With Micro-USB I had charging cables that didn't have data lines in them, Kindle power adaptors that didn't offer enough output for my phone to charge off, and non-standard devices that didn't follow the spec and only worked with certain stuff.
In my experience, it works well enough I've actively only been buying USB-C stuff where it is at all possible to do so for a while now.
It feels like these complaints are inevitable to me: a spec with no flexibility would become redundant too quickly or cost far too much to implement in most devices to ever see widespread adoption.
Depending on cable configuration, pinout, wall plate and structured wiring system, that 8P8C might be usable (or not) for multiple different types of data networking, from the assorted ethernet speeds (some of which may successfully autonegotiate, but not all) to E1 to token ring, or for a serial console, or delivering power and audio to a remote speaker, or hdmi-over-utp, or even -48V telephony, and let's not even get started on the only-subtly-different but actually incompatible RJ45S connector, or people sticking RJ11 plugs in 8P8C ports.
And yet the world has coped with this proliferation.
I have experienced none of the issues described in the article despite possessing 30+ USB Type-C devices. The article above simply comes across as an overwhelming refusal to take any personal responsibility for technical purchasing choices.
Interesting definition there.
Universality of physical plug, I guess?
In theory yes. In practice most of the cables are good enough for most users - e.g. in a home LAN cables are probably 10m at most, so even a cat5 cable can probably give people a connection that's as fast as their internet uplink. If the problems with USB-C are common enough to impact normal users (and I think lack of thunderbolt falls into that category) then that's a major difference in practice.
this is a problem if you expect things to be like USB2 where you can collect all these random cables and power blocks and use them interchangeably. this wasn't always true with USB2 anyway, with all the out of spec "fast charge" implementations.
there are a lot of optional features and speed tiers for USB3, which is certainly annoying. but you have the option of buying a bunch of cables that support everything you need/use and scatter those around your house. they will work with any standards compliant equipment, which is really the best you can hope for with any standard.
Silly question time, why would we not expect that?
from my perspective, USB-IF has taken a bunch of random shit that manufacturers were going to do anyway and made them proper (though optional) parts of the spec. I understand it didn't work out perfectly, but I don't really understand why they are getting so much flak for it. I'd much rather have a bunch of cables and devices that at least try to meet an official spec than to have a bunch of proprietary implementations that make no effort at being compatible.
Literally half the pins are missing on charge-only cables.
>but I don't really understand why they are getting so much flak for it.
From me, because my partner bought an USB-C to 3.5mm jack converter that refused to work with "this device only supports official huawei converters". That, and two completely different cables with almost disjoint functionality look _the same_. If they mandated color coding or anything else to be able to physically determine what cable is what, I wouldn't complain.
That all said, the _charging_ story is decent enough, everything else is garbage.
okay, but unless you know which pins are missing, how do you know you're not looking at a data-only cable?
> From me, because my partner bought an USB-C to 3.5mm jack converter that refused to work with "this device only supports official huawei converters". That, and two completely different cables with almost disjoint functionality look _the same_. If they mandated color coding or anything else to be able to physically determine what cable is what, I wouldn't complain.
this sounds like more of a huawei issue than a USB-C issue. if a manufacturer is just going to refuse to support a standards-compliant cable, you're out of luck either way. color coding would be nice though, they could have made that mandatory rather than recommended. I'm sure companies like apple wouldn't give a fuck either way and would just go with whatever looked aesthetically pleasing, USB-IF cert be damned.
> That all said, the _charging_ story is decent enough, everything else is garbage.
what "everything else" is garbage? there are higher speed variants, but you seem to already consider it reasonable to look at pins, so that shouldn't be a problem for you. thunderbolt support doesn't need any special pins; it just needs a high quality cable, which is analogous to the charging situation for this and the previous generation.
You know it's a different cable and that's enough.
>this sounds like more of a huawei issue than a USB-C issue. if a manufacturer is just going to refuse to support a standards-compliant cable, you're out of luck either way. color coding would be nice though, they could have made that mandatory rather than recommended. I'm sure companies like apple wouldn't give a fuck either way and would just go with whatever looked aesthetically pleasing, USB-IF cert be damned.
That is made possible by USB-C standard. USB-A and USB-B cables were too dumb to support that.
>you seem to already consider it reasonable to look at pins
The pinouts are the same for all different types of cables. It is literally impossible to differentiate cables based on visual inspection. The USB-C standard is a unified charger and a bunch of different cables in with the same connector.
I just grabbed a power-only microUSB cable out of my cable box (it came with a microUSB-powered soap dispenser!), and it has all the pins, but only the power pins are actually wired.
With USB-C there are multiple official cable types, all with the same connectors, plus high voltages that can fry devices, plus complex protocols that are apparently too much for some manufacturers to implement safely.
Any examples of this other than the Switch?
Note that if you connect two usb-6 devices with a usb-5 cable (Intentionally using standards that don't exist yet) is may drop back to working like usb-5. If you connect a usb-5 device to a usb-6 device it should all just work - to the limits of usb-5 of course.
The cable situation before was pretty good, honestly. And if we could just mark the speed rating on USB-C cables it would solve almost all the problems. Maybe another symbol for the ones that can do >60 watts but even that is quite niche in comparison.
It might not be so terrible if they came labeled with symbols or letters or colors or something. But there is absolutely no way to know which cable does what once you've taken it out of its packaging that (hopefully) lists its specifications correctly.
Good luck remembering which white cable was which.
it's really not that hard. for travel, I have three identical cables that work with all my portable devices. for devices that spend their whole lives in one place, I use the cable it came with.
And one big benefit of the current USB-C era is that 15-18W power adapters are more ubiquitous than ever, and compact enough that there's almost never any reason to use a smaller one anymore. And more and more devices are not coming with their own power adapter these days, which is better for the environment and simplifies my life, every usb-c device I own can be charged by the same chargers and will charge quickly.
It's way better than each device coming with its own adapter of arbitrary shape that may or may not be able to be plugged in without blocking the adjacent socket on the wall or power strip, with seemingly arbitrary max power output, with an arbitrary choice of using usb A/mini/micro connector.
Not the issues, but it addresses the gist of it.
For that person (and me) it has simplified things. If simplifying your life is part of the measurement, it has for some folks.
If you buy decent cables they all do. The reality is that whatever devices you're plugging the cables into might not support every feature you're looking for. Instead of blaming poorly built devices or ignorant consumers it must be the shape of the cable that's the problem surely.