EU Mulling Regulatory Measures to Standardize Smartphone Chargers

Following years of unfruitful debates, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are now planning to crack the whip and introduce regulatory measures to strength consumer electronics companies to utilise standardized chargers for smartphones, tablets and other electronic gadgets. The lawmakers on Monday discussed measures that would not only save people from the hassle of having to carry multiple chargers and cables, just likewise to tackle the growing problem with e-waste, or electronic waste, more than 51,000 tonnes of which was generated last year.

According to an official printing release past the European union post-obit the meeting, many lawmakers are of the opinion that they will have to impose "binding measures" to force compliance because "The voluntary agreements between different industry players have non yielded the desired results". As per the statement, many MEPs believe that "A common charger should fit all mobile phones, tablets, e-book readers and other portable devices" for ecology reasons, as well as for convenience.

It's worth noting that the EU parliament has only held an initial discussion on the subject, while voting volition be held "at a future session", the engagement for which is all the same to be officially announced. It will be interesting to see how consumer electronics firms will react to the news, given that they might take to tweak their plans to arrange the proposed new legislation in Europe. The good this is, though, that if it does go through the European Parliament, information technology will very likely be implemented globally, given that it volition but exist a bigger hassle for the OEMs to use dissimilar connectors in different regions.

The idea of legislating standardized chargers is certainly a skilful ane that will, no dubiety, be welcome past most consumers around the globe. With a little bit of luck, it might finally requite u.s. the freedom from multiple, mutually-incompatible standards like microUSB, USB-C and Thunderbolt.