10 ms·
They make USB-C cables with displays now
- moneywoes 2y agoHow do we know if these are doing something else?
- ryanmcbride 2y agoThe same way you know whether or not anything is doing something else
- imoverclocked 2y agoie: you probably don’t.
- whycome 2y agoHow do you know for the cables without displays?
- metaphor 2y agoThe USB-IF publishes a list of member companies[1]; purchase products from these qualified manufacturers, and perhaps more importantly, from authorized distributors. This is a good enough "policy control" for the average consumer. [1] https://www.usb.org/members https://www.usb.org/members
- pbronez 2y agoSurprised that Anker isn’t obviously on there.
- mceachen 2y agoUnsurprising considering Anker doesn’t pay for basic UL listing for many of their AC power taps.
- user_7832 2y agoAlso at least some of their products are just ODM rebrands. A bit disappointing but probably shouldn't have been surprised.
- metaphor 2y agoIt appears Anker Innovations Ltd was last listed[1] circa 2020 under VID 10522 (0x291A). Tread with caution...the prospects of zombie grift tend to be real when brand recognition is established. [1] https://usb.org/sites/default/files/vendor_ids051920_0.pdf https://usb.org/sites/default/files/vendor_ids051920_0.pdf
- k8svet 2y agoErm. I fail to see how this moves the needle unless usb-if is doing extreme firmware level source analysis and deterministic compiles and checking them against shipped firmware. Which I doubt is happening, with every atom in my body.
- metaphor 2y agoIt's a policy control suggestion that's both low effort and immediately actionable by the typical tech-literate types sleuthing these channels. When baseline consumer behavior is sort-by-price-low-to-high and select the cheapest item from random pop-up white label chinesium third-party vendor on Amazon, exercising an ounce of supply chain due diligence where none previously existed can go a long way. To be sure, if you think you can economically defend against a coordinated supply chain attack by a speculative adversary willing to pony up real capital operating an otherwise legitimate facade for years building market goodwill only to burn it all down in one shot against a single worthwhile target...well, I've got a bridge to sell you.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- makeitdouble 2y agoUSB testers are cheaper now, I'd advise anyone to buy one preemptively. It's nice to one-off check a new cable to know what it can be used for, with the additional benefit of seeing the power curves for the higher models (e.g. see a charger's power output drastically drop down as it overheats)
- EnergyAmy 2y agoDo you have any recommendations?
- makeitdouble 2y agoI'm using a super cheap Ali-express one I checked against well know and stable brands of cable/chargers (e.g. Apple and Anker's power bricks and cables). Otherwise AVHzY is I think the recommended brand, with two levels or pricing depending if you want external output.
- milesvp 2y agoFun fact. Any USB-C cable that needs to handle higher wattage than 5V@3A has circuitry that talks on the CC line to let the source know it’s not going to melt.
- infectoid 2y agoIf power is all you are looking for you can always play it safe with a USB Condom. e.g https://www.amazon.com.au/s?k=PortaPow https://www.amazon.com.au/s?k=PortaPow
- stavros 2y agoKeep in mind that this will limit you to 5V at 0.5A, if I'm not mistaken.
- ffsm8 2y agoAnd realize that if you're distrustful of the cable, you should be even more distrustful of that gadget which has even more space to add malicious parts and you're still unable to check it.
- Dylan16807 2y agohttps://mg.lol/blog/data-blocker-teardown/ https://mg.lol/blog/data-blocker-teardown/ The normal PortaPow tells the device that it's a charger. The extra paranoid version with no components on the board will often limit charging, it depends on how the device treats a complete lack of data pins.
- stavros 2y agoYes, but if you use a data blocker with a microcontroller on it, you've just exchanged one company you need to trust for another.
- Dylan16807 2y agoNot exactly. You now have to trust one entity instead of many, and it's an extremely small chip that can't do much, and the hack would have to be built in at purchase time, and the hack would have to take over your phone to exfiltrate. But if you're worried then get one that has a resistor and only a resistor.
- 2y ago
- kennethrc 2y agoI have a couple of these, one's in my laptop case, the other off a charger I carry everywhere. No less durable than a regular cable for a couple of years so far.
- justinator 2y agoAny good ones that would essentially replace a USB load tester? I'm thinking applications where I want to monitor power draw from a battery pack to say: a phone, or power being produced from a small solar panel (small, off the grid stuff)
- theamk 2y agoI've been using the cheapest aliexpress cable ($1.79 for "100W" model) for a few month, and it seems to work fine for 40W charging of my laptop. The display is extremely useful, as the charge light is hard to see when the laptop is in the bag.
- throwaway2037 2y ago> $1.79 for "100W" model The quotes made me laugh. So true. I can just imagine talking with a friend and they use air-quotes to describe the technical specs of any random item from AliExpress. Well said!
- transpute 2y agoFor comparison, a "something else" cable without display: https://shop.hak5.org/products/omg-cable https://shop.hak5.org/products/omg-cable > The O.MG Cable is a hand made USB cable with an advanced implant hidden inside. It is designed to allow your Red Team to emulate attack scenarios of sophisticated adversaries. Until now, a cable like this would cost $20,000 (ex: COTTONMOUTH-I). These cables will allow you to test new detection opportunities for your defense teams. They are also extremely impactful tools for teaching and training. Thanks to continual firmware updates, the resulting power, flexibility, and ease of use have made the O.MG Cable a favorite.
- xfitm3 2y agoThis now has wifi in the elite version. I have one for research purposes.
- quotemstr 2y ago> Due to the advanced capabilities of the O.MG Cable, regulations require that they are shipped "deactivated" Which "regulations" might those be?
- doe_eyes 2y agoProbably some Paypal or AdWords ToS with their vague prohibitions on "hacking tools".
- hackernewds 2y agothose are not regulations
- infogulch 2y agoPayment processors are de-facto regulators.
- mopenstein 2y ago
- twostorytower 2y agoAnd somebody will have Doom working on it soon!
- i_have_to_speak 2y ago> The paranoid side of me suspects that a cable like this one would be an ideal place to hide a malicious chip. Why hide a malicious chip in a cable with display -- why not in one without a display? Wouldn't that be more, uh, malicious?
- gonesilent 2y agoYou can find them with full cell modems hidden in the cable end molding.
- ffsm8 2y agoIt's hard to discern if you're serious or joking. Is that an actual thing? I couldn't find anything by googling
- verandaguy 2y agoI haven't heard of cell modems in particular, but I've used O.MG cables (described and sold here: https://shop.hak5.org/products/omg-cable https://shop.hak5.org/products/omg-cable; I am unaffiliated with either Hak5 or the team behind O.MG cables) which can create an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network for management/C2 reasons. It's actually really easy to use (and almost scary, coming from never having used one of these). They are quite pricey, but way less so than older cables used by security and jailbreak researchers in years past, which would run into the five figures.
- ffsm8 2y agoI'm aware that there's are local keylogger/payload cables around which let you transmit data short range. My surprise was specifically about the supposed cell modem within a 6€ cable
- fencepost 2y agoIt's not that they're cheap cables - it's that they look like cheap cables (or better, middling expensive higher-quality ones).
- gumby 2y ago> a cable like this one would be an ideal place to hide a malicious chip. USB cables already have an mpu in them unless they are simply USB 2 cables with a type C connector.
- PaulKeeble 2y agoDue to the way the standards for power have gone there is substantial need for owning such a cable! Maybe when everything is USB C PD compatible and tested and works then devices might just charge at the right wattage as they are specified to. Alas so far I have had a lot of devices that refused to charge at anything higher than 7 watts despite USB C on both ends and a modern GAN 100W charger. The power standards for USB are a complete mess.
- rramadass 2y ago> Due to the way the standards for power have gone there is substantial need for owning such a cable! More than this everybody (and in particular; "the common non-tech person") needs a powerful and feature rich "USB Power Meter". This and knowledge of a couple of equations (eg. P=IV) goes a long way in understanding how good a charger/battery is, how to prevent overheating problems during charging, whether fastcharging can be used and at what capability or not etc.
- Izkata 2y agoLook for "power meter" if you want stuff like this. I bought this one a year ago: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B99Z2GJK/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B99Z2GJK/ And this one for USB 3.0 four years ago: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019RHJRM8/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019RHJRM8/ Modern ones give a whole lot more information than the one in the article.
- jessriedel 2y agoYea I got one of these and found it very useful. So easy to get a USB cable that is secretly not to spec or otherwise dysfunctional and is making things charge slow. (Most common: 5W when it should be ~20W.)
- geepytee 2y agoOut of curiosity, why did you buy a power meter? Does it help with troubleshooting hardware?
- accrual 2y agoThey can be handy. One situation where it saved the day - my friend has a partially broken USB-C port on their phone that only charges when the cable is just right. The battery had died so there was no way to see if it was charging or not. Plugged in a USB-C inline power meter and we moved the cable around until the meter showed current, then we carefully set it down so it would finish charging. :)
- gizmo686 2y agoI've had issues with USB devices drawing more current then the port could put out. Without a power meter, it looks like the device just doesn't work (although the Linux kernel logs typically show a device disconnect event). With the meter, you can see a current peak up to a nice round value, followed by a voltage drop. The low refresh rate makes it not nearly as clear as with an oscilloscope, but once you know what to look for, it is easy enough to pick up. (And if you really want to, you can get one with a breakout to connect scope probes). If this is an issue you run into often, I'd also suggest a usb variable load tester to check exactly how much current a port will output.
- Animats 2y agoThe original USB-C spec called for cables to have optional displays to show why the cable had problems connecting. Did anyone every see one of those?
- LegitShady 2y agoNever in my life.
- toast0 2y agoCould just print 'the spec is too complex' on all cables. And save the expense of a display.
- crote 2y agoDid they? The only thing which comes to mind is the mandatory "Billboard Class" support for USB-C adapters, which allows them to inform the device they're attached to that negotiation has failed. But that's not really anything physical on the adapter itself, it's essentially a super-simple read-only micro flashdrive.
- netsharc 2y agoHow about 1 LED that blinks something in morse, that you can look up. I suppose 36 different error codes should be enough?
- omgtehlion 2y agoCouple years ago I have ordered a charger from ali, and similar cable was added “as a gift”. Pretty neat to quickly identify charging issues with various devices. Seems like these cables are (were) dirt-cheap.
- lallysingh 2y agoSo shall we expect the USB protocol to go encrypted? The USB committee (I don't know their actual name) can act as a root CA. It doesn't take a lot of compute to encrypt at my typing rate. I'd expect high transfer rate devices to probably already have the hardware (e.g everyone at rest).
- transpute 2y agoThere was a 2016 draft proposal for USB-C authentication, https://www.anandtech.com/show/10251/usbc-authentication-announced https://www.anandtech.com/show/10251/usbc-authentication-ann...
- crote 2y agoIt's not just a draft, the data required for a lot of this is already being included in cables currently being sold. I'm not aware of it actually being used, though.
- lkois 2y agoI had one of these and quite liked it. Then one day I plugged my phone in before bed as a million times before and the cable display popped and started emitting smoke.
- metadat 2y agoBummer, guess it was only rated for 1 million plug-ins. (:
- Helithumper 2y agoYou're not alone, this is the only type of USB cable i've had that has smoked out. Loud noise, little plume.
- dnpp123 2y agoSame here. Those killed a couple of my (expensive) devices. Strongly advise against it.
- jajko 2y agoChargers, cables, batteries - you literally get what you pay for. In this category, the ultimate risk is nothing less than burning down whole house. I ain't rich enough for that cheap crapware. Anker it is for me.
- zygentoma 2y agoIsn't Anker the definition of cheap crapware (sold under a brand name)?
- bzzzt 2y agoThey are not that cheap, and most stuff I've seen from them works as advertised.
- jajko 2y agoThis is news to me and doesn't confirm my own experience. Ie their pretty basic 65W wall charger is much better than 65W usb-c chargers from both HP and Dell they give to their laptops - much smaller and doesn't heat up at all with full day work from it, plastics are really solid so whole device just oozes quality, compared to properly cheap stuff from say aliexpress claiming the same. Their 20,000 mah battery charger works exactly as advertised, has exactly the charge we expect, keeps working few years after purchase just as new. So, to end suspense - what are actually high end manufacturer(s) in this area? I don't mean gucci-style appearance or some useless branding inflating the price, I mean actual internals.
- ruph123 2y agoWhat I like for USB-C cables is not only a tester that tests how much power it can transmit but also what data rates. I wish I could get a device where I could plug in all my cables and it would rate them for me. Such a device probably exists and it probably costs thousands of dollars.
- exikyut 2y agoYou might be able to get partway there by setting up thunderbolt networking between two endpoints. The caveat is that USB 4.x is still new enough it may require a significant time sink to get working at ~40Gbps et al, so your testing wouldn't be able to scale that high. But you can go to 10Gbps without too much effort: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39003469 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39003469 USB is quite the rabbithole, with a lot of functionality often hidden: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39470381 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39470381 - my takeaway from this is that "the PHY in the controller is 99% of the SERDES you wish you had, you just have to figure out how to make it cooperate" The chipsets found attached to ARM devices and SoCs etc may be easier to poke around at, but they are likely to either be expensive or just USB 3.0. :) Then there are devices like the FNB58 and the Power-Z KM003C that interrogate the controller chip in the cable and tell what charging protocols the cable supports, and also measure practical charging voltage and current (and you can acid test chargers using USB charger dummy loads). These devices don't test the cable's speed though. (On that note, https://old.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/1b5wgc6/how_to_recognize_km003c_counterfeit_usb_tester/ https://old.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/1b5wgc6/how_t... - that subreddit may also be interesting)
- nimbleal 2y agoWould plugging in your fastest external SSD and then using a hard drive read/write tester achieve some of the same ends? I've done that before with Blackmagic's disk speed test app and found it useful
- idatum 2y ago> It is a bit stiff and hard to work with, Current USB-C cables that connect to my docking station have a rigid connector end that puts mechanical stress on my laptop's port. I have the habit of moving my laptop around on my desk, and that connector end is a lever that pulls it out of the port. Worse, it physically wore out one of the ports where it became almost unusable (replacing requires an entire new board). Let's not put more stuff on these cables so they don't act more like like pliers instead of actual cables.
- calini 2y agoI think reliability is the Achilles heel of USB C regardless. I don't see those having a much bulkier head than a normal USB C power cable though.
- mihaaly 2y agoI hope it stops there and we will have no cables standard with giving a tune when connected and disconnected, perhaps beeping at each 100M transferred or such. Too many gadgets and appliences want to be in the center of our attention and notifying us about all more or less significant actions of their life - like people on Facebook - by giving sound, flashing, sending messages to the phone and my wife's email and whatnot. I prefer my cables staying in the attention background by doing their job.
- weinzierl 2y ago"That’s when I found out that there exist cables that have little screens on them that show the power consumption of the connected device." Useful to get an idea how much your USB light draws and to check if your phone is really fast charging. I'd be careful with the numbers when the USB drives a more complicated load. Measuring the true power consumption of a microcontroller is surprisingly hard.
- KeplerBoy 2y agoHow can measuring a DC load be complicated? Sure the load can be very spiky and you have to sample fast enough to accurately integrate them. but that's doable given sufficient caps. Of course you'd end up with some filtered average instead of the instantaneous power, but that would be no good for a text display anyway.
- weinzierl 2y agoWhen your range is from nano amps during sleep to spikes of several tens of amps you will not find a voltmeter with a range big enough to work with a single shunt. You need several shunts and switch between them very fast. That's what devices like the Joulscope do and why they are expensive.
- KeplerBoy 2y agofair enough, i had a use case in mind where you're just interested in a rough estimate of Watthours consumed.
- matsemann 2y agoDoes it actually measure load, or just display the negotiated power?
- calini 2y agoIt seems to measure load, it instantly responds to me hitting the boost button on my soldering iron.
- sligor 2y agoIf only device vendors clearly displayed the rate of charge making such cable useless...
- theogravity 2y agoI went through two of these kind of USB-C cables bought from Amazon. They both broke within a matter of months. I'd wait until a reputable brand sells them.
- kkfx 2y agoWell... Data are useful if we can collect and process them automatically, a display means you can read instantaneously (essentially useless 99% of the time) but not store and analyze. Some instantaneous data are useful, for instance before going out in the morning a quick look at the thermometer might be useful. Many others are not. For me a more expensive cable just to have a display on it is useless, eventually collected consumption data per device and makes a nice Grafana dashboard of them might be useful or just wasted resources, but at least they go on a flexible machine I already own so it's not an extra hw costs.
- theodric 2y agoThese power meter cables have been out for a couple years, but it's only recently that manufacturers have caught on that previously the display would be upside down for most(?) people (or 100% of people who are me, anyway) when plugged in on the left side of the machine. Which I find hilarious, because the pictures in the AliExpress listings always showed the cable plugged in on the left, display upside down, like it was meant to be that way. My ThinkPad only has left USB-C, my M1 Air only has left USB-C, and I'm accustomed to left power from years of MacBooks.
- rjh29 2y agoUSB-C has no orientation so I don't understand. You can just flip the cable.
- udevrandom 2y agoFlipping the cable would put the cables power display on the underside of your machine. The little built-in screen on the cable is only on one side.
- MissTake 2y agoAnd? The GP talks about it being upside down when plugged in to the left hand side of a device. Given that USB-C is Bi-directional, flipping it over would show the screen…
- theodric 2y agoYou're suggesting I plug it in upside down so I can't read it, or plug it in on the right side of my machines which have no ports on the right side?
- rjh29 2y agoI own this cable. You literally put the cable in the left side at an orientation that has the display facing upwards. I feel like I'm missing something! It's bidirectional so you can just twist the cable so the display is facing up..
- nottorp 2y agoI might eventually get some of these from the toy budget. However, how bright is that display? Enough to read in bed while your phone is charging on the nightstand? :)
- rjh29 2y agoIt's super bright, I have to put cloth over it to help me sleep.
- rjh29 2y agoUseful for lots of things - my earbuds have a really vague charging light, but if it says 0.00w I know it's done. I have a Nintendo Switch Pro Controller with a dodgy connection too, and it lets me know it's actually charging.
- tecleandor 2y agoI'd be very wary of a $7 cable that claims to be USB4.
- jimbobthrowawy 2y agoDoes usb4 require any circuitry in the cable? I'd expect a 20-odd connector cable to be available for $7 (direct from china) pretty easily. I haven't bought many, but the best type C cables (usb3) I ever bought were €2.12 each.
- tecleandor 2y agoUSB4 is like USB3.2 plus some other stuff. It tunnels USB3.2, PCIe, DisplayPort, should be Power Delivery enabled and Thunderbolt 3 compatible.
- Havoc 2y agoRather buy a usb c power meter. They show amps voltage and watt so helps troubleshoot usb c stuff
- calini 2y agoI have both and I find the cable just as useful. Also, if for some reason you don't want it there, for example it is a bit bright for a nightstand, you can run it in reverse and it stays off.
- skywhopper 2y agoIn terms of the risk of a “malicious chip”, that has nothing to do with the display or USB-C. Any cable could have a malicious chip in it at this point. USB-C cables require some chips to function so even if you take it apart you won’t know for sure what its little chips are doing. Good luck out there!
- yismail 2y agoNeat I remember seeing these on Marques Brownlee’s channel a couple times too. [0] https://x.com/MKBHD/status/1478413987259822081 https://x.com/MKBHD/status/1478413987259822081
- calini 2y agoI've used some by an Aliexpress brand called Soopii for some time now. I broke one myself, the rest are still going strong after ~2 years, and power testing with an actual USB C tester, they're quite accurate.
- doubleg72 2y agoIs this really that innovative? I have been using one of these cables with a display in it for like three years now. I wouldn't say it's a new thing.
- butz 2y agoIf only USB-C port was more sturdy.
- JohnFen 2y agoSo they can make these, but manufacturers can't seem to figure out how to put a clear label on a cable that will tell you what flavor it is.
- connerchyung 2y agothey make disposable vapes with display now too https://vapejuice.com/blogs/vape-juice-news/disposable-vape-with-screen https://vapejuice.com/blogs/vape-juice-news/disposable-vape-...
- TwoNineFive 2y agoThese have been on the market for years. I have a bunch of them. They are a bad gimic in every way. They generate heat. They waste power. They create light pollution. They are distracting. Their measurement capabilities are often very limited or mediocre or don't update quickly. And finally they often burn out and stop working anyway. If you want a USB power meter, buy one for $10 or less.
- Cheer2171 2y ago> They generate heat. They waste power. Marginal. A laptop display uses 1000x power and heat than these LCDs. Turning your brightness down for a few seconds saves the same amount. > They create light pollution. They are distracting. Personal preference, but for me it is no more distracting than the battery percentage icon next to my taskbar clock. > Their measurement capabilities are often very limited or mediocre or don't update quickly. The chip used in all the Aliexpress cables updates multiple times a second and is in line with my standalone power meter. > And finally they often burn out and stop working anyway. I'm using these as my daily drivers for all my USB C devices for over a year, and haven't had to replace them. Gave them as stocking stuffers to the family last Christmas and have heard no complaints.