Great idea to commonize chargers and require manufacturers to meet more universal standards. Hopefully, this will not only result in less landfill waste, but also increased safety across the entire product spectrum.
No kidding, since nearly every phone has some sit of USB connector, why can,t that serve as the charger port? Yes, this means some sort of charge in the phone, but it could be a featureless charge that just got a few electrons into the battery.
There was movement in the past to require by law that all chargers had the same power connector. Several years later, they are not. But many companies as joined together to standardize the port. Like all standardizations, have common ground will help a lot of companies make new products. Especially when that standard is free to use. Open that up, and everyone will hop on board. But like Moore's law demands doubling of processing power, so follows the communication ports.
I think the best way to go on this subject is wireless charging and data communication. Look at the company Witricity, they are trying to push a magnetic resonance charging system that has little loss over sizable distances. It looks very promising, and shows the what is next.
I agree, Greg. It's great to read an article about cooperation with something that seems so obvious yet has not been implemented in the past, I am guessing because companies wanted to maintain control and therefore the profit of their own chargers. Over voltage protection is a common engineering practice for a well-designed circuit and universal chargers just make so much more sense!
These all should be the standard set of design requirements in any project. When this the basics start getting overlooked?
The problem with standardizing the power connection is not about the charging, but its use as a communication port as well. As data demands start surpassing the port's bandwidth, the connector has to change. USB 3.0 has the potential to be the next universal plug, but that may get outstripped as HD content demands increase.
So, don't expect a universal standard any time soon.
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