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New USB-C logos make picking USB cables, chargers less confusing
- Titan2189 5y agoSurely I wasn't the only one to immediately think of this? XKCD Standards: https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
- oddity 5y agoThis isn't a case of a standard coming along to a crowded market. Rather, this is the opposite scenario. USB-C won and now they have to deal with the fallout of unifying all the things past, present, and future.
- dustintrex 5y agoPreviously we had tons of incompatible plugs, but if the physical plug fit, you were reasonably assured that it would actually work. In our shiny new future everything is shaped like USB-C, but you can't tell whether anything will work simply by eyeballing the plug. I'm not convinced this is progress.
- kortex 5y agoOr, you just buy ones adequate to your needs. Buy one visual style for charging, another for data, or label them if you are really neurotic. You can definitely tell the better ones, they are thicker and stiffer. I'm all too eager to deprecate my box o' rando mini/micro/meso USB A/B/hard drive cables.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- nikau 5y ago> Previously we had tons of incompatible plugs, but if the physical plug fit, you were reasonably assured that it would actually work. I suspect you never did any work with 9 or 25 pin serial.
- dustintrex 5y agoTouché, I actually did and even soldered my own at times! I'm tempted to say that's different (tm) though, since you generally had zero expectation that random DB-9/25 cables would be interchangeable.
- nikau 5y agoI never want to see a serial breakout box or HP 4952 serial analyzer again. (actually I lie it would be cool to have a 4952 to play around with again)
- viraptor 5y agoThat's fairly recent. At this point in the adoption curve of usb1/2 we had different cables and chargers for different brands of phones. And some did not have the data wires connected.
- Cycl0ps 5y agoReading through the comments it seems those right two logos are the best solution we have. We need a way to quickly identify speed and power ratings per cable. Users might benefit more from simplifying further down to something like colors to establish baseline requirements ("Requires gold rated power delivery") but setting those baselines doesn't provide room to grow and expand the standard.
- Forge36 5y agoI know at some point I'm sure I asked for fewer connector types. Seeing it now: I suspect unique connectors to a purpose is insanely useful usability. Immediate failure feedback has it's uses. See NEMA outlet variation [1]. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEMA_connector#/media/File:NEMA_simplified_pins.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEMA_connector#/media/File:NEM...
- city41 5y agoI recently received a new work laptop in the mail. And IT had stuck a piece of paper inside explaining it is essential I only charge it with the charger it came with, other usb-c chargers/cables might not work and could possibly damage the laptop. I am very ignorant on usb-c, but to me it seems crazy it's come to things like that.
- maxerickson 5y agoHow true is it?
- Macha 5y agoNot working? Totally true. Damaging it? There's definitely historical evidence for it [1], but I think the situation is a little improved these days. I personally had a nexus 5x charger damage a Pixel 3a such that that charger and usb a-c cables were the only ones which would work in that device from then on. [1]: https://www.engadget.com/2016-02-03-benson-leung-chromebook-pixel-usb-type-c-test.html https://www.engadget.com/2016-02-03-benson-leung-chromebook-...
- donatj 5y agoFwiw, I have been charging my Pixel 3aXL with my Nexus 5X charger every night since I got the 3aXL a year and a half ago without issue.
- jazzyjackson 5y agoI had a pixel 3a melt its own charging port, drawing too much power from an aftermarket usb hub
- dirtyid 5y agoI remember reading USB-C cables are still relativley expensive to manufacture. Wonder how long before baseline cable quality is good and cheap enough that any cable will do.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- viraptor 5y agoFor the original USB that took close to a decade. There were many years of cables of with just the right resistor to work with samsung phones for example.
- Sosh101 5y agoThe 'U' in USB has become a bit of a joke.
- JohnBooty 5y agoThe "U" is for "Universal." As in, Q: Will this cable work? A: Well... there's a universe of possible answers...
- jbverschoor 5y agoIf they want to be the "cable and connector for everything", they should simply require more specs. If that increases the diameter and cost, then so be it. This whole thing is such a confusing mess, and destroys people's devices because of poor implementation (nintendo switch for example).
- Daishiman 5y agoIt's a start, but my understanding is that not all data is created equal in USB3 land, correct?
- white-flame 5y agoAcross USB-C land, there's the various USB3s as well as Thunderbolt, DisplayPort, PCIe, and probably others, too, all sharing the same connector with arbitrary overlaps or omissions of compatibilities across the N-dimensional matrix.
- MBCook 5y agoUSB 4 is supposed to fix this by basically removing all the optionality. Of course I don’t know how you tell if a device/cable is reliably USB 4 or not.
- white-flame 5y agoI hope they do like USB 3.0B and add yet another independent set of connector pins for 4.0, making it twice as large. /s
- MBCook 5y agoI’ve only run into those once in real life but man what a mess of a committee’s design. Actually let’s go back to DB-25. Each pin can be one “feature” so you can identify which features a device/cable support by looking for which pin(s) are missing.
- randy408 5y agoDoesn't USB4 also introduce its own optional PCIe tunneling spec which isn't exactly the same as Thunderbolt?
- viraptor 5y agoThat's not a terrible thing, considering Thunderbolt is Intel-specific.
- mjevans 5y agoFinally, a clear logo showing if a cable supports 240W. The USB 40Gbps logo is fine too. Now can we also get some logos for the other speeds: 20Gbps, 10Gbps, 5Gbps, 0.4Gbps (480Mbit). Also the other (PD 2.0+) power levels: 100W, 65W, 45W, 27W, 15W. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware#USB_Power_Delivery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware#USB_Power_Deliver...
- CameronNemo 5y agoHmm the article did not clearly state this, but I assumed that the 240W / 40Gbps labels were just an example. Hopefully they are not neglecting a huge portion of the market that does not need that much PD...
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago> Finally, a clear logo showing if a cable supports 240W. Trademark law never stopped dodgy Amazon cable sellers before though.
- MBCook 5y agoAnd the other end of the spectrum you have companies that don’t bother to include it even if the cable/device would match the certification.
- makeitdouble 5y agoYou can send back a cable that doesn't match a well established spec, you'll have lost about an hour of your life. It's harder to return a cable that had some numbers but not really matching what you're trying to do with them, and arguing back and forth about wether your iPhone 14 was supposed to transfer data at full speed with their "high speed" "iPhone serial A23XXXX~A324XXXX supported" cable. And you'll already have spent a tremendous time trying to find something that could vaguely work in the first place.
- ampersandy 5y agoAssuming 2 day shipping, you probably lose ~2 real hours of time, but have no working cable for at least 4 days. - a few minutes to order the cable - 2 days for the cable to arrive - ~2 hours to realize it does not work, complain, initiative a refund, print a return label, and drop it off at a post office - another 2 days to wait for the next cable.
- someotherperson 5y agoRather than messing around with logos why not mandate a specific typeface to be used mentioning the version/speed/capacity immediately next to the logo? Rather than screwing around with more hieroglyphics pretending it is the solution, just write it out.
- CameronNemo 5y agoI'm confused. Isn't that basically what they are doing here?
- someotherperson 5y agoIf it explicitly said the USB version I'd agree, but what they're doing here is more of the same pointless nonsense. This[0][1] is the junk that consumers currently need to wade through, now we have several more additions to it. [0] https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/usb-if_logo_usage_guidelines_final_103019.pdf https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/usb-if_logo_usage_gu... [1] https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/usb4_logo_usage_guidelines_april_2020_f_2.pdf https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/usb4_logo_usage_guid...
- gumby 5y agoIn classic USB committee style, they try to do the right thing and still bungle the naming/marketing. Just like the absurd “hi-speed/super speed” debacle, they fail to mention what people really want to know: “Will this drive my monitor?” — bandwidth tells me most of what I need to know but to the average user it makes no sense. “Is this a fast cable for my external drive”? “Is this really expensive cable overkill for my external drive?” Sorry, most people will have to guess, and will get the more expensive one “just in case” “Will this work with my YYY” (i.e. “Does this have the alternative mode I need” — who knows? “Will this charge my XXX?” - this is mostly right TBF: if device wants Y watts, choose a charger and cable with that number or larger. The knowledgeable user may be able to “trickle charge” their device in a pinch but not everyone needs to know this,
- CameronNemo 5y agoI don't know much about altmodes. What does the cable need to do to make displayport work right?
- odiroot 5y agoI have USB cables that just work with charging, some give me USB 2.0 data and one very expensive that lets me extend my USB hub/dongle. The latter works with video and power delivery. I tried cheaper cables before and something always went wrong. So even cables are "smart" now.
- ants_a 5y agoThere is a specification for updating charging cable firmware.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoIt needs the USB3 diff pairs. It is perfectly possible to have a USB2-only cable with USB-C plugs. You never know with fly by night brands where they've skimped on production costs.
- 5y ago
- pishpash 5y agoIt seems to dilute the oneness, and hence the perceived value of USB-C, not to mention the logos are fugly.
- maxerickson 5y agoThe different cables can already physically exist, so it's not really changing those things a lot, just making cable identification easier.
- jacquesm 5y agoIt's the other way around. USB-C tries to be too many things at once and this leads to confusion. They should have either mandated that it only handles the top end of the spec at the physical level and gracefully degrades if that isn't available on either end (so at least the cable would be standard), or use physically different plugs to avoid accidental frying of equipment and things just plain not working. If the plug fits -> it should work.
- Ginden 5y ago> use physically different plugs to avoid accidental frying of equipment and things just plain not working. Frying equipment is not possible with properly implemented USB devices and cable - because PD requires active negotiation.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- lmm 5y agoUnless you can get Apple to agree to use these logos on their official cables, this kind of standard isn't going anywhere. And I don't think Apple would be seen dead with logos that look like that.
- CameronNemo 5y agoHonestly apple does not need those specific logos. They just need to label their cables in the first place. They could use their own trademark(s). They are big enough that tons of people trust them and will take an apple with 100W and 40G written on it at face value. Then tons of people who don't trust Apple will scrutinize their offerings heavily.
- dijit 5y agoApple only sell 1 USB-C cable officially though, and it's listed as being charge-only- I know we all see Apple cables around, but at least they only have 1 and if it differs its marked; for example they also sell a "Thunderbolt" cable, but it's marked. https://www.apple.com/ae/shop/product/MLL82ZM/A/usb-c-charge-cable-2m https://www.apple.com/ae/shop/product/MLL82ZM/A/usb-c-charge... https://www.apple.com/ae/shop/product/MQ4H2ZM/A/thunderbolt-3-usb%E2%80%91c-cable-08-m https://www.apple.com/ae/shop/product/MQ4H2ZM/A/thunderbolt-...
- chrisseaton 5y agoWhere do you get the idea that this cable is charge-only?
- dijit 5y agoBecause it’s called that by Apple- the first link has a title of: “USB-C Charge cable (2m)”
- chrisseaton 5y agoIt's listed as capable of charging - it's not listed as 'charge only'. If you look further they say it's suitable for data.
- Causality1 5y agoI don't need cables or chargers to be less confusing. I need the damn ports on devices to be less confusing. One of my family's phones supports Dash charging and DisplayLink but not usb-3 speeds or charging while outputting video. One of our phones supports HDMI out while charging but only supports QuickCharge v2. One of my tablets will charge over its type-c port but only at 400mA, and you're supposed to use a different port for full speed charging. Then there's my Nintendo Switch that violates so many parts of the USB spec some of my OEM phone chargers won't charge it at all.
- hbosch 5y agoPlease, for the love of god, make it obvious if a USB C cable can be used as a display cable or not. One thing that absolutely blows about USB C is that they all look the same, but to connect my LG UltraFine to my GTX 2070 I had to do literally hours of research before I could find a reliable cable on Amazon that was a “bidirectional USB C DisplayPort” cable because I naively assumed that USB C was a general purpose cable type that could do data/display/power/etc. Having one plug be capable (or incapable) of doing so many things melted my brain. Why can’t all USB C cables just do all the things? To me, the fact that I can plug a cable into my graphics card… and it fits… and then it does nothing… that’s awful physical UX.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> Having one plug be capable (or incapable) of doing so many things melted my brain. Good thing you missed the time when cables with DB9/DB25 connectors were everywhere, for every purpose.
- lmm 5y agoI mean yes, that sucked. Why are we going back to that?
- evancox100 5y agoWhat cable did you end up going with, and did it work? Am in an almost identical situation and would like to avoid "hours of research" myself!
- thermin 5y agoAny 5/10 Gbps from Amazon/AliExpress will work for 4k@60Hz.
- viraptor 5y ago> Having one plug be capable (or incapable) of doing so many things melted my brain. That's not different than USB-A. You can have charging-only, USB 2, USB 3, etc. cables. We had this for decades.
- Kaibeezy 5y agoOK, “brick a brats”? Wtaf. How about “an editor”, PC World?
- 0x_rs 5y agoThis is all too confusing to me. Why isn't there a mandatory (or reference) specification string that combines all the necessary, useful information in one neat package instead of countless repetitive and easily misunderstood logos? Something like (just a basic, messy example) USB-C/<generation>/<bandwith if any>/<supported power delivery if any>/<can drive audio/video>/<supports PD>/etc. I had to buy some cables recently and really couldn't pick one nor distinguish particular features at glance, and the item description and graphics can be deceiving, even more so on stores like Amazon
- zokier 5y agoNot sure, but I suspect that large part of the problem are non-standard compliant cables that USB-IF naturally do not want to endorse.
- ducktective 5y agoIf it were so clear, who's gonna confuse the customers? I hope EU force a law to remove marketing bullshit phrases for USB and Bluetooth.
- suvelx 5y agoWhat's supported is indeed a mess... I recently moved my desk between rooms. After setting everything up only one monitor seemed to work. Tried multiple DP cables plugged things in and out with things in various state of power. Eventually gave up and chalked it up to karma and either having a dead monitor or dead dock. Unplugged my laptop to go work in the lounge for a bit, came back later and plugged it in again amazingly both displays worked. What changed? I plugged the dock into a different USB-C port. The one that actually supports DisplayPort Alt-mode.
- y4mi 5y agoI've never seen a laptop that didn't label the thunderbolt capable ports, are you sure that wasn't just you not paying attention? Or do you honestly expect all ports to be thunderbolt capable? If so, you'd have to expect a massive increase in price for that
- 2sk21 5y agoOne more thought that comes to mind is that the new logos implicitly uses English terminology. I wonder if terms like "gbps" will be understandable in all cultures around the world.
- jve 5y ago1 datapoint from an european country with less than 2mil ppl: Yes, ofcourse, that is the terminology we use. And if you wish datapoint from the largest (land) country (Russia): Yes I mean if you use computer then how can you parse specs any other way but the way we are used to: as written by english people?
- Tijdreiziger 5y agoAFAIK, e.g. in France they use Go (giga-octet) instead of GB (and analogously, Ko/Mo/To).
- gspr 5y agoA French octet is a byte. The b here is a bit.
- nerdponx 5y agoI really like the idea of having distinct abbreviations for bytes/octets and bits!
- ziml77 5y agoSeriously! If I see something like mbps written I have to wonder whether it's saying megabits or megabytes per second. Bits is more likely only because it gives a higher sounding number, but outside of marketing either bits or bytes is equally likely.
- gspr 5y agoWe do: b for bits, B for bytes. People are just sloppy when using them.
- jbverschoor 5y agoI like my lightning cable. It just works.. anywhere
- ubercow13 5y agoBecause lightning doesn’t even support anything. Half the things you might plug in a cable for, like video out, are implemented by a chip in the cable itself (which means you still need to buy specific cables for specific jobs), and lighting doesn’t even have the bandwidth to provide real video out at an iPhones screen resolution, let alone operate at 40Gbps. Moreover you have exactly the same issues with lightning charging cables, if you buy the wrong one it will not charge at the desired rate [1]. Lightning does not come close to solving these problems. [1] https://gtrusted.com/what-happens-when-you-use-the-original-apple-usb-c-to-lightning-cable-versus-a-alternative-cable-option-to-charge-your-apple-iphone-xs-max https://gtrusted.com/what-happens-when-you-use-the-original-...
- neals 5y agoThey should invent a new cable standard that universally does the same thing on all devices. I think there might a big market for that.
- huuuz 5y agoIt already exists and it's called lighting. Since it's actually useful, the UE is looking into outlawing it.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- maratc 5y agoCan't help but think that it's exactly what GP had in mind.
- oblio 5y agoI hope this is a joke.
- endless1234 5y agoI don't think 18 watts is enough to do everything.
- hjnilsson 5y agoProblem is the tradeoffs involved. You can make a cable that support 40 Gbps / 100W, but it will be $50 and very thick, with a maximum length of 1m (or cost $400 if you want an optical 10m long cable). Or you can make a thin, 480Mbps / 5W cable that costs $2 that can be 5m long. Or you can make a 10Gbps / 20W cable that is $10, can be 2m and is medium thick. If you want them all in one cable, all cables would be $400, which would be a larger problem for most consumers (and even optical cables can't really be bent / are very fragile. So unfit for travel. Not a good solution either). You can't have everything in one cable. You could claim that there should be 3 separate connectors then for the 3 cases above. But I don't think that would be an improvement really. At least you /can/ charge your laptop with the thin cable overnight, even if it is slow. And you can connect your phone to your laptop charger etc.
- thedrbrian 5y agoSo it’s good that the fruit company are finally going to be forced by the EU to implement USB-C on their phones at same time as telling me that I need a matrix to explain which usb cable I need.
- lolsal 5y agoI share this opinion. I'm deep in the Apple camp but it never bothered me that they didn't jump on USB standards. They are a complete mess and if I plugged a shoddy cable into my device and fried it I would be super pissed at Apple for putting me in a position to make that mistake. I don't charge my recent generation MacBook with anything other than the Apple charger for this exact reason.
- ziml77 5y agoHow is a poorly made cable Apple's fault? Apple could make a proprietary connector with an apple shaped plug on each end. Yet you could still end up with a dead device because someone made a cheap clone cable with an internal fault that shorted the data line to power.
- lolsal 5y agoThe cable is not Apple's fault. One of the reasons I like the Apple ecosystem is that I trust that they protect me from insanity like this. It's probably inevitable that they go all-in on USB in some form or fashion, but I hope they resist until it's impossible for me to *destroy my hardware* by plugging in a cable.
- pentae 5y agoHow about some logos that don't look like they are from a fiverr competition?
- MrBuddyCasino 5y agoArtists on Fiverr are subjected to market forces, their designs would almost certainly be better than this.
- ajsnigrutin 5y agoI hate it how we went from simple, to simpler to totally complicated regarding computer ports. "Back in the days", it was a bunch of different ports of different sizes and shapes, and each thing had its own cable that fit into that thing only, and into only port only on the back of the pc. Yes, you needed 20 cables, but things were simple. Then came the USB... one cable, one protocol for all.... except video (firewire) and storage (esata). Then even those got replaced by USB, as new usb standards made it faster. And now? You buy a new laptop... usb-c charging, great. You need another charger, you go to the store, find a usb charger, buy it, plugi it in - everything fits - but it won't charge. You need a fast charger... back to the store, bring it home, doesn't charge. You need a PD charger and not a QC charger... store again, new charger... plug it in, doesn't charge. You need a PD charger, that goes up in voltage enough (20V) to charge. Store again, a new one... you plug it in... still nothing. Even though it fits in the hole, not all holes are equal, and you need to plug it into the correct usb port to charge the laptop. Yaay, everthing works! Start a game, play, nice framerate, and bam, battery low warning. Yes, it charges, but your charger is only 45W, and that's not enough, you need a correct wattage one (eg 65W). And then you go to the store and buy an original charger for your laptop, and you're back at where we were 20 years ago, just with a higher chance of plugging the charger in a wrong port, because it fits in more than one hole.
- javajosh 5y agoI wonder if it's possible that we standardize on the "hole" (USB-C) and then make little square things with a male side and a female side that plug into the cable and into each other to add capabilities to the signal path. Each of those square things would have a name and an icon and every device would be characterized by a list of these widgets. (In part I propose this to validate whether this is the correct mental model for what a cable is and what it is expected to do.)
- wizzwizz4 5y ago• Cables that can transmit high power have to be better at coping with high power. • Cables that can transmit lots of data have to have more / better / shorter wires.
- a9h74j 5y agoThe new logos show the word 'certified'. Wait for the "super-certified" and "ultra-certified" USB logo variants in two years, to help clear up the newly-latent confusion. One new logo shows the word 'charger'. Wait for the "super-charger" and "ultra-charger" and "really really a charger" variants in three years, to help clear up that newly-latent confusion. Leibnitz had a hypothesis that all one needed was one base word, with all possible meanings to be encoded by diacritics. USB tells us we only need one logo for all backplanes-in-a-cable, with all possible variants to be flagged by graphical diacritics. Reincarnation gone wrong. I am waiting for UUU cables -- Ultra Universal USB. "We have both kinds of religion: universalist and unitarian."
- bradfa 5y agoI assume you'll only be able to legally use these logos on your products and packaging if you actually pay for certification. Most USB devices/charges/etc aren't certified today, I don't see this new logo scheme changing that. Certification costs money, and you might fail. No consumer really cares (or probably no consumer understands) what buying a "certified" USB thing even means. If your existing USB things don't have the red white and blue USB logo on them, they're not certified. Info: https://www.usb.org/logo-license https://www.usb.org/logo-license
- miohtama 5y agoI am also wondering how can they enforce small manufactures just slapping these logos everywhere? It is unlikely the organisation is going to achieve anything by trying to sue small Chinese producers.
- bradfa 5y agoI expect the USB organization can sue Amazon and other vendors for allowing these kinds of products to be sold if they're illegitimately using the logo. I'm not fully versed on copyright or trademark law but I believe that's what would apply to the improper use of this logo on a product.
- PeterisP 5y ago
- lolsal 5y agoWhat is stopping the cheap knockoffs from putting these logos on cables and devices that don't actually meet the specifications? A logo that says "certified" doesn't actually mean anything.
- pixelgeek 5y agoNothing
- matt_kantor 5y agoTrademark law: https://www.usb.org/logo-license https://www.usb.org/logo-license
- joking 5y agono logo can compensate the lack of usb-c hubs.
- pixelgeek 5y agoIsn't this just indicative of a total failure in the spec?
- dec0dedab0de 5y agoI hope USB-5 just drops the C connector, and goes back to requiring everything be backward compatible
- interestica 5y agoUSB Implementers Forum? I'm still annoyed at the chaos that remains for USB3 https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/2/27/18243425/usb-3-2-standard-names-connectivity-cables-innovators-forum https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/2/27/18243425/u...
- postalrat 5y agoBecause putting 40GBPS 240W on the cable was too simple, they needed a logo.
- uses 5y agoThat table is a design fail... the 4th column should be the 4th row, like this: https://imgur.com/a/mTRONdV https://imgur.com/a/mTRONdV
- fnord77 5y agoas theverge article on this says: "Because nothing says “simple” like a chart of seven new logos for charging and data specifications."
- FridayoLeary 5y agoThose logos look like they came from the early 2000's.
- tzs 5y agoUSB-C needs two things to make it less confusing: 1. There needs to be a small, inexpensive device that: A. You can plug into a USB-C port and it tells you what that port is capable of as far as power delivery, data rates, and data protocols go. B. You can plug a USB cable into the device and it tells you the power, data rates, and data protocols that the cable can handle. 2. There needs to be inexpensive true USB-C hubs. It needs to be possible to have computers that only have USB-C ports, peripherals that only have USB-C ports, and only USB-C to USB-C cables to hook the peripherals to the computers. Right now if you have a computer with N USB-C ports and M peripherals with USB-C ports and M > N, you generally have to use a hub that hooks to peripherals via USB 3 A ports, and so you need USB-C to USB-A cables.
- jmrm 5y agoUnpopular opinion: I prefer a laptop with a barrel jack than other with only USB-C for charging. Not only is easier to find, also a lot more sturdy and easier to repair. I have changed some of them in relatives' laptops pretty easily, but I don't dare to do that in any USB-C by any means.