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What a mess… couldn’t this be done in software instead? As in, if you try to charge your phone with a cable that doesn’t support fast charging, the phone could

What a mess… couldn’t this be done in software instead? As in, if you try to charge your phone with a cable that doesn’t support fast charging, the phone could detect it and pop up an alert. I’m not sure the average consumer would know what to make of these labels, and that’s assuming the cable manufacturers would comply and put accurate labels in the first place.

marcosdumay 3y ago
That's way too slow and way too late. It doesn't help finding the cable in a drawer, and it certainly doesn't give you any assurance it's a power-only cable before plugging in some unknown power supply. But yeah, let that happen too. It's also useful. > assuming the cable manufacturers would comply and put accurate labels in the first place Putting the wrong label on the cable is plain simple fraud. You can easily get some civil recourse, and if you are feeling revengeful, you can make a criminal complaint against the seller. Compare that with our current situation.
- lazide 3y ago
  Good luck perusing that course of action with a random Amazon or Alibaba seller. A well known brand? Sure. But those are not generally the source of the problems because of that.
lxgr 3y ago
That’s how it’s already done. I don’t know why no device actually exposes that information, but the e-marker in every USB-C 3.0 (or beyond) cable tells the device exactly that: The highest supported physical data rate and charging speed.
- spaceywilly 3y ago
  There you go. Seems like software could display this in a much more useful way than these labels ever could. Even the example in the article isn’t complete, it lists the data rate but doesn’t say anything about the amperage support for charging. Just a simple information window that lists the max charging Wattage and data transfer speed of the current cable/charger/device configuration would suffice.
- city41 3y ago
  My Pixel warns me when it is "charging slowly".
  - SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago
    But it doesn't warn "charging slowly because the cable you're using doesn't support fast charging" vs "charging slowly because the charger you're using doesn't support fast charging". It tells you there's a problem, but not what the cause is even when it can determine the cause.
- rtkwe 3y ago
  That's not true for PD charging cables though right? They are generally USB2 speeds if they have data pins beyond what's required for PD charging at all but they're just direct electrical cables without any chips as far as I know. https://www.lumafield.com/article/usb-c-cable-charger-head-to-head-comparison-apple-thunderbolt-amazon-basics https://www.lumafield.com/article/usb-c-cable-charger-head-t...
  - lazide 3y ago
    Devices could (and usability wise I wish they would!) show low data speed only warnings. No OS’s I know of currently do. The device definitely knows, all the information is accessible in the USB info if you know the special tools to run to dump it.
    - lxgr 3y ago
      At least Windows used to do this for USB 3 (before USB-C was a thing) devices plugged into an USB 2 port when the computer also had USB 3 ports available: https://superuser.com/questions/1022542/windows-10-display-a-warning-if-i-plug-a-usb-3-0-device-into-a-usb-2-0-port https://superuser.com/questions/1022542/windows-10-display-a... It would seem that with e-markers in USB-C cable (and assuming that USB 3/4 still expose device information like that to the host), an extended version of this should be possible: "Your computer and this device support x Gbps, but your cable caps out at y Gbps; use a better cable to make this connection faster".
      - lazide 3y ago
        They can do the opposite direction too, detecting a USB2.0 cable when a higher speed one is needed. It still boggles my mind that no corresponding warning pops up. Even without an e-marker, there has to be some way to know that the client device can support a higher speed and warn the user - it seems like USB device capabilities supports that? [https://developer.apple.com/documentation/iokit/1425036-usb_device_capability_type_const https://developer.apple.com/documentation/iokit/1425036-usb_...]
  - lxgr 3y ago
whywhywhywhy 3y ago
At least the label on the cable is useful for those of us that understand and doesn't intrude on those that don't A popup we all have to suffer wether we want to see it or not or if we understand it or not. Oh guess I could disable it right? Yeah another task for me to do on every device I own, no thanks. This is an excellent design solution, my only comment would be the type layout could be nicer.
kalleboo 3y ago
The lowest power USB-C cable is still 60 W which is more than enough for any phone (aside from some Android phones with proprietary 100W charging protocols that need their own custom chargers anyway)

marcosdumay 3y ago

That's way too slow and way too late. It doesn't help finding the cable in a drawer, and it certainly doesn't give you any assurance it's a power-only cable before plugging in some unknown power supply. But yeah, let that happen too. It's also useful. > assuming the cable manufacturers would comply and put accurate labels in the first place Putting the wrong label on the cable is plain simple fraud. You can easily get some civil recourse, and if you are feeling revengeful, you can make a criminal complaint against the seller. Compare that with our current situation.

lazide 3y ago
Good luck perusing that course of action with a random Amazon or Alibaba seller. A well known brand? Sure. But those are not generally the source of the problems because of that.

lxgr 3y ago

That’s how it’s already done. I don’t know why no device actually exposes that information, but the e-marker in every USB-C 3.0 (or beyond) cable tells the device exactly that: The highest supported physical data rate and charging speed.

spaceywilly 3y ago
There you go. Seems like software could display this in a much more useful way than these labels ever could. Even the example in the article isn’t complete, it lists the data rate but doesn’t say anything about the amperage support for charging. Just a simple information window that lists the max charging Wattage and data transfer speed of the current cable/charger/device configuration would suffice.
city41 3y ago
My Pixel warns me when it is "charging slowly".
- SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago
  But it doesn't warn "charging slowly because the cable you're using doesn't support fast charging" vs "charging slowly because the charger you're using doesn't support fast charging". It tells you there's a problem, but not what the cause is even when it can determine the cause.
rtkwe 3y ago
That's not true for PD charging cables though right? They are generally USB2 speeds if they have data pins beyond what's required for PD charging at all but they're just direct electrical cables without any chips as far as I know. https://www.lumafield.com/article/usb-c-cable-charger-head-to-head-comparison-apple-thunderbolt-amazon-basics https://www.lumafield.com/article/usb-c-cable-charger-head-t...
- lazide 3y ago
  Devices could (and usability wise I wish they would!) show low data speed only warnings. No OS’s I know of currently do. The device definitely knows, all the information is accessible in the USB info if you know the special tools to run to dump it.
  - lxgr 3y ago
    At least Windows used to do this for USB 3 (before USB-C was a thing) devices plugged into an USB 2 port when the computer also had USB 3 ports available: https://superuser.com/questions/1022542/windows-10-display-a-warning-if-i-plug-a-usb-3-0-device-into-a-usb-2-0-port https://superuser.com/questions/1022542/windows-10-display-a... It would seem that with e-markers in USB-C cable (and assuming that USB 3/4 still expose device information like that to the host), an extended version of this should be possible: "Your computer and this device support x Gbps, but your cable caps out at y Gbps; use a better cable to make this connection faster".
    - lazide 3y ago
      They can do the opposite direction too, detecting a USB2.0 cable when a higher speed one is needed. It still boggles my mind that no corresponding warning pops up. Even without an e-marker, there has to be some way to know that the client device can support a higher speed and warn the user - it seems like USB device capabilities supports that? [https://developer.apple.com/documentation/iokit/1425036-usb_device_capability_type_const https://developer.apple.com/documentation/iokit/1425036-usb_...]
- lxgr 3y ago

whywhywhywhy 3y ago

At least the label on the cable is useful for those of us that understand and doesn't intrude on those that don't A popup we all have to suffer wether we want to see it or not or if we understand it or not. Oh guess I could disable it right? Yeah another task for me to do on every device I own, no thanks. This is an excellent design solution, my only comment would be the type layout could be nicer.

kalleboo 3y ago

The lowest power USB-C cable is still 60 W which is more than enough for any phone (aside from some Android phones with proprietary 100W charging protocols that need their own custom chargers anyway)