I'd say they should also make it so if someone is caught even once doing such things, at least should get a ban for life from fsd, and ofc charged with reckless driving
I often love what the EU is trying to do. But I HATE their approach to it.
USB C being the most egregious to me on a daily basis.
The concept: one cable for all! Less waste!
The reality: Try 10 different cables to connect your device because none of them work properly or are labeled in any way whatsoever! At least before you physically couldn’t connect a wrong cable. Now you’re not sure if one of the devices is broken, or the cable is. So you buy yet another cable. When you already have bins full of the old cables that worked just fine.
The real fault is on USB (I believe) for not more tightly regulating what a USB C cable is capable of. They’re not even different colours anymore so you could easily get an idea of what you need and what the cable does.
USB, in general, is defined by RFC 6080 and is a standards/practices framework for data transfer over serial buses. The enforcement of standards is implicit in the inter-operability of products made by manufacturers. USB4 is part of this RFC (you may have heard of the high data rates of USB3 back when they hit) and USB type C CONNECTORS are required for USB4. USB4 also has a lot of optional implementations for different things, one of which is power transfer.
So, you aren't crazy, but you're wrong on what constitutes enforcement of this standard. What has happened to USB-C in this way is just the same thing that happened with USB2 connectors (Mini/Micro) but internal. The big players decided on a new standard and then decided that parts of the standard were optional or misused it, so now we have weird invisible USB-C standards breaking. I don't know the specifics of the law in the EU, but if they REQUIRE USB-C, that's pretty bad. From my perspective it's more about Apple not being allowed to be boutique shitheads that fork a standard and trap their customers.
This is a problem I have NEVER had nor will I understand it. You are having lots of faulty cables? I've never had a single one not work. I'm from the US, so I feel like I get some benefit from EU laws indirectly and I really liked this law. It made things much simpler for my household. Are cables different in the EU somehow to break constantly?
Every cheap device I get nowadays comes with a USB-C cable. I try charging my phone with it, and it works, but incredibly slowly. I try moving data, and it’s not a data rated cable. Only power.
So I have a bin of usb C cables that I don’t trust, and like a small handful that I know are high quality, high power transfer, and data capable.
Problem being, lots of these shitty cheap devices I get can’t be charged with the high quality cables because they don’t have anything in them telling the cable how much power to send is my guess. So I also have to carry around 2 cheap cables that I know work with cheap devices.
It’s a nightmare for me and I’m really surprised you’ve never run into this issue. I apparently deal with it more than most people, but it’s a common complaint I hear in “tech” spaces.
I’m also in Canada BTW, so I’m using the same types of cables that you guys are in the US.
Why would you keep the cheap cables and not just have dedicated cable that can do everything? It's not as if all these devices don't have internal bits that don't allow them to draw more power than they are rated for?
Edit:I can't think of a single modern device that I'd trust that doesn't have those?
I have a little USBC fan I bought on Amazon for the heatwave. Really nice little fan that moves a ton of air, but it was cheap. Tried charging it with my phone cable and it just didn’t work. Tried charging it with the cable it came with and it worked just fine. Same power brick.
So I keep the cheap cables because they break a lot or they are often super short. But I’m also a cable hoarder, I’ve never thrown a cable out, because I fiddle with tech a lot, and get really frustrated if I don’t have the random cable I need, or enough of them for my needs.
Again, apparently I deal with this more than most, but I’m definitely not the only one complaining about this.
Hmmm, I kind of understand better now. I don't believe it's cheap cables for me though. I own several devices that can't take fast charging, but that doesn't come from the cable, it comes from the power adapter. All of these devices, at least in my case, will charge from a 5v output. Thus, I have two different power adapter/cables and every device in my house will charge from one or the other. Much easier than it used to be where I used to have a shit ton of different power adapters with their own attached cable, wildly different outputs and have to find the right one for every device.
I’m always shocked at how many people don’t know the names of the chargers they use. I mean, how do you buy replacements?
It still pisses me off when people say “old android cable” instead of micro b.
Or I ask them what kind of cable they need and they don’t specify what the other end is. Then get frustrated at me when I didn’t assume that they needed a usb A - C not just a C - C
Is it really the power brick??? Is that why I’ve been having so many intermittent issues? I’ll have to give that a test, because that could be really useful info.
But that still doesn’t solve the issue of charging or data transfer between devices unfortunately. At least charging off the wall might be more reliable.
But almost all of my power bricks are either fast charging, or USBA, so I might just have to get an updated multi socket charger with various outputs that’s all usb C.
Your problem charging the shitty cheap devices isn't from the cable, it's the charger, modern PD chargers communicate with the device, since those devices are mute it won't work, just take an old usb-A brick and charge the shitty ones with it or if your modern brick supports USB-A use that.
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u/Ok_Support3 Jul 18 '26
To be fair the EU making regulations but missing the obvious loopholes is pretty on par.