I understand why unbundling chargers from devices is unpopular, especially as charging cables move from USB-A to USB-C but honestly its the right call.

I currently have more than a dozen USB-A plugs (wall warts) lying around and who knows how many more I've already thrown away. Not once have I purchased a device that used USB-A and needed to buy a wall wart for it.

I will have to buy a few USB-C wall warts but i wont buy a dozen of them.

USB-A to USB-C cables are a thing.

Presumably unbundled chargers will be fine with USB-C on everything. It's not proprietary like Apple's chargers and easy to find.

What is proprietary about Apples chargers? They sell USB-A and USB-C wall warts, and their devices happily charge on non-Apple chargers. Their laptop chargers are USB-C and have been for some time. I charge my MBP from a Lenovo power brick. The only proprietary part is the lightning connector.

> What is proprietary about Apples chargers? > The only proprietary part is the lightning connector.

> I charge my MBP from a Lenovo power brick

Way to avoid the issue at hand, can you charge your iPhone using your Android charger/cable?

Laptop chargers aren't the problem, phone chargers are. As you saw, USB-C solved the problems for laptops, it's about time we solve it for phones too.

To answer the question, with a usb-c/micro usb cable? No, obviously not. With a Google/Samsung/Anker manufactured wall-wart? Yes! Android "chargers" aren't a thing that I'm aware of with USB-C, just with micro usb, which would be pointless, because the proposed law would make those redundant anyway.

When was the last charger sold with a built in cable? And honestly, why is carrying 2 cables such a hardship? I agree that USB-C would be more convenient, but the bluster that is made every time this "issue" comes up really is over the top. Look at it this way; the argument goes that having Lightning cables produces e-waste. Changing to USB-C will render existing Lighting cables useless, thereby producing significantly more e-waste! At this stage both arguments are redundant.

As to being labelled a 'troll'; the OP made a factually incorrect statement. I questioned, genuinely, other than the cable, what was proprietary about wall-warts and charging bricks currently made by Apple?

You can certainly charge an iPhone using an android charger.

We're talking with no adapters here, as in you have a single plain usb-c charger for all your phones.

Not if the cable is built into the power adapter. But if the power adapter just has a USB-C port, then you can charge it using the cable that comes in the iphone box.

Why feed the trolls? It's plainly obvious to everyone here that "charge X with Y" doesn't by default include special adapters or connectors.

Not really. The biggest claim is that this measure will reduce e-waste, but that’s a red-herring since the e-waste is in the charger not the cable, and chargers are already interchangeable.

stop being pedantic

… but Apple’s chargers have been USB on the charger side for ages (previously USB-A, currently USB-C). The easy availability of chargers that work with the phones did little to stop the complaints when they were unbundled.

One needs a charger and a cable to charge a phone, so even if you can use the bricks, you'd still wouldn't be able to use existing cables.

The unpopularity seems a little shortsighted. I have no clue where my Galaxy S's included phone charger is, because using USB-C means I already have a dozen appropriate cables sitting around. I think at the moment I use the charger from my previous laptop to charge it.

It's just a shift in framing. To use a silly example, you don't expect a phone to ship with a generator: an electricity hookup is a general piece of infrastructure that a user can be expected to have.

In a world full of mandated USB-C-compatible devices, having a single commodity cable slots much more cleanly into "infra you're expected to have already" than "hidden tax on buying a new phone" (Apple's strategy)

My only thought is what will happen when someone invents a new charger that is significantly superior to what currently exists.

Like wireless charging pads?

Unless those transfer data and charge as quickly I dont see that being the case, I mean moreso in the case of actual charging cables. Apple dropped the ball on their magsafe wireless charger by not including a wall plug and charging $40 for something a lot of people couldn’t use. Some of the Amazon reviews are people who think its a counterfeit.

Airdrop transfers data at full wifi speed and I’m sure we could make a universal standard for that. The charging pads go as high as 15 watts right now. I’m certain we will see more improvements in the future.

You gotta consider what the EU is doing, it's not all about Apple, they want everything uniform.

Yeah and monocultures are generally bad. If they want to Fix things then invest in open standards and working groups and file some RFCs that compel people to switch. Micro-dictating things aren’t the way if no harm is being done to the public. This is more about convenience.

Before Covid, every booth at every trade show would give you a free wall charger. Some of them were just 1-port 1A 5W throwaway, but also some better stuff, too.

I can't imagine buying a charger together with the phone is a thing. You either lose them nonstop, or you have so many of them you don't need anymore.

Yet I threw away many such throwaway-grade chargers, and use the one that came with my Pixel phone, because it delivers a much faster charge.

If we all shift the buying the wall charger separately, hopefully something can be done about the wide variety of incompatible fast-ish charging systems. Rather than everyone revert to the lowest common standard of a very slow charge.

Isn't slow charging actually better for the phone?

I prefer to slow change even if the phone supports fast charging — I wish it was easier to do by having a setting instead of having to use incompatible charger and/or cable. The stop limit at 80% should also be made available as a setting, too.

Although I think generally a regulation to get a handle on port proliferation can be very helpful and pro-consumer, inevitably consumers will primarily blame phone manufacturers greed as the reason they don’t get a charger in the box anymore.

Clearly these lawmakers don't understand that USBC cables are not readily interchangeable from one device to another. I don't even blame them, the USB foundation made the mother of all marketing blunders with this standard.

For charging? They pretty much are.

For everything else? Maybe with somewhat reduced speed/features but good enough.

> For charging? They pretty much are [the same].

If only that were true: https://www.engadget.com/2015-11-04-google-pixel-engineer-vs...

I've had more trouble with crappy USB-C cables [charging only] in the short time that's been a thing than the entire time of micro-USB.

Do they all support the high voltage modes? USB PD goes up to 20V/5A (100W).

https://www.cui.com/blog/usb-type-c-pd-and-pps#usb-power-del...

Yes, and if approved USB PD EPR (extended power range) proposal, will take it to 240 Watts over USB-C connectors.

This moves USB close to the domain in which government regulation has long been necessary for safety reasons.

It may be the case that the EU believes a standard domestic DC power supply is imminent and the EU believes PD (EPR) over USB-C meets the need.

If so, that would make sense, and I am pleased to see the EU trying to get ahead to standardise and remove risk from vendors as well as consumers.

By analogy, California had no natural right to export its CAFE automotive regulations. Yet CA had the foresight to cause that to happen anyway. Bravo.

Yes. The A4 and A9 (A1 and A19 are ground) are the only pins that transmit power. Putting 20V/5A through the copper is not a problem even for the cheapest cable.

edit: Ok looking at the other reply with the link to the google engineers stuff some have messed up the A5 (configuration channel) pin and thus the negotiation for giving more power fails and just defaults to normal levels that are safe for any device.

Sure the wire can almost certainly handle it, but are the contacts always going to be able to handle 5A? They are very small after all, and not treated very nicely. Not sure how it's handled by the protocol, but I've known cables to get hot due to contact resistance.

That was my initial thought as well. But by forcing more unity in fast-charge protocol variants and by requiring clear information about required/delivered power on the packaging, it seems that they have an answer to this.

Just charged my phone with my laptops Usb-C charger, without any issue. Apart from special features like fast-charge, I'd say compatibility is very good.

I used to work at a company whose products included USB-C ports that only supported cable insertion in a single orientation--if the cable was inserted incorrectly, it would fry the board. Manufacturers have a lot of freedom to cut corners with this standard in all different places, and you better believe that they are going to do that to the greatest possible extent.

Warranty laws in the EU (2 years mandatory) make this less of a problem - eventually a manufacturer must realize they'll make more money doing things right than replacing tons of fried returns.

This particular company simply made USB-C cables with massive overmolded pokeyokes that ensured they could only be inserted in the proper orientation--which works great until some poor bastard comes along and tries to assemble the thing with the cable he brought from home. Oh well, not my problem anymore.