What’s the solution here though? I am 100% unwilling to go back to non-compatible and separate chargers for electronics where not completely necessary. It’s awesome taking only my laptop charger with me and being able to charge all devices optimally with it.
The issue is, that’s not even enough! For example, the Dell 120 W laptop charger only supports 5V/1A or 20V/6A output, so phones will mostly charge at 5W because they dont support 20V input.
Then there’s all the different charging protocols… Oh boy.
for most part, rather than all that mess, maybe just stamp the cable/port with max wattage and max speed. So rather than worry about what standard am I using, I just know what I have and what goes where.
Right now, it looks like it’s mostly usb-c everything (with “the more watts, the better”, and the apple stuff being generally compliant becaus of the legislation pressure, but really not because their stuff is (intentionally) not completely working the same way. There’s also a minority of “just shitty chargers and cables”, but I’m speaking of brand-name space
It’s the USB Implementers Forum’s job to standardize these things, and they’ve just been doing a bad job. The naming scheme is a mess and the requirements are so loose, manufacturers just kinda hit whatever specs they want.
They need to set specific comprehensive list of technical requirements for each class of USB-C cable and port, reduce the number of classes (no more than 3-5), and make the naming scheme and logo design of those classes very clear and obvious to the less informed.
There’s supposed to be specfic icons the manufacturers can print next to the port. It’s not perfect, but at least it’s easy to know at a glance eg. whether it can double as a displayport or not and whether it can double as an input charging port or not.
What’s the solution here though? I am 100% unwilling to go back to non-compatible and separate chargers for electronics where not completely necessary. It’s awesome taking only my laptop charger with me and being able to charge all devices optimally with it.
I think the complaint is more about the ports on computers, and the answer is for manufacturers to label the ports and for users to read them.
That last part is admittedly hard for a lot of people (myself includes at times).
The issue is, that’s not even enough! For example, the Dell 120 W laptop charger only supports 5V/1A or 20V/6A output, so phones will mostly charge at 5W because they dont support 20V input. Then there’s all the different charging protocols… Oh boy.
there are too many standards.
for most part, rather than all that mess, maybe just stamp the cable/port with max wattage and max speed. So rather than worry about what standard am I using, I just know what I have and what goes where.
https://xkcd.com/927/
Right now, it looks like it’s mostly usb-c everything (with “the more watts, the better”, and the apple stuff being generally compliant becaus of the legislation pressure, but really not because their stuff is (intentionally) not completely working the same way. There’s also a minority of “just shitty chargers and cables”, but I’m speaking of brand-name space
At least thunderbolt you usually get an icon plus number. Though most devices don’t label the ports.
All the other USB standards are confusing as shit.
It’s the USB Implementers Forum’s job to standardize these things, and they’ve just been doing a bad job. The naming scheme is a mess and the requirements are so loose, manufacturers just kinda hit whatever specs they want.
They need to set specific comprehensive list of technical requirements for each class of USB-C cable and port, reduce the number of classes (no more than 3-5), and make the naming scheme and logo design of those classes very clear and obvious to the less informed.
There’s supposed to be specfic icons the manufacturers can print next to the port. It’s not perfect, but at least it’s easy to know at a glance eg. whether it can double as a displayport or not and whether it can double as an input charging port or not.