The EU common charger : USB-C

and the naming scheme doesn't make it any better, "USB 3.2 Gen 3 with USB PD and/or CuickCharge" just doesn't make sense to rationally thinking people.

how about "USB C-C up to X amount of mbytes and 100W charging"?

Letting parts of the USB-C spec be optional was a mistake. The USB Implementers Forum has completely lost the plot on what a "standard" is supposed to accomplish!

We need something like resistor band labeling for chargers. Yellow for 1A, Green for 2A and another band for the charging standard such as PD QC3.0 and so on.

As it stands now we are going to need a station in stops to test cables.

It's because the USB-IF is fucking terrible at their jobs and can't figure out how to name things in a meaningful way.

Yeah i discovered that and i was extremely furious. I bought a usbc cable around 10€ and it wasn't working because the device only supported a certain type of usbc. Apparently, there is some info about information in the eu website.

But i'm not able to understand any technical part...i just want a color : yellow charger/cable go with yellow port. Etc.

I have stuck labels on all my DP capable cables - it is very annoying not to get video output, and "does this cable even work for video" being one of the things you need to debug.

Absolutely. I think it should have labels instead of colors tho. Because vendors can use different colors for same standards, which they're doing right now.

For example random unique two-lettered labels printed on the one end of the cable. So we can Google "USB XX" and see what it is capable of and what not. Also vendors can simply say "this product is needed to be used with at least XX USB standard".

The problem with colors is; there is no one metric for difference. For example two cables can have same data transfer speed while one can have PD and the other one don't.

Yeah, something like [usb icon]⚡📺

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

Also, USB4 can optionally support PCIe tunneling, which is a fancy way of saying it supports plugging more advanced types of hardware in (like GPUs, high-speed network cards or NVMe SSDs) at speeds of up to 40Gbps.

And there is USB4 v2 (not kidding, that's the name) which extends USB4 to up to 80Gbps, but there are no devices that support that yet.

Isn't there a change in how USB is represented now? They should now have the max speed and power on the cable/adapter

Also to add to this, the USB-C connector is perfectly compatible with the actual USB data protocol all the way back to the original USB (1.0) in low speed mode (with its mind-dazzling 1.5Mb/s speed) - all the required pins are still there as are the bits of electrical signalling necessary in the original USB protocol.

It's just that USB-C adds more data lines and other things used in the more modern versions of the USB protocols (including for the newer power protocol - USB-PD, though maintaining backwards compatibility with the old power provision which was controlled via the USB data protocol itself) as well as support for the connector being flippable (works whatever way you plug it in) which is done by basically having the original lines appear twice, one on each side of the connector.

Isn't standard USB C cables only 3A (60W)? And 5A (100W) only if they identify themselves with a built in chip?

Yeah I think they'll definitely get in trouble for that. Nintendo's official statement that "third party chargers will void your warranty" is pretty clearly a breach of the common charger rule.

And it's not an empty claim either, some standards compliant third party chargers can actually damage a Nintendo Switch. Nintendo will have to fix that, or else their products might be banned across the EU.

Nintendo's USB-C on the Switch is standard compliant, but modified in a way to allow for smooth plugging into their own docks, which requires a much tighter tolerance.

Cheap third party docks cannot meet the tolerance required for smooth plugging, and the dock that was tested was not even PD compliant but tried to implement the handshake for high power in software instead, which was what caused the bricking of the Switch.

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.

What about wireless charging with a USB C wireless charging pad?

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.

What about little pucks as a compromise?

Or ideally, a single standsrdised one

Agreed.

Until then:

Your smart watch has a charging port? All mine (going back to the Moto 360) have always been charged wirelessly.

Currently this also seems true in the UK. The cheap USB-C devices I have refuse to charge using a real USB cable. And instead need a USB-A to USB-C cable.

Yeah that's when they cheap out on a resistor to make it USB/USB-C compliant (since without that they simply don't request any power. There isn't any power provided if nothing is requested) Idk if the rule applies to that.

I'm do not understand why it would not be able to charge with a X to USB-C.

As far as I'm aware, even if one of the two connected devices (such as charger and flashlight) doesn't have a proper chip for agreeing on voltage, it will just default to 5v. The only thing that should prevent that is a damaged (as in no + or - connection) cable. Even if the data connections are damaged, it should still charge in slow-mode.

Needless to say, I have never experienced that problem even with cheap china cables/chargers, except, of course, for damaged cables.

Edit: There would be one other scenario, being that one cannot charge a device by connecting it to another device which is not capable of charging, such as connecting the flashlight to your computers' charge-only port.

And yes, I'm from the EU. :)

Edit2: from reading the other comments, I have come to understand that there indeed exist cables which are not capable of properly transferring power, though it boggles my mind as to why.

They're probably using one of the non-standard quick-charge modes and can't fall back to slow charging. Likely won't work at just every USB-A port then either as there's a couple of those standards around and computers don't tend to support them (not just their USB-C ports, but all).

USB-C has its own quickcharge standard, USB-PD, and that's also what's required by EU rules.

The sale of those things will not be legal in the EU so no need to worry.

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!

Can you share a good source here, i will enjoy reading it :)

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.

There is a section of useful links on the page. 9 links in total. One of them is a factsheet on proposed common charger.

The EU cares about consumer protection because most of the big companies in a position to fuck over customers are based in the US.

It's why Americans don't care about consumer protection. They believe exploitation is okay as long as it's by another American.

Who's "we"?

USB C just means I now have to have USB cables with 6 different connectors instead of 5.

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.

What are you using that doesn't have it? Samsung, Apple, Dell, HP now use it on all phones, Tablets, Laptops. Playstation uses them, Vapes as well. I am unsure what XBOX uses, but usually people use a dock so I haven't looked at the plug.
Not asking as if there isn't a device out there that doesn't use it, but I don't know of any devices I can think of

Huh? It's been here for years. It's great

They'll switch it again. They changed to USB-C from MicroUSB, no reason why the standard could not be updated as necessary.

I think wireless will eventually take over.

My biggest concern is really powerful laptops. Mine sometimes uses 250 watts when doing heavy photogrammetry, which is higher than even the new PD standard for USB-C.

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 ?

The c port is specifically for mobile devices iirc. You will still see A ports on computers and laptops, but phones, tablets, and probably some wearables will be USB-C port only

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.

Why would EU even consider the Brexit standard?

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.

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.

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?

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?

Damn, how long does it take to charge a whole airplane over USB?

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 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.

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.

Probably just fine since every phone comes with a lightning or USB C port already and all have their IP65 ratings

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.

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.

Then we change the standard in the future

It can already do 240 watts which is really excessive for a mobile computer. Technology trends toward lower power requirements, not higher.