It’s a love/hate relationship. The superabundance of techie gadgetry at your fingertips makes your heart sing, but the hectic search to find the right charger to fit your cell phone, PDA, or other handheld device makes you want to call it quits.
Then we heard last year that help is on the way. Major telecom companies like Nokia and Sony Ericsson agreed to use the Micro-USB universal charging standard on “future” handsets. Although a non-binding agreement, this is a major step towards ending the frustration of finding the right charger or having to buy a new charger every time you upgrade your phone. On top of that, the Micro-USB connectors are smaller and more power efficient, and so will reduce power consumption and the accompanying greenhouse gases (not to mention the electronic junk in landfills). However, there is one fly in the ointment: it isn’t clear if the Micro-USB interface will be fast enough to transfer the high-definition video on all your increasingly wicked-smart handhelds.
Speaking of fast, this year we are seeing the SuperSpeed USB, or USB 3.0, interface emerging in end-products. Although this new interface exponentially increases data-transfer speeds, it also dramatically increases the amount of current that can flow through sensitive handheld products. This makes USB-enabled products even more vulnerable to such peccadilloes as using the wrong charger or turning on the car ignition after your phone is plugged in.
So, if and when manufacturers truly commit to a universal Micro-USB standard, will you have to choose between super-fast and super-convenient? If so, will you pick the handheld gadget with dazzling downloading capabilities, or will you embrace products that may lack some whiz-bang features but promise to help you improve the environment, save money and, best of all, end your search for the one, right charger? Please leave your comments below.
More On Circuit Protection
See how portable electronics manufacturers can use circuit protection devices to help protect against potentially damaging overcurrent and overvoltage events in products using the USB 3.0 and USB Charger interfaces. And to help protect against electrostatic discharge (ESD), ultra-tiny Silicon ESD (SESD) devices have been developed that are small enough for use in products using the Micro-USB interface.
IEC just published the first globally relevant standard for a universal phone charger a few days ago. Now it’s just up to the manufacturers to adopt it.
http://www.iec.ch/newslog/2011/nr0311.htm
I am convinced the micro USB as the Universal charger interface will be a big hit. Here is a large German switch manufacturer who already launched a walloutlet with integrated charger electronics. Just plug your std-USB to micro-USB cable into this new wall outlet to charge your smartphone…
http://www.berker.com/en/international/products…
Thanks for writing such an easy-to-unerdstand article on this topic.
The agreement to adopt a standard micro-USB charging connector currently extends to smart phones and some data-enabled phones in European union only. The group, of 10 leading Mobile manufacturers, has set an ambitious target, that by 2012, universal charging solutions would be available worldwide. Manufacturers are likely, to eventually keep their design and manufacturing costs streamlined. We can only speculate right now, but we expect the standard may make its way into U.S. markets in a similar time frame.
The agreement to adopt a standard micro-USB charging connector currently extends to smart phones and some data-enabled phones in European union only. The group, of 10 leading Mobile manufacturers, has set an ambitious target, that by 2012, universal charging solutions would be available worldwide. Manufacturers are likely, to eventually keep their design and manufacturing costs streamlined. We can only speculate right now, but we expect the standard may make its way into U.S. markets in a similar time frame.
Late last week it was announced that the European Commission formally approved the policy that will require nearly all smartphones and simpler data-enabled phones to adopt a standard micro-USB charging connector as of January 2011. When do you think this concept will be adopted in the U.S.?