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> Do you have a better solution? Yes, I literally said it in my post: instead of a "profile" being "20V@2A" it should be "laptop 2.0" and laptop 2.0 includes

by paulmd 4y ago

> Do you have a better solution? Yes, I literally said it in my post: instead of a "profile" being "20V@2A" it should be "laptop 2.0" and laptop 2.0 includes a mandatory selection of power/data/video capabilities, with 3.0 being a strict superset of 2.0 capabilities. You can always add more capabilities, if you have 3.0 data but only 2.0 charging, that's fine, but, you have to advertise that as 2.0. Desktop/laptop ports are required to carry video and pcie, mobile standards don't have to... or maybe higher versions of the standard should start requiring it. If that means motherboard makers have to start advertising that their ports only support the "mobile" connectivity levels because they didn't want to put video/pcie on the port... tough, that's information the consumers need to know. > Even with standard connectors like the 3.5mm jack there were tons of variations, some had a mic input, some had input for buttons, some could even charge through them, etc. and not every cable could do basic audio reliably if it was cheap/poorly manufactured. Things weren't perfect back then either. 3.5mm headset (headphone+mic) connectors were the closest thing I've ever seen to a bulletproof connector apart from VERY niche things like low-impedence headphones that required an amp. Not sure that's a good example either. I guess there's line level, but, go to best buy and pick a random device (any device) with a headphone port and a random pair of headphones and they work 100% of the time, guaranteed, I'll bet you money on this right now at my local best buy. Ethernet? Displayport? Both of those pretty much negotiate seamlessly down to whatever capability they both support. You can't make ethernet "optional" stuff, because ethernet does exactly one thing and it either works or it doesn't. My home network just works - go to best buy and pick a random switch and a random ethernet device and it works 100% of the time, and I'll bet you money on that too. Even things like crossover ports are dead now, the only real thing that matters even to nerds is stuff like MTU size that also transparently work unless you actively fuck with the settings. It's really only USB-C that has turned into a trainwreck and it's specifically because USB-IF doesn't define meaningful profiles and just makes everything an optional feature, and since "it can do everything" that means most things don't do anything more than the bare minimum. > Extra profiles are not there to fix things, they're there to extend the functionality of the type-C connector, which is what the end-game is. Well, if you use profiles in that manner, don't be surprised when people are confused by your connector that has 57 different profiles and nothing supports anything. Again: why can't a profile be "laptop 2.0" and my laptop supports that? Why do I have to know that my laptop needs the 40V/2.5A profile to charge and that I need X charger and Y cable? That's purely down to USB-IF mismanagement and corruption. They should not have a government monopoly, they're working for the vendors, not for you.

dmitriid 4y ago
That's what Intel did with Thunderbolt (4?) specification: you either support all of things listed there, or you can't call yourself Thunderbolt-compatible.
- paulmd 4y ago
  Yup. And I think that's the dichotomy: "supports everything on everything" or "cable doesn't cost $60 and goes farther than 2 meters", take your pick. Expense was pretty much a foregone conclusion at the start of the thunderbolt "one cable for everything" experiment, and now people want to do that with usb in general. Sure, that'll be great, but it's going to be expensive, including in places that don't need those capabilities. If you allow deviations from the standard, then you are back to things being incompatible with various devices/cables/chargers. They allowed that with power profiles (in particular) and video capabilities and now it's a mess. Framing profiles in terms of device use-cases is my attempt at turning that soup back into something comprehensible for average consumers, while keeping the benefit. People approach this as "I want to plug my phone into the charger and have it just work", "I want to plug my dock into my laptop and do everything through one cable", etc, and those are actually use-cases and not feature profiles, they don't really care that the laptop needs 40V 2.5A or 25V 3A, they just want it to work. But of course a $10 vape pen (or phone) doesn't need 40V 2.5A charging. So you have a "phone profile" and a "laptop profile" and iterate those things as groups/featuresets and not as a bunch of profiles thrown into one enormous standard. You can retain most of the "universal standard" juice without squeezing too hard on the "$60 cable" expense side of things. You could have one cable for laptop docks and one cable for phone charging and have a lot of overlap between, but still not have to use a $60 cable to charge your phone just because that's what a laptop needs, and yet not have a confusing free-for-all of "this charger doesn't do that". I'm just a rando though so it's not like I have any say.
ChuckNorris89 4y ago
> go to best buy and pick a random device (any device) with a headphone port and a random pair of headphones and they work 100% of the time, guaranteed, I'll bet you money on this right now at my local best buy. Sure, maybe the audio will work, maybe it will have static cause they're cheap since the manufacturer cut corners to save $.01. But does the mic on them work with my device? Or the buttons on them, will they work controlling the volume? IIRC, wired 3.5mm headphones had separate versions for iPhone and Android as the buttons on them worked different on each platform. So making 3.5mm an example of successful standardization across all platforms is laughable IMHO. >it should be "laptop 2.0" and laptop 2.0 includes a mandatory selection of power/data/video capabilities, with 3.0 being a strict superset of 2.0 capabilities. What if for me as a consumer, or me as a manufacturer, don't need the full Laptop 3.0 capabilities in my ideal product, and my product just needs Laptop 2.0 capabilities with only a couple of Laptop 3.0 functionality to make me happy? Why make a needlessly more expensive product with features the target customers don't need, by having such coarse and inflexible standardization with little room for movement? It might not matter for a $2k Macbook where you could throw the kitchen sink in there, but for a $200 phone or a $500 laptop, it does. both in terms of cost and size. Yeah, the type-C flexibility is both a blessing and a curse.

by paulmd 4y ago

dmitriid 4y ago

That's what Intel did with Thunderbolt (4?) specification: you either support all of things listed there, or you can't call yourself Thunderbolt-compatible.

paulmd 4y ago
Yup. And I think that's the dichotomy: "supports everything on everything" or "cable doesn't cost $60 and goes farther than 2 meters", take your pick. Expense was pretty much a foregone conclusion at the start of the thunderbolt "one cable for everything" experiment, and now people want to do that with usb in general. Sure, that'll be great, but it's going to be expensive, including in places that don't need those capabilities. If you allow deviations from the standard, then you are back to things being incompatible with various devices/cables/chargers. They allowed that with power profiles (in particular) and video capabilities and now it's a mess. Framing profiles in terms of device use-cases is my attempt at turning that soup back into something comprehensible for average consumers, while keeping the benefit. People approach this as "I want to plug my phone into the charger and have it just work", "I want to plug my dock into my laptop and do everything through one cable", etc, and those are actually use-cases and not feature profiles, they don't really care that the laptop needs 40V 2.5A or 25V 3A, they just want it to work. But of course a $10 vape pen (or phone) doesn't need 40V 2.5A charging. So you have a "phone profile" and a "laptop profile" and iterate those things as groups/featuresets and not as a bunch of profiles thrown into one enormous standard. You can retain most of the "universal standard" juice without squeezing too hard on the "$60 cable" expense side of things. You could have one cable for laptop docks and one cable for phone charging and have a lot of overlap between, but still not have to use a $60 cable to charge your phone just because that's what a laptop needs, and yet not have a confusing free-for-all of "this charger doesn't do that". I'm just a rando though so it's not like I have any say.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

> go to best buy and pick a random device (any device) with a headphone port and a random pair of headphones and they work 100% of the time, guaranteed, I'll bet you money on this right now at my local best buy. Sure, maybe the audio will work, maybe it will have static cause they're cheap since the manufacturer cut corners to save $.01. But does the mic on them work with my device? Or the buttons on them, will they work controlling the volume? IIRC, wired 3.5mm headphones had separate versions for iPhone and Android as the buttons on them worked different on each platform. So making 3.5mm an example of successful standardization across all platforms is laughable IMHO. >it should be "laptop 2.0" and laptop 2.0 includes a mandatory selection of power/data/video capabilities, with 3.0 being a strict superset of 2.0 capabilities. What if for me as a consumer, or me as a manufacturer, don't need the full Laptop 3.0 capabilities in my ideal product, and my product just needs Laptop 2.0 capabilities with only a couple of Laptop 3.0 functionality to make me happy? Why make a needlessly more expensive product with features the target customers don't need, by having such coarse and inflexible standardization with little room for movement? It might not matter for a $2k Macbook where you could throw the kitchen sink in there, but for a $200 phone or a $500 laptop, it does. both in terms of cost and size. Yeah, the type-C flexibility is both a blessing and a curse.