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Comment by btgeekboy | Hacker News Reader

It’s kinda funny how the world has converged on USB as a universal charging standard. I have a tote full of old AC/DC transformers in the garage; I used to save them as you never knew when you’d need one of a specific connector/voltage/ amperage combo. Now they’re somewhat obsolete.

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Aside from the many, many different sizes, I really miss barrel jacks for charging. Like USB-C, there is no wrong way to plug it in, but the connection always feels solid.

I currently have to wiggle my USB-C and find the right angle to achieve "rapid charging," and if it moves too much it just falls out.

Feels like we've gone backwards in physical connection reliability.

Do USB-C connectors get packed with lint?

I had a USB micro phone stop charging and it ended up being lint/dust packed in the connector.

Yes! Exactly what happened with my Pixel phone. The cable would fall out after a minute. Took a toothpick and a few minutes to get the dirt out and now it's as good as new.

They do. I started seeing my phone not getting fully charged during the night and driving on a bumpy road would make the screen turn on and off. Took me a while to realize that a small lint ball from inside my pocket had made it into the USB C socket of my phone. It was small enough not to be overly evident. Few minutes with a toothpick and it's good as new!

> Like USB-C, there is no wrong way to plug it in, but the connection always feels solid.

Hefty disagree. I've seen plenty of (mainly cheap) laptops where the barrel socket would get loose over time and it was an absolute pain to charge because the connector would jiggle out at the slightest movement.

> Like USB-C, there is no wrong way to plug it in, but the connection always feels solid.

You can always get the polarity wrong if the designer is stupid and switches them from the standard

I have two devices at home with the positive contact on the outer ring!!!

Fewer connection types that you frequently need is quite uncontroversially a good thing isn't it?

So it's quite natural that for merely charging we'd turn to something that's capable of charging and data, since we couldn't do the reverse.

It makes sense given the history: the EU forced phone manufacturers to settle on one charging standard, this lead to everyone having a micro USB charger, allowing everyone else to piggyback.

Off course it made sense for phone manufacturers to choose some pre-existing standard that can handle data and power in one connector.

But if 20 years ago you would have asked me to guess the future universal power connector, I would have guessed on a standardized size and voltage for the ubiquitous round connectors (barrel jack?), or maybe an adaptation of headphone connectors. MicroUSB with its comically small contact area, (originally) only 2.5W maximum power and fragile connectors that are a pain to plug in wouldn't have been my guess.

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