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I believe the original plan was the opposite - one port and one cable type that can do everything - 100W of power, 5K video, USB devices, analog audio, Ethernet
by ProblemFactory 7y ago
I believe the original plan was the opposite - one port and one cable type that can do everything - 100W of power, 5K video, USB devices, analog audio, Ethernet and more.
But it was naive to think that manufacturers will ship a $30 cable for a phone charger when a cheaper hack will do.
At least there should have been mandatory color coding of the "full" and "limited" ports and cables, just as USB 3 ports were blue to distinguish them from older versions.
- y4mi 7y agoUntil cheap knockoffs heard they could charge 4x their normal price by changing the coloring. ... You can't trust the coloring either if you're buying off of Amazon, eBay or any Chinese site like Alibaba
- Wowfunhappy 7y agoColoring appears to have worked for distinguishing between USB 2 and USB 3, at least in my experience.
- katbyte 7y agoWith USB 3 isn’t the other end of the cable usually different as well?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- pdpi 7y agoUSB-B for USB 3 is physically quite different, yes — looks like two stacked connectors.
- moftz 7y agoThe physical contacts are different though. You can look down into a USB 3 plug and see the new 5 contacts just as you can look at a USB 3 socket and see the new contacts right up front. Also I don't always see blue in new USB 3 cables and sockets, sometimes it's just black.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago> Also I don't always see blue in new USB 3 cables and sockets, sometimes it's just black. True, but if the cable is blue, that always indicates USB 3, at least in my experience—I've never seen a blue USB 2 cable. I think this is sufficient given backwards compatibility—how often do you specifically need a USB 2 device? I very much doubt many "normal" people know to check the contacts.
- djsumdog 7y agoBlue or Green if it's a Razer device, or Red to indicate Gen2 vs Gen1 ports on gaming motherboards.
- diminoten 7y agoAmazon fraud is not the problem some people on HN make it out to be...
- tracker1 7y agoOkay... pull up a list of USB3 chargers and tell me which ones on the first page of results are not counterfeit or poor quality knockoffs, even with 4+ stars... now do it for cables, including those labelled as "Amazon Basic" ... It's a pretty big issue. I paid a lot more and ordered a spare USB3 charger from Google it's so bad in my own experience.
- jjeaff 7y agoYou have found AmazonBasics that were counterfeit of fake? If so, that's a pretty big deal. Amazon is slapping their logo on those products and presumably doing QA. They are also the only company allowed to sell them on Amazon. Not to be confused with Amazon's Choice. Which means jack squat.
- tracker1 7y agoI've had Amazon Basics cables that weren't up to spec, yes. In fact most Amazon Basics electronics products have been poor quality of those I've purchased (mostly cables and a couple sets of speakers) so much that I won't even buy anything labelled as such now.
- jjeaff 7y agoInteresting. I've always found AmazonBasics to be fine. Not great, but usually gets the job done.
- Nexxxeh 7y agoNot directly addressing your question, but Amazon did a recall on their own chargers included with UK and Ireland Fire tablets, and recalled over quarter of a million portable AmazonBasics chargers.
- JudgeWapner 7y agoThen buy from Walmart or best buy.
- lm28469 7y agoAnd then we end up paying $60 for a phone charger cable that will never be used for any of these things. (100W of power, 5K video, USB devices, analog audio, Ethernet) The whole thing is a mess but both solutions are equality ridiculous if you ask me.
- Filligree 7y agoThere's a pretty simple solution. Use different form factors depending on capability, like we'd been doing for decades before this madness.
- bsmith0 7y agoUSB C is fantastic. Standardization is way better than needing several different types of cables for all your devices.
- jjeaff 7y agoOnly if you require all those different functionalities to be included. Otherwise, you have a bunch of mystery cables that all fit but may or may not do what you think they do.
- patates 7y agoMaking every cable look the same, making it a guesswork which cable is working for which use case is better than having separate cables?
- ineedasername 7y agoExcept we still have several different types of cables, now it's just not obvious what there different capabilities are
- HeadsUpHigh 7y agoStandardization is great when it actually happens. USB C cables are anything but standardized.
- deleted 7y ago
- KirinDave 7y agoWhere are you getting the figure "$30"? The components of an active cable are not that expensive. You and I may pay premium markups at retailers because of parasitic incentives, but that doesn't mean folks sourcing their own cables would.
- anbop 7y agoThere’s no way to make a physical cable that carries 100w and hundreds of gigabits as cheap as a cable that carries 1 amp at 5 volts.
- colejohnson66 7y agoGP didn’t say they’d cost the same. They said $30 is too expensive
- mosselman 7y agoThat doesn’t mean the cable that can will cost $30
- asark 7y agoConsidering the way the middle of the market (for lots of products, not just cables, and not just electronics) seems to evaporate and the options become "cheap and shitty and may not work at all", "mid-priced but still shitty", and "actually built correctly and will actually survive normal use but way more expensive than it seems like it should be, thanks to a combination of economies of scale and price discrimination" I wouldn't be surprised if a full-capability USBC cable that doesn't break the first time you unplug it "wrong" or trip over it, and doesn't glitch out or fail to work correctly in some situations, and is of a useful length, does end up around $30.
- londons_explore 7y agoA large part of cables is patents, licensing, research and R&D. All those costs don't have to scale with the number of cables produced.
- 7y ago
- usbseeker 7y agoThe port and cable can do all that, i think the problem here is more about the electronics on either side of the ports and cables
- scrdhrt 7y agoI would be so happy if there were some sort of color coding to just be rid of the hassle of switching twice ("I'm sure it's this one, nopes, it's the other one").
- tomxor 7y agoThere is zero chance that alone would pass as a solution in the EU, not accessible. Colour blindness is extremely common too.
- zrm 7y agoTrue color blindness is very rare. Most "color blind" people are red-green color blind and can still distinguish between e.g. red and blue.
- tomxor 7y agoyes and that is extremely common, that doesn't count as colour blindness? what else would you call it. Either way the "incomplete" forms of colour blindness are one of the most common forms of disability, so using color as the only distinguishing factor in consumer cable types is pretty exclusionary.
- zzzcpan 7y agoNothing a new connector with more contact surface and 12 volts couldn't solve. No power negotiation bullshit, no $30 cables. The problem is big brands have hidden agendas, they want to sell you those $30 cables, they want to lock you into the brand by making you distrust that everything will be compatible with other brands, etc. So it wasn't naive, it was deliberate. Sort of an attempt to subvert standardization regulations and hurt competition.
- epicide 7y ago> So it wasn't naive, it was deliberate. Do you have anything to back that up? Even a screenshot of an email? I'm not saying they aren't or haven't done that (I honestly wouldn't be surprised), but it doesn't help anybody to make baseless accusations of conspiracy.
- yitchelle 7y agoDidn't know that the colour means something here. I always thought it was marching >> USB 3 ports were blue This would only be useful if you know the colour means something.
- _puk 7y agoI think for the layperson, with many potential ports available, one that colour matches the cable in hand seems a fairly obvious first choice. And even if that fails, it's at least something "support" can add to their check list when a customer calls with issues.
- Anarch157a 7y agoBack in the day, I heard horror stories of people trying to cram 15-pin VGA cables on 9-pin CGA ports, just because they looked the same. Never underestimate idiots.
- FireBeyond 7y ago> just as USB 3 ports were blue to distinguish them from older versions ... unless you're Apple and the blue took away from your aesthetic...
- m463 7y ago> one port and one cable type that can do everything As with politics ("freedom", "justice") the problem is that "everything" is ambiguous. (and corporations have anti-standards goals: to differentiate their products, prevent unallowed access to their devices, continue using outdated protocols, etc...)