5 ms·
I had to do a double take after reading this comment to make sure I wasn't reading an old thread from 2014 or something. USB-C has been out for years now and n
by Ajedi32 3y ago
I had to do a double take after reading this comment to make sure I wasn't reading an old thread from 2014 or something.
USB-C has been out for years now and neither of these predictions have come to pass. Your comment aged poorly before you even finished writing it.
USB-C isn't without its problems, but neither of those are one of them.
- mbar84 3y agoI have one USB-C cable that I know can be used to charge my laptop. I can't grab any old USB-C cable and use it to charge from my the exact same power brick. I have other cables from USB-C to Display-Port and I know only of one that does 2160p@60hz.
- alanbernstein 3y agoI own a usb-c male to usb-c female extension cable that I connect to a yubikey. The yubikey only works in one orientation. I don't have any other bits to test hypotheses with, but I believe the cable was made with the symmetry problem described above.
- mlyle 3y agoUsb-c to usb-c extensions are currently explicitly prohibited by standard, both because of issues like this and ways that they defeat safety mechanisms with charging.
- Ajedi32 3y agoAFAIK there's no such thing as a standards compliant USB-C male to USB-C female extension cable. The very concept goes against the spec[1]. You have a point though; I'm sure there are abominations out there that abuse the USB spec in all sorts of interesting ways, they just haven't been something I've encountered in my years of using USB-C for everything. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/10xj74r/why_dont_usbc_extension_cables_work/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/10xj74r/why_d...
- alanbernstein 3y agoAh, good to know. I'm tempted to respond that this means the spec has failed to address an important use case. But I'm certainly not going to learn enough of the spec to back up that claim.
- Ajedi32 3y agoYou're not wrong; it's an unfortunate limitation, even though there are solid technical reasons for it. As a sibling commenter pointed out, a standards-compliant alternative would basically just be a USB hub with a single USB-C port.
- kccqzy 3y agoYou can make a USB-C hub that has only a USB-C port.
- skinner927 3y agoWhy buys a $5 cable when you can buy a $20 cable?
- ianburrell 3y agoThen throw it away, it is broken. There is no way to prevent junk from not implementing the standard. The solution is not buying junk.
- alanbernstein 3y agoIt is not broken. It is the best solution to a problem, even if it is imperfect. It seems that the committee behind the spec was somehow unable to learn from decades of experience, and did not predict that people would want extension cables, and that companies would make them. That's not an actual problem for me. Not being able to reach my yubikey when I'm using my laptop at my desk, is a problem.
- keep_reading 3y agoI have a cable like this for a device and experience the same
- pclmulqdq 3y agoWait, there already are PD-specific cables, video-specific cables, and the like. If your cable is short enough, it's not an issue, but if you want one longer than 1 meter, you will likely have problems with 4k video on a cable that isn't specifically designed for high data rates.
- Max-q 3y agoThe high speed and power delivery cables have chips on them, so the connected devices won't use high speed or PD if the cable can't handle it, regardless of length.
- aenvoker 3y agoI have a USB-C cable that only charges when oriented one way.
- fragmede 3y agoHow did you discover that!?
- Max-q 3y agoThen it is broken I think you have both a broken cable and a broken device, or one not up to spec. Some devices only connect to one side, which will work on a good cable, since it is connected to both sides. One of the PC manufacturers did this early on with USB C. I can't remember who it was.
- ianferrel 3y agoI have USB-C cables that look the same, but some of them carry video and some don't. I have USB-C charging devices that will charge off of some cables, but not off the one that will charge my laptop. I now have a box of weird crappy cheap USB-C cables with taped-on notes that say which toys they'll charge. I never had this problem with previous USBs. If the cable fit in the port, it would charge and transfer data. Sometimes you needed a different cable or port or something to go faster, but they all basically worked.
- smolder 3y agoI don't own any Apple devices myself and don't even have a MBP through work anymore, but I do have a couple of Apple USB-C cables and a spare laptop charger, still. They conveniently seem to work with every kind of device for any use. Data, video, fast charging. However, I do have one other cable that won't do data. I think it came with a cheap charger I bought while travelling. I would certainly like it if there was a label saying charge only or something to that effect, on the incomplete cable.
- joshstrange 3y agoYep, I've got USB-C cables that only operate at USB 2.0 speeds, drives me nuts. Though USB-A suffered from this same issue, even once we got USB 3.0 it was hard to tell what speeds it supported (3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.2 gen 2).
- nucleardog 3y agoYeah, I don’t know how anyone can say this is not a problem. I’m sure there’s some deep technical reason why each cable does or doesn’t work, but as a user I have no idea why it’s the case or how I can figure out which cable will work where. I thought I was being smart ordering some decent Anker cables until I found out when trying to connect a display that they apparently they only support charging? And maybe USB 2.0 transfer speeds? So I went back looking to try and figure out what I needed instead. Depending on what the various devices involved support, I needed some variation of a thunderbolt cable (2, 3, or 4?) or a USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type C or a USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type C. But then I’m supposed to know something about thunderbolt versus DP alt mode versus god knows what else none of which is clearly labeled or explained anywhere on the devices I’m trying to connect. But then there’s this handy table from Adafruit that says maybe not? https://learn.adafruit.com/assets/85323 https://learn.adafruit.com/assets/85323 — apparently only Thunderbolt supports video, or DisplayPort? And USB-C “full featured” cables are only for higher speed charging, not displays? Find 10 sites, get 10 different answers. Anyway, turns out a USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type C cable worked for this specific display. Why? No idea. Will it work elsewhere? No idea. I’ve been in the industry professionally for about 25 years now and I have no idea what cable I need to purchase and have no idea how to tell before I purchase whether it will work for a specific use case. I have no idea what non-technical people are expected to do with this besides try every cable they own and pray.
- julienb_sea 3y agoNew iphone ships with a beautiful braided USB-C cable that's charge only. I'm going to cannibalize the usb-c cable from my external nvme drive if I ever want to plug the new phone in. Some usb-c cables are 100W compliant, many are not. None of them are clearly labeled.
- sokoloff 3y agoI have many USB-C cables that don't behave like other USB-C cables. Just this past week, I had to buy another cable for my son's desk setup because of the many USB-C cables I had, I was out of the ones that would carry 4K video and USB-C 80+W PD to his laptop at the same time. (I had a couple that worked, but they were in use for my wife and I, and the couple handfuls of others I had were capable of zero or one of those two functions.)
- pixl97 3y agoI'm not sure if that's the best example... Kinda like saying that I have a bunch of very light indoor extension cords and you are wanting to run an outdoor high amperage device (both 110v in this example). Yea, the interface for both is the same, but one is going to be used far less often and require a much more expensive cable for a reason.
- terr-dav 3y agoThe girth of a power cable roughly scales with capacity though, and there are 3 common pin configurations - 2 equal size blades - 2 unequal size blades - 3 unequal + ground pin plus a fourth for 20A - 1 vertical blade, 1 horizontal blade, 1 ground pin USB-C cables have one form factor, which is what GP is talking about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEMA_connector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEMA_connector
- criddell 3y agoWhat cable did you get? I’ve bought a bunch off Amazon and none work as well as the one cable I have that does work. I use a 4K + PD cable to connect my laptop to my monitor. The cable I have that came with the monitor works but I want a shorter cable. All of the ones I’ve bought cause the video to periodically cycle off and on.
- sokoloff 3y agoI can’t find which of the old ones definitely worked (because I bought 6 at once and didn’t manage to return the duds) and though it arrived on Sat, I haven’t had time to fully test the new one. It carried 4K/60, but I haven’t tested it across all our devices to be sure it does full power delivery to all. (If it only works on some, I have no problems sending it back until I get one that works well for all.) I’ll try to remember to come back and report on thread if I found one that works for all my devices (and what it worked for). It’s not something that I’ve time to carefully test during the week.
- Cannabat 3y agoYou’ve been fortunate (or far more clued in to usb standards than just about everyone) if you don’t already have multiple usb c cables with different capabilities. It’s possible for noncompliant usb c cable to fry electronics. I don’t know of any other connector standard where the connector doesn’t clearly indicate or imply the cable’s capabilities. I’m sure they exist, but generally for consumer electronics if a cable fits, it works. Except for usb c.
- lxgr 3y agoUSB-C problems surely exist, but I have never heard of single-side only plugs, and video-only cables simply don’t exist, yet these are GPs specific concerns.
- crote 3y agoSingle-side-only plugs are an issue with USB-C extension cables - which aren't allowed by the spec and shouldn't exist for a wide variety of reasons.
- IshKebab 3y agoI used a Bluetooth analyser once that had a USB-C connector that only plugged in one way. It had a dedicated "wrong way around" LED to tell you to rotate it. Kind of hilarious. It's the only example I've ever seen though so not a real problem IMO. The cables issue is real, but I don't really see the alternative. Would everyone really be happier if all USB-C cables had to be expensive thick 40 Gb/s 100W cables? No.
- nucleardog 3y agoCould they not have done… something else besides make everything visually identical? At least give us a fighting chance? In a perfect world require every port to have the supported modes displayed beside it, and every cable to have the supported modes etched on the metal connector or something? Lightning bolt for PD, little screen icon for video, something? It will fall apart as soon as cheap unlicensed electronics hit the market, but at least in general use “hook this brand name laptop up to this brand name monitor with this brand name cable” would not be a seemingly completely inscrutable trial-and-error problem.
- IshKebab 3y agoThey do try to get manufacturers to print symbols next to the ports, but that isn't really a full solution anyway. There are too many modes, and you have things like hubs to deal with. I suspect the real answer is better software support to tell you why something isn't working.
- crote 3y ago> In a perfect world require every port to have the supported modes displayed beside it, and every cable to have the supported modes etched on the metal connector or something? Lightning bolt for PD, little screen icon for video, something? Guess what? That's already the case! Manufacturers just choose to completely ignore that part of the specification.
- joshstrange 3y ago> USB-C has been out for years now and neither of these predictions have come to pass. Your comment aged poorly before you even finished writing it. Number 1 absolutely has. I've been somewhat in the market for a tester that I can plug both ends of a USB-C cable into and see what voltage, speed, and other specs it supports since most of my cables have zero markings on them.
- macintux 3y agoData vs power-only is very much a problem. See this Daring Fireball note about an iPhone review: Becca Farsace plugged her iPhone into an external drive for shooting video, only to discover later that it was only useful for charging, and the recording was very low quality. (This is something Apple should fix at the software level by alerting the user, but it highlights the problem that cables are not readily distinguishable.) https://daringfireball.net/linked/2023/10/05/farsace-iphone-15-pro-max https://daringfireball.net/linked/2023/10/05/farsace-iphone-...
- eloisant 3y agoAlso I have to say that the situation of USB-C is much better now than in the past. At the beginning of USB-C you had devices that were not implementing the standard correctly, and using the wrong cable could fry a device. Now the devices are better protected, you can charge any device with any charger. Of course the charger needs to be powerful enough but if it's too powerful it's still safe to use.
- crote 3y agoWe still see quite a few new products being released which fail to implement the spec. A common offender is devices which leave out the CC resistors, making them only work with A-C cables. But the soon-to-be-released Raspberry Pi 5 also violates the specs, making it basically only work with their proprietary charger.
- MiddleEndian 3y agoUSB-C has been fucking fantastic for me. I plug one USB-C cable into my personal laptop or my work laptop, and I get a USB hub for my external keyboard and mouse, my external monitor, and power, all with a single plug. Makes it so easy to swap everything in and out.
- leokennis 3y agoThis is the dream indeed. However to make this dream happen I had to buy and trial and error 6 USB-C cables before I accidentally purchased one that carried enough wattage, supported the correct video mode, had enough bandwidth for 100 Hz video signal and that actually worked. The market for USB-C cables is a jungle.