Standardized Connectors are Music to Many Manufacturers’ Ears
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| Why develop a new standard for a portable media player connector?
That is the question some are asking with the release of the Consumer Electronics Association’s (CEA) new specification, CEA-2017, Common Interconnection for Portable Media Players. Some wonder how this standardized connector can improve on other connectors already on the market.
“The goal was to develop a connector for portable media-type devices that would be a standard across industries and different vendors,” says Microsoft’s Dave McLauchlan, chair of the working group that developed the standard. “It was also to develop a standard connector design that would be available to anyone under reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing terms.”
There are a variety of connectors for portable media devices on the market today. Why not simply use one of them as the new standard?
“Some devices have limited functionality and therefore only require connectors with limited capability,” says McLauchlan. “For example, an MP3 player or satellite radio receiver may only need an audio and a power connection. A portable DVD player may need audio, video and power. Establishing a standard connector that can carry all of these and other signals enables consumers to easily connect their portable devices to in-car and in-home electronics, regardless of the portable device’s functionality requirements.”
McLauchlan also notes that “some connectors are proprietary and may not be used by other companies without the consent of the company that owns the connector design. In these situations the company owning the design is under no obligation to allow others to use it.” He says establishing a CEA standard “ensures that any company may use the design under reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing terms.”
A CEA standard connector was so important to the industry that more than 100 companies from a wide variety of industries got involved in the effort. This group included not only those most obviously interested in developing a standardized connector, such as consumer electronics device and accessories manufacturers, but also car companies, airlines, software companies, satellite and high-definition radio providers and Hollywood content developers.
The result is a connector that meets the committee’s main goal of enabling interoperability.
“When you think of a connector for a portable device, you think of it being on the device side, but also importantly—probably more so—is the question of where else can you find that connector and where else can you plug in your device. Up until recently, it’s really been limited to docking stations on your desk, perhaps with the USB cable that ships with the product. There’s really not been a wide range of options for connectivity based on a common connector,” McLauchlan says.
But with the common connector defined by CEA-2017, consumers could soon have more options for connecting their portable media devices, including in cars and on airlines.
“Imagine being able to dock the device on your PC at your home office, then you take it out and dock it in the car and then you take it out when you get to the airport and dock it in your airline seat. That’s all really cool stuff. What enables this is actually two things: the connector itself and the protocols used over the pins,” says McLauchlan. “So you know when you plug a device in from your car to the airline seat, then those protocols will enable that experience to be transferred and be equal in all cases.”
Already, a few car companies are talking about implanting the new connector in their vehicles, while several airlines are contemplating its use in their seats.
Yet just because the new standard is available doesn’t mean everyone will jump on the bandwagon all at once. Some, says McLauchlan, will continue using their own proprietary connections if they continue to meet their business needs. Having a new common standard, however, offers the industry more choices.
“When you think about it, it’s very monumental that over 100 companies in the consumer electronics space or who have investments in the consumer electronics space can come together and agree on a singular design for connectivity,” McLauchlan says. “Whether every one of those companies goes and adopts it right way, I can’t guarantee that will be the case. There will be some who will do it right away, there will be some that will take some time and see if it becomes ubiquitous, and others that will absolutely defend the right to have a proprietary connector, and that’s fine. The fact now is there is an option to go to an open standard should folks wish to, and that’s a great thing.”
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