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I genuinely don’t understand how I’ve managed to be so lucky. That is, I absolutely do not disbelieve the many tales of woe I hear on HN (like the many in this

I genuinely don’t understand how I’ve managed to be so lucky. That is, I absolutely do not disbelieve the many tales of woe I hear on HN (like the many in this thread) - but I’ve literally never put any thought into what cable I plug in to what device, and had no trouble that I can recall. It really had lived up to its hype for me so far. My USB-C devices are: a wireless charger, two MacBooks (one intel, one m1), a Pixelbook, Nintendo Switch, Oculus Quest and Quest 2, iPad Pro, and the charging case of some earphones… I think that’s everything. Oh, and my partner’s phone and headphones too. Anyway - I’ve cables and chargers dotted around the house, plus some A-C ones for use with power bricks - and never had any grief powering/charging any device from any of them. What am I doing right? I’m definitely not only plugging Apple devices into Apple cables and so on.

topspin 5y ago
"What am I doing right?" Maybe not buying the cheapest cables available on the bottom of the Amazon barrel. But I can't know that. Maybe you are and your place will burn down next week. Who knows?
- darrenf 5y ago
  > Maybe not buying the cheapest cables available on the bottom of the Amazon barrel. That is definitely true. Given how many of my devices came with their own cables - presumably decent quality - I haven't needed to buy any 3rd party cables.
Latty 5y ago
Same deal. I've switched everything I can to USB-C, and so far had literally zero issues. Obviously my phone charger will charge a laptop more slowly, but I had that issue with micro-USB and Kindle chargers that couldn't charge a phone faster than it used the power, so hardly anything new or unexpected.
jayd16 5y ago
Its really not as big an issue as the comments make it seem. Of the devices listed, I can only think of Oculus Link to a Quest 2 using USB3 speeds in a noticeable way.
sedatk 5y ago
I noticed that a couple of days ago when I was able to charge my Surface Laptop with my iPad's USB-C charger. While Surface Laptop already has a proprietary charging port, it also supports charging through USB-C. Seamlessness of the whole experience was very impressive.
steve_adams_86 5y ago
I discovered my camera doesn’t charge unless it’s USB type A to USB type C. I think that’s the only weird thing I’ve encountered in my USB experiences. It’s the paralenz dive camera. There might even be good reasons for it, but I couldn’t guess.
- prawn 5y ago
  I have a camera on a Ronin SC gimbal. The gimbal needs to connect to the camera via two USB-C ports using a specific cable (at one end). Still generally stuck with an array of cables (hard drives, charging cameras, headlamps, legacy iPads, etc).
tenacious_tuna 5y ago
I don't think the issues normally present when just charging--I'd say charging is the simplest task. But when I tried to plug a USB C monitor into my mabook the other day I went through every C cable in the house to no avail, despite the fact they all do USB C PD just fine.
- zlsa 5y ago
  For Alternate Mode to work, only cables with high-speed lanes will work (aka USB 3.0 cables). Power Delivery doesn't need these high-speed lanes at all.
  - tenacious_tuna 5y ago
    I figured it was something like that :) but that does nicely illustrate the problem of C: despite the fact that the ports are all the same, there's reliable way to know if a cable will work for the purpose I'm going to use it for. Sure, basically any cable can _charge_ a device at some speed, which is absolutely my common application, but for shoveling bits around it's much more complicated.
manmal 5y ago
Using USB-C for charging is not really the highest bar to clear. High res video would be, for example.
- hamandcheese 5y ago
  I would bet anyone with a use case that isn’t charging is enough of a power user to understand that some cables are different than others. For everyone else, their life is all wireless and cloud based, and they just want to charge their devices.

topspin 5y ago

"What am I doing right?" Maybe not buying the cheapest cables available on the bottom of the Amazon barrel. But I can't know that. Maybe you are and your place will burn down next week. Who knows?

darrenf 5y ago
> Maybe not buying the cheapest cables available on the bottom of the Amazon barrel. That is definitely true. Given how many of my devices came with their own cables - presumably decent quality - I haven't needed to buy any 3rd party cables.

Latty 5y ago

Same deal. I've switched everything I can to USB-C, and so far had literally zero issues. Obviously my phone charger will charge a laptop more slowly, but I had that issue with micro-USB and Kindle chargers that couldn't charge a phone faster than it used the power, so hardly anything new or unexpected.

jayd16 5y ago

Its really not as big an issue as the comments make it seem. Of the devices listed, I can only think of Oculus Link to a Quest 2 using USB3 speeds in a noticeable way.

sedatk 5y ago

I noticed that a couple of days ago when I was able to charge my Surface Laptop with my iPad's USB-C charger. While Surface Laptop already has a proprietary charging port, it also supports charging through USB-C. Seamlessness of the whole experience was very impressive.

steve_adams_86 5y ago

I discovered my camera doesn’t charge unless it’s USB type A to USB type C. I think that’s the only weird thing I’ve encountered in my USB experiences. It’s the paralenz dive camera. There might even be good reasons for it, but I couldn’t guess.

prawn 5y ago
I have a camera on a Ronin SC gimbal. The gimbal needs to connect to the camera via two USB-C ports using a specific cable (at one end). Still generally stuck with an array of cables (hard drives, charging cameras, headlamps, legacy iPads, etc).

tenacious_tuna 5y ago

I don't think the issues normally present when just charging--I'd say charging is the simplest task. But when I tried to plug a USB C monitor into my mabook the other day I went through every C cable in the house to no avail, despite the fact they all do USB C PD just fine.

zlsa 5y ago
For Alternate Mode to work, only cables with high-speed lanes will work (aka USB 3.0 cables). Power Delivery doesn't need these high-speed lanes at all.
- tenacious_tuna 5y ago
  I figured it was something like that :) but that does nicely illustrate the problem of C: despite the fact that the ports are all the same, there's reliable way to know if a cable will work for the purpose I'm going to use it for. Sure, basically any cable can _charge_ a device at some speed, which is absolutely my common application, but for shoveling bits around it's much more complicated.

manmal 5y ago

Using USB-C for charging is not really the highest bar to clear. High res video would be, for example.

hamandcheese 5y ago
I would bet anyone with a use case that isn’t charging is enough of a power user to understand that some cables are different than others. For everyone else, their life is all wireless and cloud based, and they just want to charge their devices.