Towards a single charger for all smartphone users by 2024 – Univers Freebox

The European Commission is back in the assault on cell phone manufacturers to impose a universal charger, compatible with all smartphones as well as tablets. Apple is in the crosshairs.

A file that goes back a long way for the European Union. Since 2009, the executive has sought to set up a single charger using the same standard for almost all electronic devices. According to the information Echoes, a new proposal for a directive will be unveiled next Thursday, aiming to require Apple, Huawei, Nokia and others to equip their smartphones, tablets, but also headphones, cameras and music speakers sold in Europe with a charger and at least a USB-C port. If it is adopted, the goal would then be an endowment of all devices by 2024.

This directive also provides for ensuring that all chargers are interchangeable: if you switch from a Nokia to an iPhone, then there would be no need to change cables, and vice versa. The measure is clearly directed towards Apple, since the majority of Android smartphones already adopt USB-C, but the American giant for its part remains camped on the use of the “lightning” port for its iPhones. He has also repeatedly opposed the idea, arguing in particular that imposing a load standard “stifles innovation rather than encouraging it and will hurt consumers“.

Conversely, for Brussels, the single charger will simplify the lives of users by breaking the inflation of various and varied chargers piling up in their drawers, since the directive which will be examined by the European Parliament also plans to impose on manufacturers to no longer automatically sell a charger with any new device. On this point, moreover, Apple is already ahead, since it has been selling its iPhones without a charging case for about a year.

The question of the universal charger goes back more than ten years. At the time, the European Commission explained that there were no less than 51,000 tonnes of chargers for smartphones and other electronic devices. The figure has since increased, with a recycling rate still very low, and if some players like Apple seek to reduce this carbon footprint of tech, executive measures are still planned to reduce the impact of digital on the environment.

At that time, the micro-USB standard was envisioned as a new charging standard for all affected electronic devices, but Apple obviously opposed it. It is henceforth the USB-C, which is democratized not only in the world of smartphones, but also with the integration of ports in many devices, including for computers or even for example, on the Devialet player of the Freebox Delta. This is not the first offensive led by the European Union on this subject, the future will tell us if it is the last and if it will be carried out. Parliament should however be in favor of this draft directive, having relaunched the debate in 2020, considering that it was an “emergency”.