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I don't think average consumers use $80 webcams. If you're not a 45k+ a year type, you might very well be doing remote work on phones, assuming you're WFH at a

I don't think average consumers use $80 webcams. If you're not a 45k+ a year type, you might very well be doing remote work on phones, assuming you're WFH at all. Almost all laptops have built-in cameras and the convenience factor is pretty high. Even if you are, webcams could very well run in 480Mbps if they had to, if in camera encoding was still the norm, which it would be if high speed cables weren't (theoretically) widespread. I agree that the situation might not be ideal for people doing stuff beyond average consumer level, but even that could be mostly worked around with a controller firmware update(Count the bit error rate, inform the user if they are using a trash cable). No amount of standardization and marking of the cables will eliminate scammers without killing cheap uncertified stuff totally, so I would think software and documentation fixes would be best. Most stuff already comes with a suitable USB cable. Just pop up a reminder to fish out the good one if the one you're using is bad.

throwaway09223 4y ago
"Almost all laptops have built-in cameras and the convenience factor is pretty high." How do you think the internal camera on most laptops is connected to the rest of the computer? (Hint: It's permanently wired to the USB bus. It's a non-removable USB webcam) Given this fact, it seems you should actually agree with my original statement.
- deleted 4y ago
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- adrian_b 4y ago
  That is correct for most older laptops. However, many newer laptops have begun to use cameras with a MIPI interface, like the smartphones. This has created problems with bad device driver support for non-Windows operating systems, as discussed in a recent HN thread.
  - voxadam 4y ago
    > This has created problems with bad device driver support for non-Windows operating systems, as discussed in a recent HN thread. That story for the interested was "The growing image-processor unpleasantness" and can be found here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32516826 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32516826

throwaway09223 4y ago

"Almost all laptops have built-in cameras and the convenience factor is pretty high." How do you think the internal camera on most laptops is connected to the rest of the computer? (Hint: It's permanently wired to the USB bus. It's a non-removable USB webcam) Given this fact, it seems you should actually agree with my original statement.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
adrian_b 4y ago
That is correct for most older laptops. However, many newer laptops have begun to use cameras with a MIPI interface, like the smartphones. This has created problems with bad device driver support for non-Windows operating systems, as discussed in a recent HN thread.
- voxadam 4y ago
  > This has created problems with bad device driver support for non-Windows operating systems, as discussed in a recent HN thread. That story for the interested was "The growing image-processor unpleasantness" and can be found here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32516826 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32516826