
European Union Wants All Smartphones to Have the Same Charging Port - cyrksoft
https://interestingengineering.com/european-union-wants-all-smartphones-to-have-the-same-charging-port
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aphextim
From the article

>Nearly 1 billion consumers currently use the Apple lightning port. Bearing
that in mind, replacing a billion chargers in a short space of time would
overload the electronic waste sector, defeating the motive of the directive in
the first place.

So what we do is take the plunge anyway. Switch to a universal charger or USB
type system. Take all the wasted chargers and then force the companies who
created this problem in the first place to split the cost of going to the new
system based on % of waste came from their brand.

Apple had 1 billion lightning cords thrown away vs say a proprietary charger
for Motorola is 100 million. In that scenario Motorola would only be on the
hook for slightly less than 10%. Do this with all companies and chargers.

The biggest offenders of people who created waste end up paying the most to
fix the problem this way.

On another tangent, I remember when almost every iteration of a phone had a
new type of charger it seemed.

You had the wide ones for Motorola, Nokia and whatever else you had, and they
ALL were proprietary or you could buy those kits with 10 different
adapters/voltage adjustments.

I feel we have come a long way with most devices using USB and there are some
companies holding onto old practices (apple). I was surprised when the new
Nintendo Switch actually charged off of USB and Nintendo didn't force you to
have some proprietary charger.

I would completely love for there to be a universal standard when it comes to
charging and stop more waste and everything could use USB.

------
tropo
The right charging port is IEC C7 C8.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_60320](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_60320)

Cables are really common. They are typical on home audio equipment.

It won't be abused to hack the phone.

It offers fast charging. USB can do at most 5 A at 20 v, which is just 100 W.
With IEC C7 C8 you get 2.5 A at up to 250 v, which is 625 W. You get 6.25
times as much power.

