Oliver Haslam·

USB-C 240W Power Delivery Is Coming But You’ll Need Another Cable To Use It

People who like to be able to charge their stuff using USB-C are in for a treat after a new USB-C 240W Power Delivery spec was announced.

That means that you’ll be able to charge all kinds of things – pretty much anything – using a USB-C cable. But there’s some bad news amidst all the good.

That bad news is that, yet again, we’re going to have to deal with another cable standard. The current one tops out at 100W which is more than enough to charge Apple’s latest MacBook Pro notebooks. More than doubling that to 240W means there’s plenty of room for device manufacturers to push things up a notch, but as CNET notes, it’s all going to mean a new type of USB-C cable as well.

The new cables will be called Extended Power Range, or EPR.

Cables supporting 240 watts will have additional requirements to accommodate the new levels. And USB-IF will require the cables to bear specific icons “so that end users will be able to confirm visually that the cable supports up to … 240W,” USB-IF said in the specification document.

That doesn’t mean that we don’t have some cause to be happy here. The use of USB-C means that manufacturers already have a history of producing new accessories in that form factor and we still get to enjoy a reversible cable. It’s just a shame that things are going to get more complicated when the new ones land in the future.

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