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Comment by kiddico | Hacker News Reader

I'm torn with USB-C. We're finally getting some cool additions to the most used standard (though I don't know If I like this one), but at the cost of fragmenting it to the point that it's not so much a standard anymore.

USB-C inconsistency on the hardware side of things has been a meme by itself. With this addition sometimes when you plug a device in it might not work despite being the exact right device/port combination (which would be a miracle on it's own even in the current environment.)

I don't know. Maybe in 5 years when we've glued on all the stuff we want from this connector things will be okay. In the meantime though it's chaos. Committee approved chaos.

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I've come to believe that USB-C is a mistake that we will all regret.

USB-C enthusiasts are (from my experience) people who haven't really used it much and think that they will be able to get around with a single cable and a single connector standard.

People who actually tried to use it for a number of things quickly realize that USB-C is just the name of the physical connector, which has nothing to do with what the device supports, which in turn has nothing to do with what the (unlabeled!) cable supports. There are no standards for labeling devices or cables, so you quickly end up in a world where you have a bunch of cables and devices all using a single plug, but you have no idea which device will work with what. I daresay this is a worse situation than having multiple types of plugs and cables, because at least then you could set reasonable expectations.

Add to this the fact that there are no reliable hubs for USB-C connectors, so you're basically stuck with what your laptop/computer offers, unless you want to live in a world of crappy unreliable hardware (I don't).

>USB-C enthusiasts are (from my experience) people who haven't really used it much and think that they will be able to get around with a single cable and a single connector standard. People who actually tried to use it for a number of things quickly realize that USB-C is just the name of the physical connector, which has nothing to do with what the device supports, which in turn has nothing to do with what the (unlabeled!) cable supports.

Well, I'm using it for my monitors, soundcard, power, iPhone/iPad charging, Sony headphones, and external hard disks.

What exactly am I missing from the whole issue, since I don't seem to be having any problems?

Can it be fixed by not buying crappy cables?

> Can it be fixed by not buying crappy cables?

Unfortunately that isn't enough yet, as there is no "universal" cable, and may never be. You can have an excellent cable that nonetheless fails for what you plugged it into, or (potentially worse) falls back to something that kind of works (e.g. a slow data transfer through a port that supports PCI-e).

The biggest botch the committee made was not mandating connector labeling. I'd have gone with colors, but not everyone can see them. If the cable had resistor-style stripes to indicate what it supported, and if the ports on the host devices did likewise we'd be in much better shape. Even some licensed logos would have helped though the connectors are so tiny.

Then again the names the USB committee has come up with in the past (high speed, SuperSpeed, 3.0, 3.1 etc) have uniformly been confusing rather than elucidating.

In my case I agree: I have had nothing but success with Type C, and it has simplified my life (except for the lack of high power chargers). But I had to learn more than most people would or should have to in order to get there.

Really? I'd just naively assumed that USB-C cables sold by Apple and Google would be universal.

What is missing that they aren't universal? Is there some kind of tradeoff between full power load and full data transmission capacity or something?

The cable is not a dub set of wires; there's a a lot of silicon in the connectors. Though they fall back by default to the old resistor sensing used in earlier USB specs, the higher functions (which include power delivery) are negotiated.

As far as I know a universal cable is not possible. My reading of the spec says that it should be but I am not a USB implementor and some of my friends who are tell me it's not possible. In any case nobody ships such a thing.

The charging cables provided with devices are likely to be power-only. With the 87W charger, Apple ships ones that can carry about 100W (the maximum per USB spec -- 20V@5A) which requires thicker conductors; my understanding is that those cables don't carry data (i.e. they can safely be plugged into any third party brick without you worrying that the remote device will attack your computer). You want a power-only cable for this purpose. I am not sure of they have the same cable with the smaller adaptors.

The very high speed cables only work over short distances unless you go to optical (which I'm not sure anybody has deployed).

The most standard cables carry "USB 3.1" which is just another name for USB 3.0 carried over Type C connectors. The higher frequency and higher power cables are more expensive to design and build so will cost the customer more. That's one reason you have to specifically look for cables for DP, PCI-e/Thunderbolt etc.

> The most standard cables carry "USB 3.1" which is just another name for USB 3.0 carried over Type C connectors.

No, it's not; USB 3.1 adds the new SuperSpeed+ mode over all supported connector types (and USB 3.2 adds two additional SuperSpeed+ modes for Type-C connectors.)

USB Type-C connector spec is a separate spec issued after USB 3.1, USB 3.1 isn't USB 3.0 over Type-C connectors.

Note that there is USB 3.1 Gen1 (limited to 5Gbps) and USB 3.1 Gen2 (limited to 10Gbps).

Overall, I think a quick glance at the whole discussion under my comment proves my point quite well.

I meant 3.1 Gen1 & Gen2, sorry, as mentioned by jwr.

USB C != Thunderbolt 3 != Thunderbolt 3 < 1m, but all of them have the same port.

Things like charging your phone can be done with USB C.

Things like external hard drive are generally done with Thunderbolt

Things like External GPU's have to be done with a Thunderbolt cable that is less than 1m

All of that said, I am not 100% sure of all of that, because it is all so confusing.

OK... is is just a Mac-only Thunderbolt issue then, which I guess you could kind of say is a problem with Apple and not with USB-C itself?

If you ignore Thunderbolt, can you always rely on the latest USB-C cables Apple and Google sell working for everything? Or are there still issues?

Apple isn't the only vendor using Thunderbolt 3. According to Wikipedia [0], the following vendors have all shipped devices with at least one port: Acer, Asus, Clevo, HP, Dell, Dell Alienware, Lenovo, MSI, Razer, and Sony.

This affects everyone.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface)#Thunde...

No, this has entirely to do with thunderbolt and USB spec.

Dating back to the early days of Apple, they have been hyper conformant with the spec (e.g. no drivers needed to connect to conforming devices). They still are.

I answered your question about which cables above.

> Things like external hard drive are generally done with Thunderbolt

Why? External USB drives are much more common.

Thunderbolt 3 is 40 Gb/s of PCIe + DP — basically exposes your bus out through a Type C connector. USB theoretically tops out, as of last year, at half tha, though in practice you won’t see anything faster than USB 3.0 (if you’re lucky) which tops out at 625 MB/s, before all the USB protocol overhead.

TL;DR: USB drives are really really slow.

> though in practice you won’t see anything faster than USB 3.0 (if you’re lucky) which tops out at 625 MB/s

625 MB/s is 5Gb/s; the switch from bits to bytes seems to be a way to exaggerate the difference from Thunderbolt speeds quoted in GB/s; at any rate, USB 3.1 Gen 2 (equivalent to USB 3.2 Gen 2×1) 10 GB/s cables and device support isn't hard to find; I don't know that anyone had USB 3.2 hardware (controllers, or cables supporting the new 2×2, 20Gb/s, mode) yet.

625 MB/s is "really really slow"? I don't know any HDD which can deliver more than 100 MB/s. And for SSDs there's also USB 3.1 Gen 2.

The main reason you can't make a truly universal USB cable is the same reason you can't make a universal ethernet cable. You can make a cat5e cable, you can make a cat6 cable, you can make a cat8 cable. But you can't make a cable that's guaranteed to support anything.

Currently there are four common speeds/specs for the high-speed lanes: none, USB 3.0 at 5GHz, USB 3.1 at 10GHz, Thunderbolt 3 at 20GHz.

Cables that can support the higher speeds without signal loss issues tend to also be increasingly short. That's another issue getting in the way of an ideal cable; it's hard to carry such high frequencies to the same distances.

There's no tradeoff between speed and 100W support, but most cables do lack 100W support for whatever reason.

A lot of cables (even from Apple and Google) pick the "none" option for high speed lanes. Such a cable can only run at USB 2.0 speed and is often called a "charging-only" cable. (True charging-only cables are significantly more rare. They also probably violate the spec.)

> What exactly am I missing from the whole issue, since I don't seem to be having any problems?

Dude, you're using a pair of headphones that cost more than most people's cellphones and laptops. Normals use years-old Android devices, out-of-date Windows 7 laptops and the absolute cheapest peripherals from the drug store.

Of course that stuff is going to be buggy.

Even the Nintendo Switch, due to its hardware, uses the highly unusual "myDP" USB-C display standard instead of conventional alternate mode.

How do people using old hardware have issues with USB-C?

Probably what the OP meant was that people who don't have that much money to splash around won't be bothered to pay crazy money for the "right" connector cables. For example I just got a new Mac Mini (which I genuinely like until now) and I just checked to see how much a USB to USB-C connector costs on Apple's website. When I saw that it costs $20 I said "f.ck it, I'm going to buy the 4.50 euro no-name connector that I just found online". I suppose I'm not the only user thinking like this.

The Amazon Basics USB to USB-C cable that pops up when you search for usb-c cable on Amazon is $6. That should be reputable enough that you won't damage your $800 computer without having to shell out $20 to Apple for their branding on a cable.

I think you are mostly lucky in that you only need a limited subset of the full functionality. You were lucky with video, you probably don't need Thunderbolt, your charging needs are modest, and you don't care about peculiarities like USB 3.1 Gen 2 speeds. In that scenario things will usually work fine, assuming you don't save on cables.

But it's enough to just read the cable reviews to learn that things are not always fine.

Also, one thing which cannot be blamed on "crappy cables" is that the presence of a USB-C port on a computer does not mean much at all, because in general one has no idea what can be connected to it.

the problem that ^can^ occur is drawing overcurrent. usbc is supposed to support higher power demands, and if your usb port cant pass the current because its made of components too fine/resistive for the current being drawn, then {P@FF!}

PD hosts are required to monitor and limit current draw. Any magic smoke released is the fault of the host device, not the peripheral that tried to draw too much current.

thats what i mean, and when they dont limit current draw because despite being required to the design is cheaper faster not better, then thats it. you get heat at the highest resistance so port gets very hot and undervoltage beyond that resistance, so device gets wonky, unless it is regulated, to prop up the voltage

That's not how it works (ohm's law for firsts)

It's worse than that. We now have a situation where different cables of same connection type can damage hardware (as we've seen with powered USB-C hubs and the Nintendo Switch with some 3rd party chargers and docks, etc).

It used to be the case that anything of the same connection type would - at worst - not work if it wasn't designed for that piece of equipment. But now you have a situation where things "kinda" work together so consumers are encouraged to mix and match yet some of the time it could literally break your hardware.

So now we have a situation where some people are too scared to mix and match which breaks the entire point of a standard connection type - and on the flip-side you have other people who are left with bricked hardware because they were unlucky enough to plug the wrong charger with the wrong device (for example).

I'll say it goes further than that.

I have a few modular power supplies around from different vendors, and I made the mistake of using one cable in a different vendors supply.

The supply side had the same connections; so I thought that I could just mix-and-match.

Turns out, that even though the connections are standardized, I ended up putting ground on a 5v pin, 12v on the 5v, 3.3v on the 3.3v (magically) and 5v on the 12v pin on a standard SATA connector.

As a result, I fried several hard drives, because the output of the supplies wasn't standardized for the connector type. I can't even imagine an end-user using a volt-meter to check which are compatible with which vendor.

This was a problem before USB-C.

TL;DL: Check your modular supply cables, and don't use other vendors cables.

There is no standard for modular power supply cables.

USB-C on the other hand is a standard.

They have the same form-factor for the connectors; I'd say that's a standard; especially since they are polarized plugs (full square, trapezoid.)

You're describing the problem that USB is supposed to solve.

Completely agree. I was using USB-C earlier than most, with a Google Pixel laptop, and I've added a couple more USB-C devices since then. The situation with different chargers and cables supporting different voltages and features is still insane. The fact that it took three years before I could find chargers with more than one USB-PD port is also insane. Too many vendors (e.g. Sony for their latest ANC headphones) have already had to ship power-only USB-A to USB-C cables just to have something that works.

That kind of brings me to my next point: proliferation of cables and dongles. Whenever I travel now, I need to have the same USB-A to micro-B cables I was already using, plus some pure USB-C, plus USB-A to USB-C. Not uncommonly, USB-C to micro-B gets thrown into the mix. And the variance across all those is even greater than the pure USB-C stuff. Good luck keeping track of voltage, directionality, data vs. power-only, and all the other variables. For now at least, the addition of USB-C has made things far worse.

I for one would be happier if USB-C were only for laptops and tablets, and all the people making the zillions of smaller devices would FFS stick with micro-B like they were already starting to. Then I'd only need one power adapter, two kinds of cables, and no dongles, instead of this mess.

You know I never even considered the cable itself in the whole usb-c equation. And labeling them is a hard problem to solve. Not technically, but aesthetically. We COULD just make different colors mean different things (But then you have to remember the colors...), but everyone wants a specific color(me included).

Text labeling could work, but could get out of control, especially at the rate that the standard is changing. Would it need to list the specific features the cable supports? Or can I assume that a cable labeled with 'Thunderbolt' will be compatible with all future iterations of Thunderbolt?

Maybe we can do something like resistor color codes with colored bands to make a rainbowed venn diagram of cable features. Surely that's a good idea which will only decrease complexity :P

> Surely that's a good idea which will only decrease complexity :P

Well, it's clearly less complex than letting the cables unlabeled...

> but everyone wants a specific color

Not everyone! Personally, I couldn't care less what color my cables are (unless the color is telling me something important about the cable).

Good for you. Still I can assure you that you won't be able to convince a dozen manufacturer that care about brands to think the same.

I'm sure that you're right. I wasn't asserting that nobody cares about color. I was disputing that everyone cares about color.

> People who actually tried to use it for a number of things quickly realize that USB-C is just the name of the physical connector, which has nothing to do with what the device supports, which in turn has nothing to do with what the (unlabeled!) cable supports.

This is also true with USB A, B mini-A and mini-B, mini-AB, micro-A and micro-B, and micro-AB; also A, B, and micro-B actually have two versions each of the connectors, with compatibility in one direction, so you don't even always know that physical connectors are compatible from the connector name without also the USB version.

All I wanted from USB-C was a single charging cable for everything - phone, tablet, laptop, portable battery, headphones etc. I've got exactly that, and I'm using it plenty.

Oddly... I have several tablets, Bluetooth headphones, bike lights, batteries, and old phones. All use the same charging cable. My newer phone uses USB c.

If it was designed to have a single connector for charging cables, they were designing to solve a solved problem.

You've missed the laptop. So the problem wasn't solved.

Also let's not forget that USB-C is two-fold rotationally-symmetrical in contrast to micro-B.

The two fold rotational symmetry is nice, in a gimmicky way that doesn't impact me. Neat, but I don't care that much.

And I didn't forget the laptop. I just don't take it with me much. And I prefer the mag trick of older Macs.

So, congrats, you have a connector that everyone can standardize on. Now, once literally everyone else moves of the old standard, we'll be there.

Like I said, all I wanted is a single connector for me to standardize on. It exists now, and I can (and did) so standardize - and it did make my life easier.

My assertion you you probably haven't standardized yet. That or you just have phones and a single new Mac laptop. Making you ridiculously edge case, here.

Seriously look at my list of things I have. I suspect my phones and hopefully the spare batteries I buy in the coming years will be USB C. However, my bike gear and other hobby equipment won't any time soon. Even my laptop and tablets are going to be years before I update them to one that supports USB C.

So again, outside of laptops, the world had standardized on a connector. That my laptop was different is as relevant to me as knowing that my drier isn't USB C any time soon. That I'm now going to have to deal with a ridiculously slow transition from the de facto standard everyone else was following to USB C is just obnoxious.

I have a phone, an Android tablet, a Windows laptop, and several power banks and and external USB drives. My spouse has a phone and a tablet. Everything is USB-C.

Edge case? Probably, but only because most people don't consciously factor this into their purchase decisions. It's clear that USB-C is the way forward for phones, and once that happens on the low-mid market segment, everything else will follow.

Did you read everything else I have? All that predate USB c. If you are able to get all new devices that work with it, you are just able to spend way more disposable income on gadgets.

This isn't an insult. Just pointing out that most of the electronics world had standardised. To pretend otherwise is just odd.

> Now, once literally everyone else moves of the old standard, we'll be there.

No, not "literally everyone", as laptops weren't using micro-B for charging.

I meant literally everyone else other than laptop makers...

So, my headphones, my bike computer, my bike lights (front and back), my spare batteries, and my other tablets.

Also, I confess, yes. I was being rhetorical. :)

I already have this problem with current USB: I don't really know which of my cables do data transfer, and which just do power transfer. The few times I try to transfer data by cable, I have to keep trying a bunch of different cables.

It sounds like USB-C is that, but worse.

(If there's any way to tell what cable is a data cable, I'd love for someone to enlighten me.)

Oh, the current USB situation is much, much better. You can a) throw the "power-only" cables into the trash immediately and forget about them, b) look at the USB-A plug and the number of pins and see if it's USB 3.0 or 2.0. After that, assuming your cables aren't junk, you're fine: if you can plug it in, you can expect things to work.

How are there cable enthusiasts? Either they have a good experience or a bad experience overall.

I've had generally good experiences with Type-C and IMHO is an improvement over buying video out dongles for every device and being able to use a single cable for charging.

Its really disappointing to me how hard it is to find a featureful/high-end phone that doesn't have USB-C.

I've heard a lot about fragmentation, but just anecdotally it doesn't seem to be an issue in practice. My family has USB-C headphones, phones, laptops, remotes, and then USB-C charging cables around the house. Everything can be charged anywhere and everything is swappable, with the only inconvenience of the laptops needing the larger charging bricks to charge fast (otherwise they charge slow).

I connect my desktop to different phones via USB-C, my phone to my headphones, laptop to monitor, my headphones using my car charger, etc. and it all works. The charging bricks and cables are cheap on sale -- $30 for bricks that can charge laptops and about $4 a cable. We're a 100% USB-C household and will only buy electronics with USB-C or USB. I'm waiting for everything else to go USB-C: come on projectors, razors, speakers, and musical instruments.

In a USB-backed world things do seem to go pretty smoothly. I'm looking forward to that all USB-C world too :) Imagine never having to think about which way a plug should go!

I suppose my biggest gripe is that things that aren't USB are able to use the USB-C form factor. For instance thunderbolt. My dock at work connects with thunderbolt over USB-C, and everything works fine minus the display port pass through. It's kinda cool that it works at all to be honest. Oddly enough the Ethernet jack and Dock sound card are run over USB so those work fine.

My main issue is that sometimes my iPhone is charging my MacBook and not vice versa … In the end, my iPhone is empty in the morning.

Mine was when laptop tried to charge screen and not vice-versa, using Amazon USB-c to display port. In the end, laptop gets new mother board.

To be fair, OSX warned me something was drawing too much voltage, and I still tried it like 5 times after that, but the screen did flicker on a few times and work for a sec before it all went kaput.

that's very much non ideal.

If you have Nintendo switch in your household ensure everyone understands to use the Nintendo branded USB-C or else your switch will be toast and warranty voided.

Source: USB-C household with a 9 year old and a new switch.

This is misinformation, and this particular strand of it seems to never die. There is an issue with unofficial 3rd party docks for Nintendo Switch causing issues. USB-C PD chargers work fine.

I had to buy a Nintendo USB C cable to use for my switch. None of the ones I got with my Pixel or other USB C devices worked. Granted, I only had 5 other cables to test at the time.

The only unofficial thing I used was the cable itself. Once I bought their cable, the switch charges on everything I connect it to now.

Not quite the same issue as burning up my switch (as of now), but issues nonetheless.

What? I've charged my Switch with a dozen different cables and 5+ different chargers and it was not damaged, altough it does not charge with 1 charger.

Was it a cheap USB A -> USB C Cable without a resistor? Those a well known to be dangerous [1]

[1] https://www.howtogeek.com/353410/3-problems-with-usb-c-you-n...

I have this rule too. While there are a bunch of people with anecdotes saying their Switch is fine with non-Nintendo power supplies, the fact that the dock and console are both ridiculously noncompliant[0] is enough to dissuade me from ever trying it. I'd rather eat the markup cost on a Nintendo-branded power supply than risk bricking an expensive piece of tech.

[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/87vmud/the_...

It varies strongly. Handheld charging is typically fine, it's using unofficial docks which cause problems (since Nintendo didn't follow USB-C spec when it charges via that)

I'm not so familiar with the Switch, but this thread here https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/6jnkl4/list... seems to indicate that using other USB-C chargers is okay?

This isn’t true, I’ve charged the switch at least 20 times with my MacBook Pro charger and it’s fine...

And I use an Aukey charger on my Switch. I never even used the stock one, it still is in the box. OP is misleading everyone by mixing the dock problem (which counterfeits can brick the switch) with something he imagined.

Pretty sure I didn't -imagine- my son plugging his switch into my Google Pixel USB C charger. I did not -imagine- the device being bricked. I didn't -imagine- the hours wasted dealing with tech support and RMA'ing the device only to be told that we voided the warranty.

I'd send you the correspondence between Nintendo and myself but I feel as if I've wasted enough time on you already.

Is that really the case?! Wow. I've used a USB-C car charger from Anker with the Switch and not given it a second thought. I recall reading that the Switch had odd or picky behavior but I didn't think that it could be damaged by non-Nintendo equipment.

It's not. It's an issue with the Switch Docks and it's counterfeits. Chargers are okay.

I regularly charge my Switch with my Dell XPS 13 charger. Never had an issue.

This is my biggest concern as well. The problem is, by the time it's consistent and has all the bells and whistles, it'll probably have to be renamed because all of the cables/devices in the past who implemented it incorrectly, at which point they'll think it's a good time to add new features while at it, and lead us back to square one.

I can totally see that happening too...

There is an upside to that terrible timeline though: an opportunity to have the new name be USB-C++

Is that the one that catches fire if you try to use it after it's already unplugged? :)

I'm not torn about USB C at all. All in all, it doesn't seem like a good thing to me, which is why I'm avoiding it so far. I know that eventually I'll have to give in, but that day isn't here yet.

I've heard enough about USB-C when I heard a report of a fried motherboards due to a faulty cable. No consumer technology should work like that.

That had nothing to do with USB-C. Switching Vbus and GND would destroy many devices, regardless of what kind of cable it was.

You're probably right that because USB-C is a newish standard, manufacturers might make idiotic newbie mistakes like the ones Surjtech made with that cable. That would argue in favor of waiting... though I'd estimate that you're more likely to be struck by lightning than encounter a retail USB-C cable with power and ground reversed.

The headphone jack on my windows 10 powered Dell at work randomly stops "detecting" my headphones. I need to reinstall the drivers. Every week or so. And of course I don't because that's insane.

Now we're to trust the same bottom scraping hardware/software makers with an already overly complex serial port.

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