The utopia of the single smartphone charger could soon
become a reality. After years of continuous struggles, investigations and
studies, the moment seems ever closer when the European Union will make its
battle law.
September will be a decisive month and it will be discovered
whether all smartphone manufacturers in Europe will be forced to adopt the same
charging system, a standard that will oblige them to standardize the ports of
all devices and allow, with a single cable, to also recharge. products of
different brands. Apple is already on a war footing but this time Europe seems
willing to never back down.
What the EU wants
September will be the decisive month, the one in which the
data of a study commissioned by the EU will arrive that will allow technicians
and legislators to understand which direction to take. If, as it now seems
obvious, the investigation will say that the single charger brings benefits for
users and the environment, an ad hoc law will be created that will oblige
manufacturers to adapt.
All smartphones and electronic gadgets will have to allow
users to use a single charger to be recharged .
A common door standard that will be mandatory for all.
Europe has been debating on the issue for some time and it was 2018 when an
initial survey had shown that over 50% of phones were equipped with the same
connector , the micro USB. Three years ago the USB-C standard was just born and
was in the dowry of 29% of devices while the remaining 21% was the prerogative
of Apple smartphones which, then as now, are equipped with the proprietary
Lightning port.
The new data, however, are destined to radically change
these percentages. All new generation Android devices are equipped with a USB-C
port, with a diffusion rate that should be around 80%. The last obstacle
therefore remains Apple, which has long been anchored in its beliefs and still
today against any kind of unified standard.
A ten-year process
Already in 2009, the European Union had proposed to
manufacturers to adhere to a pact that would standardize the charging systems
and access ports of the various devices as much as possible. This allowed,
already at the time, to drastically reduce the number and variety of charging
solutions and within a few years we went from over 30 different types of ports
to just three common standards for all: USB-B, USB-C and Lightning .
A battle that over the years has also led to a different
concept of the charger. If you used to deal with single-block devices, you can
now disconnect the cable from the charging body anywhere .
Until a few years ago we had focused only on a single port
for all, but now the EU seems more oriented towards a real universal charger,
with a single connector both on the device and on the power supply itself.
The real turning point came about two years ago, when it was
decided to put an end to the recommendations and to start studying a real bill
valid for all 27 countries and therefore mandatory to follow also for
producers. We have thus arrived at 2021 and September could be the deadline to
understand what the definitive choices of the European Union will be.
What standards?
The direction it will take is now clear, as well as the
relative simplicity with which all Android smartphone manufacturers will adapt.
In fact, the USB-C standard has been common to a myriad of different devices
for years . This will certainly be the standard chosen for the universal
charger and could not have been otherwise given its widespread diffusion on all
products, not just smartphones, of the new generation.
The EU text will clarify many of the doubts in this regard,
specifying what obligations companies will have to comply with and whether it
will really be possible to have a single charger in hand with which to supply
energy to all devices. This would be an epochal turning point in the way of
understanding technological products, as well as a net saving for consumers,
producers and also for the environment .
Avoiding having to throw away a charger every time you
replace the device would be a milestone of fundamental importance for the whole
planet, which could drastically reduce the already incredibly high number of
electronic waste. It also remains to be understood how the new legislation,
finally, can be combined with the choice of some producers who, more and more
often,do not insert the charger in the sales packages of smartphones.
Apple obstacle
All right then? Not for Apple, which has never accepted this
possibility and the only one that would actually have serious consequences from
a choice of this type, given the presence of the Lightning standard in iPhones
.
The company has branded the choice as wrong, carrying
mountains of new electronic waste for all Apple users who will be forced to
change chargers in the future and lack of innovation, since everyone will have
to adapt to the same standard.
It is logical that in Cupertino they try to defend their
proprietary technologies but the company itself, over the years, has moved in
the direction of a single standard. In 2011, Apple itself together with
Samsung, Huawei and Nokia had signed an agreement to unify future smartphone
chargers, choosing the then widespread USB-B as a common standard.
Nothing more was done with it, also due to the arrival of
new technologies and the smaller and more efficient USB-C, also adopted by
Apple for many of its devices, with the exception of iPhones.
A norm "in progress"
The market is therefore naturally heading in a single
direction, but it will still be necessary to have a standard that uniforms the
choices as much as possible and blocks, even in the future, the possibility
that new products may diverge and create new differences and a consequent
fragmentation.
Naturally, it will be necessary to pay a lot of attention ,
to create a legislative body that does not remain forever perched on today's
standards and that watches over technological progress.
If USB-C is the standard par excellence today, it may no
longer be in the near future. It will therefore be necessary to monitor changes
and make sure that the rules adapt in the least traumatic way possible. Even
Apple, like it or not, will have to adapt to a regulation that, net of choices
yet to be discovered, could bring more than positive changes in the lives of
all of us, creating less confusion on the market and greater purchasing
awareness. Too many different standards risk creating confusion and having a
single charger for all the products we have at home would make everyone's life
easier.
Attention to the future
A few weeks and we will know the truth, aware however that
charging technologies could evolve further soon. This obligation could lead
many manufacturers, Apple first, to study different charging technologies.
There have long been rumors of future iPhones without any charging ports. The
birth of the AirPods and MagSafe have been going in this direction for some
time . Products that no longer need cables to work, for a future where
everything will pass through wireless systems.
The European Union will probably have to watch over this
too. It will be great and desirable to have the same cables and chargers for
everyone, but what if the wireless standard takes over everything else?
Different devices will have different wireless charging modes, for a market
that is once again divided and fragmented. For this reasons it will be
necessary to pay maximum attention to technological evolutions, for a system of
laws that cannot afford to crystallize but that will have to adapt to the
evolutions of our time, whatever they may be.
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