The European Union Will Make USB-C A Mandatory Connector In Gadgets
EU legislators have reached an agreement on a single port law for consumer gadgets such as smartphones and tablets. From the fall of 2024, any such gadget that provides charging by wire will have to be equipped with a USB-C port.
Until about the early 2010s, consumer electronics used many different ports for charging and data transfer. Then unification gradually began: at first, many manufacturers began to switch to miniUSB and microUSB, and subsequently to USB-C. In the second case, an important detail is that this port has become massively used in even more types of devices, including laptops, many of which can now be charged with the same charger as a smartphone, tablet or camera. Thus, in 2022, almost all manufactured gadgets support the universal connector, with two exceptions: the iPhone and some other gadgets from Apple are equipped only with a Lightning connector (while MacBooks and most iPads are equipped with USB-C), and a small part of low-cost devices from other manufacturers still uses microUSB.
The EU has decided to oblige manufacturers to install USB-C in all gadgets of several of the most popular categories (we are talking about devices sold in the EU): mobile phones and smartphones, tablets, e-readers, digital cameras, portable speakers, headphones and portable game consoles. At the moment, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union have agreed on the key points of the law, and its final version will be adopted later and is expected to enter into force in the fall of 2024. 40 months after that, the rules will also apply to laptops.
In addition to the port, the law also regulates the charging standard. If the device supports charging over a wire with a voltage of more than 5 volts, a current of more than 3 amperes, or a power of more than 15 watts, then it must support the Power Delivery protocol, thanks to which the device and the power supply agree on optimal power transfer parameters. In addition, according to the law, manufacturers will have to offer a choice of equipment with and without a charger. The European Parliament, as a motivation, notes that 11,000 tons of garbage per year fall on the thrown out charges.
