Take electric tools. If I have a Milwaukee setup (lawn mower,leaf blower etc) and I buy a new drill. If I want to use the batteries I currently have I’ll have to get a Milwaukee drill.
Yes this is good business, but not all industries do this. Why?
In: 562
It’s easier with other plug ins. When electronics and electricity were first being created they realized they needed a way of connecting these things to the grid. So various makers created various outlets and inlet connectors with various levels of efficiency. It came to a point where when you bought an electronic with a different connector type you would have to buy the proper ports for it to make sure it would work. And this wasn’t sustainable because you also needed different types of electricity to power different electronics. Even today there’s still 19 different voltage ratings on grids around the world that will require converters.
So they created a standardized voltage for electronics and a standardized connector for those electronics. And countries picked the perceived most efficient one. Britain was the last to standardized and standardized the one that was the most energy efficient…. whereas the Americans were last to standardize so they were the least energy efficient (an electric kettle takes about 1.5 minutes to boil in the US vs 4 seconds in Britain).
USB-C rose as an industry standard because of its ease of use and its ability to charge very quickly. Europe standardized it because they had similar worries to early electronics adopters. But it won’t remain standard in the rest of the world for very long. But the world will find itself in a very similar situation soon as different countries begin to standardize different standards based on use. The USB-C was chosen for the EU because of how common Android phones are.
Alternatively all phones might just embrace wireless charging and be done with cords. Europe will remain the only country with a port that only exists as a legislative requirement.
Latest Answers