This has got to be the worst charging connector ever invented
Back in my review of the Sony Smartwatch MN2, I mentioned how the charging cable is a nightmare. Since then it’s just gotten worse, and reports from other users basically say the same thing. After yet another frustrating cat and mouse game to try to get the thing to charge, I can only conclude one thing: this has got to be the worst charging connector ever invented.
The idea behind the connector on the MN2 is that it’s better suited for a watch, by not proving a hole for water and dust to get into. The cable end of the connector is essentially shaped like a sort of gripping hand, where the fingers are indented metal pins. This connector fits into a slot underneath the watch’s clip, using the clip to hold it in place, making a connection to four pins on the watch- in theory.
In reality, it seems that there’s a rather serious design flaw in the entire concept (pogo pins themselves are after all a proven technology), where there isn’t enough play in the connection to compensate for any wear, dust (which is unavoidable on an exposed connector), or anything else that might affect the fit. Because of this, it becomes harder and harder to actually make the watch charge the more you use it, and like others my watch has gotten to the point where getting it to consistently charge is a nightmare. Just getting it settled to charge might take me as much as five minutes, which is quite ridiculous when you think of how simple the process of plugging in a device to charge normally is.
Being a Sony product, it’s not surprising that this idiotic connector made it to market. While the company has finally started to change for the better, Sony has essentially pushed its own proprietary solutions for everything for decades. Sometimes those proprietary solutions were decent, sometimes horrible, but pretty much always unwelcome by most. Hopefully the change in the company is permanent, so that we can avoid epic failures like this in the future.
