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So... USB-C is bad because cable vendors haven't come up with a good way to easily identify what features a given cable supports? Which could be done extremely

by tw04 9y ago

So... USB-C is bad because cable vendors haven't come up with a good way to easily identify what features a given cable supports? Which could be done extremely easily by things like color coding... exactly what we had to do with USB Type-A ports. I'll never understand articles like this - let's not standardize on a form factor because not every single application of that form factor has the same requirements???

brazzledazzle 9y ago
I think (a big part of) the point is that it's frustrating. And it really is.
- tw04 9y ago
  Not really. The cable thing is easily solved - don't buy cheap cables. If you ever plan on using USB-C for thunderbolt, only buy cables capable of thunderbolt. As for devices - I guess I'd say know what you're buying? How is it any different than the fact I have to know that some mini-displayport ports can do thunderbolt and some can't? Some cables can and some can't? I mean... Belkin has already started putting the thunderbolt icon on the cables they sell that support it. This isn't anywhere near as complicated as he's claiming. The only gray area is people buying the cheapest possible cable they can find on Amazon then acting shocked when they get what they paid for.
  - wmf 9y ago
    The only gray area is people buying the cheapest possible cable they can find... That's 90% of people though.
  - on_and_off 9y ago
    Not that easily solved. Costly cables are usually better but you don't have any warranty. You can use bensong leung tests to find a good one but need to hope that they have not silently changed the cables since his test. When you buy a new device, you have no idea of the capabilities of the cable that comes with it. So you need to remember whether it uses PC or QC or just always use it's provided cable. All in all we are still far from "let's take any usb-c cable and connect it to an usb-c device". It is too bad, it is a very nice dream.
  - syntheticnature 9y ago
    Sadly, looking at some of Benson Leung's results, e.g. https://plus.google.com/+BensonLeung/posts/TkAnhK84TT7 https://plus.google.com/+BensonLeung/posts/TkAnhK84TT7 -- looks like bad cables and chargers cost the same as good ones and can be from name brands, and that's just on the power front. Looking through some of his suggested cable/charger spreadsheets shows things generally being a roll of the dice.
  - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
    > The only gray area is people buying the cheapest possible cable they can find on Amazon then acting shocked when they get what they paid for. Don't act like cheap cables frying your equipment is normal or expected. Off-brand products usually aren't as good as the expensive stuff, but we have a right to expect them to not be actively dangerous.
oh_sigh 9y ago
The article wasn't saying don't standardize on a form factor. > It’s comforting to think that over time, this will all settle down and we’ll finally achieve the dream of a single cable and port for everything. But that’s not how technology really works.
ScottBurson 9y ago
It could be done by color coding (or standardized icons, or something), but the standards body didn't actually go to the trouble of doing that. I don't think the OP is objecting to the connector; I think he is objecting to the failure to anticipate the proliferation of cable types and to provide some standardized symbology to differentiate them.
- matt_kantor 9y ago
  There are standardized icons. I mentioned this in another comment, so I'll just leave a link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15477654 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15477654
Steltek 9y ago
Hang on, it's not like type-A where it's just a single parameter (1.1/2.0/3.0). A USB-C cable has tons of potential features and a port has possibly more features still. - Protocol: 3.0 or 3.1 - Power: QC, PD, or none of the above; how many watts - Alt-modes: HDMI, DP, TB3 - Chipset features: UAS Once you've assigned all of these to a color, the higher end cables are going to look like a pride flag or something. The solution is really not that simple at all and it's far from guaranteed that once adoption picks up that you can just assume your device/cable combo "obviously" supports what you want. On top of all of this, construction of USB-C cables are far more complex than your run of the mill cable. They're active devices with apparently absurdly tight tolerances. Did everyone forget about the Benson Leung's spreadsheet of killer cables? Even if the industry can figure out a user friendly branding, it's still a roll of the dice for whether you'll fry your laptop. Lastly, USB-C seems like a mandatory weakening of security. In a few years time, you won't have any other choice but USB-C and now suddenly any random charger (or cable!) could be the easiest rootkit ever deployed. The cute pen testing exercise of dropping USB thumbdrives with backdoored Word docs is going to get a lot more serious. I wonder how long until we have "hardware firewalls" that attempt to rein in USB-C devices. We're past the "USB condom" at this point.
- DamonHD 9y ago
  Can we not have a power-only USB-C condom / datawall?
  - baobrien 9y ago
    Yeah, I don't see why not. USB-C PD negotiation is not done over the USB 2.0 data bus.
    - eponeponepon 9y ago
      Surely if negotiation of any kind is performed, then there's logic on either end, and there's immediately a new threat surface? Not a rhetorical question; I'm not well informed in this field.
skywhopper 9y ago
I guess my question is, if USB-C has to be this complicated, then how is it an improvement over having multiple port types? I would argue that it's worse, and I think that's the point of the linked article. Compared to how things used to be, USB 2/3 is a marvel. Chain a dozen things off a couple of ports, all of which use the same plug. And it (almost) always Just Worked. The connector design was an improvement over what it preceded, but still was ultimately problematic. USB-C is a definite win in terms of form factor and usability of the connector itself. But if not all USB-C ports and cables can support Thunderbolt bandwidth, then all we're doing is sowing confusion. Why not stick to using mini-DP for Thunderbolt and have USB-C keep the USB dream alive?
- mikeash 9y ago
  This is a bit of a tangent, but mini-DP is a horrible connector and I'm really glad we're getting rid of it. It's fairly bulky for what it does, and it does a really bad job of holding the plug in the port. I'm glad that TB is moving away from it, although not necessarily that it's moving to USB-C.
  - aidenn0 9y ago
    Yeah, the full-size DP is one of the nicest display connectors and mini-DP is one of the worst, though mini-DVI was nearly as bad, I've never seen it on a non-mac, but mini-DP is everywhere.
- fpoling 9y ago
  I have never heard about confusion with Ethernet cables. Everybody understood that to get gigabit speed one needs more expensive Cat6 cables with no suggestions to have a different connector. Why USB-C should be different?
  - toyg 9y ago
    But again, like USB1/2/3, Cat5/6 is one additional parameter, not a matrix. You look for a single number and you're done. That's much more complex for USB-C, in a context where the industry is often (maybe even willfully) opaque on reporting correct specification. I hope they will come up with a simple way to signal all these combinations (maybe a standard color-coded label like you have for calories/salt/etc contents in many European supermarkets) but at the moment it's definitely an issue.
jackvalentine 9y ago
Then we have the next problem: Apple, the most high profile purveyor of USB-C devices will refuse to use your colour scheme! Like they refused to do blue USB-3 ports.

by tw04 9y ago

brazzledazzle 9y ago

I think (a big part of) the point is that it's frustrating. And it really is.

tw04 9y ago
Not really. The cable thing is easily solved - don't buy cheap cables. If you ever plan on using USB-C for thunderbolt, only buy cables capable of thunderbolt. As for devices - I guess I'd say know what you're buying? How is it any different than the fact I have to know that some mini-displayport ports can do thunderbolt and some can't? Some cables can and some can't? I mean... Belkin has already started putting the thunderbolt icon on the cables they sell that support it. This isn't anywhere near as complicated as he's claiming. The only gray area is people buying the cheapest possible cable they can find on Amazon then acting shocked when they get what they paid for.
- wmf 9y ago
  The only gray area is people buying the cheapest possible cable they can find... That's 90% of people though.
- on_and_off 9y ago
  Not that easily solved. Costly cables are usually better but you don't have any warranty. You can use bensong leung tests to find a good one but need to hope that they have not silently changed the cables since his test. When you buy a new device, you have no idea of the capabilities of the cable that comes with it. So you need to remember whether it uses PC or QC or just always use it's provided cable. All in all we are still far from "let's take any usb-c cable and connect it to an usb-c device". It is too bad, it is a very nice dream.
- syntheticnature 9y ago
  Sadly, looking at some of Benson Leung's results, e.g. https://plus.google.com/+BensonLeung/posts/TkAnhK84TT7 https://plus.google.com/+BensonLeung/posts/TkAnhK84TT7 -- looks like bad cables and chargers cost the same as good ones and can be from name brands, and that's just on the power front. Looking through some of his suggested cable/charger spreadsheets shows things generally being a roll of the dice.
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  > The only gray area is people buying the cheapest possible cable they can find on Amazon then acting shocked when they get what they paid for. Don't act like cheap cables frying your equipment is normal or expected. Off-brand products usually aren't as good as the expensive stuff, but we have a right to expect them to not be actively dangerous.

oh_sigh 9y ago

The article wasn't saying don't standardize on a form factor. > It’s comforting to think that over time, this will all settle down and we’ll finally achieve the dream of a single cable and port for everything. But that’s not how technology really works.

ScottBurson 9y ago

It could be done by color coding (or standardized icons, or something), but the standards body didn't actually go to the trouble of doing that. I don't think the OP is objecting to the connector; I think he is objecting to the failure to anticipate the proliferation of cable types and to provide some standardized symbology to differentiate them.

matt_kantor 9y ago
There are standardized icons. I mentioned this in another comment, so I'll just leave a link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15477654 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15477654

Steltek 9y ago

Hang on, it's not like type-A where it's just a single parameter (1.1/2.0/3.0). A USB-C cable has tons of potential features and a port has possibly more features still. - Protocol: 3.0 or 3.1 - Power: QC, PD, or none of the above; how many watts - Alt-modes: HDMI, DP, TB3 - Chipset features: UAS Once you've assigned all of these to a color, the higher end cables are going to look like a pride flag or something. The solution is really not that simple at all and it's far from guaranteed that once adoption picks up that you can just assume your device/cable combo "obviously" supports what you want. On top of all of this, construction of USB-C cables are far more complex than your run of the mill cable. They're active devices with apparently absurdly tight tolerances. Did everyone forget about the Benson Leung's spreadsheet of killer cables? Even if the industry can figure out a user friendly branding, it's still a roll of the dice for whether you'll fry your laptop. Lastly, USB-C seems like a mandatory weakening of security. In a few years time, you won't have any other choice but USB-C and now suddenly any random charger (or cable!) could be the easiest rootkit ever deployed. The cute pen testing exercise of dropping USB thumbdrives with backdoored Word docs is going to get a lot more serious. I wonder how long until we have "hardware firewalls" that attempt to rein in USB-C devices. We're past the "USB condom" at this point.

DamonHD 9y ago
Can we not have a power-only USB-C condom / datawall?
- baobrien 9y ago
  Yeah, I don't see why not. USB-C PD negotiation is not done over the USB 2.0 data bus.
  - eponeponepon 9y ago
    Surely if negotiation of any kind is performed, then there's logic on either end, and there's immediately a new threat surface? Not a rhetorical question; I'm not well informed in this field.

skywhopper 9y ago

I guess my question is, if USB-C has to be this complicated, then how is it an improvement over having multiple port types? I would argue that it's worse, and I think that's the point of the linked article. Compared to how things used to be, USB 2/3 is a marvel. Chain a dozen things off a couple of ports, all of which use the same plug. And it (almost) always Just Worked. The connector design was an improvement over what it preceded, but still was ultimately problematic. USB-C is a definite win in terms of form factor and usability of the connector itself. But if not all USB-C ports and cables can support Thunderbolt bandwidth, then all we're doing is sowing confusion. Why not stick to using mini-DP for Thunderbolt and have USB-C keep the USB dream alive?

mikeash 9y ago
This is a bit of a tangent, but mini-DP is a horrible connector and I'm really glad we're getting rid of it. It's fairly bulky for what it does, and it does a really bad job of holding the plug in the port. I'm glad that TB is moving away from it, although not necessarily that it's moving to USB-C.
- aidenn0 9y ago
  Yeah, the full-size DP is one of the nicest display connectors and mini-DP is one of the worst, though mini-DVI was nearly as bad, I've never seen it on a non-mac, but mini-DP is everywhere.
fpoling 9y ago
I have never heard about confusion with Ethernet cables. Everybody understood that to get gigabit speed one needs more expensive Cat6 cables with no suggestions to have a different connector. Why USB-C should be different?
- toyg 9y ago
  But again, like USB1/2/3, Cat5/6 is one additional parameter, not a matrix. You look for a single number and you're done. That's much more complex for USB-C, in a context where the industry is often (maybe even willfully) opaque on reporting correct specification. I hope they will come up with a simple way to signal all these combinations (maybe a standard color-coded label like you have for calories/salt/etc contents in many European supermarkets) but at the moment it's definitely an issue.

jackvalentine 9y ago

Then we have the next problem: Apple, the most high profile purveyor of USB-C devices will refuse to use your colour scheme! Like they refused to do blue USB-3 ports.