5 ms·

OK, but for example of a problem I recently ran into, I left the (excellent) magnetic surface charger at my office and needed to charge my surface pro 7. Not a

OK, but for example of a problem I recently ran into, I left the (excellent) magnetic surface charger at my office and needed to charge my surface pro 7. Not a problem, I figured my phone charger (pixel) should be fine, if a bit slower. Nope, no dice. I had to Google around to remind myself that "power delivery" is what I need. OK, exceedingly stupid name, but it jogged my memory that the portable battery I have supports that, and I have used it for that before. Cue more frustration when I realize that the only 2 cables I could find at the house don't support this charging standard either. At this point I feel like an absolute idiot, since now I've wasted 1/2 hour plus 2-4 Google searches just to charge a laptop. None of the equipment is a sketchy aliexpress/Amazon no name part, except possibly 1 of the cables. If it's this hard for someone with electronics experience who is into tech, I can't even imagine explaining it to a family member in a way that would make sense.

rlpb 6y ago
Some devices have greater power demands than others. So there are two design choices that can be made: (1) require all chargers and cables to support charging all devices; or (2) allow "lesser" chargers and cables. Choosing (1) would have meant that everything would work as you expect, but then even the cheapest devices would have to come with an unnecessarily beefy (and therefore expensive) chargers. Choosing (2) results in potential for the situation that you described. Lesser chargers and cables cannot charge more demanding devices. I'm pretty sure (1) would simply have not been practical. It would have been wasteful and the expense would kill adoption. So they went with (2). Seems reasonable to me.
- SuperPaintMan 6y ago
  A better solution is to just have a different physical connector so it's obvious at a glance if you have the correct cables. But that: involves carrying another cable, and kind of defeats the purpose of a unifying connector.
  - rlpb 6y ago
    I've bought stuff that supports everything I own, and so I don't have to carry multiple cables or chargers. Different physical connectors would be a step backwards for me.
- angus-prune 6y ago
  The key missing choice is (3) Make it possible to tell the difference between the cables/devices. Thats what everyone is complaining about, that there is no way to know without trial and error what combination of capabilities across (at a minimum) three different elements you're dealing with. Make it so that we can tell the difference! As per teh articel, they tried to do this with the thunderbolt standard on top of USB-C with a lighting bolt symbol, but even that doesn't mean you know what you're getting in practice. USB3 for instance mandated blue plastic for connectors, so you could tell the difference from previous generations.

rlpb 6y ago

Some devices have greater power demands than others. So there are two design choices that can be made: (1) require all chargers and cables to support charging all devices; or (2) allow "lesser" chargers and cables. Choosing (1) would have meant that everything would work as you expect, but then even the cheapest devices would have to come with an unnecessarily beefy (and therefore expensive) chargers. Choosing (2) results in potential for the situation that you described. Lesser chargers and cables cannot charge more demanding devices. I'm pretty sure (1) would simply have not been practical. It would have been wasteful and the expense would kill adoption. So they went with (2). Seems reasonable to me.

SuperPaintMan 6y ago
A better solution is to just have a different physical connector so it's obvious at a glance if you have the correct cables. But that: involves carrying another cable, and kind of defeats the purpose of a unifying connector.
- rlpb 6y ago
  I've bought stuff that supports everything I own, and so I don't have to carry multiple cables or chargers. Different physical connectors would be a step backwards for me.
angus-prune 6y ago
The key missing choice is (3) Make it possible to tell the difference between the cables/devices. Thats what everyone is complaining about, that there is no way to know without trial and error what combination of capabilities across (at a minimum) three different elements you're dealing with. Make it so that we can tell the difference! As per teh articel, they tried to do this with the thunderbolt standard on top of USB-C with a lighting bolt symbol, but even that doesn't mean you know what you're getting in practice. USB3 for instance mandated blue plastic for connectors, so you could tell the difference from previous generations.