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USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

• coldtea 6y ago
  Tired with these articles. USB-C has saved me tons of hassle.
  • macintux 6y ago
    You could...not read them?
    • coldtea 6y ago
      Yes, but I'm not just a selfish person caring for my self. I want to spare the whole world of such mediocre articles.
• julianlam 6y ago
  Sometimes it seems like I'm the only person with absolutely zero issues with USB-C. I have a Lenovo monitor that delivers power+HDMI+usbhub to my laptop, and having to only plug one thing in to access all my peripherals is amazing. I used a bog standard Anker USB-C cable for this.
  • amelius 6y ago
    Just wait until you have to write an embedded driver for it.
    • Decker87 6y ago
      I'll be waiting for a long, long time then.
      • amelius 6y ago
        If you're an embedded developer, that's usually a matter of your boss or a customer deciding it for you.
    • martin_a 6y ago
      Ah yeah, who doesn't do this everyday? I've written like... five of these today alone... Honestly, you'll find those "for me it's SUPER stressful"-cases everywhere, but it will not touch 99.99% of the other people.
      • arkitaip 6y ago
        Bah, in my days we wrote a dozen of drivers per day and that's only because we had to fight the network admins in hand to hand combat during the afternoon....
      • newsclues 6y ago
        If it’s very difficult for developers to do a good job, the likelihood you encounter bugs as a user increases. Even if you don’t write drivers, doesn’t mean you can’t suffer from difficult to implement standards.
    • megous 6y ago
      I did, it's not pleasant. :)
  • Waterluvian 6y ago
    I’m sure for some it’s a nightmare worthy of writing about, but yeah I’ve never had a problem. I love that USB-C trivially expanded my laptop to having two DisplayPort devices so I can run 3 4K screens at 60hz
    • 542354234235 6y ago
      It isn’t a nightmare, but it is an issue of conflicting compatibility. He flat out states that it is a vast improvement, and then goes into the issues it does have and what fixes should be focused on as we iterate in the future. I personally have had some of these issues, where some of my older chargers and cables do not work with more modern devices, as well as some devices having proprietary chargers and cables to get full power (looking at you, Oneplus “warp charging”). It isn’t the end of the world, but they are issues I hope people work on, so we can move closer to more universal standards and interconnectability. USB C is a huge step towards that, but it isn’t’ there yet.
    • oefnak 6y ago
      What laptop do you have that does 3×4K@60Hz? Is it loud?
      • Waterluvian 6y ago
        Xps15 9560. It sounds like a jet engine taking off when I’m playing Subnautica but otherwise isn’t actually too hard on the gpu
        • julianlam 6y ago
          That sounds neat! Are you daisy chaining from one monitor to another? I think my monitor supports that too.
          • Waterluvian 6y ago
            One monitor is the laptop. Then I use a dongle that provides two full-size DP ports from one USB C
  • jacobush 6y ago
    Hehe, my new work Lenovo laptop needs some kind of USB-C dongle for it to connect an external monitor. In the end, one needs two Lenovo chargers, the dongle and cables. Fun stuff. Plus the power supply to the monitor, of course. I expected what you said, got something else altogether.
  • sq_ 6y ago
    > I have a Lenovo monitor that delivers power+HDMI+usbhub to my laptop, and having to only plug one thing in to access all my peripherals is amazing. I've been all-in on USB-C for a while now, and I just finally got to use a friend's monitor with that feature set the other day. It was so awesome! I expected to have to plug a keyboard and mouse in, etc., but I just sat down and plugged in the USB-C cable to my MBP and everything just worked.
  • reader_mode 6y ago
    I have a 34WK95U-W 5k monitor I use for the same setup : - initially OSX had a bug with my 2018 Vega20 MBP and I couldn't even use the monitor it would keep glitching out - I had to switch to beta channel to get it working - I cannot get DP 1.4 to work properly - I can either have half resolution with HDR on DP 1.4 or I can switch monitor to DP 1.2 and get full 5k without HDR - I cannot use the monitor with my wife's Lenovo laptop for charging and 5k display - if I try to do both it constantly resets the display - I'm assuming it draws too much power, when I plug a separate power adapter it works fine - I am not sure if this monitor would work with an AMD laptop that has USB 3.2 as LG only advertises thunderbolt support but theoretically DisplayPort Alternate Mode should work. Also have no clue if it would charge or if the USB hub functionality would work Overall this was a pretty unsatisfying experience for a 2000$ device.
  • ip26 6y ago
    For some reason text doesn't render sharply over USB-C on my 4K. So I just switched back to display port instead, and continued with life. That's been the only issue.
    • WolfRazu 6y ago
      Chroma subsampling perhaps?
  • benhue 6y ago
    So I was the same until the cable that I used with the monitor broke and I thought I could just use the same cable that shipped with my MacBook Pro (which are quite pricey), it didn't work as I had no idea you needed a cable that supported video and for a while assumed my monitor was broken. Now imagine a less technically literate person experiencing this.
  • rhacker 6y ago
    Definitely not alone. I have a USB A headset. I have a new macbook pro with USB(C/thunderf*ck?) adapter that lets me use this headset on my mac. No biggy. Anyway one day I was like, huh, I bet this won't work, but I plugged my Mac adapter into my Oneplus phone, with the USB A headset attached. The phone actually detected the headset, including the volume up/down button built in. So yes, USB-C simplified my life.
  • MikeKusold 6y ago
    USB-C monitors are a complete mess too. My LG monitor only charges at 65W over USB-C, so I still need to plug in my MBP charger to avoid depleting my battery. A lot of docks also face this problem.
  • cwhiz 6y ago
    I have not had a problem with anything. Multiple MacBook Pros, Switch, Quest, iPad, thumb drives, external drives, monitors, portable monitors, XPS13, and more. Never had a problem with a cable, and never had a problem with a power adapter. Maybe it's just luck? Maybe it's because I generally avoid the cheapest items on Amazon? I've been swapping cables and adapters around for 3+ years now with no issues.
• jeremymcanally 6y ago
  Really? I find it to be a game changer for me. The fact that my laptop, Switch, iPad, and several other devices can all share a charge has made my life much easier. I can just sprinkle a few of them throughout the house and never be without power. Before it was always a hunt to find a cable, or I had to be in [x] room to charge [y] device because that's where the charger lived. Plus, I can charge my MacBook on either side, so that's basically life changing on its own. :)
  • blablabla123 6y ago
    Same for me, also that I can use the same docking station for my work and my private laptop is awesome. Of course the support for the (quite complex) standard is not fully there yet, so one cannot blindly buy or connect new stuff.
  • buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
    Did you not read the article? Because your response doesn’t address any of the issues brought up in the article. Mainly that all the usb-c cables you sprinkle across your house might not have the same functionality. And if you plug your switch in to one it might charge it, while another will not.
    • Drew_ 6y ago
      > Mainly that all the usb-c cables you sprinkle across your house might not have the same functionality. If you buy decent cables they all do. The reality is that whatever devices you're plugging the cables into might not support every feature you're looking for. Instead of blaming poorly built devices or ignorant consumers it must be the shape of the cable that's the problem surely.
    • ilikehurdles 6y ago
      Exactly! This has been my experience. I bought 3 different USB-C cables for my keyboard until I found one that let the keyboard work as the original did. I have a few usb-c cables that will charge my gopro and a few that won't. I like the form factor, but the standard itself is a mess.
• bla3 6y ago
  It's a mess, but it still seems much better than the situation before to me. It's true, you currently need to be careful when buying cables, but if you are, you can charge all your devices with the same plug. And usb-c video means your monitor can act as usb hub for keyboard and mouse over the video cable, so you only need to replug a single cable to move video and mouse and keyboard between computers. I use this a lot with my laptops, I find it super convenient. It's not like the previous situation was easier to navigate for consumers. Sure, I'd be nice if usb-c was an even bigger improvement, but it doesn't deserve to be called "total mess".
  • crote 6y ago
    Yeah, but try explaining to your non-technical friend with two monitors why connecting their laptop to both via USB C works, but their phone only gives video output on one. There are at least 5 ways to transfer video over USB C: Straight USB, HDMI alternate mode, DisplayPort alternate mode, MHL alternate mode, and Thunderbolt. Then it's also possible for an alternate mode to only use a subset of the available lanes, the lane count doesn't match the lanes available in the "real" connector, and the protocols have multiple versions. Labeling all of that as "USB C" is a massive mistake.
    • izacus 6y ago
      Would the situation be better when you'd have to explain why does his monitor have 3 different connection ports but not the 5th one he needs? Or that he's lacking the right converter cables for all different 5 possible types?
      • oftenwrong 6y ago
        Yes, that would be easier to understand. That is as easy to understand as a child's "shape sorter" toy: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71F1sWVVXAL._AC_SL1500_.jpg https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71F1sWVVXAL... If the monitor has a Triangle port, and the computer has a Square port, you need a Triangle-to-Square adapter. Simple.
      • 6y ago
• AgloeDreams 6y ago
  This is silliness. This has gotten worlds better by just making chargers that work with everything and realizing that only some cables work for some needs. If you are a big hardware nut, sure you can run into issues, but 99% of the time, the same cable that charges my Phone charges my Tablet, and my laptop and my headphones and my switch and powers a wireless charger, all from the same brick. This is as opposed to the world 6-7 years ago where that would be a littany of cables and bricks. Is it perfect? No. Is it better? Yes.
• silvestrov 6y ago
  The big problem with Apple is the mentality of "it just works, so you don't need any info". This means that when I plug a cable into the USB-C port on the MacBookPro, I can't get any info about what kind of cable it is. I can't get "this cable is for power only" information. And there is no standard for markings on cables and power supplies that tell this.
• vernie 6y ago
  It's a bit of a mess but it's a net positive and there's worse shit going on.
• baconandeggs 6y ago
  USB-C charging is truly revolutionary. USB-C data is a clusterf*k, and worse of all, is not UNIVERSAL anymore.
  • gruez 6y ago
    >USB-C charging is truly revolutionary. Is it? I guess it's nice that I can charge my phone with my laptop charger, but it has the same issue as usb-c data where everything physically fits but are incompatible. eg. having to worry about whether a aftermarket charger provides enough voltage/current to charge your laptop.
    • ahartmetz 6y ago
      Well, I tried, and I could charge my Thinkpad using a 5V/2A phone charger and an A->C cable. Very slowly of course, but it worked. If I was somewhere and I had forgotten my laptop charger, I could worry about whether a phone charger will work, but without USB-C, I could be sure that it won't work.
      • gruez 6y ago
        >Well, I tried, and I could charge my Thinkpad using a 5V/2A phone charger and an A->C cable. Is yours a recent model? AFAIK most laptops can't charge using phone chargers. They require high voltage that isn't available on low wattage chargers.
        • ahartmetz 6y ago
          Yes, it's a T14 Gen1 (AMD).
    • megous 6y ago
      You can also charge your phone from your laptop and vice versa. Or one phone from other phone. Or just link two phones with a wired data connection with no power exchange. There's a lot more flexibility than there was prior to USB-C.
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• atoav 6y ago
  So all issues with USB-C boil down to - Apple made some different standard that uses the same Plug - Power supplies come at different power ratings (who would have thought!) Of course this is not ideal, but it is already better than not being able to get _any_ 3rd part power supply at all.
  • baconandeggs 6y ago
    Those are not all the issues. For example, you can't get a usb-c hub to get more usb-c ports, they don't exist.
    • CubsFan1060 6y ago
      Yeah, I've noticed that too. That mystifies me.
      • megous 6y ago
        Each port can accept or give power (at various voltages) potentially or act as data sink/source (determined on connection), or have alt modes. Such device would be either quite "fun" to use, unless it had type C ports marked with dedicated functionality, so you'd have to be careful what device you plug to what port. AFAIK there's no protocol to control other ports via PD from the port you'd connect to the "main" device (like your laptop). So the behavior would be all pretty random, or the ports would have to be fixed in function.
        • CubsFan1060 6y ago
          I technically get it, but it’s amazing you’d design a solution that didn’t handle this. Seems like the pattern now is “just use usba anyway”
      • NikolaeVarius 6y ago
        My completely unfounded on anything guess is that it might have to do with breaking the chain of "trust" between the different connectors on negotiating how much power an actual downstream device can handle.
• Jugurtha 6y ago
  I could charge a phone with a laptop's charger, then charge another laptop with that. Contrary to other 'messes', this one is worth surmounting.
• jansan 6y ago
  The simple fact that USB-C usess a rotationally symmetrical connector is a huge improvement for me. Everything else, well, it worked for me before.
• tcskeptic 6y ago
  Very much not my experience. In fact USB-C is one of those technical advances like adaptive cruise control that I just can't imagine going back from. My only pain point has been the dongles needed to connect older USB devices to my MacBook Air that doesn't have the ports -- but I would rather deal with that than not having USB-C at all.
• sandworm101 6y ago
  Don't worry. USB-C and associated standards are five+ years old now. Some new standards will be along soon enough. Then we will all have to buy new chargers/cables/devices again, continuing the cycle of chasing the universal bus nirvana. https://www.pocket-lint.com/laptops/news/intel/147329-usb-4-specs-news-features https://www.pocket-lint.com/laptops/news/intel/147329-usb-4-... >> The USB 4 specification was published in late 2019 and will probably appear in devices in late 2020 or early 2021 - it usually takes around 18 months for devices to come to market once a new standard is published for the first time.
  • shawnz 6y ago
    USB-C isn't going anywhere, USB 4 still uses that connector.
    • sandworm101 6y ago
      Ya, but the OP wasn't just complaining about the connector. Rather, he was also commenting on the various standards that use that connector. And FYI, I hear it is to be called "USB4", not "USB 4". Why? Because reasons.
      • shawnz 6y ago
        So, are you saying that USB 4 should have purposely used a different connector to avoid confusion? Or are you saying that new devices should just be forced to charge and operate at the same speed as last-generation devices to make things more convenient for users? Both of those seem like much worse options than the current way of doing things
        • freeone3000 6y ago
          We need to go back to labelling our cables. A USB "SS" imprint meant something. Current cables have no imprint, so it's going to be impossible to tell whether something's a USB 2.0 or 3.0 or 4.0 or 3.2 2x2 cable or what capabilities it supports without plugging it in -- and the capability matrix is simply too complex to currently imprint, so that also needs to be solved, with only a few available capabilities listed (even if this means your 3m cable for computer->speakers costs $30 for capabilities you don't need). It's the only way to solve this mess while holding the connector constant.
• spaetzleesser 6y ago
  It definitely could be better but overall I think it’s a win. The only thing I am missing is that there are no USB-C 4-1 hubs like you can get for USB-A. Some of the cables also seem pretty finicky.
• eclipxe 6y ago
  USB C is amazing. Seriously it is one of the most day to day “simple” things that reduce friction in my life.
• tootie 6y ago
  Isn't the magic of USB-C Power Delivery that it can negotiate a voltage? Previous iterations of USB only operated at 5V and USB-C can operate anywhere from 5-20V.
  • freeone3000 6y ago
    Not all USB-C cables support PD! And not all PD-capable cables support every range or combination of voltages and wattages.
  • jk700 6y ago
    It's not magic when step down DC-DC converters take as much space as power negotiation crap and all that's really needed is single 20 volts. Look at new ATX standardization development with proposals to leave only 12 volts, dropping 5 and 3.3 - that's the right way to standardize on power delivery. What USB-C is doing is not standardization, but an attempt to undermine standardization to profit from selling expensive cables and locking people into brands, just as device manufacturers did with non standard ports for mobile phones in the past and were eventually fined for it and forced to use standardized USB power delivery.
    • tootie 6y ago
      ATX isn't comparable. The power supply producers and consumers work together. USB is meant to power a vast array of devices that simply can't all be aligned to a single voltage.
• spideymans 6y ago
  There is no situation in which I’d rather have traditional USB ports on my devices, over USB-C
• bluedino 6y ago
  I have an LG 4K monitor, a MacBook Pro, and Sony headphones that charge over USB-C, so in that scenario USB=C has been bliss. But with older machines/monitors, I need a pile of adapters. Still, I like it-for the most part. The worst thing about USB-C is the dock situation for laptops. None of them are perfect, and most of them are garbage. $200-300 is a bit hard to swallow when I've been buying Lenovo docks for $50 for the longest time, but today's laptops don't have the docking port on the bottom.
  • martin_a 6y ago
    Are you using a Lenovo USB-C dock? Are you happy with it? My work laptop is a Dell and their USB-C dock seems to work just fine (at least for me).
    • bluedino 6y ago
      I'm not, but we have Lenovo USB-C docks at the office, as we have Lenovo laptops. They're all buggy. I'm still using a traditional dock as mine hasn't been upgraded yet so I still have the port.
  • falcolas 6y ago
    I have an Anker hub/dock (HDMI, ethernet, USB-A), and it works fairly well. A bit noisy for a lower quality (i.e. poor power filtering) USB sound card. It does not provide USB-C power pass-through, however.
• whywhywhywhy 6y ago
  It's honestly such a complete joke it's not even funny anymore. My USB-C MacBook Pro with it's pathetic two ports that my work bought for me is now old enough that the battery is starting to fail and we're still in a world where this single cable for power, screen and ports just doesn't seem to really exist. I'm starting to be convinced the port is fundamentally flawed, dongles with multiple ports are never reliable enough to keep a drive mounted for any heavy work, HDMI glitches out. Doesn't matter what dongle I try they all have some sort of thing wrong with them. The only dongle that works reliably enough to do light video editing with a drive is the $20 Apple single USB-C to A adapter, which converts one of your single USB-C ports to a single USB-A port. The fact that Apple hasn't released a usb-c hub speaks volumes, lets be honest they could charge $500 for it and people would still defend and buy it. But I feel the reason they haven't it because the technology fundamentally doesn't deliver on this promise and it would be just as unreliable as the 3rd party ones.
  • josho 6y ago
    A good (read expensive) dongle will work fine. I have one that reliably powers 2 monitors (a 5k and a 4k), 1gb network and powers my macbook. I think the real problem is we get a lot of cheap products coming from China with very little quality control. QC is poor because they have no incentive to build in quality. E.g. you likely don't realize how flaky the dongle is until after the 30 day return policy, the branding on many of these plugs is minimal so you don't even know which company to avoid for your next purchase.
    • maerF0x0 6y ago
      +1 to this. I had bought a "top reviewed" HDMI / USBC cable on Amazon. It seemed to have issues overheating and dying. Bought the Insignia version of the same from BestBuy and it works like a champ (even when it's 100f outside and my house has no AC). It's not about where you buy it, but the quality matters. It was an eye opening experience when I left the 1 star review, the vendor keeps pinging me with bribe offers to take it down. So when you see even a little bump of 1 star reviews, you have to know that those are the people who have some integrity and there likely is a proportion missing.
• throw0101a 6y ago
  To paraphrase Winston Churchill: USB-C is the worst form of interface, except for all the others that have been tried. My pet peeve is nomenclature of USB versions: 3.2 Gen 1, Gen 2, 2x2, USB 4 Gen {2,3}x(1,2}.
  • duxup 6y ago
    Normally I'm not a fan of semi-silly short comments but man that really hits home for me. USB-C has simplified my life a great deal compared to all the others. It's not perfect, but the gains have been very significant compared to the past.
• josho 6y ago
  The solution, I believe, is rather simple. The standards group should require any cable/device with USB 3 support to include a label on its packaging detailing which capabilities of USB 3 are supported. Think of the nutrition labels on food packaging, instead showing what the device does and does not support, something like this: Power Delivery——–30w max Thunderbolt————No support Bandwidth————–800Mbps max Video———————4k / 30 fps
  • megous 6y ago
    Some of these values are determined only after hooking the devices together. The devices may support 5V/5A (25W) but cable may only support 3A (but it can do 36W at 12V/3A), after connecting the devices you'll get max 15W. :)
    • Dylan16807 6y ago
      A device using 5V/5A is nonstandard to an ugly extent but that's fine, because the actual spec of the cable is amps and there are only two options: 3 amps and 5 amps. And we could fold the thunderbolt/bandwidth/video into one single speed rating without much trouble, if the desire was there...
      • megous 6y ago
        What exactly is non-standard about it? https://megous.com/dl/tmp/a0538dc39724eb2e.png https://megous.com/dl/tmp/a0538dc39724eb2e.png
        • Dylan16807 6y ago
          https://images.anandtech.com/doci/11181/USB-PD.png https://images.anandtech.com/doci/11181/USB-PD.png https://i.stack.imgur.com/W8UGp.jpg https://i.stack.imgur.com/W8UGp.jpg Once you hit the soft cap of 3 amps, you're supposed to increase the voltage. The 3-5 amp range is only supposed to be used at 20 volts.
          • 6y ago
• Causality1 6y ago
  I hate the mess. You look at a type c port and you have no idea what it can do. I have a phone that can use it to move data at USB 2 speeds and supports Display Link video output. I have a phone that can output HDMI and charge while doing it using the proper adapter. I have a tablet that can't charge over it. I have another tablet that can charge over it but only at 400mA and uses a different port to charge at full speed.
• FatalLogic 6y ago
  Would it be possible for our existing USB-C interfaces (software and hardware) to provide more information to the user? I mean, could the UI tell us: (1) Your external device is <whatever class of device> and it requests power at 12V, minimum 15W, up to 40W, and it requests data at up to 100Mbps down/5Mbps up (2) Your cable promises to accept power at up to 25W, and data at up to 40Mbps bidirectional (3) I can offer power up to 60W, and data up to 500M/100M And, this is what we have negotiated (and what appears to be working): Data: 40M/5Mbps and Power: 12V/25W from host * * Is that feasible? It would be nice. I don't agree USB-C is a 'total mess' (the physical interface is quite good), but it is a sad disappointment. I hope it will get better.
  • megous 6y ago
    Yes, it is possible.
  • dafoex 6y ago
    And for manufacturers to accurately label what their devices can do, so there's no surprises when you read one thing only to find out its false and you can't get HDMI out of your phone
    • FatalLogic 6y ago
      That would also be good. The possibility that a USB-C device might support some extended standard, for video or high bandwidth or high power and so on, has been abused for marketing purposes, and now this is damaging the public perception of USB-C There would still be surprises when you plug in the wrong kind of cable, unfortunately, even if the device is honestly described
  • Tepix 6y ago
    It would be nice. But just trying to buy a DisplayPort 1.4 cable tells you that companies selling cables would rather sell you a "4K" DP cable instead of referring to the standard, leaving you non the wiser.
  • Kirby64 6y ago
    The power portion is already handled by USB-PD protocol. Part of the negotiation protocol is telling each side "what they can offer" and "what they accept" and picking the highest one that matches both sides. It often isn't displayed in software because I'm not sure there's a way (or at least a unified way) to display that back to a host processor. Data doesn't make sense since USB2 is USB2, there's no context on how 'fast' it is (besides USB high speed vs. standard speed). USB3/Thunderbolt/etc is more complicated, but that's also a tricky behavior. In principle, I agree that it would be nice if there was a unified software that could tell you what is negotiated and what an upstream device is 'looking for'. I imagine we might eventually get there... maybe... kinda depends on hardware vendors to enable that though.
• duxup 6y ago
  I love it... it has simplified things for me a great deal. There are some misc technical issues but as more and more devices only use USB-C things are getting simpler and simpler for me. Without a formal docking station both my laptops dock with a single USB-C, video, power, keyboard and mouse and all (FINALLY!). All my USB-C devices charge at a reasonable (even if not consistent) rate, all of them can take any of my batteries I can carry with a single cable.
• grillorafael 6y ago
  It simplified a lot for me I must say
• 3np 6y ago
  While it's a mess, my limited understanding is that as long as cables actually do what's advertised, the following three types should cover all scenarios (until TB4 is a real thing at least): * USB-C PD: For charging/PSUs * TB 3: TB stuff (displays/network/GPUs/etc) * USB 3.2 data: other data stuff
• dcchambers 6y ago
  USB-C is mostly a mess if you try to get away using the cheapest adapters/cables you can find, that often times won't follow the spec. Most of the issues vanish if you use high-end cables/adapters from reputable manufacturers. This is a departure from the world of Micro USB where most cheap cables worked just as good as "high end" cables. There are caveats. For example, my Nintendo Switch, a major electronics device from a major company, doesn't fully comply with the full USB-C PD spec. As a result, you can't assume any power adapter will work. It's these caveats that are the real downfall... for those of us in the technology world, it's easy for us to be aware of them. For everyone else, it's not. There's also the whole Thunderbolt 3 & 4 using USB-C thing. I do feel bad for non-technology people trying to wrap their heads around this one. In general, I've had good luck with USB-C. I can power my laptop and display to a 4K monitor with a single cable. It's awesome. I've also had plenty of frustrating experiences and weird USB bugs with certain hardware combinations. Despite some of the issues, I think it's still a net positive.
  • dafoex 6y ago
    Perhaps you're right, but when your £500 phone with brand new USB-C port doesn't support the so-called "killer app" you bought it for, its a bit of a pain. Luckily mine was refurbished and a few versions behind the current edition at the time, so I only paid £130 for a phone with no HDMI out.
  • quicklime 6y ago
    Another caveat is that many monitors have USB-C ports, but many (most?) cables do not support video. Even my cable from a luxury brand in Cupertino doesn't support it, so it's not just about sticking to famous brands. I'm not sure how a regular consumer is supposed to understand this. In the past, it wasn't possible to plug a VGA cable into a PS/2 port. Now, you just have to know these hidden properties of each cable.
    • rozab 6y ago
      A simple pictorial system for showing these capabilities should have been part of the spec, like how USB-A connectors must have the USB logo on the top. Most manufacturers complied with that.
• remote_phone 6y ago
  My friend and I ran into this mess over the last few weeks. I’m trying to find a longer cable for my MacBook. Right now the 2m cable that came with it is too short. So I started looking. I couldn’t find one that was at least 3m long from Apple and I couldn’t understand why. I had to look on Amazon and only these cheaper manufacturers made them. Except they are fully USB C, they are USB C 2.0 to USB C 3.0 or some nonsense like this. My friend went ahead and bought that and then it turned out that cable didn’t work for one of his laptops. Then he also wanted a USB C cable for his new external hard drive but in order to support it, it has a max length of 1m. If he chose a cable longer than that it would silently be slower. I previously ran into this issue last year with a usb c to usb 2 cable I had. It wouldn’t charge my Switch properly and I didn’t understand why until I read up on how the Switch needed a certain type of USB C cable and the cheaper cables weren’t compatible. The entire thing is a mess. There are some advantages definitely. My family has different laptops but they all support usb c, so now we only need to bring 1 charger on trips (when we eventually get to go on trips). The USB charger will also charge the Switch. That is a huge convenience. If you have top notch charger like the MacBook charger and top notch cables then it will probably work. But the operative word is “probably” and when it does it’s a huge hassle.
  • wlesieutre 6y ago
    I don't know about the higher wattage ones for the 87W or 96W chargers, but for the 60W adapter there are tons of 3m cable options including companies like Anker that make better cables than Apple does. For example: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0832DC7W8/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0832DC7W8/ And anyway, compare this to before USB-C. "My MacBook's magsafe cable isn't long enough, can I get a longer one?" No, it's soldered to the power brick, comes in only one length, costs $80 to replace the whole thing if the cable frays, and no reputable 3rd party options exist because it was Apple's special sauce patented power connector. I'll take USB-C over that.
• netcan 6y ago
  Douglas Adams on Dongly Things: http://douglasadams.com/dna/980707-03-a.html http://douglasadams.com/dna/980707-03-a.html Spolsky on Martian headsets: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/03/17/martian-headsets/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/03/17/martian-headsets/ It turns out that making power/data cables work without irritating the hell out humanity as a whole is a task that humans are uniquely unsuited to solving. We'll have to wait for AI or aliens to fix this. Meanwhile, stop expecting the next standard to work as a standard. Buy a nice little bag for housing your cables, dongles, adapters and such. Keep it stocked. Remember to throw out defunct ones biannually. The problem is not going away.
  • TOGoS 6y ago
    Douglas Adams wants a standard 12V connector? Those 2.1mm barrel plugs are basically that. Most any 12V LED strip you buy from amazon will come with jacks already attached and maybe include a power supply. Half the small electronic devices I buy (USB hubs, Ethernet switches, external hard drives) use it, though sometimes they want 9V instead of 12.
    • netcan 6y ago
      Yep, but if he was still around he'd still have to have articles about how he has rooms full of little dongly things and doesn't want any more. He was one of us. Believed problems like these could be solved. It turned out that the problem of having to own a collection of dongly things cannot be solved. It turns out that they are intrinsic to human nature.
• beckler 6y ago
  I really like interoperability and ubiquity of USB-C, but I think the part that I find frustrating is that the actual cables themselves are not standardized around data transfer rates. I recently bought a small USB-C hub that allowed you to connect to it with your own cable, and it has an HDMI port. I also decided to buy a longer, but cheaper USB-C cable to connect it to my machine, thinking it would work. Well the HDMI port wouldn't work at all. Everything else was fine. I actually ordered a replacement because I thought the hub was defective. Come to find out, it will only work with USB-C cables with e-marker that allows a higher data rate. This info wasn't clearly stated anywhere, it was only listed deep in a support post. So that was a fun discovery...
  • ses1984 6y ago
    It's a consequence of consolidating on a single connector format. It doesn't make economic sense for every cable with the same connector to support the same power or data rates. Sometimes you just need a phone charging cable, sometimes you want to charge and drive a laptop at over 100w, and sometimes you need to carry 4k60hz hdr video over 10ft which is pretty dang hard.
    • freeone3000 6y ago
      So now we're in a world where the cables have different functionality, but you can't tell them apart. So you have to keep the cable with the device it came with and you lose the benefit of having the single connnector format entirely!
      • shadowgovt 6y ago
        Key thing is in all three cases, the same cables work. The end nodes vary in capability, but it's nice I don't have to fish out my crescent-ended connector to differentiate from my flat-ended connector because I needed a higher transfer rate. One stack of USB-C cables lets me connect all my devices together. Whether they make sense connected together is up to me.
        • 6y ago
• joejohnson 6y ago
  I have had the opposite experience; USB-C is working fine for me on my MacBook Pro. I have a few legacy USB-A accessories that I can easily use an adapter for. Never had a problem.
• sto_hristo 6y ago
  All these additional standards stem from the simple fact that centralized governing bodies have no chance at making innovations as fast as independent private companies. I wish the USB IF would shift into higher gears.
• dafoex 6y ago
  Couldn't agree more. Will that HDMI dongle work with your device? Is it a Power Delivery port or just half an amp? Who the heck knows when the manufacturer themselves give conflicting information!
• shadowgovt 6y ago
  I don't think the issue is as hard as the author makes it out to be. 1) have device 2) have charger 3) plug device into charger 4) does it charge? 5) if no, write on charger "sucks" and get another charger If one is worried about buying the wrong charger, here's a hint: people review these things on online stores, and cheaper is worse.
  • nonbirithm 6y ago
    I bought a set of cables positively reviewed by Benson Leung for my new phone, and they worked fine. Recently I bought a new laptop and it doesn't charge with it, or any other USB cable in my place, except the one it came with, which is too short, and only ends in USB-C so I can't use it with any other power adapter I own. I don't know why it doesn't charge with any other cable. If not even Benson Leung's recommended cable works, what then? This is the frustration. All USB-C cables should have some bare minimum features that all of them supply, and be clearer about which ones have which features. Labeling it all the same USB-C leads to the frustration so many people are talking about.
    • shadowgovt 6y ago
      I mean, if there's a magic cable to charge just that one device, sounds like that device is broken.
      • nonbirithm 6y ago
        The thing is, if it was broken then none of the dozens of people who reviewed it mentioned it was broken at all. The device itself is everything I expected it to be, and I can still charge it with the included cable. The only issue is that it only charges with the provided cable and nothing else I've tried so far. I don't think this justifies invoking my warranty on it. It isn't a deal breaker, I've paid enough for it and I'm already starting to use it daily. But there seems to have been no way to know it was "broken" in this specific manner, maybe because nobody really felt the need to test with a different cable in their reviews. They probably just declared, "hey, it charges, so no problems there."
• cletus 6y ago
  USB-C is the dumbest thing ever and case in proof the foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. We went from a situation where no plug fits but if it does it works to a situation where every plug fits but none of them works. All USB-C cables appear identical but can be different. For example: - Does it carry power? If so, how much power? - Will it charge my device? Not all USB-C chargers charge all USB-C devices. - Does this cable carry data? If so, what speed? - Does it carry a Thunderbolt 3 signal? On Macbooks we lost utility when we lost Magsafe but "gained" the ability to plug power into any of the 2/4 ports. Frankly I'd rather have Magsafe. I'm sure that every port supporting power must increase cost. It has issues too as using ports on one side can lead to overheating, for example. And of course no cable can really do everything. The only cables that can are necessarily short (<0.5m) and expensive. I know. I use them for my Thunderbolt dock to my MBP. Where before I had the right ports on my MBP. Now? It's almost unusable without a dock or adapter. It's so dumb.
• EamonnMR 6y ago
  We used to have multiple incompatible chargers that looked different so you could tell them apart. Now you have multiple incompatible chargers that look the same, so you need to use trial and error to figure out what can charge what. It's a mess.
• giancarlostoro 6y ago
  I think one solution to the USB-C hell is to color them like USB 3.0 is colored blue. Color based on intended usage. If your phones port doesn't match the color there's a chance your phone's port will blow up. Otherwise, how the heck do you really know which cable is compatible with which device?
• billpg 6y ago
  A few years ago, I had a phone with a micro-USB port, along with a few tablets, portable batteries and other gadgets, all using micro-USB. I had chargers around the house, in my car and at my desk at work. Life was good. Then I upgraded by phone, to one with a USB-C port. Most of my chargers had a single USB port, so I would need to detach the cable if I wanted to switch device. That's if I had a cable to hand. I had invested in around 20 good quality micro-USB cables and now I needed more. Some chargers had the port integrated into the plug so that would be useless for the phone. In the end, I acquired a set of converters so I could put a little dongle on the end of each cable in case I wanted to charge the phone. I silently curse the USB people every time I attach or detach the extra tip. Frankly, the new connector was completely unasked-for. If the phone manufacturer had offered a choice between micro-USB or USB-C, I'd have gone for micro-USB every time. The ability to plug it in either way around just isn't enough to make it worth switching.
  • yyx 6y ago
    It would have been great to have micro-USB in the shape of USB-C. Without all those new features and extra pins so manufacturer could replace the port just by soldering to the same 5 traces. This could've been over within a year.
    • billpg 6y ago
      I was surprised to find the converters I purchased were so big because of the electronics inside. I had imagined a converter would just need to be a micro-USB socket and a USB-C plug with some wires joining the two together.
• oxplot 6y ago
  There are multiple aspects of USB-C. There's the charging standard USB-PD and data transfer standards (display, audio, data, etc). As far as charger spec goes, I am very happy. There are adapters that can supply multiple voltages, practically powering all my mobile devices. For all the other devices that come with barrel jacks, I made my own module to convert them to USB-C [1]. [1]: https://fpx.oxplot.com https://fpx.oxplot.com
• anticensor 6y ago
  Indeed it is a mess. A myriad of different kinds of cables that all have the same plug, but are in fact incompatible.
• chmike 6y ago
  I'm using an iPad and I can't read the article. When I click on the link I end up on the page message of the day. That's frustrating. It looks like medium is a Total Mess
• crazygringo 6y ago
  I'm just surprised there are still a lot of mainstream accessories that aren't available in USB-C. I bought a Logitech C920 webcam the other day (the most pouplar model)... and it's still only available in USB-A. If you want a Logitech webcam with USB-C, you've got to pay over twice as much for a model like their StreamCam. I'm happy to use dongles for HDMI or Ethernet when I have to. But the fact that I still have to use dongles with brand-new devices that are still only made in USB-A seems ridiculous. At this rate, I don't see how we're ever going to move on.
  • warmwaffles 6y ago
    > it's still only available in USB-A That's because it is still the most common type of port out there and it doesn't require a huge bandwidth that USB-C provides. If anything it would be overkill and over priced for what you get. I think logitech is waiting for USB-C to become more prevalent and the cost to manufacture to drop.
    • crote 6y ago
      The interesting thing is that for small-bandwidth applications, USB C isn't that difficult to add. Compared to USB A, it's literally a different connector and two additional resistors on the CC pins. The power / data pins of USB C are completely compatible with USB 2.0.
      • pantalaimon 6y ago
        Most computers only have 1-2 USB-C ports, but plenty USB-A ones. You would not want to 'waste' a high-speed port for a webcam.
        • crote 6y ago
          Yeah, it's a chicken-and-egg problem. As long as most devices are A, most ports will be A as well. And until C ports are more common, it's no use making C devices. That's made even worse because adapters for C female to A male are explicitly forbidden by the specs, so there's no cheap way to support both. A manufacturer could put a female C port on the device and ship both C-to-C and C-to-A cables, but that's expensive.
• NelsonMinar 6y ago
  There's a simpler but similar problem with HDMI cables now. Over the years new versions of HDMI keep coming out with higher bandwidth to support higher resolutions. But there's no way to look at a cable and tell what HDMI version it supports. These days HDMI 2.0 is minimal but you want HDMI 2.1 if you want to support HDR10 or anything over 4K@60. There's also a bunch of side features in HDMI (like CEC) that are not reliably implemented.
  • edoceo 6y ago
    I've got some HDMI cable that only works in one direction. Fortunately the ends are labeled Source and Display.
• delfinom 6y ago
  The problem is everyone is trying to make USB-C everything while completely ignoring price points. Nobody wants a fucking $100 cable that's going to wear out for basic fuck-it purposes. So you start to create production segmentation. Then it couples into directly shit like Microsoft refusing to implement PD in Surface Books because they do not trust on the market cables to safely handle the 100W they need without catching fire and there's no way to verify. Or do you what other vendors do and "fork" PD so that you can make sure both devices are yours strictly. Sadly it seems there is a march to making cables even more expensive to duck tape on more solutions.
• kome 6y ago
  it's funny, because for me USB-C is not a thing in my life, everything I use is basically standard usb (mouse, keyboard, stick) - and for headphones i still use the jack.
• princevegeta89 6y ago
  I will leave Apple products out of the equation, because I think they're a mess in terms of changing ports with every generation. Maybe that's what the OP is worried about. USB-C has really simplified a lot of things: - Which way do I plug in? Any way. - Can I charge my new Ultrabook laptop with the same cable as my phone? Most certainly. - Is the port easy to recognize? Yes, just give it a quick look - Forget the Micro USB from now on? Yes I'd say we're still at 70% along the transition, but compared to other solutions the C is way better and more convenient.
• worldmerge 6y ago
  After moving to USB C for my phone, I'm so over Micro USB and can't wait till devices like ESP32s use USB C.
• ben7799 6y ago
  All I know is my 2018 15" MBP is flaky as heck plugging in docks, monitors, keyboards, etc.. through the various USB-C dongles & docks. It almost never just plugs in and everything works. Sometimes you have to plug/unplug more than once, sometimes you have to wake/sleep the laptop, sometimes the Mac kernel panics. I have 2 docks at home and have gone through 2 at work that cost as much as $300-400 (OWC and similar) and it's just flaky no matter what. How do you blame the adapters, docks, whatever when some of them cost as much as a chromebook or a cheap windows laptop? All these dongles and adapters used to not even be required, something's really wrong when they cost as much as another machine and you still can't get things working as well as they worked in the past. Realistically I had less trouble docking my Windows laptop in the late 90s than I do with this MBP. That would have been with 1 monitor instead of 2 but otherwise all the same peripherals. The only other USB-C device we have is a switch.. we've never tried to use it with anything but the nintendo chargers/devices so I guess we've just been lucky.
• can16358p 6y ago
  I didn't have any problems with USB-C other than trying to charge my Momentum 3 with MacBook Pro's charger (which simply doesn't work as apparently Momentum doesn't support PD), which isn't a real annoyance in daily life. Sure, it's not perfect, but for most of the use cases it "just works", and I honestly believe it solves more problems than it creates even with its flaws.
• Tokkemon 6y ago
  And here I am still using DVI to run my monitors...
  • jaclaz 6y ago
    ... and I am using VGA, maybe we should be categorized as protected species ...
• baybal2 6y ago
  I can recommend one amazingly deal of a charger: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001218252042.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001218252042.html 120W type-c PD+QC
• ourcat 6y ago
  I'd say the spec is fine. It's the implementations of it that's a mess. Mostly when it comes to the different voltages they can be set to provide. Here's a video I saw recently which explains all about USB-C 'PD' (Power Delivery): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iumAnPiQSj8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iumAnPiQSj8
  • falcolas 6y ago
    The spec drives the implementation. The greater the complexity of the spec, the fewer implementations will get it right, and those that do will be expensive.
• Robotbeat 6y ago
  Solution: USB-C is basically only used for charging and all data is done wirelessly (Bluetooth or WiFi 6).
• helen___keller 6y ago
  I like that with USB-C my wife and I can share a hotdesk office with monitor and peripherals connected by a USB-C hub, despite her using a windows laptop and I a Macbook. No more dongle hell. On the other hand I was incredibly meticulous about vetting this hub before I purchased it because I know the positive experience is not universal.
• vlovich123 6y ago
  USB-C isn't a utopia in terms of fixing the USB complexity. All it truly solved was the connector problem which by itself is HUGE in retrospect and not something I appreciated. If you thought the transition from ATA -> SATA or PCI, PCI + AGP, PCI-E path was bad, imagine trying to move an industry like USB that has USB1.0, USB2.0, USB3.0, USB3.1 and deals with peripheral components that change at an even slower cadence than internal ones (computers are something like 3-5 years, peripherals are like 3-10). By comparison mobile has had a life span of ~1-3 years (slowing down I think as there's plenty of 3-5 year users now & their numbers grow every year). The 1-3 cycle only happens for as long as you have a growing user-base & the churn is required for rapid change to be possible (the market economics support it). When I think about the market dynamics, USB-C is a critical backbone you had to land first (which I didn't see when it was first being pushed on us in the consumer electronics industry). USB4 is going to clean some of it up. Without it we were never going to get away from the mess we were in. That being said, USB-C is still a big too big. That's why Apple hasn't moved. The question will be if the next push will be for contactless data transfer or a smaller connector. It'll depend on whether mobile needs the space (& again - even mobile is losing its power to power such a transition) & whether major consumer electronics will identify new small form-factor markets that require a smaller connector. If the Apple Watch/AirPods is any model for how these will work, then no. So we'll get USB5 & USB6, but it'll be "boring" transitions like it is with Ethernet RJ45 cables (Cat 4, Cat 5, Cat 6, Cat 6e, Cat7) etc. Some of the customer complexity will be trickier to navigate if the labelling piece isn't addressed for cables & ports (otherwise you get an alphabet soup of standard names supported by a given cable/port & what the peripheral requires). These are hopefully more manageable problems though (although more tricky than Ethernet). One could imagine where you have different classes to describe power the cable & port can run, a different class of the functionality supported (power only, peripherals, peripherals + displays). Peripheral speeds here would be > than ethernet so we're also potentially going to see USB-C consume the space of ethernet ports. This happened in laptops but it'll be trickier in PC form factors. Everything you'd plug into is RJ45 anyway & ethernet is significantly cheaper on a $/ft basis since it's cheaper. Maybe it'll intercept when consumer ethernet starts to be 10gigabit/s or 100gigabit/s (if USB4/5/6/ supports the speed & lengths needed & the cost is comparable, they'd probably just layer it over that). I remember working with 1gigabit and 10gigabit/s in 2009 at QCOM when the Cat6 standard for Gigabit had just come out & gigabit has only became prevalent in the past few years. You naturally want to consolidate these things as a business to simplify your costs if your sell-through is into a market with very long cycles. Any market that has more iteration. Wireless comms will be that a for a bit until BT & WiFi eat everything they haven't already (& potentially WiFi will eat BT eventually). Proprietary cheap connectors/wireless in the ultra low-cost niches will be the longest holdouts but even then they'll struggle as the customer demand will probably prefer the standard name it sees everywhere else.
• wlll 6y ago
  I absolutely loath it. I have a new 16" Macbook Pro, I had a 2014 Macbook Pro. I now have to buy a crap ton of adapters to get the same functionality as I had in 2014, and sometimes they don't work. I don't know why, they are meant to, but they don't. Also, Magsafe was a game changer. If I had a choice between USB-C and ports-o-plenty as I had on my 2014 MBP I would choose the latter.
  • falcolas 6y ago
    Agreed. I've been on a macbook pro with USB-C only for about 4 years now, and I am still using a dock to provide 3 USB-A, a HDMI, and an ethernet port, plus power, and plus a dongle to run a USB headset adapter.
• djhaskin987 6y ago
  It was WORSE with USB micro, WORSE. - All the same problems: not all USB micro are created equal, some are supposed to be used at different voltages - But some cables for peripherals didn't use micro they used normal USB, which was hard to put in because you always got which way was up mixed up, that's gone now :) - What's worse, all the USB micro cables eventually bent because they were so flimsy. 6 months shelf life, maximum. - And they weren't symmetrical either So now we have a cable that's symmetrical, that you can use for peripherals and power. Yes, different power cables disguised as the same is still a problem, but this is a step in the right direction if you ask me. The only thing I don't like is that now peripherals are smaller and easier to get unplugged, like my HDMI to USB-C that I'm using right now for one of my monitors.
  • kart23 6y ago
    Usb micro was such a garbage cable. After 6 months of using my phone, the connector action felt completely smooth, and you could pull the cable out with no force. usb-c has been much better, feels much more consistent and has a satisfying click.
• ycombonator 6y ago
  The male adapter is so thin it breaks if you hang even a moderately heavy cable or hub. I have to think about keeping the hub flush with the laptop each time I use it. What a mess.
• unixhero 6y ago
  It has simplified everything...
• physicsguy 6y ago
  My wife has a HP laptop from work that charges through USB-C. I have a Dell XPS from work that can charge by USB-C (because I have a dock for it which does that), but if I plug her charger in, it doesn't work. It's a mess.
• sammycdubs 6y ago
  Three things I love about USB-C 1. Charging is like 90% of what I use cables for, and I can just have the same cable for everything 2. USB-C displays are fantastic, one cable to my MacBook that handles charging, display output, USB-A ports etc 3. The only time I ever use USB-C ports for anything other than charging is from my MacBook, and so far every adapter/display etc has just worked
• Adferdfqwer 6y ago
  Oo
• tzs 6y ago
  Q1: would it be possible to make a dongle that when plugged into a USB-C port negotiates for maximum power and tells you what the port can do? Q2: can it also do this for speed? (I'm not sure if there is a speed negotiation like there is for power, and even if there is I'm not sure if it would depend on the use--e.g., maybe a particular port supports a different maximum speed for network devices than it does for mass storage devices) Q3: Can a similar thing be done for cables? A box you plug both ends of a cable into, and it tells you how much power you can put over the cable, and how fast it can go? Q4: could these things be made small enough and cheap enough that it would be reasonable to expect nearly everyone to get them? The above devices, plus readily available USB-C one to many hubs [1], would fix most problems people have with USB-C. [1] Most USB-C hubs connect one USB-C port on your computer to many non-USB-C ports. Most that do have a USB-C port on the other side only have one (and sometimes that one is power only, not data).
• osigurdson 6y ago
  It is reasonable for device A's charger not to successfully charge device B. Damaging device B, on the other hand, is not acceptable.
• cnst 6y ago
  The biggest problem is Apple. They've removed USB-A from their laptops close to 5 years ago, because USB-C is the future. They've also removed the headphone jack from iPhone; however, the USB-C is still nowhere to be found. Why?! The end result is that we can charge a MacBook with a ThinkPad power adapter, but no longer have MagSafe; have been using ugly adapters on MacBooks for close to 5 years now -- with no end in sight, yet still cannot use the same headset for both a MacBook and an iPhone. Ironically, from this perspective, Android is now more compatible with a MacBook than an iPhone is -- my USB-A headphones with the USB-A-to-USB-C adapter can be plugged directly into either my Android or my MacBook, without any extra adapters, other than the permanently-attached USB-A-to-USB-C one. (Of course, the opposite isn't true -- and the USB-C adapter for the headsets from my phone doesn't work in a MacBook, but at least the opposite way everything works.)
• yabones 6y ago
  The most important thing the Gen-X'ers did for widespread adoption of technology was making things 'shapes and colours' easy. The rectangle peg goes in the rectangle hole. The red wire goes into the red socket. Any kindergarten graduate could plug their peripherals into their PC with little or no expertise because the only way they could connect was the right way. Before this, everything was DB9 or DB25, and a complete mess of electrical compatibility despite common connectors. Now, we find ourselves in the same position, the same connectors everywhere but inexplicable incompatibility. That's my hot take: USB-C is just Millennial DB-9.
• skratlo 6y ago
  Stop bitching, every device comes with a cable and charger, or at least it should, so use that until we reach utopia with just 1 standard, all pens will be blue, all people white, blond with blue eyes.
• anticristi 6y ago
  Indeed, the apparent simplicity on the physical layer has moved the complexity onto the logical layer. I love the article, and it made me aware of a lot of things I didn't know. However, my experience with USB-C is way better. I use the same charger for my laptop, pad and phone. I even use the same screen (with integrated docking station) for both my laptop and my phone (yay Samsung DeX), both at work and at home. This would have been impossible / unimaginable half-a-decade ago. (Anyone remember the "Lenovo-type" docking station vs. the "Dell-type" docking station?) I agree that USB-C still has challenges to overcome, but I find the direction so-far to be the right one.
• coryfklein 6y ago
  Apple MacBooks with USB-C are standard issue for everyone at our company. You know what else is standard issue? A f$#%ing dongle so you can actually plug anything into said laptop. I can't help but think that all these folks saying, "oh it's so nice, everything I've ever wanted to plug in runs on USB-C" represent a tiny minority of the real world. The only two cables I own that can plug into my laptop connect it to: 1) the charger that came with it and 2) the aforementioned dongle That's it. And no, I'm not going to drop a bunch of cash upgrading monitors, phone cables, keyboards, and mice to get rid of the dongle. Especially when the "USB-C compatible" ones all cost twice as much.
  • kstrauser 6y ago
    What's wrong with that, though? Of course there's going to be a while where we have to deal with both standards, but that's true of everything. I have a USB A-to-C hub sitting on my desk. It's plugged into my Mac Mini's USB-C port, and all the legacy stuff plugs into it. That's not such a terrible situation.
    • coryfklein 6y ago
      Things wrong with dongles: 1) You have to select them (not an easy task when trying to make sure it has all the compatible ports and power requirements) 2) Increases the number of things you can forget to bring that can make your laptop unusable/less useable 3) They detract from the clean Apple aesthetic 4) They increase the cost of your setup, sometimes significantly if you want to match the Apple quality. MacBooks certainly didn't get cheaper when they switched to USB-C only. I did not have any dongles before Apple moved to USB-C, so I didn't have to deal with any of the above. Also, none of these things needed to happen! Apple could have done what they usually do - gradually transition. Add 1-2 USB-C and then only eliminate the other ports when most folks could do without. EDIT: One more thing to add - this "transition period" is probably going to last 10+ years for me because I bought a $350 Kinesis Advantage keyboard with a USB Type A connector. It's a solid keyboard that I expect will live at least 10 years.
    • zajio1am 6y ago
      > What's wrong with that, though? Of course there's going to be a while where we have to deal with both standards, but that's true of everything. Reasonable way how to handle transition period is to have computers with both USB-A and USB-C sockets, not just USB-C sockets and dongles.
• 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
  I wish I could just have one port. When at home, the port would go to a hub, and the hub connects a few monitors, a keyboard, a mouse, and power. Out and about, the hub would go to power. Sadly, on my expensive as hell, powerful work supplied macbook pro, I need to plug three different USB-C dongles in to get multiple monitors, and I have to plug the USB keyboard and USB mouse into separate dongles, and power into a third. Why? I don't know. It's just the only way it works.
• ogre_codes 6y ago
  Most of the rest of the issue is buying cheap adaptors and cheap cables. Get a name brand cable and verify what they are capable of. If you buy a $3 "MOKiN" brand USB-C cable and it won't charge your device, you've basically self-owned. Likewise any number of random cables on Amazon. Lots of decent brands out there who make cables that do what they say they will do: Belkin, Monoprice, Anker, etc. Another tip I got which is worth it's weight in cable in this case: If you need both USB-C and Thunderbolt cables, get different colors of cable and be consistent about it. I know a guy who buys all his cables in specific colors (even when the adaptor is different) so he can reach into his gear bag and get the right thing every time.
• jbay808 6y ago
  Even if it's a total mess, I have to say: it blows my mind that I can hook up my Thinkpad to an external GPU over USB-C, and all the necessary data makes a round trip to render an image on the laptop monitor within the frame update time, and it powers the ThinkPad at the same time over the same thin little cable. And it automatically detects the graphics card when I plug it in and identifies it with no hassle. Unbelievable.
• Tepix 6y ago
  I tested all my Micro USB cables and threw away those that wouldn't allow quick charging with >5V. Now with USB-C I'm reading some reports about problem but so far it's been good. I'm still optimistic that eventually all devices with USB C ports will support the full feature set on every port (nowadays that seems to be Thunderbolt 4, Displayport Alt etc). But that's just me being optimistic :-)
• GoOnThenDoTell 6y ago
  More detail on the mess https://people.kernel.org/bleung/now-how-many-usb-c-to-usb-c-cables-are-there-usb4-update-september-12 https://people.kernel.org/bleung/now-how-many-usb-c-to-usb-c...
• rStar 6y ago
  i blame the engineers
• aj7 6y ago
  “How any normal person is supposed to grasp this soup of standards, built atop a single port that looks the same, is anyone’s guess.” How is any normal person gonna buy 3/8” shrink wrap tubing, a heat gun, and strain relief a batch of Lightning cables every 6 months? So they don’t last 3 months. I know it’s irrelevant.
• aow9rawo9rj 6y ago
  I like it I bought the original USB-C-only Macbook and I loved it. Now I have a Macbook Pro at home and another Macbook Pro at work, four Thunderbolt ports on each. I think the big problem is the fact that it's still very implementation dependent and, as the author said, it's easy to get peripherals (particularly power-related) that don't do what you expected them to do. Then again, I have the same problem with USB1&2. How many times have you bought a cable and found that it only carries power, not data, because it only has two wires inside? That has happened to me dozens of times over the past decade. Still happens today. But when you get peripherals that work, USB-C and Thunderbolt3 are terrific. I don't use and peripherals at home. I have a dock on my desk at work that gives me gigabit ethernet, external keyboard and mouse, external hard drive, two displays, power, and headphones all through one Thunderbolt cable that takes one second to plug or unplug. It's terrific. I remember old men ranting when the iMac didn't have a floppy drive, how it needed more serial ports, parallel ports, and fewer USB ports because no one uses USB, it's too expensive and it's never going to be practical. Those arguments didn't age well. USB-C is rolling out more slowly than previous options, but it is rolling out and it's terrific.
• mlang23 6y ago
  In my limited experience, I feel the contrary. Since I have my USB-C dock, I actually ditched my desktop. Something that took me until 2019 to actually pull off. One cable for power and all the data transfer I will ever need.
• d1zzy 6y ago
  USB-C as a connector in certain situations is pretty awesome. A single USB-C TB3 connection between a Macbook Pro and a USB-C dock has allowed me (since COVID19 work from home lockdown started) to: * charge the laptop * drive 2 1440p @ 60 monitors * connect 6 USB2 peripherals * have 1Gbit wired ethernet connection to my router (for low latency and stable connectivity for all that remote desktop work) One of the monitors connects over USB-C to the dock and that carries video signal and USB upstream so I could plug even more USB-A devices in the monitor if I wanted to. Imagine how many cables and what a mess would be to get this many peripherals connected to a laptop without TB3, now I just plug one cable to the laptop, very impressive.
• johnwalkr 6y ago
  I'm loving USB-C. I travel a lot and invested a few new devices and even upgraded a few devices to USB-C (you can find small boards on aliexpress which provide a usb-c port and output 5, 9, 12, 15 or 20V). Even my shaver charges by USB-C. However it takes some research, and I wish the spec was pared down more. Others mentioned that Nintendo switch can be damaged by a bad charger. They also chose to implement HDMI out using displayport converted to HDMI, so very few HDMI adapters are compatible. Thunderbolt vs USB is confusing. Hubs are confusing. USB-C hubs are basically impossible. USB2 or 3 hubs work well but share the speed and power with multiple devices. Easy to understand. USB-C (3.2) can supply up to 100W and 20Gbps. But one device can use up to 100W, and one 4k@60fps HDMI signal can use up to 20Gbps (even more in fact). So it's not possible to make a usb-c hub without a lot of limitations. Not to mention it's not trivial to set each device as a power sink or source. That's why hubs generally have usb-c on one side and usb-a 2.0 or 3.1 on the other side. I don't know what the solution could be, you can't keep the versatility without removing functionality.
• f43g34g3444 6y ago
  The author is the dumbest person on planet. USB-C is great and I never had any issues with it. Guys with 0 IQ should be banned from writing technical articles.
• exabrial 6y ago
  The only "total mess" is the fact that Apple is having an internal struggle to keep their lightning port on their keyboards and phone. Affects only those who subject themself to the problem.
• Asmod4n 6y ago
  One solution could be to color codes the cables, so you see if it can support thunderbolt, charging or display port. And then different colours for the speed they support. Same could be done with the connectors on the device you want to put them in. But I guess at least Apple wouldn't adopt them and simply support everything on every port and cable they sell, making their devices and cables more expensive but easier for customers.
• dghughes 6y ago
  Dell laptops at my old job used a WD15 dock for peripherals and power. All over a frail USB-C connector that often failed, or the dock failed. I don't know what to fault Dell's design or USB-C or both but it made for busy days. But a three inch long connector sticking out from the side of a laptop is a lever and bound to go crunch!
• bleepblorp 6y ago
  In practice, the consumer-facing names of USB standards are dark patterns that allow manufacturers to scam customers without needing to make many (or any) product improvements. For instance, take the fact that USB 3 and USB 3.1 Gen 1 are functionally equivalent and Gen 2 support (which brings with it the only actual improvements in USB 3.1) is an optional part of the USB 3.1 standard. The functional impact of this arrangement is that manufacturers could take USB 3.0 products, slap a 'USB 3.1' label on them, and market them as New and Improved for only the cost of new markings and marketing material. Nice money if you can get it. USB-C is even worse because every feature that end users actually want is optional and, in some cases (such as DP alternate mode lane support), isn't even listed in the fine print. Customers who don't have the awareness to spend many hours doing detailed research will very easily find themselves stuck in an expensive game of trial and error to buy USB-C devices that will actually work together. Nice money if you can get it. Like most modern tech products, the entire USB ecosystem reeks of the distinct smell of extractive scam.
• llamataboot 6y ago
  I am literally a senior programmer and I still cannot wrap my head around USB-C. Is this a PD cable? Is this Thunderbolt 3? Is this DisplayPort-over-USB? Is this cable too long to be fast? Oh, this cable doesn't work for power. Oh that's actually not a power-equipped USB-C slot. Does this hub work? Oh, it only works for ports, not video. Etc etc etc. I've literally taken to color-coding cables to know which ones I can use where, and if I just stuck to macs and high-end cables, sure, fine, but I have about 10 other devices that have "things" that plug into USB-C slots, but what those things can do and what they need to do them... It's not helpful that Amazon has become a sludge of crappy products with fake reviews. Even I've ended up lulled in a few times and picked up something that just didn't work as specified at all.
• therealmarv 6y ago
  BTW where are USB-C hubs? It's 2020 and we cannot buy real USB-C hubs. Very seldom there is one... but they are hard to find (and often not good).
• montzark 6y ago
  USB-C is awesome. Quite cheap (40€) 20000 mAh Xiaomi power bank can output 20V/45W so I can use it to charge my T480s. Also bought cheap usb-c Power Delivery modules (can output 5/9/12/15/20V) which I used to provide power for my TS100 soldering iron. Combined with the power bank it's now a portable soldering iron. TS80 has usb-c even built in, no module needed.
• bmurphy1976 6y ago
  My Honda Odyssey has Android Auto support. It only works if I plug the USB-C end of the cable into my Pixel 3 in one orientation. If I rotate it 180º the systems can't connect. I have yet to figure out why this is the case, but it's supremely frustrating when a reversible cable is not in fact reversible.
  • avhon1 6y ago
    USB-C cables are only required to have the basic USB 2.0 differential pair on one side (the "top") of the connector. The mirror pair of pins in the connector are not connected to anything. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USB_Type-C_plug_pinout.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USB_Type-C_plug_pino... (Note the empty pair of pins on the bottom-center, right below "D-" and "D+".) USB-C receptacles have the two locations this pair could end up in cross-wired, so that an electrical connection is made whether the cable is plugged in with the data pair on the top side or on the bottom. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USB_Type-C_Receptacle_Pinout.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USB_Type-C_Receptacl... (Note how "D-" and "D+" are mirrored top-center and bottom-center.) This is more complicated than previous versions of USB, where there was exactly one pin that could be connected to D+ and one that could be connected to D-. If a manufacturer designed a USB-C device like this, with only one of two possible data pairs connected, then the cable will only work when plugged in "data-conductor side up". When plugged in "data-conductor side down", the D+ and D- conductors will be in unconnected pins in the receptable, and the unconnected pins in the cable will be in the receptacle's connected pins. If this is actually what happened in your car, and you're the adventurous sort, you could possibly fix this by soldering two "bodge wires" to your minivan's USB port, one shorting the two D+ pins together, and the other shorting the two D- pins together.
• mikbiggy 6y ago
  The 'U' in USB is wrong, there's nothing universal in USB.
• laksdjfkasljdf 6y ago
  This is not a USB-C problem. Manufacturers treating users as stupid is the problem. USB-C is only one aspect. If you look at specs from Apple, Nintendo and random-knock of brands from aliba.com, you will see that they only mention the ports. nothing else. Apple will sometime use a vague spec, like the wattage. Now look at USB-C specs from HP and other more reputable sources. They will specify all the PD profiles, which thunderbolt version is supported, how many lanes, etc. The same happens with WiFi devices. You will be lucky if lesser brands even mention the protocol, let alone antennae and MIMO details! Same can be said of Bluetooth (from cars to headsets!) which will not say if they implement a specific profile or not, but will plaster "BLUETOOTH 5.0" on the box. The irony, is that consumers see Apple and other offenders as having better products. Just look at this thread on how the very top voted comment is someone glad that it is convenient, even though the first reply to it is trying to explain how they can fry their devices, only to be replied by someone saying "i don't care, it worked fine with the one charger i tried".
• billti 6y ago
  The article mentions Power Delivery being present/not present as a compat issue, but even without Power Delivery, the amount of power a USB-C port can provide is inconsistent. From Wikipedia: VBUS and GND provide 5 V up to 900 mA, in accordance with the USB 3.1 specification. A specific USB-C mode may also be entered, where 5 V at either 1.5 A or 3 A is provided.[55] A third alternative is to establish a Power Delivery contract. I spent hours trying to find how to add a USB-C port to my PC that supports the 15W (5V at 3A) one of my VR devices requires, and about gave up. (You're lucky if most motherboard or add-in card even tell you how much power they can deliver). I get the desire to make the spec flexible so it can be simple/cheap when the extra speed & juice isn't needed, but it is really a confusing mess, and not helpful to consumers who just think "Oh it has a USB-C port. That'll work then". I believe USB 4 was created to try to reduce this fragmentation and confusion, but not much in the way of implementation yet. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB4)
• ziml77 6y ago
  Let's not pretend that this is some new issue that has arisen from USB-C. There were plenty of identical connectors (or ones that would fit together at least) in the past that were absolutely incompatible to the point of risking frying your electronics. At least with USB-C, if a capability can't be matched between the connected devices and the cable, it just doesn't work. Nothing will go up in a puff of smoke. And for anyone complaining about needing different chargers for your phone and laptop, how is that any worse than before? You needed to do the same before USB-C. Now at least you have the option to plug your phone into your laptop charger. (Though if your complaint about USB-C for laptop charging is in regards to fragility, then I agree. I'm afraid I'm going to break them. Never had that thought about a barrel plug)
• dirtnugget 6y ago
  Most annoying thing for me is that they just lose their grip over time, just like Micro-USB did. I bought a late 2016 Macbook Pro which was the first to sport USB-C. After a good two years with admittedly heavy usage, both of them were flimsy enough to develop regular dropped connections to monitor and power. This is something which seems to be near impossible to do on a 2015 machine with HDMI/USB-A/Magsafe.
• ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  USB-C felt like it forgot the entire design intention of previous cable standards: That connectors had a direct relationship to functionality. When you build a PC, generally parts and cables only fit in places that they will function. When plugging devices into a computer, historically if you plug them in where they fit, it works. USB-C's decision to buck this behavior made it more confusing for users, not less.
• jscipione 6y ago
  My problem with USB-C is that the physical connector wears out over about a year of regular use becoming loose and unreliable. Until that is fixed, USB-C will be substandard.
• chx 6y ago
  If you have any questions come on over to https://www.reddit.com/r/usbchardware https://www.reddit.com/r/usbchardware
• m463 6y ago
  I believe USB-C was a power-grab (literally and figuratively) by companies with proprietary agendas. It's unfortunate they don't have strong strong interoperability requirements.
• pkamb 6y ago
  > Why can't I find a USB-C hub with multiple USB-C ports? https://superuser.com/q/1381139/122042 https://superuser.com/q/1381139/122042
• ojosilva 6y ago
  Funny, I was hoping the article would address one of my main gripes with USB-C, but it didn't: the ports and plugs are dust magnets! Sometimes fluff in the port causes the plug to losely attach, making the cable fall off or simply not charging a phone overnight even when apparently connected. A lot of my friends have this issue with their phones, the port is too deep and rounds dirt up from fabric in your pocket. USB-C requires cleaning like no other plug I ever owned. And in general, dust or no dust, it feels like a flimsy plug. Even the shorter micro USB typically snapped vigorously at their ports. I think these physical design flaws are also quite an oversight for something that wants to be the plug-to-end-all-plugs.
• Scapeghost 6y ago
  I immensely prefer USB-C to any of the alternatives.
• Tade0 6y ago
  My experience with USB-C so far has been great, barring two things: If I plug my phone to my laptop when the latter is on battery power it's basically a coin toss which will be charging which. It's not noticeably more durable than micro USB. The jump isn't as great as from e.g. Mini USB, which was a nightmare in this regard.
• FractalParadigm 6y ago
  The article misses my biggest gripe with USB-C - cables can come in both 2.0 and 3.0 in addition to Thunderbolt, with absolutely no way to distinguish the link speed by looking at the cable itself. I have 10 or so USB-C cables littered about the house in different lengths, I had to mark the only two that support 3.0 speeds. It also doesn't mention the issues we see in USB-A to USB-C cables, where cheaper cables often 'forget' the pullup resistor required to prevent device damage[0]. [0]: https://www.howtogeek.com/240777/watch-out-how-to-buy-a-usb-type-c-cable-that-wont-damage-your-devices/ https://www.howtogeek.com/240777/watch-out-how-to-buy-a-usb-... - Does anyone know if this is still an issue? I haven't heard anything further in a couple years but I would assume it still rings true.
  • FractalParadigm 6y ago
    I actually thought of another one similar to my first gripe - they need to label the link speed and the amount of power the cable can sustain. I found another couple of cables I had marked (and very rarely used) because they won't give anything more than 5V3A. Some are only rated at 60W.
• ksec 6y ago
  I hope Apple keep using Lighting on its iPhone.
• Adferdfqwer 6y ago
  Oooa
• Hippocrates 6y ago
  The usb-c pd/non pd compat issues are infuriating for me. I have a lot of devices that act funky when paired with the wrong charger.. plus it is physically inferior to lightning (durability, size, sturdiness). I see people clamoring for usb-c on iPhones. I hope that doesn’t happen. My lightning iDevices seem to be the only things that I can pack one charger for. I hope we can skip usb-c and get the next thing right.
• nickflood 6y ago
  Nobody mentions that USB-C enabled the production of laptop power banks. They are such a help for when you travel and want to work on a long flight or a train ride. Power rating is a mess, and manufacturers are all trying to mislead the consumer as much as they can about it, so I agree, it's a mess if you don't research it thoroughly. But I do research it, and my life is much better with it.