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Nintendo Switch is not USB-C compliant

520 points by lambada 9y ago

parliament32 9y ago
Unrelated, but I really wish G+ posts were a bit wider. They look great on mobile but reading a "card" on a laptop screen is insane.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  I miss their older layout.
- kalleboo 9y ago
  Reader Mode seems to work fine to reformat the page
Reason077 9y ago
My Apple USB-C charger and cable (which came with my 2017 MacBook Pro) work fine to charge my Switch. No crashes here.
- ebikelaw 9y ago
  My thinkpad charger and the charger of my Nexus 5X also work without trouble.
- voidpointer 9y ago
  Unfortunately, it cannot power the dock. That was a bit of a letdown for me
- bluedino 9y ago
  Apple's USB-C chargers skirt around some standards, as well.
  - tcas 9y ago
    Out of curiosity which standards? The only one I can think of is providing a slightly higher voltage (but still within USB-C spec) to account for resistive losses in the cable. That's why it says 61 watts instead of 60.
  - gumby 9y ago
    Can you say more? Thanks.
    - bluedino 9y ago
      Apple uses a non-standard 14.5V @ 2A PDO unit in the smaller MacBook charger, they also have some protocol-level 'quirks'. https://plus.google.com/102612254593917101378/posts/ftb7qCZfPQf https://plus.google.com/102612254593917101378/posts/ftb7qCZf...
      - gumby 9y ago
        That's quite interesting, as in the last 20 years that I've been dealing with Apple hardware they have typically been excessively strict with hardware spec conformance (not especially "liberal in what they will accept"). They of course had plenty of in-house stuff (adb, AUI etc) back in the pre-jobs-departure and pre-jobs-return eras, but that was often because no standard existed at all. I wonder if something has changed or if this is an outlier, or perhaps it's just my sampling (which of course is hardly enormous) has simply entirely fallen in a pool of strictly conforming equipment. I can certainly believe the last possibility.
- minimaxir 9y ago
  The distinction here is powering the Switch in portable mode vs. powering it via the Dock. Per discussions on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/87vmud/the_switch_is_not_usbc_compliant_and_overdraws/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/87vmud/the_...), portable mode draws the expected 5V so it should work with USB-C compliant chargers, but the dock draws more. (although the article says the 87W charger crashed the Switch, I haven't seen that either) There's also discussion about the new 5.0 update being buggy and compounding the issue.
Fej 9y ago
I was under the impression that some of the issues with third-party adapters were caused by insufficient tolerances, causing damage to the type-C connector. In addition to the non-compliance.
e1ven 9y ago
I love the idea of USB-C - Being able to have one cable which can do everything is great. But I've become very leery about actually trusting it in practice - There are so many examples of bad cables, or devices which don't quite follow the specification, causing things to break badly. If you end up having to follow a defacto "Only use 1st party tools" rule for safety reasons, I'd almost rather manufacturers went back to proprietary connectors. Those aren't inter-operable, but at least they don't pretend to be and risk me breaking everything.
- bluedino 9y ago
  Regular USB had all the same problems. I can't charge my JBL speaker with my iPad charger. And I can't charge much of anything with my older Toshiba laptop USB ports. Why anyone thought it would be different this time around, I don't know.
  - leeoniya 9y ago
    what you're describing is simply that those ports were not designed to deliver a lot of amps because usb devices at that time did not need it. i dont think it's the same as not being fully spec compliant at the protocol level. i've never had 2 usb 2.0 devices refuse to work together.
  - stordoff 9y ago
    Different classes of failure though. Older USB ports would just fail to work (in the majority of cases), whereas with USB-C there is the risk of damaging the device.
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    That is a different Kettle of fish. First of all, Apple came up with a slightly different set of resistors on the data pins (leaning that the data in and data out will read slightly different V) to signal to their devices that they could go above 1A draw while charging. The official charging spec says to put a resistor between the data pins (inside the charger to support detachable USB cables), or simply to short them with a blob of solder. Your JBL speakers are likely reacting as if it was plugged into a normal USB port. also keep in mind that the charging spec came about as China and EU wanted to deal with the piles of incompatible chargers that was going into landfills. Thus older USB ports max out at 5V 0.5A, as that was the spec back when USB 1.0 was launched. Also why some external HDDs come with a Y cable that draws power from two USB ports to get the motor spinning.
zdw 9y ago
In watching the evolution of USB-C over the last few years, it seems like it's extremely hard to implement correctly with the huge number of modes, alternate modes, and power delivery in the spec. When you connect two USB-C devices today, you have almost no idea what is actually going to happen, which device is the master, and which way power will flow. While having one connector and cable type for everything seems like it would be a good idea, in practice it's turning out to be a giant mess. Maybe it'll clear up in a few years, but given the race to the bottom in price and quality in the accessory market, this seems doubtful.
- arghwhat 9y ago
  There needs to be a way to decide which device is the master, like the prompt on Android devices asking if you wish to power or be powered.
  - spookthesunset 9y ago
    Wonder if you could do it on the cable with little embedded LED lights. One end turns red for "charging" the other turns blue for "supplying power". Would add to the BOM cost on the cable for sure, but it would not only be cool looking but rather useful.
    - woodrowbarlow 9y ago
      oh yeah, because my bedroom doesn't have enough glowing devices when i'm trying to go to sleep. let's add LEDs to every cable too!
      - spookthesunset 9y ago
        Hah. Good point. Yes, too many devices want to put big giant blue LED's on their product.... even ones that are specifically targeted for the bedroom and specifically designed for sleeping...
    - gargravarr 9y ago
holtalanm 9y ago
the switch is advertised to only work with official nintendo cables and accessories. Anything else and you're just risking damage to your console/tablet/thingy. I don't think they have ever claimed that their USB-C connectors were compliant with the spec.
- dfxm12 9y ago
  I wonder why they would even use the same shape then... Nintendo (and up until recently, the videogame hardware industry at large) has a long history of making their own connectors...
  - hiccuphippo 9y ago
    My guess is that if they make their own shape, then third party accessories with that shape are guaranteed to work. Since they use USB-C, then there is fear, uncertainty and doubt by the consumer about if an accessory will work or not.
    - fjsolwmv 9y ago
      That's overcomplicated 4D chess. They just wanted to use standard tools and components.
- GarrisonPrime 9y ago
  True enough, but then deciding to use a usb-c port on the console is asking for trouble.
- gambiting 9y ago
  What they claimed is almost irellevant - the device bears USB-C logo and has a USB-C port - so plugging a USB-C device into that port should in the worst possible case result in a system message "sorry, this device is not supported", not brick the device! There's a reason why you can't use a USB-A cable in your device to carry 220V - because someone will plug it into a normal USB-A socket and burn their computer down. If both sides of the connection have the official USB logo, then connecting them together should never result in either device becoming damaged.
mavdi 9y ago
Well this is exactly what I was wondering last week after noticing the USB-C port on the switch dock is labelled "Power Adapter". I thought it was a little off that there is no mention of USB-C, either not to confuse the users or perhaps because they didn't have much confidence in their hardware compliance.
joecool1029 9y ago
I have a feeling I'll be buying one of those fancy USB-C amperage/voltage meters. I hit issues with the charging spec on a GPD Pocket (tiny laptop). Its maximum supported charging voltage is 12V, which is now optional in the USB-PD 2.0 standard. So most chargers I see now are 5V/9V/15V Macbook charger for instance is missing the 12V, so it charges slow off that charger since it ignores the 15V rail. Has to fall back to 5V or 9V in theory...
ebbv 9y ago
How is this at all surprising? Controlling what third parties are allowed to make accessories and games has been part of Nintendo's business model since the 80s. They truly believe (and you can argue this if you want) that the Nintendo Seal of Quality is part of their success.
- stordoff 9y ago
  Given the video game crash of the early 80s, it's entirely likely that the Seal (or at least the principles behind it) was part of Nintendo's earlier successes. Whether it's still relevant today is questionable, but I wouldn't write it off.
  - tzs 9y ago
    I remember reading a long article on how Nintendo brought back video games. According to the article, they deeply analyzed the early '80s crash to determine what went wrong, so they could avoid whatever caused that. The article said that their conclusion was that they main factor was the proliferation of a large number of low quality games from numerous third party publishers. This was a time when most people's only source of game reviews was magazines or person experience of friends. So a lot of games were bought blind, based just on the claims on the box. After people got burned on a couple low quality games or so, which cost about as much in today's money as today's games, they often stopped or greatly reduced their game buying. Hence, Nintendo decided that they had to control who could publish for their console. Speaking as someone who was programming games for the Mattel Intellivision at the time of the crash, and got laid off because of it, Nintendo's analysis seems quite plausible to me [1]. Consider Intellivision games. The history for the other consoles is similar, but I know Intellivision best so that is what I will use. Once upon a time, the only people who could write Intellivision games were engineers from APh. APh was/is an engineering consulting firm in Pasadena, CA, which was founded by and largely staffed by former and current Caltech students. APh designed the bulk of the electronics for the Intellivision, and more importantly wrote the ROM and the early games. Not too long after that, the set of people who could write Intellivision games expanded to include Mattel engineers. Games written at APh or Mattel could take full advantage of the ROM, which provided a lot of tools to make writing games easier. If you did not use the ROM you had to write a lot more code, know a lot more about low level hardware details, and you might need to use a bigger cartridge which could raise your costs significantly. (For example, the ROM provided high level sprite [2] handling. You could just give it a list of images, and tell it to animate the sprite with them at a specified rate. You could tell it to give the sprite a velocity and it would deal with moving it. You could give it callback routines for various types of collisions, such as sprite hits sprite or sprite hits background, or sprite hits edge). The set of Intellivision game writers further expanded when people who had been Intellivision developers at Mattel or APh started leaving to form their own companies. Several key APh Intellivision people formed Chesire Engineering, which wrote Intellivision games for Activision. Imagic was formed by former Atari and Mattel people. These companies had people who had used the Intellivision ROM. They couldn't take the documentation with them when they left, but they could direct a clean room reverse engineering effort to produce their own documentation sufficient to train new programmers in how to use it. So those companies could produce top quality Intellivision games, too. But then companies start coming on the scene that did not have any ex-Mattel or ex-APh people, or anyone from Imagic or other places that had their own documentation on the ROM. These companies most likely started with the hardware documentation (both the CPU and the graphics system in the Intellivision were off the shelf General Instruments parts), and then reverse engineered just the boot code from the ROM to figure out what it expected to find in a cartridge. Then they handled everything themselves. This made it quite a bit harder to do a top tier game. There were also console makers who wrote games for competing consoles. Mattel did games for Atari and Coleco consoles. Coleco did games for Mattel and Atari consoles. I don't remember Atari doing games for other consoles, but Wikipedia claims they did Centipede and Defender for Intellivision and Colecovision, and Pac-Man for Intellivision and Galaxian for Colecovision. The console makers, unlike the small, poorly funded companies from the above paragraph, had the resources to properly reverse engineer the ROMs of other consoles and then use them in their games. A very large fraction of the games from this last group of companies were pretty bad. They were often rushed, because these companies were often not well funded--they had to get their game done and out fast. That also meant they could not get review copies to magazines with enough lead time for the reviews to come out before or concurrent with the game's release. The market went downhill rapidly at that point. Anyway, I find it quite plausible that if the industry had stayed with each console only having games written by its own associated developers, the competing console makers, and a couple big third parties (Imagic and Activision), the crash could have been avoided. [1] Actually, at the time, I was programming for what would have been the next generation Intellivision, which at that point was just a big box containing the CPU and a prototype of the next generation Intellivision graphics chip implemented as several wire-wrapped circuit boards full of 74xx or equivalent discrete logic chips. We could leave work at night, get back in the morning, and find that the hardware people had pulled an all-nighter and changed the design of the graphics, massively breaking all our code...except for Hal Finney's code which always managed to just take a few tweaks to fix no matter how radical the hardware change. [2] They were actually called "moving objects", not "sprites", in all the Intellivision documentation and code, but I'm going to use sprites because this is what nearly everyone else calls hardware moving objects.
013a 9y ago
While this is more of an interesting fact than anything: The Nintendo Switch website [1] does not advertise that the Switch has a USB-C port. It has HDMI and USB 2.0 on the dock... but no USB-C anywhere. [1] https://www.nintendo.com/switch/features/tech-specs/ https://www.nintendo.com/switch/features/tech-specs/
- Klathmon 9y ago
  Then why did they use the port? I'm guessing it's the obvious answer of "it was cheaper". As much as it pains me to say it, a "pay us to use the port shape" group like HDMI that will threaten litigation unless you pay them to use the port would probably have prevented this kind of thing from being as widespread with USB-C as it is. While just about everyone doesn't want that to be the case (myself included), I don't see any other way of aligning incentives to make it harder to use the port/spec incorrectly than it is to make it correctly.
  - Algent 9y ago
    More that cheap it was convenient: You solve the whole power, video output and external devices problem with a single chip on both side. And it also look nice compared to any usual docking port. It solved enough design issues for them to let go their old habit of having proprietary connectors for charging. Which made them a lot of money.
    - kevin_b_er 9y ago
      With a broken implementation, their connector is effectively proprietary.
      - discreditable 9y ago
        Best of both worlds for them then.
      - ghostly_s 9y ago
        For what it's worth, the linked article I think is misleading as to how incompatible the device is. I charge my Switch regularly at work with a Lenovo 45W USB-C power adapter (model: adlx45uccu2a), it seems to perhaps take longer to charge than the Nintendo one but has worked reliably. Unfortunately I have tried several 3rd-party USB-C HDMI adapters with no success, though there are several options for HDMI+power on Amazon that reportedly work -- as I understand this is simply because the Switch does not enable video output unless it is also on AC power, so you need a combo adapter.
Klathmon 9y ago
Why does USB-C have such terrible failure modes? I'm sure that the people behind it are bright engineers, so why do I have a fear unlike anything I've ever felt when buying a USB-C cable or charger or device? Is this just a "tragedy of the commons" where every manufacturer expects the others to follow the spec so that they can skimp, or is there some kind of fundamental flaw in the USB-C spec that is making it so seemingly dangerous and difficult to use correctly?
- _pmf_ 9y ago
  It's almost as if hard USB A and USB B ends where there for a reason. I've heard good things about the Cypress EZ-PD[0] to handle power delivery issues (you'll need it in addition to the USB core). [0] http://www.cypress.com/products/usb-type-c-and-power-delivery http://www.cypress.com/products/usb-type-c-and-power-deliver...
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  Because USB-C has a million features that require complex logical controls and hardware.
- delecti 9y ago
  Prior to USB-PD, USB maxed out at 4.5W, and that was a later addition, originally it maxed out at 2.5W. The USB-PW spec allows for 100W power transfer. There are far more modes in USB-C/PW, and they're much higher energy. If all you ever need to deal with is 5V and 0.1-0.9A then there's a much narrower range of failure states.
  - spookthesunset 9y ago
    What voltage is the 100W coming through at? If it is low voltage, that is gonna be a really beefy cable... At 12V that is more than 8 amps. 5v is 20 amps. That is a lot of current to send over a typical USB cable...
    - AstralStorm 9y ago
      Yes The cable can get warm. That said, now we use two tiny power wires from PCIe spec to deliver north of 12V 200W.
simias 9y ago
I'm not sure I buy the vendor lock-in thing, if that was the core motivation why not at least bother to use a custom USB-C connector? This way you wouldn't have to deal with the reports of users plugging other USB-C peripherals and getting crashes. Seems more likely what whoever implemented that part of the Switch did a poor job. Was it even done in-house or did they contract a 3rd party to hack it?
cavanasm 9y ago
Can the title be changed to note that this is from 2017? It's new to me, so I assumed it was recent (but it was also posted on Google+....).
- esnard 9y ago
  Some consoles are getting bricked since the latest Switch update because of this problem, that's why it gained visibility.
  - Someone1234 9y ago
    More info on that here: https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/86wu9t/psa_if_youre_using_a_third_party_dock_stop/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/86wu9t/psa_... Both the update and third party accessories seem implicated to a degree.
    - jakebasile 9y ago
      It's absolutely insane that Nintendo still has no way to backup saves in the event of console failure. This compounds the already ridiculous situation where you risk bricking the console when you plug it in to a charger.
_bxg1 9y ago
Presumably this investigation was prompted by the Nyko dock catastrophe. I'm a software guy; what do these revelations imply about which other accessories may or may not be unsafe to use, whether they work or not? In particular, third-party charging cables. My girlfriend uses her MacBook charger to charge her Switch sometimes, and now I'm worried it could brick it one day.
- delecti 9y ago
  As long as she doesn't use the charger to power the dock (so only directly to the device itself) then she's probably okay.
- noxToken 9y ago
  I just wish the included adapter had a longer cable. The 6-ish feet is just long enough to get you off of a wall, but not quite long enough to move away comfortably. I assume that it's due to the spec though.
- caltelt 9y ago
  I find it absolutely mindboggling that Switch's are bricking when 3rd party accessories are plugged in isn't being treated as a bigger issue. Everything I've heard is that the Nyko dock is at fault, but why the hell aren't people mad at Nintendo? Then again, I haven't followed it very closely, maybe people are? All I've read is how the dock is bad, and nothing about the Switch's apparent fragility.
  - jldugger 9y ago
    People are somewhat mad, but Nintendo's only recently bothered adopting anything akin to industry standards around power adaptors. Even the 3DS is proprietary, and the Switch dock itself is some voodoo magic with a chip inside. USB C itself has been sort of a minefield of adaptors getting the spec wrong, so I doubt anyone is surprised that docks are buggy and even capable of damaging parts.
- nuclear_eclipse 9y ago
  It's from May 29, 2017.
kevindqc 9y ago
Why not require some kind of USB-C compatibility details on all USB-C related products? So you know if you use the device/cable what will actually work/not work?
smaili 9y ago
On a related note, what are some reputable brands for USB-C adapters that actually do have proper implementation and quality assurance? Anker? UPTab? Belkin?
- chrisweekly 9y ago
  Anecdata: I've had zero problems with my Anker power hub.
- crottypeter 9y ago
  I want to say Anker but even they made a mistake and had to recall faulty cables https://lifehacker.com/some-anker-usb-c-cables-are-getting-recalled-for-a-hard-1785887067 https://lifehacker.com/some-anker-usb-c-cables-are-getting-r... Although at least they did the recall and presumably will be careful not to make such a costly mistake again.
- Tijdreiziger 9y ago
  Check out https://usbccompliant.com/ https://usbccompliant.com/
  - petecox 9y ago
    Cheers, presumably the AC wall plugs have international equivalents for the non-US market? (i.e. their 'compliance' has been tested on 240V scenarios)
    - Tijdreiziger 9y ago
      Actually, I don't think so. These have been tested by one Google engineer, and he lives in the US.
- Lightbody 9y ago
  I have successfully used this (battery and power adapter): https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MZ61PRW/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MZ61PRW/ref=oh_aui_se... And this: https://smile.amazon.com/Anker-Premium-Charger-PowerPort-Delivery/dp/B01D8C6ULO/ref=sr_1_2?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1522342970&sr=1-2 https://smile.amazon.com/Anker-Premium-Charger-PowerPort-Del... Both have been solid with the Nintendo Switch. I have tried the Apple charger and it did exactly what this article said: basically stopped the ability to charge the Switch until I did a hard reboot.
chx 9y ago
In my humble opinion, the greatest sin of the USB C standard is the lack of introspection. Given the huge amount of possibilities, it should be possible to question a USB C socket with a cheap device what Alt modes it is capable of, what device roles it is capable of, what USB PD it supports etc.
- jws 9y ago
  One out of three: This device will show you what power deliver modes are available, request the most it can get, and make that available on terminals. https://www.tindie.com/products/ReclaimerLabs/usb-c-explorer/ https://www.tindie.com/products/ReclaimerLabs/usb-c-explorer... (Also, if you didn't know about tindie.com, and you are a certain sort of person, then I apologize for consuming the next couple hours of your day.)
  - jamiek88 9y ago
    I’ve been looking for soil moisture sensors for months and never come across that site, just on the first page of IOT stuff there are 5 good options on Tindie. Amazing, thanks.
  - chx 9y ago
    That's 79 dollars. I said cheap :) 20 bucks is realistic, even if it's just the hardware and needs a phone or even a laptop to be plugged into. Even a laptop is reasonable.
pbhjpbhj 9y ago
Maybe it's USB-C because of future usage requirements, that they envisioned they might need USB-C to interface with attachments (VR headset? New GB/DS generation?).
draw_down 9y ago
Eppur si muove. :)
logfromblammo 9y ago
Perhaps if Nintendo had boarded the standardized-connectors train at the terminal, rather than just hopping on at the last station, they would have been more familiar by now with the need to read and follow all the rules of the standard.
CaliforniaKarl 9y ago
I’m curious, how many of the issues enumerated could be fixed by a firmware upgrade? Personally, I wouldn’t be too surprised if the dock isn’t upgradeable at all.
setgree 9y ago
I can't make heads or tails of the technical details of this, but I think it's fair to start with the prior that Nintendo doesn't care too much about non-proprietary formats/interoperability/etc. I developed this impression when the Gamecube came out -- weird minidisks when Sony had already switched over to CDs and then DVDs, no ability to play external media, an online community that seemed pretty half-baked. I haven't played videogames regularly for a decade though so perhaps things have changed. I now use a PS4 controller to play some games on my computer, and it's really nice, integrates naturally.
- taternuts 9y ago
  I hadn't played video games for close to a decade before I kind of randomly bought a switch, and it's actually got me back into gaming. Nintendo has kind of always done their own thing though, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.
  - draw_down 9y ago
    Same here, and I think it’s great. The console’s failure to implement some protocol has not affected my enjoyment at all.
- Aelius 9y ago
  I'm actually pretty surprised that the comments here are discussing the complexity of the USB C spec. That may well be true, but somehow I think Nintendo would have screwed it up no matter how simple you try to make it... The Wii and Wii U and DS have dozens of these stupid "quirks" which are the result of Nintendo just not knowing how to do things correctly. The reason I didn't buy a switch was because I was so infuriated by the Wii U's incompetence that I was certain the switch would bring me nothing but misery. I'm feeling pretty smug and validated right about now. This isn't the first of the switch's failures, either. Nintendo are just miserably incompetent at firmware and software, I really wish they would just back some other hardware company to make the console for them, and Nintendo themselves should just focus on making games. Better yet, Nintendo should just make their "fun" peripherals for PC, mobile, and existing consoles, and release their titles cross platform. Yes I'm bitter.
BluSyn 9y ago
In case others are looking for something similar, I've had great success using Anker's 20100mAh USB-C portable battery to charge my Switch on the go. It's the only USB-C battery I've tried that actually works with the Nintendo Switch. Link: https://www.amazon.com/Anker-PowerCore-Ultra-High-Capacity-Portable/dp/B014ZO46LK/ https://www.amazon.com/Anker-PowerCore-Ultra-High-Capacity-P... It also gets me a full recharge of my 15" USB-C MBP (though you can't use the MBP and charge at the same time, it takes a while).
- snovv_crash 9y ago
  I used a Xaiomi 20,000mAh external pack that has worked really well with the Switch. I also charged it perfectly from both LG and HTC phone chargers. On the other hand, the Switch charger refused to charge my phones.
- SrslyJosh 9y ago
  I've got the same battery, bought ~2 years ago. Seems to work fine with my Switch and an Anker-brand USB A-to-C cable. My 40W Anker PowerPort wall-charger also works. Now I'm a bit worried about trying anything else, though. o_O
- dc443 9y ago
  I have a different RavPower battery pack (also about 20Ah) and My 2017 15" MBP makes it REALLY FRIGGIN' HOT. OTOH it would be fine to charge it off of a USB A -> C charge cable, it would take ages, but i would feel better about it not cooking. Oh well.
russellbeattie 9y ago
USB-C peripheral makers desperately need to agree on a color/marking scheme for the devices and specifically the cables. Right now it's chaos. Red, blue, green, black, ABCD, 1234, square, circle, triangle, cross... Whatever. Just make it so users can tell what's going on.
iamjk 9y ago
I was just amazed that a google plus post got so high on hn.
kbenson 9y ago
However, because it was USB-C compliant (followed the darn spec) and robustly engineered, it will work with the Switch even though it came out nearly two years before the Switch was released. (Hooray!) Innergie had the foresight to add 15v as an "optional and extra" voltage level and now it reaps the rewards. (It also has $1mil in connected device insurance, so I can recommend it.) I think maybe I just found a new preferred provider of cables and chargers.
carc1n0gen 9y ago
I thought type-c was just the shape, while usb 3.1 and 3.1 gen 2, or thunderbolt 3 being the common specs that usually carry this shape. Or is it more complicated than this?
- LeoPanthera 9y ago
  Type-C can carry things that are not USB, that's the problem. USB-PD can't be carried over non-C connectors.
  - kalleboo 9y ago
    USB-PD is still allowed on classic USB-A/B ports
saudioger 9y ago
huh, I thought Plus was dead
phjesusthatguy3 9y ago
My son just bought himself a Switch, and TBH this isn't surprising at all. What is surprising is that Nintendo didn't modify the port so that a USB-C cable wouldn't fit. I don't think it's advertised as being a USB-C port, though. The specs page[0] says there are three USB 2.0 ports and a power port (which, by looking at it, uses the same connector as USB-C). [0]https://www.nintendo.com/switch/features/tech-specs/ https://www.nintendo.com/switch/features/tech-specs/

520 points by lambada 9y ago

Unrelated, but I really wish G+ posts were a bit wider. They look great on mobile but reading a "card" on a laptop screen is insane.

digi_owl 9y ago
I miss their older layout.
kalleboo 9y ago
Reader Mode seems to work fine to reformat the page

Reason077 9y ago

My Apple USB-C charger and cable (which came with my 2017 MacBook Pro) work fine to charge my Switch. No crashes here.

ebikelaw 9y ago
My thinkpad charger and the charger of my Nexus 5X also work without trouble.
voidpointer 9y ago
Unfortunately, it cannot power the dock. That was a bit of a letdown for me
bluedino 9y ago
Apple's USB-C chargers skirt around some standards, as well.
- tcas 9y ago
  Out of curiosity which standards? The only one I can think of is providing a slightly higher voltage (but still within USB-C spec) to account for resistive losses in the cable. That's why it says 61 watts instead of 60.
- gumby 9y ago
  Can you say more? Thanks.
  - bluedino 9y ago
    Apple uses a non-standard 14.5V @ 2A PDO unit in the smaller MacBook charger, they also have some protocol-level 'quirks'. https://plus.google.com/102612254593917101378/posts/ftb7qCZfPQf https://plus.google.com/102612254593917101378/posts/ftb7qCZf...
    - gumby 9y ago
      That's quite interesting, as in the last 20 years that I've been dealing with Apple hardware they have typically been excessively strict with hardware spec conformance (not especially "liberal in what they will accept"). They of course had plenty of in-house stuff (adb, AUI etc) back in the pre-jobs-departure and pre-jobs-return eras, but that was often because no standard existed at all. I wonder if something has changed or if this is an outlier, or perhaps it's just my sampling (which of course is hardly enormous) has simply entirely fallen in a pool of strictly conforming equipment. I can certainly believe the last possibility.
minimaxir 9y ago
The distinction here is powering the Switch in portable mode vs. powering it via the Dock. Per discussions on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/87vmud/the_switch_is_not_usbc_compliant_and_overdraws/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/87vmud/the_...), portable mode draws the expected 5V so it should work with USB-C compliant chargers, but the dock draws more. (although the article says the 87W charger crashed the Switch, I haven't seen that either) There's also discussion about the new 5.0 update being buggy and compounding the issue.

Fej 9y ago

I was under the impression that some of the issues with third-party adapters were caused by insufficient tolerances, causing damage to the type-C connector. In addition to the non-compliance.

e1ven 9y ago

I love the idea of USB-C - Being able to have one cable which can do everything is great. But I've become very leery about actually trusting it in practice - There are so many examples of bad cables, or devices which don't quite follow the specification, causing things to break badly. If you end up having to follow a defacto "Only use 1st party tools" rule for safety reasons, I'd almost rather manufacturers went back to proprietary connectors. Those aren't inter-operable, but at least they don't pretend to be and risk me breaking everything.

bluedino 9y ago
Regular USB had all the same problems. I can't charge my JBL speaker with my iPad charger. And I can't charge much of anything with my older Toshiba laptop USB ports. Why anyone thought it would be different this time around, I don't know.
- leeoniya 9y ago
  what you're describing is simply that those ports were not designed to deliver a lot of amps because usb devices at that time did not need it. i dont think it's the same as not being fully spec compliant at the protocol level. i've never had 2 usb 2.0 devices refuse to work together.
- stordoff 9y ago
  Different classes of failure though. Older USB ports would just fail to work (in the majority of cases), whereas with USB-C there is the risk of damaging the device.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  That is a different Kettle of fish. First of all, Apple came up with a slightly different set of resistors on the data pins (leaning that the data in and data out will read slightly different V) to signal to their devices that they could go above 1A draw while charging. The official charging spec says to put a resistor between the data pins (inside the charger to support detachable USB cables), or simply to short them with a blob of solder. Your JBL speakers are likely reacting as if it was plugged into a normal USB port. also keep in mind that the charging spec came about as China and EU wanted to deal with the piles of incompatible chargers that was going into landfills. Thus older USB ports max out at 5V 0.5A, as that was the spec back when USB 1.0 was launched. Also why some external HDDs come with a Y cable that draws power from two USB ports to get the motor spinning.

zdw 9y ago

In watching the evolution of USB-C over the last few years, it seems like it's extremely hard to implement correctly with the huge number of modes, alternate modes, and power delivery in the spec. When you connect two USB-C devices today, you have almost no idea what is actually going to happen, which device is the master, and which way power will flow. While having one connector and cable type for everything seems like it would be a good idea, in practice it's turning out to be a giant mess. Maybe it'll clear up in a few years, but given the race to the bottom in price and quality in the accessory market, this seems doubtful.

arghwhat 9y ago
There needs to be a way to decide which device is the master, like the prompt on Android devices asking if you wish to power or be powered.
- spookthesunset 9y ago
  Wonder if you could do it on the cable with little embedded LED lights. One end turns red for "charging" the other turns blue for "supplying power". Would add to the BOM cost on the cable for sure, but it would not only be cool looking but rather useful.
  - woodrowbarlow 9y ago
    oh yeah, because my bedroom doesn't have enough glowing devices when i'm trying to go to sleep. let's add LEDs to every cable too!
    - spookthesunset 9y ago
      Hah. Good point. Yes, too many devices want to put big giant blue LED's on their product.... even ones that are specifically targeted for the bedroom and specifically designed for sleeping...
  - gargravarr 9y ago

holtalanm 9y ago

the switch is advertised to only work with official nintendo cables and accessories. Anything else and you're just risking damage to your console/tablet/thingy. I don't think they have ever claimed that their USB-C connectors were compliant with the spec.

dfxm12 9y ago
I wonder why they would even use the same shape then... Nintendo (and up until recently, the videogame hardware industry at large) has a long history of making their own connectors...
- hiccuphippo 9y ago
  My guess is that if they make their own shape, then third party accessories with that shape are guaranteed to work. Since they use USB-C, then there is fear, uncertainty and doubt by the consumer about if an accessory will work or not.
  - fjsolwmv 9y ago
    That's overcomplicated 4D chess. They just wanted to use standard tools and components.
GarrisonPrime 9y ago
True enough, but then deciding to use a usb-c port on the console is asking for trouble.
gambiting 9y ago
What they claimed is almost irellevant - the device bears USB-C logo and has a USB-C port - so plugging a USB-C device into that port should in the worst possible case result in a system message "sorry, this device is not supported", not brick the device! There's a reason why you can't use a USB-A cable in your device to carry 220V - because someone will plug it into a normal USB-A socket and burn their computer down. If both sides of the connection have the official USB logo, then connecting them together should never result in either device becoming damaged.

mavdi 9y ago

Well this is exactly what I was wondering last week after noticing the USB-C port on the switch dock is labelled "Power Adapter". I thought it was a little off that there is no mention of USB-C, either not to confuse the users or perhaps because they didn't have much confidence in their hardware compliance.

joecool1029 9y ago

I have a feeling I'll be buying one of those fancy USB-C amperage/voltage meters. I hit issues with the charging spec on a GPD Pocket (tiny laptop). Its maximum supported charging voltage is 12V, which is now optional in the USB-PD 2.0 standard. So most chargers I see now are 5V/9V/15V Macbook charger for instance is missing the 12V, so it charges slow off that charger since it ignores the 15V rail. Has to fall back to 5V or 9V in theory...

ebbv 9y ago

How is this at all surprising? Controlling what third parties are allowed to make accessories and games has been part of Nintendo's business model since the 80s. They truly believe (and you can argue this if you want) that the Nintendo Seal of Quality is part of their success.

stordoff 9y ago
Given the video game crash of the early 80s, it's entirely likely that the Seal (or at least the principles behind it) was part of Nintendo's earlier successes. Whether it's still relevant today is questionable, but I wouldn't write it off.
- tzs 9y ago
  I remember reading a long article on how Nintendo brought back video games. According to the article, they deeply analyzed the early '80s crash to determine what went wrong, so they could avoid whatever caused that. The article said that their conclusion was that they main factor was the proliferation of a large number of low quality games from numerous third party publishers. This was a time when most people's only source of game reviews was magazines or person experience of friends. So a lot of games were bought blind, based just on the claims on the box. After people got burned on a couple low quality games or so, which cost about as much in today's money as today's games, they often stopped or greatly reduced their game buying. Hence, Nintendo decided that they had to control who could publish for their console. Speaking as someone who was programming games for the Mattel Intellivision at the time of the crash, and got laid off because of it, Nintendo's analysis seems quite plausible to me [1]. Consider Intellivision games. The history for the other consoles is similar, but I know Intellivision best so that is what I will use. Once upon a time, the only people who could write Intellivision games were engineers from APh. APh was/is an engineering consulting firm in Pasadena, CA, which was founded by and largely staffed by former and current Caltech students. APh designed the bulk of the electronics for the Intellivision, and more importantly wrote the ROM and the early games. Not too long after that, the set of people who could write Intellivision games expanded to include Mattel engineers. Games written at APh or Mattel could take full advantage of the ROM, which provided a lot of tools to make writing games easier. If you did not use the ROM you had to write a lot more code, know a lot more about low level hardware details, and you might need to use a bigger cartridge which could raise your costs significantly. (For example, the ROM provided high level sprite [2] handling. You could just give it a list of images, and tell it to animate the sprite with them at a specified rate. You could tell it to give the sprite a velocity and it would deal with moving it. You could give it callback routines for various types of collisions, such as sprite hits sprite or sprite hits background, or sprite hits edge). The set of Intellivision game writers further expanded when people who had been Intellivision developers at Mattel or APh started leaving to form their own companies. Several key APh Intellivision people formed Chesire Engineering, which wrote Intellivision games for Activision. Imagic was formed by former Atari and Mattel people. These companies had people who had used the Intellivision ROM. They couldn't take the documentation with them when they left, but they could direct a clean room reverse engineering effort to produce their own documentation sufficient to train new programmers in how to use it. So those companies could produce top quality Intellivision games, too. But then companies start coming on the scene that did not have any ex-Mattel or ex-APh people, or anyone from Imagic or other places that had their own documentation on the ROM. These companies most likely started with the hardware documentation (both the CPU and the graphics system in the Intellivision were off the shelf General Instruments parts), and then reverse engineered just the boot code from the ROM to figure out what it expected to find in a cartridge. Then they handled everything themselves. This made it quite a bit harder to do a top tier game. There were also console makers who wrote games for competing consoles. Mattel did games for Atari and Coleco consoles. Coleco did games for Mattel and Atari consoles. I don't remember Atari doing games for other consoles, but Wikipedia claims they did Centipede and Defender for Intellivision and Colecovision, and Pac-Man for Intellivision and Galaxian for Colecovision. The console makers, unlike the small, poorly funded companies from the above paragraph, had the resources to properly reverse engineer the ROMs of other consoles and then use them in their games. A very large fraction of the games from this last group of companies were pretty bad. They were often rushed, because these companies were often not well funded--they had to get their game done and out fast. That also meant they could not get review copies to magazines with enough lead time for the reviews to come out before or concurrent with the game's release. The market went downhill rapidly at that point. Anyway, I find it quite plausible that if the industry had stayed with each console only having games written by its own associated developers, the competing console makers, and a couple big third parties (Imagic and Activision), the crash could have been avoided. [1] Actually, at the time, I was programming for what would have been the next generation Intellivision, which at that point was just a big box containing the CPU and a prototype of the next generation Intellivision graphics chip implemented as several wire-wrapped circuit boards full of 74xx or equivalent discrete logic chips. We could leave work at night, get back in the morning, and find that the hardware people had pulled an all-nighter and changed the design of the graphics, massively breaking all our code...except for Hal Finney's code which always managed to just take a few tweaks to fix no matter how radical the hardware change. [2] They were actually called "moving objects", not "sprites", in all the Intellivision documentation and code, but I'm going to use sprites because this is what nearly everyone else calls hardware moving objects.

013a 9y ago

While this is more of an interesting fact than anything: The Nintendo Switch website [1] does not advertise that the Switch has a USB-C port. It has HDMI and USB 2.0 on the dock... but no USB-C anywhere. [1] https://www.nintendo.com/switch/features/tech-specs/ https://www.nintendo.com/switch/features/tech-specs/

Klathmon 9y ago
Then why did they use the port? I'm guessing it's the obvious answer of "it was cheaper". As much as it pains me to say it, a "pay us to use the port shape" group like HDMI that will threaten litigation unless you pay them to use the port would probably have prevented this kind of thing from being as widespread with USB-C as it is. While just about everyone doesn't want that to be the case (myself included), I don't see any other way of aligning incentives to make it harder to use the port/spec incorrectly than it is to make it correctly.
- Algent 9y ago
  More that cheap it was convenient: You solve the whole power, video output and external devices problem with a single chip on both side. And it also look nice compared to any usual docking port. It solved enough design issues for them to let go their old habit of having proprietary connectors for charging. Which made them a lot of money.
  - kevin_b_er 9y ago
    With a broken implementation, their connector is effectively proprietary.
    - discreditable 9y ago
      Best of both worlds for them then.
    - ghostly_s 9y ago
      For what it's worth, the linked article I think is misleading as to how incompatible the device is. I charge my Switch regularly at work with a Lenovo 45W USB-C power adapter (model: adlx45uccu2a), it seems to perhaps take longer to charge than the Nintendo one but has worked reliably. Unfortunately I have tried several 3rd-party USB-C HDMI adapters with no success, though there are several options for HDMI+power on Amazon that reportedly work -- as I understand this is simply because the Switch does not enable video output unless it is also on AC power, so you need a combo adapter.

Klathmon 9y ago

Why does USB-C have such terrible failure modes? I'm sure that the people behind it are bright engineers, so why do I have a fear unlike anything I've ever felt when buying a USB-C cable or charger or device? Is this just a "tragedy of the commons" where every manufacturer expects the others to follow the spec so that they can skimp, or is there some kind of fundamental flaw in the USB-C spec that is making it so seemingly dangerous and difficult to use correctly?

_pmf_ 9y ago
It's almost as if hard USB A and USB B ends where there for a reason. I've heard good things about the Cypress EZ-PD[0] to handle power delivery issues (you'll need it in addition to the USB core). [0] http://www.cypress.com/products/usb-type-c-and-power-delivery http://www.cypress.com/products/usb-type-c-and-power-deliver...
fjsolwmv 9y ago
Because USB-C has a million features that require complex logical controls and hardware.
delecti 9y ago
Prior to USB-PD, USB maxed out at 4.5W, and that was a later addition, originally it maxed out at 2.5W. The USB-PW spec allows for 100W power transfer. There are far more modes in USB-C/PW, and they're much higher energy. If all you ever need to deal with is 5V and 0.1-0.9A then there's a much narrower range of failure states.
- spookthesunset 9y ago
  What voltage is the 100W coming through at? If it is low voltage, that is gonna be a really beefy cable... At 12V that is more than 8 amps. 5v is 20 amps. That is a lot of current to send over a typical USB cable...
  - AstralStorm 9y ago
    Yes The cable can get warm. That said, now we use two tiny power wires from PCIe spec to deliver north of 12V 200W.

simias 9y ago

I'm not sure I buy the vendor lock-in thing, if that was the core motivation why not at least bother to use a custom USB-C connector? This way you wouldn't have to deal with the reports of users plugging other USB-C peripherals and getting crashes. Seems more likely what whoever implemented that part of the Switch did a poor job. Was it even done in-house or did they contract a 3rd party to hack it?

cavanasm 9y ago

Can the title be changed to note that this is from 2017? It's new to me, so I assumed it was recent (but it was also posted on Google+....).

esnard 9y ago
Some consoles are getting bricked since the latest Switch update because of this problem, that's why it gained visibility.
- Someone1234 9y ago
  More info on that here: https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/86wu9t/psa_if_youre_using_a_third_party_dock_stop/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/86wu9t/psa_... Both the update and third party accessories seem implicated to a degree.
  - jakebasile 9y ago
    It's absolutely insane that Nintendo still has no way to backup saves in the event of console failure. This compounds the already ridiculous situation where you risk bricking the console when you plug it in to a charger.

_bxg1 9y ago

Presumably this investigation was prompted by the Nyko dock catastrophe. I'm a software guy; what do these revelations imply about which other accessories may or may not be unsafe to use, whether they work or not? In particular, third-party charging cables. My girlfriend uses her MacBook charger to charge her Switch sometimes, and now I'm worried it could brick it one day.

delecti 9y ago
As long as she doesn't use the charger to power the dock (so only directly to the device itself) then she's probably okay.
noxToken 9y ago
I just wish the included adapter had a longer cable. The 6-ish feet is just long enough to get you off of a wall, but not quite long enough to move away comfortably. I assume that it's due to the spec though.
caltelt 9y ago
I find it absolutely mindboggling that Switch's are bricking when 3rd party accessories are plugged in isn't being treated as a bigger issue. Everything I've heard is that the Nyko dock is at fault, but why the hell aren't people mad at Nintendo? Then again, I haven't followed it very closely, maybe people are? All I've read is how the dock is bad, and nothing about the Switch's apparent fragility.
- jldugger 9y ago
  People are somewhat mad, but Nintendo's only recently bothered adopting anything akin to industry standards around power adaptors. Even the 3DS is proprietary, and the Switch dock itself is some voodoo magic with a chip inside. USB C itself has been sort of a minefield of adaptors getting the spec wrong, so I doubt anyone is surprised that docks are buggy and even capable of damaging parts.
nuclear_eclipse 9y ago
It's from May 29, 2017.

kevindqc 9y ago

Why not require some kind of USB-C compatibility details on all USB-C related products? So you know if you use the device/cable what will actually work/not work?

smaili 9y ago

On a related note, what are some reputable brands for USB-C adapters that actually do have proper implementation and quality assurance? Anker? UPTab? Belkin?

chrisweekly 9y ago
Anecdata: I've had zero problems with my Anker power hub.
crottypeter 9y ago
I want to say Anker but even they made a mistake and had to recall faulty cables https://lifehacker.com/some-anker-usb-c-cables-are-getting-recalled-for-a-hard-1785887067 https://lifehacker.com/some-anker-usb-c-cables-are-getting-r... Although at least they did the recall and presumably will be careful not to make such a costly mistake again.
Tijdreiziger 9y ago
Check out https://usbccompliant.com/ https://usbccompliant.com/
- petecox 9y ago
  Cheers, presumably the AC wall plugs have international equivalents for the non-US market? (i.e. their 'compliance' has been tested on 240V scenarios)
  - Tijdreiziger 9y ago
    Actually, I don't think so. These have been tested by one Google engineer, and he lives in the US.
Lightbody 9y ago
I have successfully used this (battery and power adapter): https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MZ61PRW/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MZ61PRW/ref=oh_aui_se... And this: https://smile.amazon.com/Anker-Premium-Charger-PowerPort-Delivery/dp/B01D8C6ULO/ref=sr_1_2?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1522342970&sr=1-2 https://smile.amazon.com/Anker-Premium-Charger-PowerPort-Del... Both have been solid with the Nintendo Switch. I have tried the Apple charger and it did exactly what this article said: basically stopped the ability to charge the Switch until I did a hard reboot.

chx 9y ago

In my humble opinion, the greatest sin of the USB C standard is the lack of introspection. Given the huge amount of possibilities, it should be possible to question a USB C socket with a cheap device what Alt modes it is capable of, what device roles it is capable of, what USB PD it supports etc.

jws 9y ago
One out of three: This device will show you what power deliver modes are available, request the most it can get, and make that available on terminals. https://www.tindie.com/products/ReclaimerLabs/usb-c-explorer/ https://www.tindie.com/products/ReclaimerLabs/usb-c-explorer... (Also, if you didn't know about tindie.com, and you are a certain sort of person, then I apologize for consuming the next couple hours of your day.)
- jamiek88 9y ago
  I’ve been looking for soil moisture sensors for months and never come across that site, just on the first page of IOT stuff there are 5 good options on Tindie. Amazing, thanks.
- chx 9y ago
  That's 79 dollars. I said cheap :) 20 bucks is realistic, even if it's just the hardware and needs a phone or even a laptop to be plugged into. Even a laptop is reasonable.

pbhjpbhj 9y ago

Maybe it's USB-C because of future usage requirements, that they envisioned they might need USB-C to interface with attachments (VR headset? New GB/DS generation?).

draw_down 9y ago

Eppur si muove. :)

logfromblammo 9y ago

Perhaps if Nintendo had boarded the standardized-connectors train at the terminal, rather than just hopping on at the last station, they would have been more familiar by now with the need to read and follow all the rules of the standard.

CaliforniaKarl 9y ago

I’m curious, how many of the issues enumerated could be fixed by a firmware upgrade? Personally, I wouldn’t be too surprised if the dock isn’t upgradeable at all.

setgree 9y ago

I can't make heads or tails of the technical details of this, but I think it's fair to start with the prior that Nintendo doesn't care too much about non-proprietary formats/interoperability/etc. I developed this impression when the Gamecube came out -- weird minidisks when Sony had already switched over to CDs and then DVDs, no ability to play external media, an online community that seemed pretty half-baked. I haven't played videogames regularly for a decade though so perhaps things have changed. I now use a PS4 controller to play some games on my computer, and it's really nice, integrates naturally.

taternuts 9y ago
I hadn't played video games for close to a decade before I kind of randomly bought a switch, and it's actually got me back into gaming. Nintendo has kind of always done their own thing though, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.
- draw_down 9y ago
  Same here, and I think it’s great. The console’s failure to implement some protocol has not affected my enjoyment at all.
Aelius 9y ago
I'm actually pretty surprised that the comments here are discussing the complexity of the USB C spec. That may well be true, but somehow I think Nintendo would have screwed it up no matter how simple you try to make it... The Wii and Wii U and DS have dozens of these stupid "quirks" which are the result of Nintendo just not knowing how to do things correctly. The reason I didn't buy a switch was because I was so infuriated by the Wii U's incompetence that I was certain the switch would bring me nothing but misery. I'm feeling pretty smug and validated right about now. This isn't the first of the switch's failures, either. Nintendo are just miserably incompetent at firmware and software, I really wish they would just back some other hardware company to make the console for them, and Nintendo themselves should just focus on making games. Better yet, Nintendo should just make their "fun" peripherals for PC, mobile, and existing consoles, and release their titles cross platform. Yes I'm bitter.

BluSyn 9y ago

In case others are looking for something similar, I've had great success using Anker's 20100mAh USB-C portable battery to charge my Switch on the go. It's the only USB-C battery I've tried that actually works with the Nintendo Switch. Link: https://www.amazon.com/Anker-PowerCore-Ultra-High-Capacity-Portable/dp/B014ZO46LK/ https://www.amazon.com/Anker-PowerCore-Ultra-High-Capacity-P... It also gets me a full recharge of my 15" USB-C MBP (though you can't use the MBP and charge at the same time, it takes a while).

snovv_crash 9y ago
I used a Xaiomi 20,000mAh external pack that has worked really well with the Switch. I also charged it perfectly from both LG and HTC phone chargers. On the other hand, the Switch charger refused to charge my phones.
SrslyJosh 9y ago
I've got the same battery, bought ~2 years ago. Seems to work fine with my Switch and an Anker-brand USB A-to-C cable. My 40W Anker PowerPort wall-charger also works. Now I'm a bit worried about trying anything else, though. o_O
dc443 9y ago
I have a different RavPower battery pack (also about 20Ah) and My 2017 15" MBP makes it REALLY FRIGGIN' HOT. OTOH it would be fine to charge it off of a USB A -> C charge cable, it would take ages, but i would feel better about it not cooking. Oh well.

russellbeattie 9y ago

USB-C peripheral makers desperately need to agree on a color/marking scheme for the devices and specifically the cables. Right now it's chaos. Red, blue, green, black, ABCD, 1234, square, circle, triangle, cross... Whatever. Just make it so users can tell what's going on.

iamjk 9y ago

I was just amazed that a google plus post got so high on hn.

kbenson 9y ago

However, because it was USB-C compliant (followed the darn spec) and robustly engineered, it will work with the Switch even though it came out nearly two years before the Switch was released. (Hooray!) Innergie had the foresight to add 15v as an "optional and extra" voltage level and now it reaps the rewards. (It also has $1mil in connected device insurance, so I can recommend it.) I think maybe I just found a new preferred provider of cables and chargers.

carc1n0gen 9y ago

I thought type-c was just the shape, while usb 3.1 and 3.1 gen 2, or thunderbolt 3 being the common specs that usually carry this shape. Or is it more complicated than this?

LeoPanthera 9y ago
Type-C can carry things that are not USB, that's the problem. USB-PD can't be carried over non-C connectors.
- kalleboo 9y ago
  USB-PD is still allowed on classic USB-A/B ports

saudioger 9y ago

huh, I thought Plus was dead

phjesusthatguy3 9y ago

My son just bought himself a Switch, and TBH this isn't surprising at all. What is surprising is that Nintendo didn't modify the port so that a USB-C cable wouldn't fit. I don't think it's advertised as being a USB-C port, though. The specs page[0] says there are three USB 2.0 ports and a power port (which, by looking at it, uses the same connector as USB-C). [0]https://www.nintendo.com/switch/features/tech-specs/ https://www.nintendo.com/switch/features/tech-specs/