You may recall the EU pushing electronics companies to cut back on the amount of clutter consumers accumulate from using devices with different chargers and standards.
It’s all about saving the environment and cutting down on waste. Yet is that a good thing when it comes at the expense of consumers, particularly the number of options in the electronic devices market?
One of the more common examples of this is Apple computer and their bespoke chords and peripherals – a tradition that is prepped to sunset and soon.
But there might be other traditions on the chopping block, Amateur Photographer reports, and that is the whole field of DSLR cameras.
The website speculates that companies might just withdraw from that market altogether rather than update to uniform standards. To be clear, the EU stressed that existing products don’t have to meet this new universal standard, but everything moving forward does. Amateur Photographer reports that alone might be enough for some companies to just nix the niche altogether in the European market.
That would be a pretty big blow to that segment, too, as DSLR Bodies reports that Europe accounts for some 25% of global shipments.
According to their analysis, there are three routes forward: DSLRs disappear by 2024, Nikon will carry on with retooled products, and DSLRs disappear in 2025 in Europe and pretty much the rest of the world.
DSLR Bodies also notes that, typically, Japanese manufacturers will ship their products elsewhere to compatible markets rather than retrofit them to meet these regulations. When you consider the technical issues around batteries in particular, switching from one standard to another isn’t as easy as it may seem at first, let alone having every manufacturer meet the same standard.
Any thoughts that you might have on the EU’s common charger standard are welcome in the comments.
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