Drowning in chargers

6/21/2011 12:54 PM EDT

What may help for many of the devices is the use of USB as a standard charging interface--right now, I use a single USB charger for my GPS, Cell phone, MP3 player, backup removeable hard disk drive, and other smaller devices. It solves both the voltage/current rating probkem AND the little-connector problem--whihc can be just as aggravating.
But my laptop needs 20V/4.5A, so USB is not an option.

As we say in calculus: it's a "partial solution"

6/21/2011 3:56 PM EDT

Another highly annoying thing about the proliferation of chargers - not a single manufacturer that I know of bothers to attach a label to the charger to indicate what device it is intended for. This simple act would be so useful to the end user.

6/21/2011 4:53 PM EDT

Despite the move toward USB as the universal charger, it is impossible to avoid having a pile of dedicated chargers -- for your laptop, your portable gaming system, etc. -- or a pile of USB cables with proprietary connectors on the other end.

The pile on my desk looks a lot like Janine's, except that for some reason when my iPod Touch needs a charge, I can never find that special white USB cable...

6/22/2011 4:24 AM EDT

How much more would you pay for a device that works with a charger you already own? It must be cheaper (in terms of design time, verification and returns) to make your own proprietary charger than to trust whatever the consumer alread has at home.

So with two items on the shelf at, say, $99 and $119, would you buy the latter only because it would give you less clutter?

Børge

6/23/2011 8:57 AM EDT

IEEE Standards Association has several individual working groups on rechargeable batteries for phones, cameras, PCs etc. but a quick look didn't reveal any that are addressing a common charging standard. Seems like these groups should get together.

6/23/2011 10:35 AM EDT

I don't think the engineers are the problem. The marketing wonks like proprietary interfaces because it tends to drive more business their way. Schwinn bicycles was one of the first well known applications of this business method. Of course I would never have bought a Schwinn for that very reason so I'm not sure how successful they were (They are back to industry standard sizes now :-). It's also why you won't find any fruit adorned electronic equipment in my possession. Second in line are the lawyers who worry about what happens when you plug "someone else's" charger into their product and it catches fire or something. To get there, we will need to build intelligence into both the charger and the end item so they can work together. I'd love a universal charger for all the "low power" electronics.

6/23/2011 1:38 PM EDT

I suggest contact-less charging for all consumer devices including laptops. It gets rid of all the cords, connectors, thus saving a tonnes of raw materials in making these.

At the Silicon Valley Power Electronics Chapter of IEEE, we recently organized a talk on this revently (slides available):

"Capacitive Power Transfer for Contactless Charging"

http://www.ewh.ieee.org/r6/scv/pels/archive/2011meetings.html

6/23/2011 4:37 PM EDT

I'm sure there are wireless chargers. EEs need to revisit Tesla's wireless power transmission work.

6/24/2011 4:49 AM EDT

ANY equipment I design that needs a charger, I design for standard size plug, 12V, centre positive. That way I can plug it in to any 12v power supply or into the car, and charge it.

USB has gone some way to addressing this, there are many things that can be charged off USB, but even there, you have so many types of USB connectors.

I despair of the human race ever getting this right, it's so easy but (as noted in comments above) greed ensures that there will never be a standard.

Maybe if a consumer organisation got together with a couple of big electronics manufacturers and came up with one (or a couple of) standards, the rest of the world might be bludgeoned into line. Yeah, right....

Again, it shouldn't be difficult to make a universal wireless charge pad that any matching phone / music player / multimeter / etc could be charged at. Make them a distinctive colour so that anyone with a standard wireless charging appliance can place it on the pad and it'll charge. Have plug-in charge pads for home, and pads in airports / hotel rooms / offices / even airplanes.

None of this is rocket science, but the stupid human race is somewhat less likely to get to this point than to get back on the moon, I think.

Whenever anyone pooh-poohs my cynical view of the human race, there are so many idiocies like this to quote to prove my point.

And ref my cynicism: "The power of accurate observation is often defined as cynicism by those who don't have it." George Bernard Shaw. I rest my case....

6/24/2011 1:45 PM EDT

Wireless charging everywhere is the way to go and there is hope ahead. One online report has it that the CEA (Consumer Electronics Association) "has created the Wireless Charging Working Group to begin work on its own standard, which should be ready to be submitted to the CEA management board by the end of this year, and then on to get approval from the IEEE." Let's hope they are aiming at a universal standard.

6/24/2011 3:03 PM EDT

Wonder what the "Cell phones and power lines cause cancer" crowd thinks about wireless charging :-)

6/24/2011 3:07 PM EDT

Mr. Ashton,

"There is but a slight difference between genius and stupidity. Genius has limits."

Attributed to A. Einstein

6/24/2011 3:12 PM EDT

No Doubt wireless charging is attractive. The main problem no one ever talks about though is the efficiency of these schemes which is typically very low on the order of single digit percentages. Do we really want to consume 100 watts to deliver 10 Watts to a device? Food for thought.

6/24/2011 4:16 PM EDT

what about combining energy harvesting and wireless charging? can that be taken seriously? can it be made efficient?

6/24/2011 4:23 PM EDT

Switching regulators are getting so cheap now, that I've started designing products to accept anything between 9 and 100V DC.

6/25/2011 10:30 AM EDT

http://www.duracell.com/en-US/category/mygrid.jspx

6/25/2011 10:54 AM EDT

http://www.energizer.com/products/inductive-charging/Pages/energizer-inductive-charging.aspx

6/26/2011 9:30 PM EDT

I can feel the same pain :-) My wiring to my TV station is like this. There is a one spike burster and playstation, TV, dvd player, car battery, mobile charger,laptop..everything hooked up on that. Its looks very messy. I always feel I got to buy a fancy TV stand where all wiring can be hidden but i guess the point is make the wiring routed well and throw unnecessary items :-)

6/27/2011 12:15 PM EDT

Folks, this problem has already been solved. Cell phone manufacturers have converged on a standard: the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC)1.0 released the Qi (pronounced "Chi") standard one a year ago. It is designed to be inter-operable with all devices carrying the Q" logo.
(http://www.wirelesspowerconsortium.com/)

Already there are many products on the market with this built in. Nearly 100 member compananies support the Qi standard, including LG, Verizon, Nokia, Energizer, Maxim, Texas Instruments, Motorola, Nat Semi, Panasonic, Samsung, HTC, IDT, Intersil, etc.
(http://www.wirelesspowerconsortium.com/member-list/)

References:
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6/29/2011 3:12 AM EDT

There is an organized way around this.
1) There are only two common voltages, the others are rare: 5v and 12v
2) 5v is going all USB, there are only 3 connectors in common use: B, mini B, and micro B , the others are being deprecated. So have one SHORT! cable of each that plugs into a USB hub. Power the hub with a 3.5A or better power supply. The max you need for a single device is 2A. The number of things you charge at the same time depends on the amp rating of the supply. If you get a 120-240 5amp supply it will charge most things new. and can be used for travel. The power connector on the hub may be unique, but this is only one connector. Keep the power supply wires fat and short.
For 12v always mark the power connector on the device, not the power supply with voltage polarity, and amps. Mark the supply with what it goes to, router etc.
This leaves cameras, cordless phones and other stuff that is almost all 6v,7.5v, 8.4v or 9v
you can get a universal charger that will do this and 5v as well , with 120-240, it is good for travel too. This goes a long way to solving the power supply issues. Don't buy anything with a wierd voltage.
Bye! Bill!

6/29/2011 11:48 PM EDT

...

6/29/2011 11:54 PM EDT

One solution is to switch to wireless USB devices and then use something like the Motorola EcoMoto Universal Wall Charger for charging. You can actually get a USB hub and connect it to the universal charger and then connect the devices that you want to charge to the USB hub. Keep in mind that the total connected load should be less than the rated load of the charger.

You still have a lot of devices but at least you have one charger for all the devices. Hope it helps.

6/30/2011 6:32 PM EDT

Unfortunately it seems that many manufacturers can come up with different connectors and unusual voltages just so that their charger/power supply is the only one that will work. And somebody in airports helps to assure lots of replacement sales by stealing power supplies from checked luggage. THANKS A LOT, TSA!!!