Nowadays, there are thousands of connector models on the market. While meeting the individual needs of all walks of life in many ways, it also brings us a lot of inconvenience. For example, there are always many kinds of plug wires to prepare in case of emergency. Or due to the connector shape is similar but the actual performance is different caused by misplugging damage. Since there are so many inconveniences, why is there no universal connector on the market?
There is no universal connector first because of performance considerations. When the connector first appeared, the application range was concentrated, and the performance requirements were concentrated, which can be roughly regarded as several general connectors. But with the development of technology, the needs of various industries have begun to specialize. For example, high current transmission in the energy industry, signal transmission in the communications industry, and protection performance in mining applications. The improvement of the connector is out of cost considerations and will not comprehensively upgrade the product performance, but strengthen a certain aspect to adapt it to applications in special locations. This has led to the difficulty of universalizing the connectors of the core equipment between different industries.
Secondly, if there is a technological breakthrough in a certain characteristic of the connector, then it is necessary to quickly iterate the connectors of the entire industry. Even if the effect of this performance breakthrough is very significant, once the connector enters the market, it will inevitably involve cost issues. This is destined to be a long and difficult process for every new connector from appearance to entry into thousands of households. It can be said that the coexistence of new and old models of most connectors on the market is a cost issue.
Of course, the concept of universal connectors is still attractive. Retracting to a specific product is of great significance to promote the universality of connectors, and the difficulty will be reduced accordingly. For example, the European Union has proposed the goal of universalizing smart phone charging connectors. If this goal is achieved, unnecessary electronic waste will be greatly reduced, which can play an important role in ecological and environmental protection.
