Why cant all my chargers just charge all my stuff?
The dream of a perfect cable
- By
- on April 16, 2017 12:00 pm
One of the minor but underappreciated luxuries of this world is having two laptop chargers. It is wholly unnecessary in the great scheme of things, given that by their very nature each charger functions equally well. But not having to do the small chore of unplugging my charger from by my bed, wrapping it up, and plugging it in by my desk at work, day in and day out, is just a nice thing to be able to do. Its one less thing to carry. Its better for the overall life of the charger, since youre not stressing the cable as much. And its ultimately better for my sanity of not constantly having to check whether or not I actually remembered my charger on any given day.
The problem is, laptop chargers are expensive. A spare 85W MagSafe 2 charger for my MacBook Pro costs $85 from Apple [and yes, I tend to stay within the more expensive name brand when it comes to the thing that courses dangerous amounts of electricity through my laptop.] A 65W Surface charger? $79.99. With prices like these, its more or less financially irresponsible to actually realize my double charger dream.
USB-C is both a blessing and a curseEnter USB-C. With more and more tech companies embracing the new port standard as time goes on, USB-C is both a blessing and a curse when it comes to solving my charging conundrum. On the surface, it would seem to be perfect one cable to charge them all. Just keep one or two by my bed, and a few by my desk, and Ill never have to carry a cable again.
Except for the fact that USB-C is still a maddeningly confusing standard. Your laptops USB-C charger will charge your phone, but not the other way around. That Fast Charge 3.0 compatible brick you bought on the cheap from Amazon works with some of your stuff, but not others. Or when you try to juice up your Switch from your MacBook Pro, it turns out your laptop is actually draining your console instead.
All this speaks to the biggest issue with USB-C just because the ports look the same, does not mean the standards are actually the same. This is usually an issue of raw power, where some chargers just arent beefy enough to juice up a laptop, but there are also different quick charging specifications that can factor into your experience. And while thats bad for my current daydream of a universal charging utopia, things arent all bad. Generally, if youre willing to invest in a powerful enough USB-C charger like, say, most laptops youre probably safe when it comes to making sure youll be able to charge other things, even if that puts you right back at our original problem of the high cost of buying two laptop chargers. But at least here youre getting a superpowered charger for all your gadgets, instead of a pricey proprietary cable for just one.
And who knows? Maybe one day technology will reach the ideal charging utopia: a single perfect cable standard that works with all your gadgets, wherever you go.
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Comments
I think that usb-c actually is quite versatile. The problem with the scenario with the Switch and Macbook is that the usb-c device is supposed to implement a software switch for the user to choose which direction power is supposed to go. When I connect a device to my Nexus 6P, I get a notification that lets me choose whether I want to charge my phone or supply power to the other device.
Same goes for some usb-c power bricks; apparently some of them are not implemented properly and start draining power from the other device instead of charging it only.
However, I dont foresee an easy solution to the issue of different devices requiring different amounts of current. Plugging your laptop into a usc-c phone charger will never work well. One solution I can imagine for this is if usb-c chargers started showing a "rating" system, such as "c1" for very small devices like headphones, "c2" for phones that use 3A of current, "c3" for medium sized devices that can use up to 5A of current, etc. That way we could just say: this laptop needs a c4 charger or higher.
What do you think?
By joeschmo69 on 04.16.17 12:22pm
Great idea!
By TT_Guy on 04.16.17 12:28pm
Except "C4"
By Darth Zen on 04.16.17 1:10pm
Samsung would really own the situation if they implemented that.
By Mesmerise on 04.16.17 1:21pm
This already exists. The standard USB-C charger is 5V,3A. Higher wattage chargers use the USB-PD standard, which flat out says that higher wattage chargers have to support all of the lower wattage voltage profiles. So a 60W charger has to use 20V, 3A which means it also has to support 15V, 3A as well as 9V, 3A.
By jhoff80 on 04.16.17 1:22pm
Sadly, everything you just said needs to boil down into more consumer-friendly lexicon. Most folks cant be bothered to even understand the difference between voltage and amperage. Needs to be something more simple and distinct, abstracted away from electrical terms.
By Jack Delgado on 04.17.17 12:12pm
Yes, Im breaking it down in more technical detail as an explanation here, but basically the actual end-user scenario is that theyll buy based on wattage.
Example: Apple sells a 29W, a 61W, and a 87W USB-PD charger, depending on which model MacBook. As long as you buy a high enough number, then you should be set.
By jhoff80 on 04.17.17 2:58pm
Yes, but you dont always know which wattage you need for a particular device. At which point, youd have to do as the author of the article did, and buy the most powerful [and hence, expensive] charger available.
By KadanaJ on 04.18.17 1:39am
And since there is no sanctioning body, of course all of the chargers you find in the wild will follow the rules, right?
Practically speaking, there are already a lot of chargers on the market that dont behave well either through cheaping out and ignoring the standard, or through sheer lack of quality control.
The "one charging port to charge everything" is a dream, and will remain so for the time being.
By Grouchy Ivan on 04.17.17 4:42pm
Or even just a notification on screen saying this device doesnt put out enough power to charge from.
By theawesome1996 on 04.17.17 11:08am
I feel like the main problem here is Apple. If you live in Googles ecosystem, you can use USB-C for your Pixel, Pixel C, and Chromebook Pixel. But Apple has been pushing the standard way too hard with their laptops, and not at all with their phones and accessories. And I dont see the industry gaining the motivation to consolidate the USB-C standard until Apple forces it upon them.
By zatara214 on 04.16.17 1:11pm
Im not sure thats going to remain as a problem for much longer. Apple are clearly pushing to wireless charging and no ports, and most other manufacturers will probably follow. Question is when that will happen. Before 2020?
By Mesmerise on 04.16.17 1:23pm
I wish all portable devices could be charged wirelessly. Will Apple create some open standard or even more proprietary stuff tough?
By Darcer on 04.16.17 7:42pm
It will most likely be proprietary. And even though, technologically speaking, it may be the best standard, the licensing fees will in all likelihood be too expensive and it wont be adopted by most other companies.
Who knows though? One can always hope.
By KadanaJ on 04.18.17 1:42am
Of course the problem is Apple. The problem is always Apple. Even though Apple has less than 15% market share in phones and less than 10% market share in PCs the problem must be with Apple and not all the other companies that make up the other 85-90% of those markets! The other 85-90% of the market cant make their own decisions, after all, they have to wait for Apple! /s
By brad.fortin on 04.17.17 10:50am
I completely get your sarcasm, but I also think there is a lot of truth in the OPs comment. NFC payments were available on Android years before Apple introduced it to the iPhone.. yet there was almost no stores that accepted NFC payments until it was on iPhone. Apple may not have the largest marketshare, yet they still routinely set the standards that the market follows.
By Generik420 on 04.17.17 2:05pm
Theres a few reasons Apple Pay took off even though similar efforts didnt before.
One is that EMV [chip & pin] adoption was right around the corner in the US [deadline of October 1st, 2015] so by the time Apple Pay rolled out there would be plenty of places to use it. This wasnt as big of a deal internationally since many countries had already adopted EMV years prior.
Another reason is availability: Apple had a very aggressive rollout for Apple Pay, negotiating with many banks in a very short period of time, and they made it available on all iPhones with at least an A8 chip. Competitors like Samsung Pay and Android Pay havent negotiated with nearly as many banks, and the availability is scarce at best [here in Canada, before Apple Pay, most mobile carriers had their own mobile payment solution which only worked if you had the right combination of carrier, device model, and SIM type, which meant it was an absolute mess that nobody wanted to figure out]. This is actually still very much a problem today, as companies like Samsung and Google dont seem to be putting much effort into getting more banks and countries on board [Samsung says theyre putting Samsung Pay in all premium phones they ship this year, but that wont do much good if it only works with a single card type from a single bank].
Theres also usability: Apple Pay only takes a few seconds and can be done simply with a fingerprint, whereas older mobile payment solutions required the phone to be unlocked, NFC to be turned on, the app to be opened, and then a payment could finally be made. It was cumbersome.
By brad.fortin on 04.17.17 5:54pm
Worldwide market share is low, but north american, iOS is still top or near-top for mobile.
Id venture if USB-C had been ready in time, Apple wouldve skipped Lightning connectors/chargers.
By eadnams on 04.17.17 3:59pm
USB-C wouldnt be what it is today without Apples contributions, as its loosely based on Lightning. Had Apple not contributed their work on Lightning to the USB consortium they would probably still be pursuing micro-USB 3.
By brad.fortin on 04.17.17 5:55pm
The USB-C standard is a horrendous mess that even Apple cant fix.
I dont think there is a way out, either. The way the standard is written guarantees that the average consumer wont understand whether any given USB-C port will charge any given USB-C device. This will only be fixed with whatever comes after USB-C at the earliest.
By Grouchy Ivan on 04.17.17 4:45pm
I suspect/hope that Qualcomms QuickCharge 4.0 is going to change the equation here, since it will be fully compliant with USB-PD.
By jhoff80 on 04.16.17 1:19pm
[The second half of that which I didnt state is that Qualcomm controls output more so than the USB Implementers Forum QuickCharge requires a Qualcomm chip in the charger.]
By jhoff80 on 04.16.17 1:23pm
Well, the EU tried it and so far failed. I dont think the market will fix it. It will only come through regulation from the state. Might be unpopular with libertarian views but I dont care for those anyway.
By tehabe on 04.16.17 2:00pm
Not really. They just didnt go far enough. You can use plugs across devices. Just not cables because they never regulated it
By Narom on 04.16.17 2:28pm
As I said, the EU failed so far to regulate it. They are trying again this year but my hopes are low.
By tehabe on 04.16.17 2:42pm