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>If it fits, it should work. Except it does work, for charging at least. Everywhere I could find a type-C plug, it always managed to charge my phone regardles

>If it fits, it should work. Except it does work, for charging at least. Everywhere I could find a type-C plug, it always managed to charge my phone regardless which charger brand or dock was at the other end. I can go to any bar, airport or hotel on any continent and I know I'll find a type-C plug somewhere VS in the past when your Cingular phone had a connector which wasn't available in Europe because those phones weren't sold there. That's a real life saver which many people seem to ignore just because their Nintendo widget decided to not follow the spec. >Contrast this to me recently finding myself with an Android phone that has USB Type C and only a Nintendo Switch charger Nintendo violated the spec on the Switch either through malice, wanting to lock users into their own chargers, or through engineering incompetence by not being able to follow a spec which every other electronics brand could. Nintendo is also known to be extremely anti-consumer. So blame Nintendo not type-C.

gumby 4y ago
No downside I hadn’t expected is that because of all the extreme back compatibility you could have a TB4 drive and TB4 host but accidentally use a cable that only supports USB 1/2. It would work, just at very low speed, and an unsophisticated user would simply suffer, not knowing how to diagnose the problem.
- gumby 4y ago
  “No downside” should be “A downside…”
jcelerier 4y ago
> Everywhere I could find a type-C plug, it always managed to charge my phone regardless which charger brand or dock was at the other end. Here it definitely doesn't. I have at least 4/5 cables / usb-c ports combos in my home which aren't able to perform this apparently basic feature ; the phone's charging icon will activate but it will still loose battery
- innocenat 4y ago
  That just mean the charger is underpowered.
  - rblatz 4y ago
    Yeah, that’s the problem you can’t tell if something will work unless you try. And then you still have to worry about if it’s the cable or the charger. This is a huge step backwards.
    - paulmd 4y ago
      hot take but I solve this by not buying any usb-c cable that isn't 100W compatible lol. I have some "full spec" cables that do video, and many more that are just charge-only/usb 2.0, but everything is 100W capable. Charge cables get marked with some nail polish on the connector body when I take them out of the package. The "fasgear" brand on amazon have worked well for me and they actually have 3-meter cables that do full 100w charging, right angle connectors for laptops/etc, and they have a usb 4-compatible lineup (that I have not tried). A 2m charge cable is $7 a pop and 3m is $11 (they run coupons on both frequently that take it down another 10% or so) but whatever, that's just kinda what it costs to not have to worry about it. cables that come with things go into a baggie in The Bin Of Solitude where they shall remain untouched until my descendents clean them out after I pass. "But what if I really really need a low-spec charge cable at some hypothetical point in the future!?!? you never know when it'll be 2012 again, buddy." gonna suck when 140W or whatever comes out and my cables won't do it but... I guess they'll still work at 100W. Hopefully. I guess it's not guaranteed either, thanks USB-IF.
- pooper 4y ago
  > Here it definitely doesn't. I have at least 4/5 cables / usb-c ports combos in my home which aren't able to perform this apparently basic feature ; the phone's charging icon will activate but it will still loose battery Just out of curiosity, will the device charge if you 1. Let the device drain mostly if not fully 2. Start charging 3. Turn off the device 4. Continue charging with the device continued in a turned off state 5. ... wait (this might take a day or a week) 6. Check if the battery managed to fully charge That is, I am wondering if there is some shenanigan in that the device somehow refuses to be slow charged. I have never heard of it but if that is happening, I would like to learn more.
goosedragons 4y ago
Pretty sure when the Switch launched it's 15V 2.6A spec wasn't part of the PD standard. Not really any different from the myriad of phones out there with their own custom fast charging protocol like OnePlus. Mainly where they went out of spec was the dock side to make connecting that easier. The Switch charges fine with other chargers, running the dock is a bit trickier because of the 15V 2.6A requirement but some like the newer MacBook ones will do it. That said I have several cheap devices that refuse to be charged/powered by a PD charger like an Apple charger. For instance the Neo Geo Mini, only likes basic 5V 1A chargers for some reason (I guess looking at the MB charger it doesn't support 5V 1A). If the charger doesn't support what the device wants it won't work. My phone happily will charge with what the Switch charger puts out.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >Pretty sure when the Switch launched it's 15V 2.6A spec wasn't part of the PD standard. Not really any different from the myriad of phones out there with their own custom fast charging protocol like OnePlus. You missed my point entirely. The speed of the charging is not the issue here. It shouldn't matter what PD or fast charging protocol Nintendo or OnePlus would use, they should all be backwards compatible to legacy slow-charging and trickle charge from any type-C charger ever made, which is a lifesaver in an emergency and is why the type-C connector is a godsend. Nintendo fucked up the pin-out on the connector making it completely non-standard and incompatible to any other type-C charger released. The speed of their charging protocol was not the issue.
  - goosedragons 4y ago
    The pinout is fine. You can charge a Switch with random adapters fine, powering docked mode is trickier because older PD adapters don't support it but newer ones do. The Switch adapter will happily charge my phone, tablet, eReader, etc and I have used it as my only charger on trips where I don't bring a laptop. Perhaps the problem here is OnePlus and whatever THEY do to get their fast charging spec? Nintendo did more non-standard stuff with the dock port dimensions. Not so much pinouts. 3rd party docks fried Switches because of shit power management sending more voltage than the Switch needed. EDIT: The problem seems to actually be that the Switch charger only supports 5V 1.5A whereas some phones require 2 or 3A and are not compatible.
innocenat 4y ago
> Except it does work, for charging at least. Most phone can charge off of the base 5V/3A profile, so it works for phone. But many bigger devices don't. I think most laptop only charge off of 20V mode, so it won't work if the charger can only do 5V or 9V. Some tablet also only do 9V, refusing to charge on 5V.
- MaKey 4y ago
  > But many bigger devices don't. I think most laptop only charge off of 20V mode, so it won't work if the charger can only do 5V or 9V. I'm able to charge my ThinkPad T14 (1st Gen AMD) using my 25W PD 3.0 Samsung phone charger (EP-TA800). Does it really deliver 20V if needed?
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  I was talking about phones benefiting from type-C standardization the most, as you'll always find a charger nearby. Moving to more power hungry devices like laptops is moving the goalposts. Of course they won't charge off basic 15W phone chargers when CPUs alone draw that much. But phones and tablets will gladly charge off the more powerful laptop type-C chargers. So there's another benefit: the type-C charger of your most power hungry gadget will charge all your other devices.
  - paulmd 4y ago
    > But phones and tablets will gladly charge off the more powerful laptop type-C chargers. So there's another benefit: the type-C charger of your most power hungry gadget will charge all your other devices. maybe in an ideal world, but this is absolutely not guaranteed at all. Some chargers only support the profiles they need and don't support the lower-voltage standards in between. Even apple does this sometimes, in fact. https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/04/making-sense-of-the-oddities-of-apples-usb-c-chargers/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/04/making-sense-of-the-oddities-... https://daringfireball.net/2020/12/charger_nerdery https://daringfireball.net/2020/12/charger_nerdery now of course the usb-c crowd is probably going "well apple needs to get its shit together!" but that's not an uncommon thing at all. Chargers are still designed for the specific device and don't necessarily support intermediate standards, just like motherboard ports end up being designed for specific use-cases and don't necessarily support the thing you're trying to do with them. Maybe that should have been a requirement, but it isn't, because USB-IF is shit and doesn't care about the consumer. fully implementing the usb-c standard, to all its extremes and nuances, is expensive as fuck, and this is a cost-driven market so you can bet your bottom dollar someone is going to choose to swiss-cheese the standard and their charger will be $2 cheaper so that'll be the one you buy. Or else you're paying more for Anker and Apple stuff (whoops, maybe not apple for chargers, but their cables are still the best!). and yes, it should always work at the lowest-common-denominator standard, and there should be a profile for the base USB 5v 1A if nothing else but... not all devices do. Laptops often don't support lowest-common-denominator charging, for example. Just like Apple. Just like Switch. etc etc. At some point it stops being a problem with specific vendors and starts being just a badly designed standard. USB-C is trying to have its cake and eat it too - they want to be in devices for which $1 for a port or a controller chip is a big expense, but also scale to 40V/100W charging and 80gbps full-duplex data (with a 40gbps video channel and a 40gbps pcie link) and have everything "just work", and that's not really physically possible to implement in devices where every nickel counts. Maybe there should have been some defined "mobile" and "laptop/desktop" profiles, that overlapped in some defined ways, so this wouldn't have been a problem. Your mobile standard can be cost-optimized, your laptop standard can be full-featured, both of them have some lowest-common-denomiantor requirements. Laptop 2.0 always supports everything Laptop 1.0 did, and Phone 3.0 always supports everything Phone 2.0 and 1.0 did. But that's how USB-IF rolls, no need for nuance or delineation, just throw everything in one standard and let customers flounder. They do it on purpose, and people still defend them and love the product regardless, it's as mindless as people constantly (including here, ctrl-f any apple thread and search ‘mindless’ or ‘fanboy’) accuse apple fandoms of being. It's a bad standard and it's really just that simple, they could and should have done better and should not retain a government monopoly going forward, or else this will only continue to get more convoluted and complicated. Like we literally just got USB 4 2.0 and all, the leopard isn't changing its spots at this point. But like, this was an eminently foreseeable outcome of the “one cable for everything” pipe dream people are pushing. Either cables/devices are expensive (thunderbolt), or each device supports some subset of the standard and end up with a confusing mess. But the “one cable for everything” fandom is insatiable. Just one more profile bro. It’s gonna fix everything, I swear. One more standard and two more extensions. It’s gonna support PCIe 5.0 and DisplayPort 2.1 and it’ll charge your weedwhacker, just one more profile bro, please bro, I need this.

gumby 4y ago

No downside I hadn’t expected is that because of all the extreme back compatibility you could have a TB4 drive and TB4 host but accidentally use a cable that only supports USB 1/2. It would work, just at very low speed, and an unsophisticated user would simply suffer, not knowing how to diagnose the problem.

gumby 4y ago
“No downside” should be “A downside…”

jcelerier 4y ago

> Everywhere I could find a type-C plug, it always managed to charge my phone regardless which charger brand or dock was at the other end. Here it definitely doesn't. I have at least 4/5 cables / usb-c ports combos in my home which aren't able to perform this apparently basic feature ; the phone's charging icon will activate but it will still loose battery

innocenat 4y ago
That just mean the charger is underpowered.
- rblatz 4y ago
  Yeah, that’s the problem you can’t tell if something will work unless you try. And then you still have to worry about if it’s the cable or the charger. This is a huge step backwards.
  - paulmd 4y ago
    hot take but I solve this by not buying any usb-c cable that isn't 100W compatible lol. I have some "full spec" cables that do video, and many more that are just charge-only/usb 2.0, but everything is 100W capable. Charge cables get marked with some nail polish on the connector body when I take them out of the package. The "fasgear" brand on amazon have worked well for me and they actually have 3-meter cables that do full 100w charging, right angle connectors for laptops/etc, and they have a usb 4-compatible lineup (that I have not tried). A 2m charge cable is $7 a pop and 3m is $11 (they run coupons on both frequently that take it down another 10% or so) but whatever, that's just kinda what it costs to not have to worry about it. cables that come with things go into a baggie in The Bin Of Solitude where they shall remain untouched until my descendents clean them out after I pass. "But what if I really really need a low-spec charge cable at some hypothetical point in the future!?!? you never know when it'll be 2012 again, buddy." gonna suck when 140W or whatever comes out and my cables won't do it but... I guess they'll still work at 100W. Hopefully. I guess it's not guaranteed either, thanks USB-IF.
pooper 4y ago
> Here it definitely doesn't. I have at least 4/5 cables / usb-c ports combos in my home which aren't able to perform this apparently basic feature ; the phone's charging icon will activate but it will still loose battery Just out of curiosity, will the device charge if you 1. Let the device drain mostly if not fully 2. Start charging 3. Turn off the device 4. Continue charging with the device continued in a turned off state 5. ... wait (this might take a day or a week) 6. Check if the battery managed to fully charge That is, I am wondering if there is some shenanigan in that the device somehow refuses to be slow charged. I have never heard of it but if that is happening, I would like to learn more.

goosedragons 4y ago

Pretty sure when the Switch launched it's 15V 2.6A spec wasn't part of the PD standard. Not really any different from the myriad of phones out there with their own custom fast charging protocol like OnePlus. Mainly where they went out of spec was the dock side to make connecting that easier. The Switch charges fine with other chargers, running the dock is a bit trickier because of the 15V 2.6A requirement but some like the newer MacBook ones will do it. That said I have several cheap devices that refuse to be charged/powered by a PD charger like an Apple charger. For instance the Neo Geo Mini, only likes basic 5V 1A chargers for some reason (I guess looking at the MB charger it doesn't support 5V 1A). If the charger doesn't support what the device wants it won't work. My phone happily will charge with what the Switch charger puts out.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>Pretty sure when the Switch launched it's 15V 2.6A spec wasn't part of the PD standard. Not really any different from the myriad of phones out there with their own custom fast charging protocol like OnePlus. You missed my point entirely. The speed of the charging is not the issue here. It shouldn't matter what PD or fast charging protocol Nintendo or OnePlus would use, they should all be backwards compatible to legacy slow-charging and trickle charge from any type-C charger ever made, which is a lifesaver in an emergency and is why the type-C connector is a godsend. Nintendo fucked up the pin-out on the connector making it completely non-standard and incompatible to any other type-C charger released. The speed of their charging protocol was not the issue.
- goosedragons 4y ago
  The pinout is fine. You can charge a Switch with random adapters fine, powering docked mode is trickier because older PD adapters don't support it but newer ones do. The Switch adapter will happily charge my phone, tablet, eReader, etc and I have used it as my only charger on trips where I don't bring a laptop. Perhaps the problem here is OnePlus and whatever THEY do to get their fast charging spec? Nintendo did more non-standard stuff with the dock port dimensions. Not so much pinouts. 3rd party docks fried Switches because of shit power management sending more voltage than the Switch needed. EDIT: The problem seems to actually be that the Switch charger only supports 5V 1.5A whereas some phones require 2 or 3A and are not compatible.

innocenat 4y ago

> Except it does work, for charging at least. Most phone can charge off of the base 5V/3A profile, so it works for phone. But many bigger devices don't. I think most laptop only charge off of 20V mode, so it won't work if the charger can only do 5V or 9V. Some tablet also only do 9V, refusing to charge on 5V.

MaKey 4y ago
> But many bigger devices don't. I think most laptop only charge off of 20V mode, so it won't work if the charger can only do 5V or 9V. I'm able to charge my ThinkPad T14 (1st Gen AMD) using my 25W PD 3.0 Samsung phone charger (EP-TA800). Does it really deliver 20V if needed?
ChuckNorris89 4y ago
I was talking about phones benefiting from type-C standardization the most, as you'll always find a charger nearby. Moving to more power hungry devices like laptops is moving the goalposts. Of course they won't charge off basic 15W phone chargers when CPUs alone draw that much. But phones and tablets will gladly charge off the more powerful laptop type-C chargers. So there's another benefit: the type-C charger of your most power hungry gadget will charge all your other devices.
- paulmd 4y ago
  > But phones and tablets will gladly charge off the more powerful laptop type-C chargers. So there's another benefit: the type-C charger of your most power hungry gadget will charge all your other devices. maybe in an ideal world, but this is absolutely not guaranteed at all. Some chargers only support the profiles they need and don't support the lower-voltage standards in between. Even apple does this sometimes, in fact. https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/04/making-sense-of-the-oddities-of-apples-usb-c-chargers/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/04/making-sense-of-the-oddities-... https://daringfireball.net/2020/12/charger_nerdery https://daringfireball.net/2020/12/charger_nerdery now of course the usb-c crowd is probably going "well apple needs to get its shit together!" but that's not an uncommon thing at all. Chargers are still designed for the specific device and don't necessarily support intermediate standards, just like motherboard ports end up being designed for specific use-cases and don't necessarily support the thing you're trying to do with them. Maybe that should have been a requirement, but it isn't, because USB-IF is shit and doesn't care about the consumer. fully implementing the usb-c standard, to all its extremes and nuances, is expensive as fuck, and this is a cost-driven market so you can bet your bottom dollar someone is going to choose to swiss-cheese the standard and their charger will be $2 cheaper so that'll be the one you buy. Or else you're paying more for Anker and Apple stuff (whoops, maybe not apple for chargers, but their cables are still the best!). and yes, it should always work at the lowest-common-denominator standard, and there should be a profile for the base USB 5v 1A if nothing else but... not all devices do. Laptops often don't support lowest-common-denominator charging, for example. Just like Apple. Just like Switch. etc etc. At some point it stops being a problem with specific vendors and starts being just a badly designed standard. USB-C is trying to have its cake and eat it too - they want to be in devices for which $1 for a port or a controller chip is a big expense, but also scale to 40V/100W charging and 80gbps full-duplex data (with a 40gbps video channel and a 40gbps pcie link) and have everything "just work", and that's not really physically possible to implement in devices where every nickel counts. Maybe there should have been some defined "mobile" and "laptop/desktop" profiles, that overlapped in some defined ways, so this wouldn't have been a problem. Your mobile standard can be cost-optimized, your laptop standard can be full-featured, both of them have some lowest-common-denomiantor requirements. Laptop 2.0 always supports everything Laptop 1.0 did, and Phone 3.0 always supports everything Phone 2.0 and 1.0 did. But that's how USB-IF rolls, no need for nuance or delineation, just throw everything in one standard and let customers flounder. They do it on purpose, and people still defend them and love the product regardless, it's as mindless as people constantly (including here, ctrl-f any apple thread and search ‘mindless’ or ‘fanboy’) accuse apple fandoms of being. It's a bad standard and it's really just that simple, they could and should have done better and should not retain a government monopoly going forward, or else this will only continue to get more convoluted and complicated. Like we literally just got USB 4 2.0 and all, the leopard isn't changing its spots at this point. But like, this was an eminently foreseeable outcome of the “one cable for everything” pipe dream people are pushing. Either cables/devices are expensive (thunderbolt), or each device supports some subset of the standard and end up with a confusing mess. But the “one cable for everything” fandom is insatiable. Just one more profile bro. It’s gonna fix everything, I swear. One more standard and two more extensions. It’s gonna support PCIe 5.0 and DisplayPort 2.1 and it’ll charge your weedwhacker, just one more profile bro, please bro, I need this.