SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The European Parliament (EP) just voted 582 to 40 to require one standard for chargers for all mobile phones. The EP cited the goals of reducing both frustration and electronic waste. The next step would be for the European Commission to draft a law and vote on it in July. Currently most of the industry uses micro-USB and is slowly adopting USB-C, however there are also phones using other connectors.
From the European Parliament resolution on a common charger for mobile radio equipment (2019/2983(RSP)):
1. Strongly stresses that there is an urgent need for EU regulatory action to reduce electronic waste, empower consumers to make sustainable choices, and allow them to fully participate in an efficient and well-functioning internal market;
2. Calls on the Commission to present and publish without further delay the results of the impact assessment on the introduction of a common charger for mobile telephones and other compatible devices with a view to proposing mandatory provisions;
3. Emphasises the need for a standard for a common charger for mobile radio equipment to be adopted as a matter of urgency in order to avoid further internal market fragmentation;
4. Calls, therefore, on the Commission to take action to introduce the common charger without any further delay by adopting the delegated act supplementing Directive 2014/53/EU on radio equipment defining a standard for a common charger for mobile phones and other small and medium-sized radio equipment by July 2020, or, if necessary, by adopting a legislative measure by July 2020 at the latest;
Earlier on SN:
The Dream Of A Common Charger Is Alive, Despite Apple's Complaining (2020)
European MEPs Back Single Charger Standard (2014)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 02 2020, @04:01AM (7 children)
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 02 2020, @05:22AM
The EU is a socialist utopia where everyone lives in harmony sharing one USB type C charger.
Then along comes Timmy from Cupertino getting all uppity asking if anyone has a cable for his iJizz.
Fuck Apple.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by quietus on Sunday February 02 2020, @09:25AM (1 child)
How many different chargers do you have at home? Multiply times 400 million, subtract 400 million, result is reduction in number of chargers, only for the EU. As other economies tend to follow a standard set by such a large and rich market, multiply times (size of world population, in millions / 400).
Really, khallow -- what is your handicap?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 02 2020, @10:01PM
But will that large and rich market stay large and rich? This is just a minor non-solution chasing a non-problem that few care about either way. But the EU and its governance does more than just tilt at wall-warts. It's yet another complexity and red tape generating machine slowly strangling the golden gooses of Europe.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Sunday February 02 2020, @11:43AM (1 child)
What's your problem with this?
Maybe you get a thrill from owning a large box of incompatible chargers for all the different gadgets you have. I have a box of about 20 - and that's only the ones in current use - I have an even bigger box of redundant ones. Or maybe you find it fun to use that labelling machine to show what each one is for (they are never pre-labelled). Personally I have more important things I'd rather do than raking through boxes of chargers when I need one (not including playing golf though).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 02 2020, @03:36PM
As you indicate, the right move is to only have different chargers when there needs are too different to safely work from the same port and power supply.
In the meantime you can reduce that a bit by using ziplock bags labeled with index cards to keep them from being tangled. I also tend to label the cables themselves as way too many of them come without any meaningful way of knowing what they belong to without checking the specs, polarity and size against the device they go with.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 02 2020, @02:47PM (1 child)
Do you have a problem with AC sockets being standardized too? Perhaps you prefer to have Apple sockets for your Apple equipment, Sony sockets for Sony euqipment, Philips sockers for Philips equipment, and so on, each with their own pin arrangement, voltage and frequency?
The EU is not telling people what chargers they can have, it tells manufacturers what chargers to be compatible with. To some extent it has been standardized in 2009 already, when 14 phone manufacturers voluntarily agreed to use microUSB, after the EU put pressure on them. That didn't cause any problem for consumers, it made life easier because you don't have to worry about which charger you need for which phone or tablet. I remember buying a new charger specific to some phone when I lived part of the time in my own appartment and part of the time in my partner's. When that phone died I had two utterly useless chargers because they didn't fit anything else and new phones used microUSB. Nowadays you just grab one of the microUSB charger almost everyone has lying around has and use that, or connect the phone to a computer. That's an improvement.
Not all manufacturers joined that agreement in 2009, and the ones who did failed to prolong it when it expired in 2012. Apparently the EU got fed up with them and decided to make the decision they can't make themselves for them.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 04 2020, @06:12PM
Alternately, that's already standardization enough for chargers.