Bushwalk Australia

EU sets common USB-C charge port for phones, cameras, portable navigation devices, laptops, e-readers, earbuds, keyboards and computer mice...

To take place from their autumn 2024 .. but with a 10 month grace period for some products ...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-08/ ... /101133782

My take.. this will make life easier! However future developments may make the USB-C port less than optimum thus there may be future changes in this 'common charge port', hopefully not for quite some time ... say 10+ years?

It's never good to have technology dictated by bureaucrats. The EU almost enacted this legislation ten years ago, but with the micro-usbA connector instead of USB-C. That would have been terrible!

The industry has been moving steadily towards USB-C for a while now. At this point the EU is just jumping on the bandwagon and sticking it to Apple (whose chargers nowadays have a USB-C connector even though not all of their devices do).

Anyway, I'm waiting on a USB-C version of the Petzl Bindi rechargeable torch, then I'll get the USB-C InReach Mini and I'll finally be able to go on an extended bushwalk with just one cable! But the EU isn't mandating connectors for head torches.

ribuck wrote:It's never good to have technology dictated by bureaucrats.

Would you rather have it dictated by the sales team?

Before the bureaucrats got to cars you could find the throttle anywhere, different places on different vehicles.. brakes and clutches were the same. Motor cycles were similar .. until ~ 1960s.
An international traveller has to have several mains electrical connectors to cope with the different outlets found around the world. Fortunately they no longer vary from city to city... bureaucrats again.

Good that I won't need a 2 gram USB-C adapter to charge my NU20

Better if they legislate against AI hunting down humans.

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Warin wrote:Would you rather have it dictated by the sales team?

No, I'd rather have it dictated by the customers. USB-C would never have been invented by bureaucrats, and if they mandate it they'll stop the next great thing from being invented.

Warin wrote:Before the bureaucrats got to cars you could find the throttle anywhere, different places on different vehicles.. brakes and clutches were the same.

Very true. It takes a while to shake out all the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to a new technology, but they naturally converge over time. Different bureaucrats can't even agree on which side of the steering wheel to mandate the indicator lever.

Warin wrote:An international traveller has to have several mains electrical connectors to cope with the different outlets found around the world

Exactly. All the bureaucrats in the world, all mandating incompatible standards for mains connectors, that fail to take advantage of modern manufacturing methods such as injection moulding because innovation has been frozen out. And every government tells its citizens that they have the best mains connectors, plumbing standards, etc in the world.

ribuck wrote:I'd rather have it dictated by the customers....

...It takes a while to shake out all the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to a new technology, but they naturally converge over time. Different bureaucrats can't even agree on which side of the steering wheel to mandate the indicator lever.

Bureaucrats clearly aren't the best suited to decide. But customers don't get asked directly either. We can only choose to buy or not buy a particular product. But we need to buy something and the choices are limited. You might be able to argue that over time, a long enough time scale, such forces will direct development in a direction that works for customers. But in the short and medium term our opinions don't matter enough.

My wife has something like two dozen dongles for her Apple stuff. It's ridiculous and Apple did it on purpose. I'm happy the EU did what they did.

About time.

Designers and Manufacturers have been given 10 years plus to sort it out themselves but have proven unable to agree, so Bureaucrats have filled the void.

It's completely daft that I carry 4 different cables for especially the same task across different devices.

As for stifling innovation, its a plug folks, it has two simple and basic functions, data and power transfer. There is only so much innovation required here. The next step innovation is to do both of these reliably by wireless methods so the stifling argument is a furphy.

Let's be honest,this law is aimed directly at Apple. But what are the chances that Apple will say screw everyone and go fully wireless?

Pretty high I'd say.

EGM wrote:But what are the chances that Apple will say screw everyone and go fully wireless?

EU are planning on standardizing that too...

Hmmm. The notion of the EU somehow dictating what the world's biggest company doesn't quite fit. I don't see Apple - or anyone else affected for that matter - just rolling over.

The Lightning connector underpins the Made for iDevice program which is worth literally billions to both Apple and the numerous companies who have invested heavily in it. None of them are going to give that up without a fight.

Lightning was a smart and worthy upgrade from the mess of stupid/fragile/one-directional pre-C USB connector standards and Apple's own 30 pin dock connector. Other than being rather behind the ball in terms of bandwidth and power capacity these days, it's still a solid connector, still probably superior to USB-C in terms of physical format.

USB-C is superior obviously in terms of potential bandwidth and power delivery, but the mess of standards within the one connector is mighty confusing even if you're a bit tech savvy. Not all cables are equal, not all adapters are equal and not all ports are equal. It took several attempts (and ultimately a far bit of money) to actually buy an adapter and cable capable of charging my meaty 20000mAh power bank. Throw in the various versions of ThunderPort and DisplayPort over USB-C and, well, nothing's as easy or as simple as promised. At least all those Lightning connectors (and yeah, I have a whole handful of adapters) actually work out of the box, the way they're supposed to.

Silly thing is that even if I could charge my next iPhone off USB-C, I'm still taking a USB-A to USB-B Micro (headtorch, InReach) and USB-A to Garmin (watch) connector (what about them??) cable with me bushwalking, along with the holy grail USB-C to USB-C cable.

As others have said, wireless everything is so close, the point will probably be moot. Those who push their iPads hard already have USB-C anyway.

I think this is a good thing.

The EU was instrumental in implementing a standardised charging cable for phones from around 2009.

Back in the day there were proprietary charging cables for each manufacturer - I had Nokia cables, Sony cables, Motorola cables, Palm Pilot cables, all with different charging tips. Frustratingly even when you stuck with the same brand, when they came up with a newer model, there was no guarantee you could use your old cable/charger with the new model. I remember with my Nokias I had at least 3 different charging cables.

I remember Blackberry cables at least came with a Mini USB port that I charge with a few other Mini USB gadgets I had at the time. Then with the move to Micro USB at least it was great that multiple devices could be charged with the same cable.

Trying to solar charge things back in the day needed a separate bag of cables or swappable cable tips that I had. I went through a box in storage and found my old solar chargers from the mid 2000s it came with a multitude of swappable tips for the various phones back then. I used it to try to charge the 3.5mm DC Nokia socket and a DC barrel connector to a AA/AA charger for the GPS.

keithy wrote:The EU was instrumental in implementing a standardised charging cable for phones from around 2009.

Yes, they were pushing for micro-USB to be the standard. Thank goodness they didn't manage to make it mandatory, or USB-C would never have been developed.