Google engineer writing Amazon reviews on USB-C cables that don't work
amazon.com
amazon.com
I once tried to purposely destroy an Anker MicroUSB cable (bought a 5 pack that had three 3ft, one 6ft, one 1ft, didn't need the 1ft), by grabbing the head of it with clamping pliers and yanking the fuck out of it with the cable wrapped around my hand, and bending it to near 180 degrees repeatedly for about 5 minutes.
I could not kill it without straight up taking wire cutters to it, which I decided not to do.
The cable still works perfectly, and sits in my junk drawer for when I need to plug something into the front of my case and leave the thing sitting on top of the computer.
Literally any other brand? Most I would have been able to rip the head off the cable after the first few yanks, the few that survived that would have broken the wire pairs inside either from that or from the repeated 180 degree bend.
Remember those original Monoprice USB cables we all bought and loved back in the day? Those didn't survive that abuse, and Monoprice cables have only gotten worse then. And the AmazonBasics USB cables (that I recommend for non-MicroUSB cables (only because Anker doesn't make them, only MicroUSB, Type C, and Lightning))? Don't survive that level of abuse either.
Anker also has the best damned USB chargers for walls and cars I've ever seen (heaviest USB chargers I've ever had, no coil whine, doesn't EZ-Bake itself, shuts off completely when nothing is plugged in), they're just perfectly glorious.
The extra friction will almost always hold the connector in the port reliably.
I've opened one failed cable's connectors and it looked like a design problem: The micro USB connector's metal jacket is really short and not properly anchored inside the connector (it is attached to 2 plastic hooks inside). Once it's bent too much, those hooks loosen and the two steel springs lose their tension and retract.
This is one reason why I don't mind if the cables aren't that difficult to break. I'd rather the cable break than my devices.
Here's the full set of products: http://www.ianker.com/Solar-Chargers/category-c53-s1
There are Amazon links on each individual product page.
[0] https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=iw&tl=en&js=y&prev...
I bought a bunch of their external battery packs (aprox 15 of them) and none of those have failed)
Random youtube demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLZeFiJA5LM
I say this because I had one of their USB power ports that my children use to charge their iPads (2x 4th gen) that overheated and burnt up[1]. I completed the contact form on their website and used keywords like "fire" but it took my tweet to get their attention. Even after that, their response was fairly slow. After many weeks and me even shipping the defective product back, they only offered to refund me the cost of the unit, send a replacement power port, Anker brand lightning cables (to replace Apple genuine ones - and those broke), and send me an older generation battery pack. In the end, I did not pursue the replacements because I no longer had faith in their products or brand.
After all of this, I will no longer be purchasing or recommending Anker products.
[1] https://twitter.com/mathewpeterson/status/603337986495807489
Although it may not be possible to control an entire production chain, it is entirely possible to control the customer service department or at least the refund policy.
Even though Anker may not provide perfect products + service every time, they may be a good place to start looking for an accessory.
Luckily both kids were not injured and were able to unplug the unit before it caused any major damage. Because there were no bodily damage, I didn't push the issue as hard as I could have.
Aukey is similar, I recommend them also based on the two chargers from them I own. I don't have any cables though so YMMV.
I use my phone heavily (Ingress mostly) and it's not uncommon to go through 3 or 4 full charge cycles a day or to just keep my phone plugged in all day.
Before I started buying Anker's cables, I would burn through a cable every two weeks or so. First monoproce, although I quickly dropped those. Then several other brands. Another point in Anker's favor is that the profile of the USB-C plug on their cables is much smaller than most other brands. This is important when you have a hefty case on your phone.
Anker's external battery packs are awesome too, as are their wall and car chargers. Most if not all of their products put out 2 Amps which is the charging limit of most devices (certain tables accept up to 3) as opposed to many other wall chargers that put out .5-1 Amps.
One exception to this are the cables which came with both my Motorola Moto Gs phone. They charge very fast and I use one of them for over 1.5 years and it does not show any wear. I really wish I knew where to buy more of those specific Motorola cables.
This is what I went with, but it didn't seem to support data transfer. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B011N7ME48?psc=1&redirect=t...
Anker Type C to USB 3.0 Type A: http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0119EIHTG/
Both are currently out of stock, which might be why you didn't find them. I was told by someone I know that asked Anker that they should be back in stock before the end of November.
[0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/smile-always/jgpmh...
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/amazonsmilere...
Just have a rule that changes www.amazon.com to smile.amazon.com and it works for me.
Great quality for silly price.
The durability of an Anker won't help if they haven't designed it properly.
Unless you bought it through Amazon using the links off Anker's website, it's probably a fake.
Though, if it's any consolation to Anker, scammers only counterfeit the best.
They counterfeit anything they can make money from, but "the best" is generally a go-to market for sure.
Since the device is likely more expensive than the cable, this might not be desireable.
As for your cable, I'd rather have the connector on my cheap USB cable pop off than drag my computer to the floor if I happen to snag it somehow. But to each their own, I'm glad you found a USB cable you like.
Now that an expert has called some of these cables out as not adhering to the spec shouldn't they be taken off of Amazon? Should they be reprimanded for false advertisement?
Sorry I can't find a better source at short notice.
Upon turning on the device for the first time it showed a screen saying it was controlled by the LDS Church and wouldn't proceed through guided setup until I acknowledged that. After some time on the phone with customer service, we determined there was no way to remove this configuration. I ended up having to return it to an Apple store. The rep there said "yeah that happens sometimes" (someone pulled from the wrong pile in fulfillment most likely). So sometimes you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't.
If anything Amazon's customer service is better - to resolve an issue like this for items they ship I don't have to drive anywhere, just put the box back on my front doorstep. I wish they would make it clearer when you're buying things from them, and would do a better job of associating compatible products. This seems like data they should be able to have, and UI they should be able to build.
Frustratingly it wasn't the right bulb, but I just fed a further data point into Amazon's model, and reinforced their belief that its useful to list those two items as a pair.
(Obviously, much like for activation lock, it is indeed possible that someone with "root access" - so to speak - to Apple systems would be able to manually disable DEP; but the point is that this possibility isn't exposed on any user-level user interface)
That's not obvious to me. Those same people can be social engineered into giving someone access to your data, which is an order of magnitude worse than a device wrongfully moving accounts.
This isn't a troll comment. Ben Thompson makes the argument that the reason why EBay, AirBnB, and Uber work is because you basically are replacing the trust you had in a brand with the trust you have in community reviews. He calls it 'Aggregation Theory'. I find it rather compelling to explain why these types of marketplaces work.
And still, no guarantees.
At this point I just flatly don't trust Amazon anymore for small electrical devices, because there's too much of a chance (even for things labeled with brand names) that it's actually a cheap knockoff that will short-circuit and set something on fire eventually.
I've now bought a couple of Nohon braided cables from Aliexpress and they seem to hold together nicely. But of course them being cheap Chinese cables they are finicky with iPhone 6+, but work fine with my 5s.
My wife did finally kill the Lightning cable in the car that was a few years old. One cable failure in probably ten years. That and $4 will get you a coffee at Starbucks, so take it FWIW. I just wonder why some have better experience with Apple cables than others.
Isn't that what standards compliance is supposed to be for? Shouldn't the product have to be tested against the standard in order to get labeled USB X.Y ?? Or doesn't USB have such a requirement?
https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/bureaus-offices/bureau-consume...
If so, you can look for their logo and have... some confidence at least.
It's the same for Android. It's open-source, but you cannot say that it's derived from Android unless you pass Google's tests (and according to Chinese independent manufacturors, you need to know people from the inside to advance your application).
Theoretically, people who purchased complain to their state attorney general or report the manufacturers to the FTC. There might be some recompense under consumer fraud laws. If enough people had bought them, there might be enough people to form a class action (doubtful though).
The problem is that amount of $ involved here is just not something anyone is likely to get up in arms about. It's $5. Most people will just write it off and never think about it again. No lawyer would bother either unless there were 10,000s of consumers willing to come forward and complain.
Just one of those shitty situations. Caveat emptor.
(I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.)
So do some rather expensive shiny-metal-branded laptops.
I guess depending on the company's HR that could fall either way of
a) This is great, we're getting nice PR
b) Mr Benson, we need to have a quiet word about what it is you do here and what Google is not in the business of.
Really interesting.
edit: I assumed this is part of his job. I just find the publishing of the result along with Google's name interesting.
If/when I evaluate software for a solution as part of my job, I wouldnt dream of publishing my findings and referencing my employer - but I like what Benson has done.
My worry would be the cables that get good reviews being switched out for crappy cables down the line. I've had problems with this for cables and adapters before - I'll re-order from Amazon and get a slightly different product that is not 100% compatible with the old one.
(This was a particularly serious issue for Arduino a few years ago, when Amazon started listing genuine Arduino products under the same ASIN as third-party clones: https://blog.arduino.cc/2013/07/10/send-in-the-clones/)
Most recently a "good ol' American made" can opener turned out to be a cheap China counterfeit: https://www.amazon.com/review/R3MJPDPNRM9HXR
Would not be surprised at all if he expensed every single one of these purchases. He's doing God's work, we shouldn't be complaining here. :)
Depends on how busy the HR dept is I guess.
I think that's the whole point - for Google to chime in on cable quality so that customers know what to buy for their Google devices.
I'm guessing that Google saw that a large percentage of their customer support issues were caused by poor cable quality, and that most of their customers bought their cable from Amazon.
This seems like a way for Google to pre-empt that customer support cost by making sure their customers are buying cables that they know are good.
Most of the time other companies hand-wave their way around this problem by offering 1st-party cables (usually at a fairly high price).
It kind of makes sense: he worked on products that use USB-C (Pixel laptops), but if the market is littered with bad cables USB-C will have a bad image which will be bad for the products he worked on.
So what he's doing is in the interest in his employer, and for the benefit of the products he worked on. He's not doing completely unrelated stuff, like reviewing routers while claiming "I work for Google so I know how shit works!"
Additionally he's preventing Pixel owners (Google customers) from buying bad cables on Amazon then blaming Google because the laptop doesn't charge. So it really looks like he's doing his job.
"if the market is littered with bad cables USB-C will have a bad image which will be bad for the products he worked on."
I don't buy this tail wagging the dog argument. Sorry.
One cable per device is insufficient for a lot of us.
To many, a cable is a cable is a cable, and preventing someone from buying a commodity part that might damage their phone is a good objective, no matter how it's done.
Posting Amazon reviews might not be the optimal way to get me to buy the "right" cables, but it's a pretty effective way at preventing me from buying the wrong ones.
https://store.google.com/product/usb_type_c_to_usb_standard_...
Since Google isn't the manufacturer they are not making a ridiculous profit margin.
Whole dollars on a $500 phone is more likely to be Google's entire profit margin, though. The profit margins on phones is razor thin unless you're Apple.
And LOL @ the idea that Google sells millions of phones.
When it's only a dollar or so you might expect the customer to want to pay the extra dollar in exchange for the benefit, but in practice the device is going to be priced at a threshold like $499 and the psychological difference between $499 and $500 would measurably drive down sales.
But the bigger problem is that this is hardly the only facet of a device you could improve by making it cost a tiny bit more. Add them up and it would add $100 or more to the price of the device. So you can't have them all, but decide against any one in particular and everyone wants to know why you're cheaping out over a buck.
Anyway if these cables contain such chips $13 seems reasonable.
This means because of his reputation (Google engineer) it's easy for him to dismiss one cable manufacturer and support another while getting some form of a kickback either directly or indirectly from said manufacturers.
Sure, he's doing his job, but he's also in the position to pick and choose winners. As such, I would discount his advice based on the possible bias towards products that could possibly line his own pockets.
That's always a risk, but I think it is more of a risk having used his real profile and Google affiliation. On the face of it, I want to think that Google pays Benson well enough that he needn't go tell lies on Amazon as a side job.
>As such, I would discount his advice based on the possible bias towards products that could possibly line his own pockets.
This isn't like for example "audiophile" cable reviews where people just make crap up in ambiguous terms hoping to sell a thousand-plus dollar pair of speaker cables knowing full well that no one can argue sensibly about the warmness/depth/color/scent of the sound.
He pretty clearly explains his major complaint being the lack of a proper 56k pullup so that the cable identifies itself correctly. This is testable by almost anyone. It makes very little sense to publicly tell a lie that can be verified so trivially.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpsMkLaEiOY
The review is extremely negative, explicitly telling people not to buy Nest products. Those are (and were at the time of that video) a Google product, as Google acquired Nest in 2014.
Brad still works at Google. I'm sure Benson will be fine.
It never occurred to me, or anybody else working in the lab as far as I know, to post the results of our testing on Amazon reviews. We just did the testing.
Huh.
What about it? I'm sure Google makes minor changes to their search algorithm that drive small companies into bankruptcy all the time.
This is entirely ethical, and the context is stated clearly... I think it's great.
If this is going to be a thing, Amazon should offer the ability to certify that the user at least has an email address for the company they claim they are with (@apple.com, @google.com etc) and show a "certified Googler" or similar logo next to their name.
I was thinking that for verification the person should link to their verified facebook/twitter/g+/etc page in the meantime.
I agree that this is gonna head south very quickly no matter what amazon does.
Case in point, the Juiced Systems product that Benson reviewed as 2 stars is currently listed as an overall 5/5 stars. In Amazon's defence Benson's review is currently displayed at the top of the reviews. So any shoppers that go through the effort of reading the reviews will quickly see it.
But this product shouldn't be rated 5/5 overall, and because it is, many consumers who can't be bothered to check the content of the reviews will be burned.
This, to me, is a greater problem than fraudulent reviews. Fraudulent reviews can be solved by getting more regular customers to review products they buy. Uber is a great example of UX design that gets customers to review the quality of their service nearly every time. But even if Amazon or other retailers achieve a higher rate of reviews by actual costumers, the non-expert bias will remain.
Of course the trick is, how do we determine which reviewers are experts? Most review systems have a helpfulness rating on each review which could be used to weight reviews in the overall average. But that's only a proxy for an expert rating, is easily cheated, and it's harder to get customers to rate reviews than it is to get them to at least review the product.
Of course, for some that would be a 5/5.... Which is another reason to read the negative reviews: Sometimes they confirm that the only downsides to a product is stuff you don't care about or don't see as a negative.
Of course with technical goods, you see a lot of reviews from people who don't know/understand what they were buying... (1/5 stars, this network adapter [PCI Ethernet] wouldn't work in my laptop)
Other negative reviews are about dealing with amazon for returns, or wrong product shipment, which really shouldn't be under the product review. Though it's worth seeing some of that.
"Just got the product, arrived really quick. It worked when I tried it a minute ago, 5 stars."
People should have to take an IQ test before being allowed to post reviews.
> will this HDMI cable connect my laptop to my tv?
> i don't know but it sends a good signal from my xbox to tv
They help nobody and just clutter up the actual helpful answers
Ideally this will happen on every product review page, as other readers recognize an educated review and mark it as helpful accordingly.
Not sure if this is an oversight, but Benson identifies himself as a software engineer.
I feel divided on this. On the one hand, I'd like to give more weight to his reviews; on the other, why? Being at Google, a software engineer, or working on the Chromebook don't actually make it more likely that his reviews should be better than anyone else's.
I feel like most people would take his word because he claims to work at Google -- wouldn't Google be upset with that? It's not like they as a company endorse the product, but his call-out to them makes it sound like he's endorsing them as a Google representative.
It just makes me uncomfortable.
Of course it does make it significantly more likely. "Being a software engineer at Google" restrict the space of reviewers to the > 100 IQ subspace and further to the "good with tech" subspace. "Working on Chromebook, et al." further cuts the space down to the people who have to deal with USB-C devices at work. Opinion of such selected person should be given much more weight than the average, because basically he most likely knows the shit he's talking about, while average reviewer has no clue about anything.
> I feel like most people would take his word because he claims to work at Google
I think most people take his word because he cites the USB spec directly. No bullshit, just pointing out the exact problems and their implications.
In all seriousness though, these are important for a non-obvious reason: Nexus 6x devices don't ship with USB2-USB3 adapters (they only have a USB3 cable with a wall charger).
So ... anyone who wants to hook up their Nexus 6x to a laptop will almost certainly to Amazon to buy a cable. This is what I did last week, and just today I discovered that certain cables do not quick charge.
Benson Leung, you are doing the lord's work. May future Nexus 6x owners benefit from your expertise.
Looking forward to laptops with USB C connectors.
Surprisingly it's been slow! I was very sad to see, for instance, that MS Surface Book does not have a USB C port. It is the single reason that I'm not going to buy the Surface Book.
At least Apple went all in with the Macbook air. Also, I think iPhone 7 will use the USB 3.1 type C port.
I know the criteria for selecting my next laptop and monitor will involve USBC.
Generally speaking, USB cables won't make the receiving end request more than they can handle. It's always about the power source.
I suppose another option would be to just set up a site with reviews and make money with Amazon referral links.
I end up buying cables on Monoprice when I can just because the stuff they sell is usually good quality.
Personally, I'd very much like to see such a thing applied particularly to high-knockoff topics like USB cables (see lead post), camera batteries, printer ink, and other items where a lot of companies are providing a lot of low-price alternatives (some quality, some dangerously bad) to high-dollar brand-name accessories & consumables. For some there's WAY too many options, with HUGE variation of price & quality, to do anything other than either "buy cheap & popular and hope" or "pay thru the nose but it will work".
FWIW: if you sign up as an advertising associate https://affiliate-program.amazon.com with Amazon you can get up to 10% from every link you provide that turns into an actual sale. Build a website featuring appropriately curated reviews linking to Amazon and you could make a good buck - IF you can get enough readers. Over the years I've made a couple hundred dollars doing so, just by posting links when relevant to blog comments. Focused as a business? I'd expect good returns if done right, plenty to hire good unbiased reviewers.
as a consumer, i don't care about crappy products unless i end up purchasing them. i can avoid crappy products by only going for products with explicit positive reviews that i can trust. sure a grey area will continue to exist, but whitelisting is still effective for reviews, even if we can't blacklist.
The mattress issue actually sounds like a solvable problem, if you're willing to put in the effort. It's just not really worth it when you can also buy mattresses from IKEA or various online retailers which don't engage in those tactics.
IKEA manufactures wherever possible for the lowest price. The difference is that IKEA employs quality control measures.
A central (well, really federated would be better) is one of the most needed tech innovations today, because it will make the market for so many other products function more efficiently.
Example USB-2 cable: http://reevoo.com/p/startech-com-usb-2-0-active-extension-ca....
I've used ebuyer (UK computer retailer) quite a bit and they moved away from their own review system to use Reevoo (the ebuyer one was better IMO however). Still Reevoo seems to have useful reviews in the computer/tech space.
And often I end up buying products with bad reviews in preference to those with perfect reviews because bad reviews gives me faith a product has been reviewed "enough" by real people, and often the issues brought up are not important to me.
I'd say that for Amazon, these reviews are fantastic: Next time I want a type C cable, I'll check his reviews and buy one of the ones he gives good reviews - probably at Amazon. This is like popping into that store where you trust the staff because they talk shit about "their" own products when they're no good even if it means steering you to less profitable products.
Mr. Leung responds by painstakingly pointing out everything they have to do to fix their cables.
[0] http://www.amazon.com/review/R2DQ7OH7PQG24F/ref=cm_aya_cmt?i...
http://www.righto.com/2012/10/a-dozen-usb-chargers-in-lab-ap...
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2DQ7OH7PQG24F/ref=cm_cr_rev_de...
"""
Benson I can say with confidence this cable has been tested and can provide up to 3AMPs of power. Since you are supposedly on the google team, then you will know that the Pixels original OEM charger actually has an output of 5 AMPS. (What 3rd party charger were you using to attempt to charge a pixel with a 3AMP cable, when the pixel demands 5amp output?
These cables have been confirmed and work great with the Nexus 5x and 6P. It even can replace the 12" macbooks charging cable with a proper walll charger. The power output is relied on the actual wall charger. The cable with be able to provide ample power given that the wall charger is correctly powered. Also please note, that batteries charge at different mAh intervals depending on the percent full the battery is at.
Our cables can charge the 5x and 6P units at the same speeds as the stock oem cables.
"""
Benson's counterreply explains that 3 A is actually a violation of the spec, and that the Pixel charger never outputs 5 A, etc.
There's also a reviewer Sporty[2] who's done a fair number of reviews on SD cards.
I took a quick look at Amazon's Hall of Fame/Top Reviewers, but sadly, it seems to prize volume vs quantified/focused cross-sectional reviews.
Best thing to do is return the item; Amazon will value this far more than a negative review.
Amazon rejected my first review which complained about the bad warranty service. Bleh.
Ports/devices with older connectors (USBA, mini-B, micro-B, B) aren't necessarily going to be able to (or supposed to be able to) handle a 3A current draw.
A device that supports USBC should handle current draws this high. But to do so, it must be able to determine if it is safe to draw this much current. That's only doable with a USBC->USBC connection as per spec. So a USBC-USBA cable (or any other USBC->something cable) should use a resistor identifying that the USB3 current draw spec should not be exceeded.
The cables he's reviewing misidentify as being capable of the full current load. This could cause damage to the device your USBC phone or laptop is being plugged into.
Sadly Apple have a variant of that floating around, resulting in confusion and devices that can do 500mah to anything, and 2400mah to Apple devices. Or anything if you fake them out via rigged cables etc, giving us the monstrosities called "charge only" cables.
Benson has posted instructions if you want to test a cable yourself and you have a 2015 pixel: https://plus.google.com/+BensonLeung/posts/jGP5249NppF
The problem is that you'll need a sacrificial USB charger, and if you're lucky, you'll find out from the Pixel's diagnostics whether or not the cable is dodgy. If you're unlucky, you may also find out when the USB charger dies. In Benson's words, "Plug in the suspect USB cable and plug the other end into a DCP charging wall wart (preferably one you don't have any sort of sentimental attachment to)".
Also read all the way through to the end. There are instructions for how to do this without needing to put the Pixel into dev mode, which is useful for those of us who need to use the Pixel in its enterprise enrolled mode to access our corporate accounts. :-)
https://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-usb/msg131265.html
http://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-usb/msg122354.html
http://marc.info/?l=linux-usb&m=134861220631257&w=2
http://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-usb/msg63980.html
...shit's so broken I could keep doing this all day long.
Most hardware on the market today was released before the xhci spec 1.0 was finished, and I agree that ALL hardware on the market does not even properly implement the spec that was available during its design. Fortunately, most issues can be worked around using quirks.
The hardware is the root of the problem, but I would also add that the xhci_hcd kernel module, even in the latest kernels, is well behind Microsoft in terms of handing these device-specific quirks. The Microsoft USB 3.0 stack introduced in Widows 8 solves just about every host-specific issue we've ever seen. ASMedia is the only host controller vendor that bothers to provide their own Windows 8/10 driver (both for their USB 3 Gen1 and Gen2 chips). No one else provides an alternative to the Microsoft provided usbxhci.sys. That said, all of our tests have been limited to bulk transfers, and we're only using existing user space libraries (WinUSB, LibUSB, IOKit). We do push throughput, we have tight latency requirements, and we keep a large number of buffers queued at all times, which does push the host controllers further than your typical storage device. (We make streaming data recording equipment for electrical engineers and embedded developers)
I don't want to bash xhci_hcd though; their progress has been fantastic, despite the minefield of problems created by all these host controller vendors. I would like to say a special thanks to @sarahsharp, for all of the hard work put into the xhci host controller module. Without Sarah, I don't know who will answer when the xhci_hcd doorbell rings.
So many companies have a very short list of "approved" compatible devices and get ornery if you use something else; often those approved devices are unavailable under that exact product name or number and so you're left guessing as you replace stuff in two, three, or four years, which is actually when you're likely to find yourself needing to replace components like this. The very worst companies (ahem, Apple) only validate their own devices for inter-operation with their products, and act as though using something else would be the pinnacle of recklessness. Some even threaten it'll void the warranty (which is actually not legal in many cases, but companies do it anyway).
The fact that someone from Google is doing this in a non-Google location for the benefit of the standard and of their customers is just really nice. Certainly, it is in their best interest to have their devices behave reliably and not be damaged by shoddy third party devices; and so Google does benefit. And, yet, many companies just don't see it that way and are willing to screw over their customers just to get that extra few bucks after the sale for accessories that could just as readily be provided by third parties (and often third parties offer more variety, making them more fit for purpose in some cases).
In short, I've lost a lot of trust for Google over the years (mostly as marketing and violation of privacy became their primary revenue sources), but this is a good thing, for the consumer, for the industry (standards are great! implementing standards poorly is bad!), and for Google.
Sound alike the whole reason is to make their device owners able to make better choices.
On HN, I tend to limit my responses because I usually end up being attacked for something I have nothing to do with, by virtue of some grudge the commenter has with Google. If you want to call me out for my own work, go ahead, I value feedback greatly in areas that I can control. If you have useful commentary, I'll try my hardest to make sure that people with understanding in that area see your comments. But if you just want to yell at me by virtue of who pays my salary, I find that all very unenjoyable and would prefer to not be involved.
I also notice that lurkers with blogs tend to like to take quotes from HN and convey them as the official word of Google out of context, which I also don't like being involved in. Learned that lesson my first week at Google :)
Finally, one also ends up attracting the crazies that email me threats against other Google employees. All those get forwarded directly to Security Operations and don't get a reply from me.
HN is a pretty big community these days and isn't quite the bastion of sanity that it once was. This limits how open many people will be with the community more than any policy.
But others don't agree with my rating system, so "ordered blue, but it was robin egg blue. Werst company evar!!!11" means one star. Five stars means "I work for the company that makes these, or I'm otherwise being paid to write this, or I simply didn't give a lot of thought to how rating systems work."
In this case, the cable fulfills most of the requirements, misses a some of them, but might work for your use case, so two stars.
4 stars is "Does its job better than expected"
5 stars is "contained a 100$ coupon for amazon" or something that really makes you love a product.
The product quality of LEGO bricks – survives a century and so on – is worth 5 stars, as it’s far above expected quality for such things.
For a USB cable it would need to be amazingly resistant to wear – survives being folded and survives a dog chewing on it and so on – and it would need to be perfectly manufactured to get 5 stars.
In Hardware, usually very few high quality products – Miele washing machines, LEGO bricks, IBM ThinkPads, etc – reach something that could be called "5 stars".
And then along comes the cable which, when I plug it in, causes a religious miracle to occur. How do I rate that one? Five stars is already taken. (Or maybe it should be two stars. I want to get my work done without being distracted by a prominent religious figure appearing next to my desk.)
To put it another way, when I purchase something I expect that it will work fine after 30 days and that it meets my needs. That doesn't warrant five stars. That's three stars: does what I expected, doesn't suck but doesn't stand out from the rest all that much. If it were half the price of cables of equal quality, then I'd give it five stars. But IMO the product has to be outstanding in some way to warrant five stars, otherwise why have a rating system at all?
OTOH, Amazon doesn't help with this. Click on "critical reviews" on Amazon, and three star reviews are listed. That's just broken. Three stars is middle of the road, not outstanding in anyway but not deficient, either.
So, no, given your parameters, I would not rate the item five stars. I realize the rest of the world doesn't agree with me, and I'm loathe to participate in such a skewed system (everyone gets a trophy). My concession is I'll give four stars to something I'd normally give three stars, just so it doesn't show up in the "critical review" section, broken as that might be.
And hence my quandary; I don't consider three stars to be a "hit...in the ratings". It does the job, doesn't stand out in any other way, three stars. But, as you point out, it's not fair in the inflated system that we have available. So which wins out, an honest review system that benefits consumers, or review inflation that benefits product sellers? I haven't decided, nor figured out any means of compromise.
As I once heard about bug priority, if everything's a Priority 1, then nothing is a Pri 1. And if everything that isn't complete shite is five stars, then really nothing is five stars. Five stars just means it doesn't suck. Then why don't we have just one star or no stars from which to choose? In other words, the precision of the rating system is not what the five choices would imply.
> "Engineers do not give out 5s. If you tell an engineer that the possible rating scale is 1 to 5 and they like you, they give you a 4. Because tomorrow they might love you and then they would give you a 5. They probably won't, but they might, so they give you a 4 so that they have room. We all are totally okay with this. But the world is also full of this other class of people who if they like you give you a 5. They're quite consistent about it. 'I like you. I see nothing wrong with that. I'm giving you a 5.'"
Personally 5 stars would be when the box it came in had water soluble ink and it made a mess on your clothes, but the company offered to pay the dry cleaner costs. Even though there was no expectation for them to know that the shipping company would leave package in the rain / a puddle for so long.
Anything above "meh, it didn't crash and burn immediately, I guess it's okay" is 5 stars on eBay.
Not only they are using a standard plug and thus not locking you into buying accessories from them, which seem reasonably priced anyway, but they even test a lot of other cables in the market and tell you how compatible they are both with their own products and even with the products of competitors with quite different practices.
So people buy based on the review and then they find out the vendor shipped a clone, so then they give a bad review but it's not for the original listing.
Amazon made a huge mess with that, they should never allow third parties to sell on the original listing.
I suppose there is a Ship of Theseus problem when trying to detect tricks like that automatically - surely sellers should be able to reword description, update product image, and change the product name slightly, but where do you draw the line and how do you handle that? Heh.
Until they weren't. We bought one that was a substantial step down (screen resolution in particular, which was exactly why I'd picked it).. Got a refund, but Amazon simply didn't seem to care that the reviews had no relevance to the current model, which was a let down (though a lesson to read the reviews closely and pay attention to their age...)
For cases where there is a big brand, and they have a reputation to defend, these reviews seem very valuable. For other cases, buyer beware.
From the perspective of having grown up in the midwest, Seattle's weather might as well be Old Faithful.
I worked a little with Benson. He's a fantastic guy with a penchant to veer into epic rants, which he seems to have kept in check on these reviews. Our loss!
Anyways he is a kernel software engineer and surely has some assistance (or at least double checking) from the resident EEs. This feels like a bottom-up initiative, showcasing how Google can empower its engineers. Great stuff.
I wonder though: from the few reviews I've looked at, it seems that the main complaint is that the cable does not identify itself as a legacy connector, and can result in the device drawing too much power from the port, potentially damaging whatever is on the other end.
Definitely an unfortunate result, BUT: I wonder, is it still a common concern when the device on the other end is (for example) a wall plug-to-USB connector? Because if it's not too much of an issue in that case, and the device on the USB-C end is not at risk, wouldn't a non-compliant cable result in faster charging?
In the second case the wall wart started charging my Nexus 6 REALLY FAST on one port and the other port has gone dead. I haven't had a chance to check it out with a volt meter, but I suspect it's now putting out substantially more than 5V on one port, and substantially less than 5V on the other. Fortunately the N6 supports Quick Charge 2.0, so as long as the voltage wasn't more than 9V, it probably didn't do any real harm to the phone (although it was actually charging faster than my normal QC charger). But since I also noticed the phone getting really hot, I've stopped using that charger, and it doesn't look like I've significantly damaged the N6 batteries. At least, the battery life hasn't been compromised and it hasn't burst into flames. Yet. :-)
I'd like to see amazon just develop in-house testing for certain types of stock. Cables, power supplies...
Part of the reason the cheap ones have so much availability is that they are cheap and easy to make and have little quality control -- even though they may not work.
This seems to happen all the time when there's a new standard out. The disreputable companies whip together something shoddy and try to get those early sales before more reputable companies can move in. Meanwhile, companies like Amazon do nothing to stop this obvious fraud. Amazon should be stopping these sales.
Also, its disingenuous to pretend these are $2 cables. The only ones still available showing price are $14.99. These are much more than $2.
Consumers need to be aware of the risks they take when they buy bargain brand, but it doesn't negate the benefits of having bargain brand available.
This isn't just a few bad cables or a bad batch that somehow got loose. This is purposely producing things that don't meet spec.
I would like Amazon to provide better access to searching for and sorting commodity items. (and to remove from inventory defective ones on a limited basis)
For example, I'm searching for the least expensive bulk CR123A batteries. I'd like to sort by price per battery and buy the lowest with at least 3 stars. A fairly simple request.
But you can't. Amazon lacks (in most cases) per unit pricing information or the ability to sort by it. The batteries are cataloged in at least four different site departments meaning sorting is impossible over all of them. It's frustrating to have to try to deal with such a stupid problem.
When I do care about signal integrity (i.e. connecting a USB hard drive to my computer, I use name-brand cables)
CableCreation Micro-B receptacle to Type-C plug adapter is out of spec.
May cause damage to your USB charger, PC, or hub.
Joking aside, I'm somewhat more likely to read a two star review vs a one star review because a lot of the one star reviews are whiny rants and not actually helpful.
I say "sadly", but I've seen the flip-side of this, too. A properly-formed query on usenet will turn up some back-in-the-day posts from Microsoft employees (posting with a microsoft.com reply-to) who were real assholes. (And not to pick on Microsoft, though they certainly have it coming; just the first counter-example that came to mind.)
So I guess I'm conflicted. Yeah, Benson's being really helpful and it looks good for Google, IMO. But with a different employee, it could turn really ugly if someone's back is turned.
But obviously, there's many people like Benson who provide incredibly sagely advice that do a service not just to Google's own customers, but competitors' like Amazon's customers as well.
Once a company reaches a certain size, they have way too many people to police all of them across the Internet, or ensure all of their hires contribute meaningfully online.
Now I am nervous because I subsequently bought a cable that he hasn't reviewed yet...
This has me wondering if there is some way to incentivize good reviewers. There is Consumer Reports and some more tech-specific sites but there is still a long tail of products that you have to buy without good reviews.
For instance, I don't think Amazon is going to sell broken crap using their AmazonBasics brand, and they still charge quite a bit less than Belkin (I don't think they sell USB C yet, but that's besides the point).
Is it just a popular topic getting upvoters who vote for popular items or is there something genuinely interesting about this?
You may find http://hn.algolia.com of interest to look through, to see the kinds of things HN tends to upvote, and the kind of things that tend to get passed by. Different things attract different levels of attention and fascination on here. It can actually be quite interesting to observe.
This is just a fascinating artefact of the HN hivemind collective interest, I guess.
It's a statistic though, just as anything mass-produced. But I found his comment on the quality of 3rd party manufactured cables vs Google and Apple slightly amusing. Apple cables in my household and everywhere I've come across them are no prize pigs. Samsung Galaxy provided cables on the other hand have proved to be exceptionally durable in my experience. Nokia cables and chargers also seem to be made out of solid Kevlar or some flexible Titanium, seeing that every single one I've owned since the late '90s is still working. My blue LED modded Nokia 3310 is still going strong, battery and all, but that's another story.
Maybe it's okay, so far the Wii/PS4 and ChromeCast work fine through it... I'm just posting this here, as no one informed me about possibly complications at BestBuy, but the great folks at Staples actually forwarded me to BestBuy to look for such device.
My father told me a story about service in Turkey, basically if you go to a store and they don't have right away what you need, they may go out find/buy it for you, just to please you. Or buy you a coffee, while waiting in s shoe shop.
Whether he exaggerates a bit or not, I like this approach. Yes you might lose customers, but you'll always leave a smile in good customers. They might come back, just for that little appreciation...
(details: I was full-time tethering while plugged in. I assume the charge controller thought the battery was charging but it was actually slowly discharging)
Getting said info to the right place so next version's charge controller is fixed would be nigh impossible, but dropping the info in lots of high-exposure places might be a start.
I can only surmise what actually happened. I was full-time wifi tethering for a month or two and the symptoms along the way seemed to point to this cause. The phone eventually stopped taking power at all, until I plugged it into a USB port instead of the OEM 1A charger. At which point I realized the higher current was the problem, and investigated the cable.
It actually felt like a really nice cable - very robust and strain-reliefy. But apparently that's because the whole thing was mostly plastic and essentially headphone wires. Lesson learned!
If my theory is correct , it's a pretty stupid design. But I feel like there's probably many weird corner cases in consumer electronics that don't matter because 99% of people won't find them, and the ones that do won't realize it's a bug, and by the time anybody could put it together that specific model has been obsoleted anyway.
Usually what people want is to "make my device charge fast" - in which case the cables not implementing the spec correctly work while compliant cables would not.
Of course, there is a reason that compliance exists! Chances are you are plugging this cable into a wall-wart made in the past few years with higher tolerances than needed, and things will work out fine. Until they don't. Then you may burn out a PC USB port, or potentially I suppose catch a cheap chinese wall wart on fire.
At least that is my current understanding having spent the past few days attempting to decipher how this all works. The correct way to go about this transition to USB-C is to toss out all your USB-A chargers, buy USB-C chargers, and if you need to adapt; adapt in the USB-C -> USB-micro/mini direction vs. the USB-A -> USB-C direction.
The tldr on this is basically if you plug into a USB-A charger, you should not be able to "rapid charge" at 3A. If you are, you are out of spec and could potentially damage something you plug that cable into. Just give up on the dream of using your old chargers and expect to replace them with chargers that implement USB-C there. If you need to charge USB micro devices, invest in some USB-C -> Micro cables (or adapters) instead.
You can still rapid charge with a compliant type-C/A cable, but it needs to be negotiated through one of the other specified mechanisms (that directly talk with the other end and thus can figure out what the type-A charging side can actually provide).
https://thunderbolttechnology.net/blog/thunderbolt-3-usb-c-d...
I've seen a couple Dell laptops but not much else. It's a much better form factor. Not to mention the elimination of USB superposition: :-)
The micro-USB connection is also really loose with this particular cable<->phone combination (cable is fine with other phones; phone is fine with other cables). Used my old Nokia micro-USB for this reason and charging was always slow, then connected the Samsung one and it was a lot faster.. for a while.
I never knew the cable could do something like this, unless it's something like being way too long. From your comment I take it that you do need a certain amount of copper in those wires to work? So more expensive cables might actually be better? (I always laughed at "gold plated extra quality HDMI cables of 30cm for 30 euros because HDMI is a digital signal.)
One part is the wire gauge. You need something like 24awg (its the American system, don't ask me why) on the power pins (higher number, thinner wire, iirc). Most use 28 on both power and data pairs.
Then the charger has to actually follow the USB spec, not the very similar Apple one. This means either a microchip that can handle the USB handshake, or a resistor across the data pins at the charger end to signal that this is a charger (Apple has one resistor on each pin, with a slightly different resistance).
Now on top of that you have Qualcomm pushing their fast charge system that involves a chip at both ends, and higher voltage than the 5V that USB normally uses. The higher voltage allows for more watts without upping the ampere (V*A=W, iirc).
Note that the Qualcomm system is similar (but i don't think they are interchangeable) with the USB3 system (the latter can go all the way to 20V, but that requires beefy cables).
Frankly the more i think about it the more i expect to hear about someone getting electrocuted because they mistook their data cable for their dumb laptop charger.
They have over 200 positive reviews but I don't think they've been tested to same degree that Benson has been checking.
I'm sure Google can afford the $1000+ price tag.
How hard would it be to carry the existing A port charging spec forward, so that if a device detected the A form it would go no higher than 2.1A?
Frankly cables should be as dumb as you can make them.
Doesn't work! I just broke my keyboard keys! Stopped my reviews, damn..
Detailed design for the adapter is here: https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/dingdong
If you feel like it, please file a bug.
Anyway, yeah, I've actually had that thought in the back of my head. I've actually reloaded this laptop 3 times due to the exact situation you mention. (The HDD is too small to leave CrOS on there).
It's been several months since I've let CrOS do it's thing and reflash the firmware... I should give it a shot.
Many moths ago, I was reinstalling CrOS it to try to get it to reflash the adapter so that MST on DP1.2 would work. But it never worked and furthermore, the Dell monitors I have stop working when you enable DP1.2 so all around... it was disappointing.
I wanted my Pixel to be my sole development machine... but when I'm sitting at my desk... I expect dual monitors... So I continue to sync my git repos between 3+ computers at a time. Woohoo.
Whoever wants to make a laptop with 16GB RAM, HiDPI screen (and not the shitty Lenovo panels), and 2x mini-DP out.... boy, I'd sure love to see it. (And the Surface Pro 4 actually falls in that category, but is not Linux friendly)
----
edit: Checked the dingdong history... not seeing too much relevant but I might give it a shot when I have a slow weekend. Thanks again!
If many USB-C cables don't work with Google devices, where is the problem? It suits Google to say the problem is with the cables, but maybe creating pressure for better cables or shifting consumer attention to them is just a less expensive solution than altering the devices.
Regarding the violated specifications: 1) In the real world, nobody meets all published specifications and both sides can point to violations. Have you ever built anything that met all specifications? (I laughed a little when I wrote that) 2) If you design your product to work only with other systems that meet all published specifications, your product sucks. If your car only runs safely on roads that meet all specs, your customers are going to die. (Maybe there are exceptions when engineering critical systems components in things like airplanes, but I doubt it.)
That doesn't make our Google engineer wrong; it just means we don't know (unless you know what realistic performance specs are for USB-C cables). However, if in the real world it's hard to find USB cables that work with Google devices then, ipso facto, there's something wrong with the devices.