Suck it micro USB, mini USB, and lightning! 🪫🔋
Now for those swappable batteries
And make all power tool batteries compatible.
Including cars.
Drive in, swap non-proprietary batteries with an autoloader, drive out. Done.
Yes and no. No need to hot swap massive EV batteries. Rapid is fast enough. But yes so the EV can be upgraded. The batteries go obsolete quicker than they degrade. So make it so we can swap the batteries and keep the rest running. In fact, just right-to-repair the whole car. In fact, the whole everything!
Hot Swapping batteries is actually surprisingly good for the life of the battery if done well.
Rapid charging the battery does do permenant damage over time especially if you fast charge every time. Whereas if you can hot swap a battery and have a suitable stockpile of them you can trickle charge the battery over a couple of hours instead of 30 mins and prolong the overall lifespan of the battery. Even slowing down the charge rate to 1 hour reduces wear on the battery significantly. Plus, without time pressure from a customer, more time could be taken to replace damaged cells or blocks in a battery so that one pack will more effectively use the whole battery up instead of throwing away perfectly good cells.
See, for me, I rapid charge like once a month. All the rest of the time I use my home charger or even a granny lead. 10A granny charging is absolutely fine overnight. But for the size of the E-Berlingo, the battery is a bit small and I know all kind of new batteries are coming. More kWh for the same weight/size, less degradation, safer, etc etc. If I knew the car was designed with battery replacement in mind, I’d worry a lot less about it being obsoleted prematurely. These cars are all black boxed stuck together. It’s not built with repairing and upgrading in mind.
One of the benefits of EVs is we can get rid of a lot of infrastructure. Everywhere already has electrical so home and destination chargers are a minor add on and it’s only superchargers that are new infrastructure. Meanwhile the entire gasoline and oil refining, distribution, and tens of thousands of gas stations can just go away, along with their associated pollution.
Swappable batteries may sound cool but they’re less edficient plus now we have to build up a huge new set of infrastructure agai, we have to standardize batteries, and we can’t build them into structural parts. The only real advantage is speed but that’s not much advantage if you need to drive somewhere. I’ve never had to charge more than 25 minutes at a supercharger, so swapping a battery is only convenient if it’s at most ten minutes more away. Then you’re also assuming there will be more more battery and charger advances, such as those solid state batteries that a couple vendors claim are already in production, such as 800v charging that a few vehicles already can do, such as the latest Superchsrgers that can charge faster than any car can accept so far, or the semi chargers that have a few built out.
Long before you could build out a huge new infrastructure for seappable batteries and standardize cars around it, we’ll already have charging improvements that will make seappables irrelevant. You could argue they already are irrelevant in some areas
While 25 mins doesn’t sound terrible you have to consider throughput. Long lines, waiting for chargers could become an issue if adoption takes off, and if I ever drove by a set of chargers that was full up and more people waiting that’d probably put me off from buying one.
Maybe but so far:
- I usually charge overnight at home
- I’ve never waited in line at a supercharger.
The destination chargers at work do get a line but we coordinate over slack so you never have to actually wait.
The trick is to get those home chargers deployed everywhere. This is what actually decided me on the futilebess of swappable batteries. Almost everyone could use a level 1 charger, but even a full level 2 charger is the same as a stove circuit or an air condioner. It’s just not a big deal for most people’s electrical service and level 1 can be anywhere. Look at how difficult it’s been to get these deployed despite them being so much cheaper and simpler than what you’re proposing. How will we possibly spend tens to hundreds of billions and decades to build out swappable battery infrastructure if a few billion in charging circuits to mostly existing service is so difficult?
Who benefits from seappable battery infrastructure? Really it’s mostly the same companies that profit from gasoline infrastructure. I’m convinced many proponents are just these companies wanting to continue business as usual. However with plugins, they don’t need to exist
You make some good points, but may I say from a single viewpoint.
I can’t physically charge a car at home.
I work from home and travel to customers - most are hours away and I (usually) can’t charge at their office.
Hence, I don’t have an electric car and my next purchase will probably be a self-charging hybrid because I need to recharge / refuel on the journey - hence quickly.
So, in my case, the only way I can go full-electric is with a short charge (/ battery swap) at the places that currently sell fossil fuel, which are becoming battery charging stations (they already have AC mains, so no new infrastructure required).
Eu once again doing more to improve my life than my own government (tax holiday).
Canada?
The very same. I saved a few dollars here and there which I would be more than happy to trade for some decent regulations on the things I buy.
What’s funny is that I still got taxed for the expensive stuff I bought, just not a few take out orders and one toy I bought. Success?
I heard your grocery stores just increased prices to match previous post-tax prices.
Please do this for things like rechargeable electric shavers and toothbrushes as well.
Those, especially the toothbrush, need to be more water resistant. Electric teethbrush should be entirely waterproof, and I don’t think USB-C can do that.
I have seen toothbrushes with USB-C, they just connect to the docking station. Which makes sense IMO, you wouldn’t want to plug and unplug your toothbrush every time you want to use it.
USA checking in.
Just bought a new USB-C charging beard trimmer on clearance.
Feels good, man.
Thamks if EU helped.
Can we bring back the charging as well, and not just the USB cable… Oh, and while you’re at it, screws instead of glue, to replace batteries would be awesome.
Thx!
There’s a rule coming into effect in 2027 that enforces user replaceable batteries for devices in the EU. https://www.pcmag.com/news/eu-smartphones-must-have-user-replaceable-batteries-by-2027
while 2027 is better than nothing, I still wonder why it took them so long. Glue in smartphones has been around for probably a decade now.
Also, I think, anything that has a battery, should be user replacable… even teeny-tiny earbuds.
Totally agree! It’s seemingly gotten worse recently too. My phone is 5 years old and I was still able to replace the battery at home but it took special tools and a hair dryer. The newest Pixels and Galaxy phones look impossible to do with my current skillset.
Things like Fairphone and the HMD Skyline should be the norm going forward.
There’s always an implementation period with these things, also with the USB thing, to allow companies to build and sell phones that are already in the pipeline. Expect, just as with the USB thing, replaceable batteries to become a common sight quite soon and ubiquitous by 2027. You can already get quite decent smartphones with replaceable batteries but it’s the usual suspects Fairphone, Gigaset, and (at least one model of) Samsung, those would also exist without the regulation. The “oh shit they actually passed it we’ll need to re-engineer things” models from everyone else still aren’t on the market.
And before anyone brings it up: Yes, you can make them waterproof.
Waterproof
Strongly agree!
Looking back, I suspect this was only an argument to make them hard to repair, as always, just worded in a sense like it’d benefit the customer.
FFS, just add some rubber… We’ve used rubber in condoms for centuries (kinda) succesfully, what made them think glue’d be better… I ain’t gonna put glue on my ding-dong, if that’s what they’re after all these years.
I suspect this was only an argument to make them hard to repair, as always
They don’t mind the benefit, for sure. But as somebody who worked in manufacturing support jobs up until a couple years ago, I’m 90% confident it’s just faster and cheaper to glue them. Probably easier to automate too. Again it just comes down to money.
Just thinking of the scale of R&D for something like a flagship phone, there are a LOT of person-hours dedicated to manufacturability.
To allow the manufacturers to adapt and phase out?
For USB sure… it’s kinda “newish”. But, I mean, they could’ve intervened much sooner, when glue became the standard for assembling phones.
Noice. I am definitely waiting until 2028ish before upgrading my phone, if not a bit longer.
Sadly, it still allows to glue batteries with very little requirements.
no keep the glue please. I love that my phone’s back just came off on its own just because it was hot outside and the glue melted away. it was fun and exciting!
Just get a Fairphone, with every module screwed into place. Except the battery, you can just take that out by hand.
Kudos to the EU, end the waste.
While this is good news, the likes of Apple will still find ways to be “compliant” while still being total assholes about it. e.g. the device might charge with USB C but they’ll gimp the data transfer rates on non-pro phones. And they’ll do the same when mandates about repairability come in - all of a sudden the battery will have a bunch of expensive DRM’d up the ass circuitry attached to it that will cripple the phone if its not recognized or registered by one of their techs and means Apple can kill old phones by being “out of stock” of the battery.
Honestly, people who still buy apple phones are dumb fucks. No way to say this nicely.
There’s a weird discrepancy where Mac Laptops are decent machines despite being on the expensive side, but iphones are just overpriced hot garbage locking you into an ecosystem.
I’m not an apple fan, but this is just a dumb take. they have their place, even if it’s not under your ownership.
iphones have a place about as useful as diamonds - as a status symbol alone. They are used to create out-groups and discriminate against poor people.
The original iphone may have been useful - the update hype with ever more expensive BS is just milking stupid people for cash.
There’s really no need to take sides when it comes to the phones from giant corporation A vs giant corporation B. To most users, an iPhone is a hand-held screen that launches your apps, just like everything else from a bloated Samsung to a Graphene’d Pixel.
And it’s not that I want to defend Apple on Lemmy, so I’m not gonna, but it seems like all the other mainstream options are as bad or worse in many areas. (Privacy, duration of software support, etc)
degoogled free phones with e.g. LineageOS are better. But monopolists make it a nightmare to get one running. However, the issue I am taking with iphones is not the usefulness to the user, but the ridiculous price for a phone that is manufactured by basically slaves under nightmarish conditions (remember suicide nets @ Foxconn buildings?) with materials from conflict zones (read: mine workers have their families butchered with machetes if they try to unionize) - so on top of these crimes against humanity, that most of the others commit as well, apple is still charging a price that is purely through the roof because of demand from an artificial hype, and that would be easily enough to build the whole phone under fair trade / fair labor conditions.
Yeah, at first I was going to agree that it’s sad that the general population doesn’t care much about slave labor in their iPhones as long as it saves them money and doesn’t get blood directly on their hands.
But then I think that is kinda true of the whole phone market.
But then I think that is kinda true of the whole everything market!
And once again a Lemmy comment comes to the conclusion that capitalism is the problem, lol.
But Apple is the most valuable company in the world, and therefore is the most capitalism, so I guess that makes it OK again to single them out.
And once again a Lemmy comment comes to the conclusion that capitalism is the problem, lol.
Yeah, if only we could have a revolution and Marie Antoinette some of the slave owners.
the “status” issue is a completely different argument than what I replied to.
You need to work on your reading comprehension, or your short-term-memory. Or both?
sheesh. you are a piece of work.
I was honestly on the fence of getting a MacBook recently as my first newly purchased Laptop, but ultimately decided against it.
Got a fully decked out ThinkPad P14s instead for about 1800€. Meanwhile the new M4 MacBook Pro starts at 1900€. But I agree that Macs still are good value compared other Apple products.
Now if only we can standardize cables or at least labeling. We went from everything working wherever it would plugin to everything plugging in but who knows if it will work
Imo they should at the very least standardize some color coding and labeling. All charging-only cables are yellow, data cables are blue. Something like that.
Yeah, or since people are going to want their cute colored cables, do colored stripes on the connectors or something. Even on the metal connector itself, but not on the inside like old USB-A connectors.
Good 👍 I just hope nothing replaces USB-C anytime soon
USB-CDE
USB-CDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
It’s like micro-USB-AB, but USB-CDE
It’ll probably happen by the time, most of my devices will be USB-C.
Only suck it lightning. It still allows standard chargers like micro USB and mini USB
Are you sure? The EU parliament explicitly mentions USB C as the new mandatory standard.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX%3A32022L2380
USB C is mentioned in annex Ia and as an example in articles 11 and 12. As I understand previous articles, it is possible to use other standards that satisfy citeria from article 9.
They should specified speeds too. I think Apple gimps usb c charging speeds
More speed is more heat is more battery wear.
Ok so make it an option
Nobody opts out and now Apple is bad because batteries age faster (even though it’s the same on other phones).
Not the best idea.
I know Samsung and pixel both have this option, and I would be surprised if other major manufacturers didn’t. While people have their grievances with them, I’ve never heard anyone complain about overall battery lifetime.
If that is an actual concern people have then they can just turn it off by default
People complain extra about anything Apple does.
I don’t care what people have to say about apple
More speed is more heat is more battery wear
Why is making it an option with the default set to off worse than what they have now (slow charging with no option)?
Yup I have noticed this with my new iPhone 16 pro.
You plug it in and the charging speed as drastically slower than when I use the new ‘official’ apple wireless mag lock (or whatever it’s called) charger.
I have an iPhone 16 and can just from dead to close to 50% in just about half an hour. Is your charger at least 30 watts and supports USB-PD? (I’m using a 65w charger, but remember reading somewhere the iPhone only uses 30w or a bit more)
MagSafe fast charging is only 25w, so charging by cable with a high enough wattage charger is always faster for me.
will ti 84 calculators have to follow this?
I haven’t read the legislation, but I get the thrust of it. They want to standardize cellular devices and also cut down on electronic waste. If it’s specifically for cellular devices, then no it won’t affect TI products. If it’s more generally to cut back on electronic waste, then yes it will affect them.
1.1. handheld mobile phones; 1.2. tablets; 1.3. digital cameras; 1.4. headphones; 1.5. headsets; 1.6. handheld videogame consoles; 1.7. portable speakers; 1.8. e-readers; 1.9. keyboards; 1.10. mice; 1.11. portable navigation systems; 1.12. earbuds; 1.13. laptops.Seems no, but I may be wrong.
With the iPhone 14 no longer being sold the specs of the rumored SE 2025 make a lot more sense.
Coming soon on an Amazon: Apple USB-C cable $20.99
And iPhone users will snap them up. My wife would pay quadruple for the logo alone.
“It has to be Apple compatible!”
I should start a business. Hell, Monster fooled everyone for a decade+ with their high prices and “quality”.
Was wiring cable internet for a dude, tugged his Monster cable a bit, end fell off in my hand. My god, the insides were appallingly cheap, fabricated from Chinese whispers and toilet paper. Every element here was as cheap as it gets.
He was a bit upset, a bit surprised. I showed him the differences between the Monster cable and what I was using, made him a new one. Happy camper!
What are they made of, hay? Apple cables were never this cheap.
It’s not like Apple hasn’t had USB-C devices for 2 years now … where have you been?
8 years, actually.
Not touching them with a barge pole
I mean, Apple has been selling USB-C cables ever since they transitioned MacBooks to use Thunderbolt ports in 2016. And yes, they are expensive. But the whole point of standardized cables is that Apple may sell them for $100 if they want to, there will be others who will sell it for a reasonable price and Apple can’t hold you hostage with their proprietary connector.
Funny how recently as this was unfolding, USBC chargers for certain devices only work for those devices. So yes now we will only have USBC but ones that will only work with the assigned brands
Main reason I left OnePlus is because i couldn’t use any PD chargers. Highly impractical.
Also half of their software straight up didn’t work. My OnePlus was the most powerful least useful device I have owned.
