With USB 4, Thunderbolt and USB will converge | Hacker News Reader

With USB 4, Thunderbolt and USB will converge

techcrunch.com

49 pointsHillaryBriss8 comments

I hate how when I see a USB port now I have no idea what it's capable of. Used to be if it was on a beige box it was 1.1. If not it was 2.0. If it was blue it was 3.0. Now if I see a type C port I have no idea what I'm getting. Maybe it'll be USB 2 or 3 5gbs or 3 10gbs or 3 20gbs. Maybe it will charge the device. Maybe it won't. Maybe it'll do USB hosting, maybe it won't. Maybe it'll support MHL or Slimport or Display Link or it won't.

I already received a hard lesson in this concept earlier this year when I bought a OnePlus 6 only to find out it only supports Display Link for video out, a standard version hich not only requires an expensive adapter and doesn't support charging, but consumes so much power the phone dies in less than two hours.

Just color code the damn things so I can keep up. Make charging input ports purple and video output ports green and otg ports yellow or something.

While you're at it patent the port design and enforce licensing requirements. We're all tired of chargers, cables, and devices that don't obey standards. You have to go to a third party to find a type C cable on Amazon that works correctly. You have to buy specialized chargers for the Nintendo Switch because it violates the USB specification in two dozen different ways that can brick your device if you use the wrong accessory.

This kind of fragmentary bullshit isn't good for anyone.

> You have to buy specialized chargers for the Nintendo Switch because it violates the USB specification in two dozen different ways that can brick your device if you use the wrong accessory.

Huh? I used my Thinkpad charger with the Switch and it worked as designed. Just me being lucky?

I've used an official Apple USB-C charger, an Amazon USB-C charger, and my Anker battery pack combined with an official Apple cable, an Amazon cable, and one of those "keyring" USB-C cables to charge the Switch and none of them caused any problems.

But it does seem that there were issues - https://bgr.com/2018/04/06/nintendo-switch-charging-cables-w...

It'll charge at low amperage but be careful about unplugging it and plugging it back in. Vbus takes nearly two full minutes to discharge on an unplugged switch and people have destroyed their console this way. Third party video output docks have also been bricking Switches because of power delivery issues.

https://plus.google.com/102612254593917101378/posts/2CUPZ5yV...

I don't know the etiquette for these things, but would it be appropriate to merge this with the other USB 4 post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19304857) currently on the front page?

Typically if there are ~0 comments the repeating post just gets suppressed.

Active discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19304857

Reply on news.ycombinator.com