This is soooo stupid. First of all, technology changes. Stop interfering with the free market. If you legislatively lock in a certain device, progress will cease. Second, the whole idea of one type of power brick with one type of attached cord is just plain idiotic!! There is already a world-wide standard. It's called USB.
Companies: Just stop making power bricks with attached cords!!!! Make power bricks only with USB-A and/or USB-C connectors on them, and then everyone can BTOC (bring their own cable). Bingo. Done. Interchangeable power bricks usable on 90% of portable devices. Significant E-waste reduction. No regulation necessary, and the EU can go F-off.
"Oh no, we can't do anything that makes sense, noooo." Ugh! "But what happens when technology changes? We can't have that! Advancement? Self determination? - anathema!" When the tech changes, just make the new power bricks backwards compatible (put 2 or 3 different connectors on them). I envision we'll eventually see USB-D and USB-E, etc. etc. This is not that hard!
We are already at the point where USB-A connectors are so ubiquitous, that companies don't really even need to include power bricks with devices anymore - at least with cell phones and other small devices. Just include the appropriate USB-A-to-whatever cable with your device. And thanks to USB-C, eventually it won't be necessary to ship power bricks with laptops either.
This is soooo stupid. First of all, technology changes. Stop interfering with the free market. If you legislatively lock in a certain device, progress will cease. Second, the whole idea of one type of power brick with one type of attached cord is just plain idiotic!! There is already a world-wide standard. It's called USB.
G6Companies: Just stop making power bricks with attached cords!!!! Make power bricks only with USB-A and/or USB-C connectors on them, and then everyone can BTOC (bring their own cable). Bingo. Done. Interchangeable power bricks usable on 90% of portable devices. Significant E-waste reduction. No regulation necessary, and the EU can go F-off.
"Oh no, we can't do anything that makes sense, noooo." Ugh! "But what happens when technology changes? We can't have that! Advancement? Self determination? - anathema!" When the tech changes, just make the new power bricks backwards compatible (put 2 or 3 different connectors on them). I envision we'll eventually see USB-D and USB-E, etc. etc. This is not that hard!
We are already at the point where USB-A connectors are so ubiquitous, that companies don't really even need to include power bricks with devices anymore - at least with cell phones and other small devices. Just include the appropriate USB-A-to-whatever cable with your device. And thanks to USB-C, eventually it won't be necessary to ship power bricks with laptops either.
You can basically thank the EU for most of your post and it was achieved without legislation. Manufacturers got their ears twisted and users benefitted.
The 'bring your own cable' already largely works but for future use, chips/sensors will be required in chargers, cables and ports to make sure the mix and match approach can squeeze the best performance out of every combination without damaging any of the components.
This initiative was well intentioned but doomed from the start. The worst possible thing the EU could do would be to establish a mandate for a universal charger with a common physical connector. I hate consumer waste as much as anyone but this is an area where evolutionary principles need to be allowed to do their thing to converge on a natural, market driven solution to the problem. Once you drive a stake in the ground with a mandate you are forever married to a solution that's frozen in time. Take a look at the main power connectors used outside of North America if you want to see the hideous result of a poorly selected "standard." The power cord connectors used in Europe are only huge, ugly, and clumsy, but the ones in UK and Singapore take the hideousness to unprecedented levels. How anyone could have desired such wonky abominations for everyday use is beyond me, but it probably seemed like a good idea at the time. The longer we can put it off and allow innovators to cull the bad attempts from the good ones, the better off we'll be. The Apple modular power bricks used for the iPad and MacBook are a step in the right direction and buy us more time to deal with the current state of wonkiness.
dewme, with all due respect, you are an idiot and don’t know a thing about electrical engineering, design and safety.
Any person well-versed in the matter will readily tell you that the safest mains plugs in the world are the ones used on the UK: they are extremely compact – especially considering they must have a bloody fuse in them – and have a protective shroud on the live and neutral prongs, which means you can never touch the metal parts while they are live, and the ground/earth prong is longer than the other two, which means that any appliance will be grounded before getting current, and due to the plug’s triangular shape it’s also the only one which can engage the protection flap mechanism, meaning you can’t connect any other kind of plug to that outlet (you can, if you really must go that route, stab the earth connection with some pointy object and stick an Europlug in the outlet, but then you’re veering off into Darwin Award territory). Oh, and to top it off, the outlets must have switches on them… What a concept!
The only known (and widely mocked) design defect those have is the fact that they are back-heavy, and will lie flat on the ground with those three sharp, beveled metal prongs facing right up. Suffice to say, a UK plug is probably one of the worst things in the world (even moreso than a LEGO brick and a bit behind broken glass, a weever or a jellyfish) you can step on, but I’d still gladly do so every now and then over being fried to death any day of the week.
Schuko (the European heavy-duty standard) is a close, less over-engineered standard (but still moreso than most): there’s no protection flap shenanigans going on (I mean, there are, but they are tension-based plastic flaps – instead of the inviolable sliding flaps of the UK plug – which can be overcome if you exert enough force) but, since the outlets are deeply recessed and the earth/ground connections extend all the way to the plug’s edges, your device is also grounded before even getting current and you never get to touch live prongs either; also, quite like their UK brethren, those things are virtually indestructible (I mean it, I’ve never seen a broken Schuko plug, outlet or power strip in my entire life) and they stay put very firmly. Europlugs (the smaller, non-grounded variant) aren’t as resistant, but they are compatible with Schuko outlets and many other standards around the world (such as the Swiss, Swedish and Brazilian outlets), so they have that going for them.
As for your stupid, flimsy American plugs, the only thing they have going for them is their compactness, and maybe working in Japan and parts of China. Which comes obviously at a dangerous cost: those things are obviously *under-engineered*, and wouldn’t pass muster in any safety-driven society (and you people still wonder why the EC has to pass directives to regulate the kind of crap you, the Chinese et al. export to our countries, sheesh… I’m just flabbergasted as to how the Japanese, all with their focus on safety and whatnot, adopted them in the first place and never got rid of them, but I guess that’s what two nuclear bombs and years of occupation do to you). Aren’t those thin, flat prongs bendy as hell (to the point that sometimes they don’t exert enough friction in the outlet, thus leading you people to bend them inwards on purpose so they stay engaged)? What about the clearance between both connections, which is probably the narrowest in the world? And what about the ability to physically touch or short the prongs while live if they aren’t pushed all the way in? Guess what, none of those issues exist on the two standards I’ve mentioned, and some of them are even absent from other less-than-optimal designs (angled flat prong arrangements – like the Aussie/Kiwi/Fijian one –, as well as thicker and/or round-section prongs – as those found in Brazil, Switzerland, Italy or Scandinavia –, even when they don’t feature any kind of shrouding or flap mechanisms, are inherently safer than your parallel thin blade design, I’m afraid).
You see, when you’re dealing with 110–240V AC, especially on high-consumption devices, “elegance” and compactness should be the least of your concerns. Safety should be your #1 priority… And if anyone fudged on their standardization efforts, it was the ANSI/IEEE/the relevant federal agency (I have no idea which, nor do I care) by going with such a dumbfoundingly stupid, fragile and unsafe design.
I will readily agree that the EC’s position on chargers is also stupid and especially outdated, since from the moment those charging cables became removable (and, guess what, Apple was the absolute trailblazer on that front, with the OG scrollwheel iPod in 2001 and, later on – but still much earlier than any of their competitors –, with the USB-C MacBook in 2015), this whole connector standardization hysteria was rendered moot anyway. But please leave the British Standard and Schuko plugs out of this, you’re only making a fool out of yourself.
Imagine if these company's went ahead of the EU plans and were now stuck as MicroUSB being the so called Standard. USB-C would be going no where on any phones. We would be stuck in a time warp, where tech no longer advances, all because of the F'in EU.
It's not going to cut down on waste. Every device comes with a charger anyway. I can imagine the EU telling company's to make chargers Optional. You want a charger with your device, you have to buy it separately. Really, that would be the ONLY real way to cut down on some waste. Now you can use 1 charger for a number of devices. If you have a charger for each device, you have the same about of cable waste as always.
I have my lightning cables. They work with all my iOS devices, and have for a number of years. As I upgrade my hardware, I'm still using those cables. So where's the waste? It's just more DUMB EU idea's.
The EU has counted the number of fully functional chargers that are thrown away and wants to reduce this huge number. If I loose my charger (happens from time to time) or if switch device, it would be nice to reuse the charger of my old phone, which is not always the case (e.g. switching from Andorid to iOS or vice versa)). So a single standard is welcome. Maybe for your personal situation this is not needed, but globally this would reduce the waste.
The EU does not want to impose a single standard but want to guide tall suppliers to evolve to a single standard, ans it us up to the suppliers to define which standard and how it should evolve over time.
USB-C is currently a good candidate. Apple has no technical objections (it is used in the Macbook) but might have business objections, because it iOS peripheral business might be impacted. We'll see what will happen
So much wrong with this post. First logical fallacy is you can charge an iPhone with a Pixel charger, a Pixel phone with a Samsung charger and a Samsung phone with an iPhone charger. Likewise, the EU has not counted every charger thrown away but simply assumed 50% of chargers are discarded every year. I highly question that. Quit swallowing the lies of the EU.
The EU charger problem was caused by manufacturers, not the EU.
You need to go back to feature phone days when every manufacturer had its own unique charger.
The problem was massive for consumers and the EU. Drawers full of unused chargers or going to landfill.
The RoHs and WEEE directives put the environmental side into order and manufacturers were told in no uncertain terms that if they didn't change their ways, they would be forced to do so via legislation.
Since then we have had a far easier time charging devices.
No one is stifling anything or limiting the advance of technology, just putting some order into the situation.
As for plugs, schuko is fine.
I would argue regulation had about 0.00000% to do with things getting straightened out. Standard market forces have placed all smartphones connectable to USB and almost all chargers have a USB output.
Not sure what the point is if every phone is going to have a wall plug in the box to go to landfill at some point. Mandate wallplugs out of box and required customers to opt in then we'll know the EU is serious about reducing e waste.
Not sure what the point is if every phone is going to have a wall plug in the box to go to landfill at some point. Mandate wallplugs out of box and required customers to opt in then we'll know the EU is serious about reducing e waste.
The WEEE directive handles e-waste and shows the EU is serious about it. In fact the price you pay for a device already includes the cost of safe disposal/re-cycling and manufacturers cannot even place a device on the EU market without registering for WEEE.
Of course, education is a key component of waste management and people are more and more aware of the issue and act accordingly.
There is no cost involved to the end user at EOL as that was included in the purchase price.
Comments
Companies: Just stop making power bricks with attached cords!!!! Make power bricks only with USB-A and/or USB-C connectors on them, and then everyone can BTOC (bring their own cable). Bingo. Done. Interchangeable power bricks usable on 90% of portable devices. Significant E-waste reduction. No regulation necessary, and the EU can go F-off.
"Oh no, we can't do anything that makes sense, noooo." Ugh! "But what happens when technology changes? We can't have that! Advancement? Self determination? - anathema!" When the tech changes, just make the new power bricks backwards compatible (put 2 or 3 different connectors on them). I envision we'll eventually see USB-D and USB-E, etc. etc. This is not that hard!
We are already at the point where USB-A connectors are so ubiquitous, that companies don't really even need to include power bricks with devices anymore - at least with cell phones and other small devices. Just include the appropriate USB-A-to-whatever cable with your device. And thanks to USB-C, eventually it won't be necessary to ship power bricks with laptops either.
The 'bring your own cable' already largely works but for future use, chips/sensors will be required in chargers, cables and ports to make sure the mix and match approach can squeeze the best performance out of every combination without damaging any of the components.
Any person well-versed in the matter will readily tell you that the safest mains plugs in the world are the ones used on the UK: they are extremely compact – especially considering they must have a bloody fuse in them – and have a protective shroud on the live and neutral prongs, which means you can never touch the metal parts while they are live, and the ground/earth prong is longer than the other two, which means that any appliance will be grounded before getting current, and due to the plug’s triangular shape it’s also the only one which can engage the protection flap mechanism, meaning you can’t connect any other kind of plug to that outlet (you can, if you really must go that route, stab the earth connection with some pointy object and stick an Europlug in the outlet, but then you’re veering off into Darwin Award territory). Oh, and to top it off, the outlets must have switches on them… What a concept!
The only known (and widely mocked) design defect those have is the fact that they are back-heavy, and will lie flat on the ground with those three sharp, beveled metal prongs facing right up. Suffice to say, a UK plug is probably one of the worst things in the world (even moreso than a LEGO brick and a bit behind broken glass, a weever or a jellyfish) you can step on, but I’d still gladly do so every now and then over being fried to death any day of the week.
Schuko (the European heavy-duty standard) is a close, less over-engineered standard (but still moreso than most): there’s no protection flap shenanigans going on (I mean, there are, but they are tension-based plastic flaps – instead of the inviolable sliding flaps of the UK plug – which can be overcome if you exert enough force) but, since the outlets are deeply recessed and the earth/ground connections extend all the way to the plug’s edges, your device is also grounded before even getting current and you never get to touch live prongs either; also, quite like their UK brethren, those things are virtually indestructible (I mean it, I’ve never seen a broken Schuko plug, outlet or power strip in my entire life) and they stay put very firmly. Europlugs (the smaller, non-grounded variant) aren’t as resistant, but they are compatible with Schuko outlets and many other standards around the world (such as the Swiss, Swedish and Brazilian outlets), so they have that going for them.
As for your stupid, flimsy American plugs, the only thing they have going for them is their compactness, and maybe working in Japan and parts of China. Which comes obviously at a dangerous cost: those things are obviously *under-engineered*, and wouldn’t pass muster in any safety-driven society (and you people still wonder why the EC has to pass directives to regulate the kind of crap you, the Chinese et al. export to our countries, sheesh… I’m just flabbergasted as to how the Japanese, all with their focus on safety and whatnot, adopted them in the first place and never got rid of them, but I guess that’s what two nuclear bombs and years of occupation do to you). Aren’t those thin, flat prongs bendy as hell (to the point that sometimes they don’t exert enough friction in the outlet, thus leading you people to bend them inwards on purpose so they stay engaged)? What about the clearance between both connections, which is probably the narrowest in the world? And what about the ability to physically touch or short the prongs while live if they aren’t pushed all the way in? Guess what, none of those issues exist on the two standards I’ve mentioned, and some of them are even absent from other less-than-optimal designs (angled flat prong arrangements – like the Aussie/Kiwi/Fijian one –, as well as thicker and/or round-section prongs
– as those found in Brazil, Switzerland, Italy or Scandinavia –, even when they don’t feature any kind of shrouding or flap mechanisms, are inherently safer than your parallel thin blade design, I’m afraid).
You see, when you’re dealing with 110–240V AC, especially on high-consumption devices, “elegance” and compactness should be the least of your concerns. Safety should be your #1 priority… And if anyone fudged on their standardization efforts, it was the ANSI/IEEE/the relevant federal agency (I have no idea which, nor do I care) by going with such a dumbfoundingly stupid, fragile and unsafe design.
I will readily agree that the EC’s position on chargers is also stupid and especially outdated, since from the moment those charging cables became removable (and, guess what, Apple was the absolute trailblazer on that front, with the OG scrollwheel iPod in 2001 and, later on – but still much earlier than any of their competitors –, with the USB-C MacBook in 2015), this whole connector standardization hysteria was rendered moot anyway. But please leave the British Standard and Schuko plugs out of this, you’re only making a fool out of yourself.
I would argue regulation had about 0.00000% to do with things getting straightened out. Standard market forces have placed all smartphones connectable to USB and almost all chargers have a USB output.
Of course, education is a key component of waste management and people are more and more aware of the issue and act accordingly.
There is no cost involved to the end user at EOL as that was included in the purchase price.