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Comment by mattikus | Hacker News Reader

"Just because a device has USB Type-C connectors does not mean it supports power or any other alternate mode, such as support for video standards DisplayPort or MHL (used on some smartphones to drive larger >In fact, technically, it’s even possible to have USB Type-C ports that don’t support USB 3.1, although in reality, that’s highly unlikely to ever occur."

This is actually a bigger problem than the author theorizes. Both the Nexus 6p and the Nexus 5x support USB-C on USB 2.0 rather than 3.0 or even 3.1. When USB-C computers become more prevalent, people might be sad to see their fancy device lacking the promised bandwidth they associate with the connector rather than the protocol.

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I am designing some embedded devices that would only support USB 2.0, and I considered using Type C because it would be more convenient and also more compatible in a future world where most people have type-C cables.

So I am wondering why the author thinks type-C ports that don’t support USB 3.1 would be that rare.

Edit: The author might have meant the downward facing ports in a computer or hub, and it would be rare to have those type-C ports not support USB 3.1. That would make more sense.

For the same reason you're using USB 2.0 when you could maybe get by with USB 1.1: in a few years a big majority of the mainstream embedded chips you'll use will support USB 3.1, so you'll effectively get it for free.

I say "a few years", but I seem to recall it taking 5 or more for the transition from USB 1.1.

Embedded chips (i.e. microcontrollers) won't support USB 3 for a long time (think 10 years at least). Very very few even support USB 2 High Speed and that was released 15 years ago.

There's a division forming in embedded where "real embedded" like my dishwasher uses an 8-bit microcontroller to turn pumps and valves on and off in sequence which may never have a USB and for price reasons will never support above USB1. It has very little stored state to talk about, and the more state and sensors the less reliable and productive it'll be, so that's unlikely to change any time soon.

The other division of embedded is best described as duct taping a tablet computer permanently to a refrigerator, and those will have USB-C like next year. In the '80s we put TVs and VCRs into the same case and called it innovation... This is the '10s version.

One type of embedded is like industrial control, the other type is like product tying.

One segment is extremely price conscious because China sells the USA 10 million value engineered dishwashers per year, and using a microcontroller that costs $1 more to do something the market is completely uninterested in is a $10M loss which the market will not tolerate. The other segment is luxury gadgets for rich people where price is no object and sales never exceed the thousands, although the web pages are extremely elaborate and expensively designed.

High speed USB 2.0 support is quite rare on cheap chips. Most are still at USB 1.1 speeds.

USB 3 connectors? WAY COOL. I'm running USB 1.1 on the inner pairs and Ethernet on the USB 3 pairs for several projects.

USB 3 standard? Oh, hell, no. The signal integrity requirements are outrageous. And most embedded chips can't even transmit at the 400+Mbps necessary to saturate even USB 2.0.

> I'm running USB 1.1 on the inner pairs and Ethernet on the USB 3 pairs for several projects

That sounds like a nice trick. Could you elaborate, or is there any public information you could link to?

Nothing proprietary. Just look at a Type C pinout.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/01/usb-3-1-and-type-c-th...

Two TX pairs/Two RX pairs. Standard USB 2.0 in the middle.

I care more about symmetrical plugs than I do about bandwidth. Hallelujah! My prayers have been answered!

It's my favorite thing about the nexus 5x. The 3a charger ain't bad either.

Imagine if the connector was round...

The new Google Pixel has a type-C on both sides. It is heaven. I can pick the pixel up with my eyes closed and always get it in (please, no jokes). And on my lap the cord can drape out either side.

These features may seem like small ones but they make a big difference in everyday convenience.

I can't remember the last time I plugged my phone into my laptop. Bandwidth for USB-C is way low on my list of reasons to like it on my 6P.

#1 for me, personally, is that it's more durable.. my micro USB ports on my phone always started to loosen up, and the cables would stop staying plugged in (yes, even after cleaning out pocket fuzz). My 6P's connection, so far, seems much more robust.

But also, more power, 3 amps is pretty sweet, and the reversible connection is very nice to have, if not really a huge deal.

USB is still the primary method of backing up your phone for most people, although, admittedly, a lot of people don't bother doing that.

That's because Google has been actively discouraging the use of the cable for data transfer in order to encourage cloud use. Your phone won't transfer to Mac or Linux at all except via ugly buggy apps you learn about after digging through online forums.

Oh? An Android phone plugged into a Ubuntu 14.04 LTS system appears as a USB drive. Android brings up a popup asking if you want to enable USB access (a basic security measure against hostile charging ports) and, if allowed, the phone's storage appears as a folder.

An Android 2.x phone. Android 4.x+ replaced the MSD protocol they spoke with MTP which nobody seems to get right so you have FUSE filesystems like jmtpfs, mtpfs-simple etc to deal with your particular brand of breakage.

I sometimes plug my Android 4.x+ phone into a desktop with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS to copy some photos from the phone. It works fine, with no extra software or configuration required. On the graphical interface, it appears like a USB drive.

Yeah, that's not happening with my Samsung Galaxy on 4.4.2. Plug-and-play.

That was a pretty valid criticism about 2 years ago. I haven't really had any problems with MTP on Fedora or Ubuntu since about that time. Whatever gvfs is using for MTP works fine these days.

Maybe this is a Windows bug. Linux users don't seem to be having problems. Is it not working on Windows?

I really doubt an issue with FUSE drivers is a Windows bug since Windows does not have support for FUSE.

Agreed, I don't really care so much about USB data speeds. What I do love is how solid it feels and how fast it charges. I am very impressed with the rapid charging on my 6P.

Or finding out that my Chromebook Pixel 3 has USB Type-C, but not Thunderbolt 3... which means I can't have an eGPU.

And with the Razer Blade + Core set to actually make eGPUs a big thing... I'm pretty disappointed. I'll probably end up with a Razer Blade sooner rather than later.

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