Europe Adopts Universal micro-USB Cellphone Charger Standard

One cell phone charger to juice them all

By Dan Smith Posted 06.29.2009 at 11:08 am 5 Comments

USB Trident Micro-USB would be the charger of choice for all of the EU's cell phones

Ever lose your cellphone charger? When your doomed search for friends or family with a phone of similar brand/vintage eventually fails, it's off to the third-party charger vendor where confusion and high prices await.

We can all agree, then, that proprietary charger plugs are among the larger pains in the respective behinds of cellphone users everywhere. But not so anymore in Europe: the EU is leading the way to create a standard micro-USB charger for all cellphones sold.

Currently there are around 30 different charger types in the EU alone, and the European Commission wants to reduce that number to just one. Today most of the largest mobile carriers have signed on to support the change including Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Apple (bye bye dock connector?), LG, and many others. This conversion would cover about 90% of mobile devices in Europe and should be rolled out beginning next year.

This shift towards a micro-USB standard is already supported by some international organizations that oversee mobile communications, so its adoption beyond Europe is fairly likely. It's about time.

[Reuters via Engadget]

Previous Article: Dyson's New Vacuum Driven By the Fastest Motor Ever

Next Article: Five Tools To Survive the Apocalypse

Want the latest news on grown-up toys and gadgets, product reviews, sneak peeks, and more? Subscribe to Popular Science today, for less than $1 per issue!

5 Comments

Link to this comment

ford2go

06/29/09 at 11:45 pm

A month or 2 ago, I read about a coprporate consortium that had addressed this same issue. This group included most of the notables, but Apple was absent. (Might have been reported in PopSci)

They actually had a timetable for the changeover. Wonder what happened.

Would be nice if they would extend this concept to most devices that use a wall wart. I know that that the varied power demands come into play, but it would be nice to end up with 3 or 4 standards --rather than the infinite number that are available now.

Link to this comment

youth4ever

07/06/09 at 1:21 pm

It was the time to this standard to enter in Europe. I don't understand why there are such discrepancies between Europe and USA. And everyone maintains their point of view like in the metric system. I read about an NASA error when one engineer took the results in another metric unit and it resulted a small disaster.

That's the same thing with electric current. A system in USA, one in Europe and one in Australia.

I believe that all the standards must be unique. Because we are living in a single world.
http://ionicbreezeairpurifiers.com

Link to this comment

MekhongKurt

10/29/09 at 11:27 am

YAY! I happen to live in a place with all sorts of rechargers, so am well aware of the problem. Just a couple days ago a friend was visiting and needed to call someone -- but her phone was dead. It also is a different make than mine, so my recharger was useless for her.

Even more irksome is when a single manufacturer has multiple chargers -- depending on the make and model.

I'd like to see a universal charger for EVERYthing.

Then maybe we can standardaize electricity, tv broadcasts, etc. etc. etc.

Link to this comment

kerrie654

07/07/10 at 2:41 am

I agree it’s about time we have some kind of universal plugs and chargers, especially since most of us are able to travel extensively now thanks to budget and competing airlines. I have a big box of old chargers, zip drives and ASCII plugs sitting in the basement. I would send them to an e-waste recycling facility if there is one in this part of town, and I, err (ahem), actually felt reluctant to just throw them in the bin.

The next best thing to do with them will be to transform them into a wall art of some sort like I’ve seen. Anyway I digress... I seriously doubt Apple will do without a dock connector in future; they are already packing in a dock-to-USB connector as a standard issue, but the lack on one in i Pad clearly shows it’s only form over function and perhaps, not as universal as many would like them to be.

www.abso-bloody-lutely.com

Link to this comment

kerrie654

07/15/10 at 2:04 am

The next best thing to do with them will be to transform them into a wall art of some sort like I’ve seen. Anyway I digress... I seriously doubt Apple will do without a dock connector in future; they are already packing in a dock-to-USB connector as a standard issue, but the lack on one in iPad clearly shows it’s only form over function and perhaps, not as universal as many would like them to be.

www.abso-bloody-lutely.com