RE: Universal Power vs. Universal Physical Connector

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Hi Karen:

I appreciate the detail you provided in your thinking on this topic. When I look at the iPhone, iPad, iMac and iPod, it is clear these devices are extremely popular. It’s unlikely that Apple is willing to change its connectors or be forced to add a separate power connector.

While having everyone adopt a load-side power connector is the ideal, it will add years to the time it will take to develop a standard, if ever possible with this as a requirement.

Seems to me, first priority for the UPAMD is to eliminate eWaste caused by premature disposal of power adapters designed to serve just one product. Other benefits of UPAMD are energy savings, convenience and a wealth of energy monitoring and control applications that are possible with a smart power adaptor. The convenience of having every load device able to provide a universal physical power connector may be too much to ask and can prevent the group from succeeding.

I am just sharing my direct experience with executives from many of the world’s largest CE vendors. Is this really a battle we want to wage now? Might it behoove the UPAMD to develop the standard and later evolve towards a common physical connector? We shouldn’t underestimate the resistance CE vendors have to the concept of universal power. Forcing a physical connector on their devices might be too much to ask.

Just my opinion. Thanks for sharing yours.

Regards,

Paul Panepinto

VP Ecosystem Development

Green Plug, Inc.

From: Woolf, Karen (AS) [mailto:karen.woolf@xxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2010 5:54 PM
To: Paul Panepinto
Subject: RE: Universal Power vs. Universal Physical Connector

With regard to Paul's comments:

I understand his concerns with the difficulty of defining and making mandatory a physical connector between the power cord and the mobile device, and I recognize the challenge presented to manufacturers. We have to consider the current work various countries and industry groups have done toward this goal, the costs and form factor considerations for the devices themselves, and the limitations that requirement might impose on power supply flexibility. But I would say that far from being optional, this is the MOST important of all of our goals.

Both as a consumer and as an engineer, I have experienced the frustration caused by having to locate (and then organize and lug along) myriad power adapters and cords before traveling or going to a test site - and the inevitable problems that occur when one is forgotten, or one of the many all-too-similar plugs turns out not to be the right one. I know it will be hard, and require a great deal of coordination, to create universal, mandatory standard for this - but from the user's point of view, the only thing harder to deal with than the supply-side adapters needed for international travel is the tangle of cords one has to manage in one's own home or workplace. If our team's work can eliminate this problem, or at least significantly mitigate it, I think that beyond the impact in our own technical worlds, we will have a concrete and visible impact in the daily life of ordinary consumers.

So while it presents a mighty big hill for us to climb, I'd like to encourage the group to think of the potential benefits, in the longer term. After the short-term cost and design impacts are dealt with, this could ultimately reduce costs as those components become common. For the travel industry, imagine the benefits of every plane, train, car, and hotel being able to make available to every customer built-in power sources for most of their devices, without the cost of providing dozens of form factors. For engineering teams, it would have a great impact if we could take many of our measurement devices from a commercial site, to a military base, to a testing lab, and not have to worry about having a power source. Also, think of the "public relations" benefits to both IEEE and the world of standards in general. While most of our standards have substantial benefits to our industries and the public, most people don't know much about it. Like the 1394 standards for wireless, this would provide another example of the importance and usefulness of having and following standards that any consumer or engineering manager could point to - which ultimately helps us all.

To address concerns that Paul (and others with similar - and perfectly legitimate! - worries) has raised, maybe we should consider some areas of flexibility. For example, perhaps we should make abundantly clear in our documents the difference between providing power, and providing data transmission. Many devices currently have one cable for both - but when the device is truly "being mobile", generally only power supply is needed. We might consider some statement encouraging the use of wireless means of data transfer to address this. While I know that wired transfers are sometimes really necessary, so some devices may still need two connections, it might help with the adoption process if we at least make it clear that we haven't ignored that consideration. We also might consider having more than one (although of course as small a number as possible) "standard" connector devices can choose to use - just having two or three "choices" in our standard might help it be applicable to a much wider range of devices, because we could cover quite a lot of size and power-"quantity" concerns by offering just a little flexibility.

Sorry for having been long-winded, team, but for those who haven't been on the list the whole time, I hope it will be helpful to share some of my own personal reasoning behind this goal.

Karen Woolf

From: upamd@xxxxxxxx on behalf of Paul Panepinto
Sent: Tue 7/13/2010 5:57 PM
To: UPAMD@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: EXTERNAL:Universal Power vs. Universal Physical Connector

Hello:

We’ve gotten feedback that there are too many considerations to expect in a reasonable timeframe the entire electronics industry to adopt a single load-side power connector. Our approach is to view the universal power adapter as 3 components: (a) a power supply capable of powering any load within its maximum output power range; (b) a universal connector on the power supply to allow vendor-specific power cords to work with it, (c) the load-side power connector.

While it is important for the power supply to offer a common physical connector so that it can work with any load, in order to prevent getting bogged down in an elusive attempt to develop a common load-side physical connector, perhaps the latter can be an option and not a mandate.

Is there a reason this working group must define a mandatory, physical load-side connector spec?

Regards,

Paul Panepinto

VP Ecosystem Development

Green Plug, Inc.