Google announced a few new pieces of hardware the other day. Among them, a cell phone, a wireless router that focuses on, a home assistant speaker, a new version of the ChromeCast, and a VR headset that houses the phone.
Google's big idea is that this stuff is "madeby.google.com" although I believe most of it is still being manufactured by OEMs. It's an exercise in style that Google hasn't exercised on its own hardware products before.
The phone uses USB Type C charging, which is less than totally exciting at this point. What's interesting to me is that at least the Google Wi-Fi router is using USB Type C for power. This shouldn't actually be a surprise. Micro and Mini USB have been powering certain types of equipment for a few years, and with Micro USB, amperages and voltages have been increasing, in order to try to power ever more demanding phones and tablets, it appears to have become a common concept to use USB to power other things. I have some USB lamps from IKEA, for example.
I think this could be a pretty good thing. A lot of what people use DC power with (not necessarily all, but a lot) is under 100 watts, and I think that things having a universal DC standard could be useful in terms of getting efficiency with transformers. If you can put a bunch of those things on one charger, it could be beneficial.
I don't know if this will happen, or if the standard even allows this, but one possible nicety is with external storage devices. Right now, one of the biggest trouble I've got is most of my stationary computers have one or more external disks attached. There are Type C external disks, which can draw all of their power from the computer. Something that would be neat is to be able to run several of these types of disks from one hub.
Back to the Google Wi-Fi though. I realize that that's essentially 'computer equipment' but it's computer equipment that has almost never traditionally been powered by the computer or normal computer power sources. In general, those devices have been powered by 12V adapters at various amperages, depending on the type of device it is.
I've got utopic visions of a future where a Wi-Fi router, a lamp, a small NAS, the cable box, and the Nintendo Switch of a future revision of the Nintendo 3DS can run off of USB battery packs, or a unified adapter meant to economize on the number of AC outlets being used.
There are already USB charging hubs, so not a whole lot is really holding this plan back other than time and for it to make sense for somebody to do.