FEATUREt wasn’t that long ago when a
5-volt/1-amp charger was good
enough to charge most smartphones.
But as screen sizes keep growing,
SoCs get more powerful, data-
hungry apps become commonplace,
and (as a result) batteries get
bigger, good luck waiting for
modern smartphones to recharge
if you continue to use these 5-watt
chargers.
Which is why many phone and
SoC makers have taken matters into
their own hands. In addition to the
common Battery Charging v1.2 spec
from the USB Implementers Forum,
which is the non-proï t organization
behind the USB standard, we also see
plenty of proprietary fast-charging
methods out there in the market,
such as Apple’s 2.4A discovery
scheme, Qualcomm’s Quick Charge,
Huawei/HiSilicon’s Fast Charging
Protocol, and Oppo’s VOOC, just to
name a few.
One that’s gaining a lot of
attention lately is USB-C, which
beyond its user-friendly reversible
connector, is able to power 5V
devices with up to 3A of current. On
compatible high-power devices such
as today’s smartphones, this mode
will allow them to charge up faster.
There’s also something else called
USB Power Delivery, which increases
power transfers even further for
more powerful devices (see box
story).
A do-it-all standard designed to
accommodate past, current, and
PICTURESAPPLE, NINTENDOI
future devices, it’s only a matter
of time before USB-C becomes a
universal standard. This explains
why you’ve been seeing more and
more USB-C-based products, big
and small, popping up in the last
12 months - from Google’s Pixel
and Samsung’s Galaxy S8 phones to
Nintendo’s Switch gaming console,
Apple’s MacBook Pros laptops and
LG’s UltraFine monitors.New standard, new
teething issues
Now, most people don’t (and
shouldn’t) care about how USB works
or the nuances of USB charging. If
your phone has a USB Type-C port
and your laptop has a regular USB
Type-A port, to connect the two, all
you need is a simple USB-Type-C-
to-A cable, right? I mean, it’s just a
cable with two different plugs, what
can go wrong?
Turns out, things can indeed go
wrong, especially when power is
involved. Not so long ago, there
was this story about Benson Leung,
a Google engineer, who fried his
Chromebook Pixel laptop after using
a third-party USB-C-to-A cable.
Dieter Bohn, who is executive editor
at The Verge, also ended up with a
MacBook Air with no working USB
ports after he used a cheap USB-C-
to-A cable to charge his Nexus 6P
phone. And more recently, Russell
Holly, contributing editor at Android
Central, discovered that his USB-C-
based phone had run out of juice even
when connected to a power bank
overnight, because the phone decided
to charge the power bank instead.
Seriously, we’ve been using USB to
connect or charge our devices since
forever. Why should USB-C be any
different?It’s complicated
In the future, all our devices will
be using USB-C, and the only cable
we’ve to deal with is a USB-C-to-C
cable. But until that day arrives, to“A do-it-all
standard
designed to
accommodate
past, current,
and future
devices, it’s
only a matter
of time before
USB-C becomes
a universal
standard.”84 +:0 | MAY 2017