Obligatory Tom Scott video about UK Plugs
Cool and we see the fuse inside the plug ☺️
The first one has two grounds It’s the one in use where I live I find it pretty good
Green, blue, and brown are already compatible (or at least green and brown are, except ground), though I’m not sure about yellow and red.
Why would EU even consider the Brexit standard?
Realistically they never would, and wouldn’t have even when the UK was in the EU due to the wider prevalence of other socket types.
But if you want an answer as to why they should, it’s because it’s an excellent socket design; just about as safe as it’s possible to make a mains electricity connection, and practically indestructible to boot.
The EU plug is designed so that the pins for power become unreachable before they reach the socket and become powered, and ground wire touches the ground pins before that as well.
I’ll be the contrarian here. I like the US plug - the basic two-prong, non-polarized variant.
It doesn’t have any safety features, but it sure is compact. It’s easy to make it fold flat even in tiny USB cubes.
They make em just as compact with the UK plug too 😀
That is well-done, but it’s quite a bit larger than what I linked.
Don’t see what Brexit has to do with this. I’m of the opinion that Brexit was stupid, but it’s getting tiresome that Brexit gets brought up whenever the UK is mentioned, even when completely unrelated.
The Type-G (UK) plug is a genuinely remarkable design. Really, everywhere should have adopted it.
Of course, switching all plugs and sockets is ludicrously tedious and costly, so it’s not happening. Especially since most plugs are “good enough” already.
Yer, that won’t be forever. Brexit hasn’t worked out well.
Is it only the physical connector or also the Power Delivery protocol? Because if it’s only the connector you might end up plugging 2 things that are not compatible with each other.
The law requires a the industry agree to a “common” charger. Right now, the industry has picked USB but that might change.
It’s up to the industry to figure out technical details…
But basically it needs to be possible to buy one charger, from any brand, that will “work” to charge any device. That doesn’t necessarily mean it will work well… a 5w charger might take 20 hours to charge a full size laptop battery for example… And that’s if the laptop is off. Some USB chargers provide 240w… you probably don’t want one of those for regular use though - they will be big and heavy and expensive. And a small battery won’t charge that fast anyway.
Sorry i’m very bad at understanding how power work but maybe the link and the documentation can answer your question ?
I read the website but it doesn’t say. But it does say that the consumer will have to check that the charger is compatible with the device so you might end up frying your device if you connect them to the wrong USB C Charger (things that were prevented because of the different connectors). I don’t say that the directive is wrong but it doesn’t go far enough. It should force all devices manufacturers and chargers manufacturers to use the power delivery protocol so consumers don’t have to worry about power compatibility between chargers and devices.
The power delivery protocol allows for the device and the charger to negotiate a charging power.
Without delivery protocol the charger delivers as much power as it’s can so it might fry the connected device.
No device that is properly following the USB standard will be fried by, or fry, another USB device.
It’s true that a USB-C cable might not work with some PD requirements and will support only a certain USB data version or lower, but all of USB is backwards compatible, you will get slower speeds or less power but not anything dangerous.
Unless the device(s) you use are not properly following the USB standards.
As others mentioned in the thread, Nintendo Switches clearly don’t follow the standards. So having this hole patched in the legislation would be nice.
That might be what some document says, but it’s definitely NOT true in the real world. Benson Leung (no longer doing reviews but still active on reddit) proved that by meticulously testing chargers from many manufacturers (some of the popular ones too).
Many chargers even amongst the popular brands could fry your device if the device isn’t being careful. I’m not sure it gotten better in the last 5 years.
That’s why I said “if it’s properly following the standard”
Those devices that Benson tested that failed were not properly following the standard.
Oh…something it telling me it won’t end well. I was full of hope after all those bad new on politic and climate change. I really hope they anticipated it. 😔
In terms of water proofing, how well does the usb-C port hold up? Water damage is one of the main causes of death for mobile phones. I wanted to see better water proofing overall and wonder if this would be a setback in that regard.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m very thrilled to have USB c as the standard.
USB-C can be rated all the way up to IP68, but most manufacturers only go for IP66, because IP67 and IP68 require a lot of additional testing and QA. Even if the port is technically capable of being rated at IP67 or IP 68, the manufacturer will only rate it on the packaging as IP66, so they don’t have to do the additional testing to get the IP68 stamp.
I know waterproof Type C ports exist as electrical components. So the test is up to the manufacturer to correctly implement it.
Ultimately, Type C is no worse an option to other ports.
Probably just fine since every phone comes with a lightning or USB C port already and all have their IP65 ratings
I have Honor Magic 5 Pro, and it is rated IP68. Dudes even submerged it on the launch event. I only had it in use once while it was raining and it’s okay for now.
I mean, I would hope literally any phone on the market could survive rain.
You’d be surprised
My pixel phone had a wave of salt water from the ocean get into the USB-C port. The phone detected the moisture and disabled the port until it was clean and dry. The port still works.
My last pixel died on a river float when water got into the storage area where my phone was. I don’t know how the water got inside the phones internals but I suspect the charging port could have been the weak point.
Let’s hope they do this with the 3,5mm jack too
So what is the standard fast charging solution they’ve choosen?
The site doesn’t say.
Are we going to see USB-PD in more phones now?
I’d love to see all the different manufacturers standards bugger off.
Ive seen USB C accessories work in one socket and not in another and it pisses me off way too much. If anyone can decide on what is the protocol the connector is hardly universal. Making sure a particular charger will be 100% compatible with your accessories involves long research into confusing acronyms and then it doesn’t work when you buy it.
