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>USB4 uses USB-C That's a relief I guess, I was afraid we were getting a new connector again. How do normal people keep all this USB crap straight? I conside

>USB4 uses USB-C That's a relief I guess, I was afraid we were getting a new connector again. How do normal people keep all this USB crap straight? I consider myself something of a nerd but I find all of this cable/port diversity utterly bewildering.

refulgentis 3y ago
USB4's been out for quite some time, USB3 is usb you're used to / we cut our teeth on if you're over 25. There's a vocal subset that argues *USB4 itself is confusing*, but 95% of the time they're referring to either: A) power (the crappy $5 Amazon cable from 3 years ago will not carry 100W for your M2 Pro Apple Silicon Apple MacBook Pro B) crappy 3rd party cables you can't trust because you can't trust crappy 3rd party cables, ever
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  For what it's worth, I've tried to find a Thunderbolt/USB4 C-to-C cable that can also carry 100W. The only cables I've found (that weren't obviously lying in the ad) were Apple's cables. Even other laptop manufacturers have cables for charging and cables for high speed data transfer. Samsung's official cables seem to do either USB3 or high-speed charging, but not both at the same time. Lenovo has a Thunderbolt 4 cable (with no details on the power capabilities) or a USB 3.2 2x2 cable that can carry up to 100W. Dell Europe doesn't seem to be selling C-to-C cables. HP seems to sell a competent cable for one of their docks, but that's out of stock. Asus' cable is USB2 only. Acer doesn't seem to sell any cables as far as I can tell, except for a USB 3.1 cable for Chromebooks. If you want a fully-featured USB4 cable, your only options are either buying a cable from Apple or going for third parties and with the prevalent scams on online web stores and the risk of burning your house down if the cable turns out not to be up to spec, getting good cables can be a real challenge. Apple sells their cables for a ridiculous price (€150) but I wouldn't expect the average consumer to know where to reliably spend their €30-€50 for a charge cable. Device manufacturers really need to step up and sell some kind of certified cable that doesn't cut any corners.
  - justincormack 3y ago
    Caldigit sells them https://www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-4-usb-4-cable/ https://www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-4-usb-4-cable/ including 2m active ones.
  - lxgr 3y ago
    > [...] either USB3 or high-speed charging, but not both at the same time [...] That seems implausible/unlikely to be the cable's fault: Since different wire pairs are used for power supply and data, why would the two be mutually exclusive? > I wouldn't expect the average consumer to know where to reliably spend their €30-€50 for a charge cable The situation was tricky for a while, but these days, even on Amazon.com's search results (which are frequently swamped with spam/uncertified products), searching for "Thunderbolt 4 cable" yields products by trustworthy-looking vendors supporting 100W charging in the first 5 results.
  - brigade 3y ago
    I don’t think I’ve ever seen a 40gbps capable cable that didn’t support 100W, and Apple isn’t the only one selling such cables with certification. Where are you finding these odd cables? 5/10/20gbps cables, those I’ve seen limited to 60W.
    - jeroenhd 3y ago
      I'll believe it as soon as the manufacturer advertises it. If they have a cable that says "100W" and a different cable that says "high data transfer speed" then I can only assume the high speed one wasn't made to carry that much power. I know it's only a few amps but there's still a real risk of melting plastic and starting fires (and this has happened in the past).
- ilyt 3y ago
  Neither will good cable. You need to explicitly go to 3rd party test sites to buy a fucking cable that does what protocol says it should. It's a fucking nightmare
- hakfoo 3y ago
  I won't say that USB4 is confusing, because I admit I don't understand it, because I haven't really bothered to try, aside from noticing some motherboards advertising "support for special USB4 module socket, coming soon." The USB forum has completely lost any sort of messaging muscle it once had. USB3 was somewhat exciting in its original 5Gbps form-- it made it feasible to put things like spinning rust external HDDs on there with no compromises, and in effect strangled eSATA and the last places you'd see external SCSI ports. Since then, all they've been able to deliver is an alphabet soup. First, nothing was special because everything keeps getting upgraded-- that "3.0" device I was going to buy became "3.2" without having any actual changes made. There's an ever growing set of laundry-label style icons for power supply and DisplayPort compatibility, precision-engineered to be either ignored or misused by lowest-bid vendors. USB 4.0 could really have benefitted from a strong message-- something like "Here's ONE big and obvious 4.0 badge and it means any cable with it will support ALL the features promised in this slide deck."
derefr 3y ago
I think you've confused "first USB4 expansion card" with "first device that has a USB4 socket." Laptops have had USB4 for a couple of years now.
alpaca128 3y ago
USB is 27 years old and 99% of USB devices I've seen used one of just three different ports, two of which are still in wide use. I'd say the fact I can plug a 15 years old harddrive into a brand new PC and it'll just work without any adapter is amazing. Bewildering diversity? Where?
- George83728 3y ago
  Within about 5 meters of me I have devices with sockets or cables for USB 2 Type A and Type B, USB 2 Mini (not sure if Type A, B, or AB...), USB 2 Micro (Type AB?), USB 3 Type A, USB 3 Micro (Type B? not sure...) and finally USB 3 Type C. That's seven at least by my count. I probably have some USB 1.1 Type A peripherals in my closet but those might be USB 2, they look the same so I'm not sure. The only devices I counted were: phone, kindle, laptop, PC, mouse/keyboard, printer, portable HDD, and a GPS nav unit. Maybe I'm weird for still using the last one, but otherwise I don't think any of this is particularly unusual.
  - singpolyma3 3y ago
    All the type A are compatible though? I think most people consider that one. There have been several common B (B, miniB, microB, appleB) but it was mostly all microB for quite a few years before C happened.
    - camtarn 3y ago
      USB 3 type A has extra pins. It is backwards compatible with pre-3, but you don't get the USB 3 features.
recursive 3y ago
> How do normal people keep all this USB crap straight? We just have a drawer full of various USB things. If something doesn't fit/work, just try another one. If none work, or the drawer is running low, buy some more. You might have to buy multiple times if the new ones don't work. At least, this is what works for me.

refulgentis 3y ago

USB4's been out for quite some time, USB3 is usb you're used to / we cut our teeth on if you're over 25. There's a vocal subset that argues *USB4 itself is confusing*, but 95% of the time they're referring to either: A) power (the crappy $5 Amazon cable from 3 years ago will not carry 100W for your M2 Pro Apple Silicon Apple MacBook Pro B) crappy 3rd party cables you can't trust because you can't trust crappy 3rd party cables, ever

jeroenhd 3y ago
For what it's worth, I've tried to find a Thunderbolt/USB4 C-to-C cable that can also carry 100W. The only cables I've found (that weren't obviously lying in the ad) were Apple's cables. Even other laptop manufacturers have cables for charging and cables for high speed data transfer. Samsung's official cables seem to do either USB3 or high-speed charging, but not both at the same time. Lenovo has a Thunderbolt 4 cable (with no details on the power capabilities) or a USB 3.2 2x2 cable that can carry up to 100W. Dell Europe doesn't seem to be selling C-to-C cables. HP seems to sell a competent cable for one of their docks, but that's out of stock. Asus' cable is USB2 only. Acer doesn't seem to sell any cables as far as I can tell, except for a USB 3.1 cable for Chromebooks. If you want a fully-featured USB4 cable, your only options are either buying a cable from Apple or going for third parties and with the prevalent scams on online web stores and the risk of burning your house down if the cable turns out not to be up to spec, getting good cables can be a real challenge. Apple sells their cables for a ridiculous price (€150) but I wouldn't expect the average consumer to know where to reliably spend their €30-€50 for a charge cable. Device manufacturers really need to step up and sell some kind of certified cable that doesn't cut any corners.
- justincormack 3y ago
  Caldigit sells them https://www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-4-usb-4-cable/ https://www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-4-usb-4-cable/ including 2m active ones.
- lxgr 3y ago
  > [...] either USB3 or high-speed charging, but not both at the same time [...] That seems implausible/unlikely to be the cable's fault: Since different wire pairs are used for power supply and data, why would the two be mutually exclusive? > I wouldn't expect the average consumer to know where to reliably spend their €30-€50 for a charge cable The situation was tricky for a while, but these days, even on Amazon.com's search results (which are frequently swamped with spam/uncertified products), searching for "Thunderbolt 4 cable" yields products by trustworthy-looking vendors supporting 100W charging in the first 5 results.
- brigade 3y ago
  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a 40gbps capable cable that didn’t support 100W, and Apple isn’t the only one selling such cables with certification. Where are you finding these odd cables? 5/10/20gbps cables, those I’ve seen limited to 60W.
  - jeroenhd 3y ago
    I'll believe it as soon as the manufacturer advertises it. If they have a cable that says "100W" and a different cable that says "high data transfer speed" then I can only assume the high speed one wasn't made to carry that much power. I know it's only a few amps but there's still a real risk of melting plastic and starting fires (and this has happened in the past).
ilyt 3y ago
Neither will good cable. You need to explicitly go to 3rd party test sites to buy a fucking cable that does what protocol says it should. It's a fucking nightmare
hakfoo 3y ago
I won't say that USB4 is confusing, because I admit I don't understand it, because I haven't really bothered to try, aside from noticing some motherboards advertising "support for special USB4 module socket, coming soon." The USB forum has completely lost any sort of messaging muscle it once had. USB3 was somewhat exciting in its original 5Gbps form-- it made it feasible to put things like spinning rust external HDDs on there with no compromises, and in effect strangled eSATA and the last places you'd see external SCSI ports. Since then, all they've been able to deliver is an alphabet soup. First, nothing was special because everything keeps getting upgraded-- that "3.0" device I was going to buy became "3.2" without having any actual changes made. There's an ever growing set of laundry-label style icons for power supply and DisplayPort compatibility, precision-engineered to be either ignored or misused by lowest-bid vendors. USB 4.0 could really have benefitted from a strong message-- something like "Here's ONE big and obvious 4.0 badge and it means any cable with it will support ALL the features promised in this slide deck."

derefr 3y ago

I think you've confused "first USB4 expansion card" with "first device that has a USB4 socket." Laptops have had USB4 for a couple of years now.

alpaca128 3y ago

USB is 27 years old and 99% of USB devices I've seen used one of just three different ports, two of which are still in wide use. I'd say the fact I can plug a 15 years old harddrive into a brand new PC and it'll just work without any adapter is amazing. Bewildering diversity? Where?

George83728 3y ago
Within about 5 meters of me I have devices with sockets or cables for USB 2 Type A and Type B, USB 2 Mini (not sure if Type A, B, or AB...), USB 2 Micro (Type AB?), USB 3 Type A, USB 3 Micro (Type B? not sure...) and finally USB 3 Type C. That's seven at least by my count. I probably have some USB 1.1 Type A peripherals in my closet but those might be USB 2, they look the same so I'm not sure. The only devices I counted were: phone, kindle, laptop, PC, mouse/keyboard, printer, portable HDD, and a GPS nav unit. Maybe I'm weird for still using the last one, but otherwise I don't think any of this is particularly unusual.
- singpolyma3 3y ago
  All the type A are compatible though? I think most people consider that one. There have been several common B (B, miniB, microB, appleB) but it was mostly all microB for quite a few years before C happened.
  - camtarn 3y ago
    USB 3 type A has extra pins. It is backwards compatible with pre-3, but you don't get the USB 3 features.

recursive 3y ago

> How do normal people keep all this USB crap straight? We just have a drawer full of various USB things. If something doesn't fit/work, just try another one. If none work, or the drawer is running low, buy some more. You might have to buy multiple times if the new ones don't work. At least, this is what works for me.