I sometimes joke that one of my part-time jobs is charging devices, and so I love that the world has shifted to USB-C as the standard for wired charging. It's trendy to criticize the EU for over-regulating things, but this is one area where I'm glad they stepped in and forced everyone, including Apple, to get on board.
Phones, tablets, and laptops basically have 100% adoption at this point, and adoption is similarly high for other small appliances, electronics, and even airplane seats. All of this means having to carry around fewer cables, which is especially helpful when traveling.
At Parkview Mountain House, we equipped the main workspace area and kitchen with USB-C outlets, though we also included USB-A for legacy reasons. It's good for that electric toothbrush. But I know we're going to need many more USB-C outlets in the coming years.
On that note, I just discovered a cool Swedish company called Cords that makes beautiful, high-quality cables, chargers, and extenders. They also have a partnership program for architects, interior designers, and retailers if any of you are interested.
Sadly, though, they're a Swedish company and I think all of their devices use a Type C European wall plug. Otherwise, I'd be getting one of the cylindrical chargers shown above.
There are about 15 electrical plug types currently in use around the world. I can't see these being standardized anytime soon, but I do think that we'll see household outlets reach something close to a 50/50 split between standard and USB-C outlets. Already, I feel we should have installed more at PMH.
USB-C doesn't allow for enough power for bigger appliances, so it's not going to be for everything. But for any device that could run off a USB-C port, I don't know why it wouldn't eventually switch. If you aren't already thinking about this in your new-build projects, it wouldn't be a bad idea to start planning for it.
That is, until we've figured out a viable wireless charging solution. This is why USB-C is sometimes referred to as the "final connector." It's probably the last wired connector before we get rid of wired altogether.
Photos from Cords
It is widely rumoured that the upcoming iPhone 15 will replace its lightning charging port with a standard USB-C port. Maybe it doesn't happen next month, but it will happen before December 28, 2024. Because this is the conformity deadline that the European Union has set for standardized wired charging.
This said, I am already feeling like everything has switched over. All of the charging cables in my bag right now are USB-C. And I just realized that I'm going to need to buy some new travel adapters with USB-C ports, instead of USB-A (see above). This also means that hotels, airports, airplanes, and all other places around the world are going to need to start switching over to USB-C.
I'm thinking about this right now because we are incorporating USB plugs next to work areas in some of our development projects. And there's no point in going with USB-A any longer. That's done. What would be even better, though, is if we could get rid of the 15 different plug types that are used around the world and switch everything over to one standard.
Hopefully that's next.
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