Green recycling goals? Pending EU directive could hammer used mobile market The impending Radio Equipment Directive in the EU is forecast to render eight million used smartphones, or two in five units, no longer available for supply and – at least in the trading bloc – effectively obsolete. The legislation, slated for December 28, will necessitate all devices to support USB-C. The aim is to slash e- …
The point is that the user haven’t a clue *which* charger is fast, and which is slow. And worse still, which cable allows faster charging with faster wall wart. Not only that, most of them don’t know it’s an issue, most people just think “my phone is broken, it’s charging slow”
The EU and USB consortium just plain misunderstood the real world we live in. The different plugs on different standards aren’t “incompatibilities”. They are *labels* which consumers notice, to indicate the performance they expect. Skeuomorphism is a marvellous thing. If all you care about is “an incompatible physical”, get a converter sleeve which costs 10p each. Having compatible plugs was just a disastrous decision.
This is true, my dad's laptop is USB-C charged, and he forgot it on a trip and was quite annoyed when I told him that his phone charger, despite it being USB-C, was not going to be powerful enough to run the laptop and he would need to buy a 60W USB-C PD charger. It was possible to charge the laptop up with the phone charger, but not "and run it".
Its not a disastrous decision though - the other way works just fine. He now carries one charger that does all the USB-C PD he could ever want. Before USB-C we played charger roulette - this charger is USB-A and chucks out 5V@3.1A, and this one is USB-A and chucks out 5V@500mA. Each phone manufacturer with a different fast charging technology. That's not better, its dangerous. Your argument would be that we should have had a new connector type for every combination of voltages, so every single one is incompatible with each other would not be better.
USB-C PD has already obsoleted proprietary laptop chargers, that alone is worthy of praise.
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> Hi, being a slow reader, could you explain the differences between a convertible laptop, a tablet and a phone
It's the same difference as per a car, a truck and an container ship; they all nominally[*] use diesel engines, but have vastly different power requirements.
[*] Ok, so large ships have traditionally used the absolute dregs of what the oil industry produces. But it's diesel-like.
the device that requires a 240W PD supply cares as it can't operate to specification with a lower powered charger ... and the user is annoyed as the device doesn't operate according to specification which means that new user will dump their lower power USB-C charger in favour of a higher power one. Unless all USB-C chargers are made equal, in these days of chasing ever-higher power devices there will still be a dump-the-old requirement.
To Joe Public a usb port is a usb port.
The Standard should have mandated personal pocket portable devices as requiring a maximum of 5VdC 2.4A.
Those devices with higher demands need to use a colour coded port, cable etc. so users would know a laptop with a red usb port needs to be used with a red usb cable and a red usb charger.
Ie. Common sense design as expounded by Don Norman …
Except, they aren’t.
At 10W or even 15W, most mobile phones aren’t charging as fast as it says you can’t even realistically do the scientific trial of “let’s see if this cable is the limiting factor by swapping in and out on the box. The majority of phone fast charge is 27W. But some need 36W. Or 45W.
There are *seven* different power profiles noted in the standard, no indication to the user. You need not just the device and plug to support it, but also the cable. You can’t trust the nominal support on the packaging, because many/most of these are fake, precisely because it is totally invisible to the user. You can’t even realistically do the scientific trial of “let’s see if this cable is the limiting factor by swapping in and out”, because there is no visible feedback for things charging slowly, so you would need to measure the time taken for a whole charging cycle with each set of components.
In fact, “seven profiles” rather under-states the situation. The reality is more than a dozen, with companies fixing on intermediate points to advertise their best possible charging speed. The whole thing is insanity.
Plus, it is combinatorially and exponentially worse than that, there are really hundreds of thousands of different PD profiles, but then I would need to delve into the details of the USB-C standard to explain all the modes and sub-modes, and since nobody even understands the basics what would be the point of that.
> there will still be a dump-the-old requirement.
From my experience, I don’t expect a device with a USB-C port to be have a reliable connector after a few years. A brand new USB cable struggles to gain sufficient grip to charge my 4 year old phone…
With laptops, I ‘ve had usb-c connectors fail after a year, yet the same vendors laptops with the traditional power connector and similar vintage are still going strong…
And that hits the important point missed by the circular economy obsessives: Moron bureaucrats have yet again "picked a winner", and made alternatives for all practical purposes illegal. There was nothing especially good about USB C other than being less bad than the truly shite USB A, USB B, and micro-USB connectors. Now, until such time as said bureaucrats can get their heads out of their arses, we're lumbered with USB C in Europe, probably forever.
The average user is definitely stupid. But not as stupid as you seem to be implying. If my 70 year old father can figure out that some chargers can deliver 60W and others only 5W, and that the 60W charger with the right cable charges his tablet faster, but it doesn't make a difference for his phone then I would state most users can figure it out on their own. Of course there's always going to be some level of "dump the old". That's just the nature of consumer electronics. But I now use the same USB-C charger for several devices and didn't need to receive a new one with any of them.
Your argument also completely ignores the previous existence of the previous USB standard chargers, which was a charger with a USB-A port. All with wildly different standards and power levels, all of which were pretty much only guaranteed to work with the device they were delivered with.
It is 2nd hand phones entering the EU. I'd say the EU is big enough to have a healthy second use market. Also USB C has been the de facto standard for several years (6 at least) for new phones. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want a used phone that is even older than my current one. I use them until they are really no longer viable.
One point that's not been made clear from the article: how many of those "imported" 2nd hand phones are actually re-imported? It seems to me that many 2nd hand phones are exported to countries where cheap labor refurbishes them before importing them back in.
So a lot might just not leave the EU at all now.
But then the whole rule is nonsense. It makes sense for new devices, but for old ones whatever damage there is, that damage is already done and selling the device and keeping it in use is surely better than buying a new device.
It’s like plastic straws: You shouldn’t buy them because they are bad for the environment when you throw them away. So some idiots throw them all away, which causes exactly the damage they want to prevent. I say the damage was done when you bought them, so once bought you might as well use them.
I kind of see Apple's point - eventually this will prevent the adoption of the next improved connector.
But to hear it coming from Apple is ludicrous. Apple, who until a couple of years ago were clinging onto Lightning, with its order-of-magnitude-lower power delivery and two-orders-of-magnitude-lower data rates. If you wanted fast charging for your Apple phone, you had to buy a USB-C to Lightning converter ffs.
Probably worth remembering that Lighting came out when the alternatives were the "old" iPhone connector (big, proprietary and prone to break) or the "legacy" USB connectors, which were a pain to plug in "blind" and there were a mix of mini and micro in use.
However, it's needed retiring ever since USB-C became available.
When the first I-Phone was released, many phones were already using MicroUSB and, while I agree this is mechanically suboptimal, I still have devices that old with working connections.
For Apple, this was never about usability, but simply about being able to charge more for the cables it provided or getting a cut from manufacturers using the propietary connection and a "designed for I-Phone™" logo. Same is true for "Apple Play" or whatever it is, which is DLNA with a couple of bits…
Yes - Apple had long been using connectors for long enough that they already weren't generating e-waste.
it's been 16 years and two connectors - that compares with the many, many connectors I had in a just a couple of years with other devices.
Does the USBc connector do everything we could want from a connector for handheld devices... probably.
It's probably worth changing to at some point, but let's not pretend that lightning isn't fast enough or powerful enough.
I've had USB connections for phones (micro then since around 2019 C) for nearly twenty years. But I think the e-waste argument is a bit of a red herring. Over this time I've had two connections for a myriad of devices: phones, headets (at least 4), speakers, readers, external drives, etc.
Apple already has for notebooks, phones and the I-Pad.
You must be a young'un ...
You've missed out on the mini USB, and on the various proprietary pogo pin connectors, both magnetic and plastic push pin attached, the oh so close to each other but not quite barrel connectors... The various attempts at proprietary headphone connections, the brief foray into 2.5mm jacks, need I go on?
Does a phone really need a port capable of charging the battery in under four minutes (I know, no battery could take that charge rate)? Does a phone really need an external PCIe connection?
I know both of those are the extremes of what the USBc standard is capable of, but I've never found the USB2.0 speed and 20W of power from a lightning cable to be limiting (that's already a C rate of more than 1 for a phone).
Apple released the 30 pin connector in 2003, and lightning in 2012, they started moving phones to USBc in 2023.
Thats a decade for each of their proprietary connectors, as opposed to what felt like about six weeks for other manufacturers.
two-orders-of-magnitude-lower data rates
Who the hell uses the port on their phone for DATA? I can't remember the last time I plugged mine into a computer, but it was surely pre-covid.
With iOS 18 Apple made it possible to "unbrick" an iPhone using another iPhone, where previously it had required plugging it into a PC (I guess it used iTunes somehow?) which was the last thing that could only be accomplished via a physical port. There were some people speculating that rather than go USB-C they'd go portless, but this was apparently the one thing that would have made that impossible. Even though bricking is rare, you still have to have a way to recover from it that doesn't involve disassembly!
iPhone pro is able to generate high quality, 4k video that generates something like 6GB a minute - the USB C allows that video to be written directly to large, external drives.
Sure, that is an uncommon use case, but it is used (but not with the non-pro models as the speed is restricted).
Backups to laptops are significantly faster at 480 mbps...
> Backups to laptops are significantly faster at 480 mbps...
But no change in the speed of the auto backups to iCloud, which is what Joe Public will be using…
The problem is that the iPhone (and some other phones) is really being designed to support an uncommon use case, but being mass marketed.
Design by committee strikes again. Surely they could just mandate pre-C imported devices come with a C-to-whatever adapter, and no charger. Then only allow import of USB C chargers, separately. No other chargers permitted. Meets the USB C requirements and doesn't consign millions of affordable and perfectly functional phones to landfill.
I'm sure the exporters in non-EU countries have plenty of other countries to which they could export the old phones.
This legislation been on the cards for years, so they have had more than enough time to find other markets.
It's not like there's a shortage of secondhand, affordable phones in the EU already.
"The European telecom industry recognizes that it needs to address low trade-in throughout the region, but it's still far off the pace of the US and Japan, which generate much higher volumes."
They would say it, wouldn't they? In Europe we're much more used to buying our phones outright instead of financing them as part of our phone bills, and as a consequence we're much less inclined to replace our equipment when rolling over the phone contracts. I'd bet that it's much less lucrative for the operators than the American/Japanese business model...
My recollection is that it used to be cheaper to buy phone as part of the contract than just taking a loan and buying a new one. Somehow this stayed with people.
I wonder if companies also make phone free contracts more expensive to nudge people into getting the phone bundled in.
Regardless, I always buy used. Last time I bought refurbished phone I wouldn't tell if it wasn't new. Worked out to be half price.
From the USB.org website:
“ LEGAL DISCLAIMER
THESE SPECIFICATIONS ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED. WITHOUT LIMITATION, THERE IS NO WARRANTY OF NON-INFRINGEMENT, NO WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, AND NO WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. ALL WARRANTIES ARE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMED. USER ASSUMES THE FULL RISK OF USING THESE SPECIFICATIONS. IN NO EVENT SHALL USB-IF OR THE USB 3.0 PROMOTERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, PUNITIVE, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING FROM SUCH USE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.”
Looks like there is no constraint on usage, however, if you were serious about selling USB gear, I think you might want the benefits of membership….
To be able to use the USB branding, you need to have paid for compliance testing, which quite reasonably is not free.
It seems quite reasonable you are free to use the public standard, but not sell (ie. Profit) your products using all the branding without paying.
Remember until the WiFi-Alliance was formed, any one could call their interpretation of IEEE802.11 “WiFi”. Before that , until Interop of the mid to late 1980s any one could sell (and did hence the need for Interop) a TCP/IP networking stack, with no guarantee of being able to interoperate with other TCP/IP stacks…
In the case of USB even with the strictures in place, there are still too many dodgy and poor quality USB cables and adapters being offered for sale.
So I suggest the mandated USB standard is. “open and free to use.”
In AU older phones like my Nokia 2.3 doesn't support 4G/VoLTE and won't work after October 2024 irrespective of its power connector. Fortunately I only ever used it for Google Maps (too heavy for the shirt pocket.)
I think the EU still requires 2G support so these phones should still work but for how long?
I would have thought a phased introduction would have been more rational eg all new models mandated USB-C, models introduced less than five years ago (say) can be resold with USB-B for the next five years and older models landfill. By 2030 all the older USB-B phones would be out of circulation.
I think the EU still requires 2G support so these phones should still work but for how long?
It depends on your definition of still working. I struggle to get 4G around home, so since 3G was switched off the best my phone can get for data is EDGE. Problem is that most app developers seem to assume that higher bandwidth is available...I might have service that provides a data capability, but the apps refuse to function because the data service isn't fast enough. My expensive smart device becomes little more than a voice-capable telephone.
(I remember designing websites so that they'd be usable over low-bandwidth dial-up modem, so it's easy to go into Grumpy Old Man mode and grumble about developers these days just assuming that there will always be bandwidth-a-plenty)
Seems like every commercial library and framework assumes massive bandwidth.
Adverts eat so much.
We cannot even licence some libraries for use offline at all, it has to phone home all the time. Quite difficult to do from much of the world, so we simply cannot use them at all.
> the non-circular behavior of consumers and channels in Europe despite their commitment to sustainability initiatives... low trade-in throughout the region
I use my phone for 3 - 4 years before upgrading and see no point in trading it in for £10 or similar paltry sum offered by the telcos.
I have a better solution anyway since I use them for testing mobile apps. I have multiple Android and iOS versions and form factors that will not be appearing at trade-in or landfill as they are far too useful to me.
strict regulation mandating just one type of connector stifles innovation rather than encouraging it
Translation: strict regulation mandating just one type of connector means we can't stick in some weird connector and then charge a pretty penny both for consumer attachments and to licence details to third parties.
This article is really little more than clickbait. Not only does adopting USB-C potentially reduce waste, it also simplifies things for users. The Lightning connection isn't bad, but the Apple cables are very prone to damage when folded. Not that they care when they get a cut for each one.
But the EU is also pushing maintenance and right to repair.
USB-C doesn't reduce waste if the vast majority of chargers in the house are still USB-A. The wife's new iPhone came with a USB-C - USB-C charging cable but no charger, so I had to go out and buy a few USB-A to USB-C cables. We still have a number of Lightning port devices laying around, so the USB-A to Lightning cables aren't e-waste. The cable that came with the phone does not yet serve a purpose and is effectively e-waste.
Apple looks at the long term as well. The best overall strategy would be to hang on to lightning as long as possible, and then on one day switch to USB-C. Because what’s worst is using both at the same time. Like ripping of a plaster, it’s painful but has to be done.
Curiously the EU is talking about “USB-C chargers” all the time. My charger is a bit old, so it has four old-style ports with USB-A (or is it B?) ports with 19 Watts and one 27 watt port with a USB-C port. Now there are four different cables I could plug in, and they all work. One cable is USB-C to lightning and it does 27 Watt on my old iPhone like USB-C should do, and one is USB-a to lightning doing 19 watt. So my iPhone supports USB-c charging through its lightning port. Old iPad doesnt support usb-c but the same cables work. Except you get 19 instead of 27 watt from the usb-c port on the charger.
A brief look around the home and I have a bedside lamp, a desk lamp, shaver, toothbrush, battery drill, torch, router, hub and god knows how many other devices. Each has its own wall wart and yet all are drawing so little power and voltage a single standard would surely meet the needs. Yet I have barrel connectors (at least four different sizes) and god-knows what else - plus, most of these have the cable hard-wired into the wart so if the cable gets damaged, it's game over. Granted, most of El Reg's readers can probably splice in a connector but that's not the case for many end users, nor is it always appropriate for practical or aesthetic reasons.
A single standard - widely applied - probably wouldn't reduce the number of warts a home or business requires - but it would definitely reduce the need to bin perfectly working hardware if the bespoke wart or attached wiring fails. And, when the toothbrush or whatever turns up its toes and joins the choir invisible, at least I'd be able to repurpose the wart.
@katrinab
Your figures are very odd, so lets try again with GDP (ppp) using 2023 for the EU and 2024 est. for the rest. (Wikipedia).
India $14.594 trillion, EU $25.399 trillion and the USA $28.781 trillion.
Note: should the UK still remain in the EU the numbers for the EU, even with brexit numbers for the UK, $4.029 trillion would exceed that of the USA. And it wouldn't be the first time.
Not particularly hard, it just creates more waste.
The concept is that you should be able to buy a phone with the minimal amount of bundled accessories and reuse what you already have.
Years back phone vendors bundled the charging adaptor and a set of earphones. With the adoption of the standard headphone jack, people simply throw the phone OEMs earphones in the bin and used the much better performing third-party set. In principle the same should apply to the power adaptor; and if we still had removable batteries… (but then car batteries have always been removable and have gone from being a simple replacement purchase to something much more complex…)
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