But at least everything uses the same plug, so that’s nice.
Using the "right" cable is performance optimization. This isn't like the old days when plugging things in the wrong way might damage your machine.
It's a real problem, even if tech savvy people are fine with lower charge speeds because we know that the charger/cable/device combo only supports PD profile whatever.
I'm actually TERRIFIED of pluggin anything in to my kids Switch other than Nintendo's official cable, incase I brick i t.
Does anyone know if they've patched this? I have some Dell laptop charger USB-Cs which I use alot, and I've had to caution everything in the family to never plug the Switch into it despite it fitting and despite every room in the house having such a charger...
- a pixel charger - macbook charger - HP charger
and the Switch works fine with all of them.
OTOH, if you try to use one of those for the docking station, the docking station will refuse to work
I heard that it's because it supports only a lower amount of Watts than what the Macbook charger can provide, for example... (60W or 85W) While other chargers, like the pixelbook's (45W) work just fine
But I agree that it's unnerving: I connected a disposable switch to the cables that I didn't trust, before trusting to use my main Switch with them
For what it's worth I sold the official charger/dock that came with my Switch more than a year ago and have been using only third-party chargers/cables plus a Covert Dock since then. No issues :)
They were right being mistrusting apparently.
I think people are either too young to remember this disaster, or have just outright forgotten.
Now you have to carefully see what the packaging says, which can range from inadvertently unclear to downright misleading. And to add to that, you don't know what to look for in the first place if you don't have prior experience with thunderbolt/usb-c. Example, I didn't know that a cable must explicitly mention DP in order to connect to an external monitor. Because it was the first time I had an external monitor that can use usb-c.
Not really complaining, usb-c is very very nice. Just pointing the minor annoyance of learning its warts.
That it won't damage their device is certainly wonderful, but I definitely think the cons outweigh the pros.
My current laptop (an XPS 9310) has USB-C for charging. But I would be very reticent to ever charge it with somebody else's cable, and without a 'usb condom' I wouldn't even consider charging from some random public cable (e.g. airport charging kiosks.) USB charging for laptops has the same "untrusted cable" problems as USB charging for cellphones.
Spoken like a true gaslit tech user.
And it's not a remote possibility. It happened to me with a fast charging phone power supply and the phone, and the cable was the one provided by the manufacturer! The type-C connector at the phone side was red hot and started to melt, probably caused by a bad connection caused by dirt in the phone connector. Fortunately I was there, and smelled the burnt plastic and disconnected the cable, but what if that happened at night?
And it's not something trivial that power supplies and phones can detect, there is not a way to determinate the voltage drop in the cable built into the standard (basically all they needed to do was to add a voltage sensing pin on the connector, to be shorted with VCC at the load side, so the power supply could sense the voltage at the other side and determinate if there too much drop, but as far as I know it doesn't have it).
Are we?
I'm not sure how they deliver more power in this specification. But traditionally, the additional power (from 5W to 20W to 100W) was through additional *voltage*, not current.
> And it's not something trivial that power supplies and phones can detect, there is not a way to determinate the voltage drop in the cable built into the standard (basically all they needed to do was to add a voltage sensing pin on the connector, to be shorted with VCC at the load side, so the power supply could sense the voltage at the other side and determinate if there too much drop, but as far as I know it doesn't have it).
Surely we just set a current-limit, written into the specification. Then we choose AWG wires / connectors as appropriate to support that current.
Voltage can't go up arbitrarily, but voltage can safely be increased to ~48V or so in most applications. After 48V, humans start to get shocked / hurt, so that's probably the reasonable limit.
-----
And I'm pretty sure you can sense the voltage drop across a cable. USB-3 delivers 5V by default, and then you send protocol commands to increase your voltage to 12V or whatever. If you detect that the power-supply is only supplying 11V (after the 12V command), then its either a PSU-error or a cable-error. And I'm not sure if it even matters which is which (either way, you're not getting enough power, so your device needs to probably shut off)
You can then disconnect / reset your device and maybe stick to 5V default specs.
Car batteries in ICE cars are nominally 12v. Grab both terminals and tell me it doesn't hurt.
12v can't exceed the resistance of human skin so it doesn't matter how much current capacity it has. You can hold onto those terminals all day.
It's settled science. If you doubt it, tests of this are all over YouTube. It's just true.
Now your tongue, perhaps...
But yeah, 9V and 12V don't hurt your skin at all. The worst you'll get typically is when you accidentally short it with some metal, and something becomes burning hot really quickly.
But this "burning hot" issue can happen even with 1.5V NiMH batteries or 3.3V Li-Ion batteries (even hot enough to start a fire in your pocket! Like all those vaping accidents).
That's not "shock" or "electricity", that's literally heat from some other thing messing up the battery pack. So its not really the same.
We used it to make jacob's ladders. That was fun.
Until I touched the two bars.
I woke up on the other side of the room, smelling burning...me.
That wasn't fun...
> If you receive a shock, if can affect the rhythm of your heart and cause problems later. We’re taught to go and get an ECG after receiving a shock. Like jump in the car and go to the doctor or hospital, and have someone else drive you. If you’ve received a shock - go get checked out. -jaidan
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2658458/
Bing's answer-mode points here:
https://healthcare.utah.edu/the-scope/shows.php?shows=0_esno...
Always hard to know how cautious to be, with so many variables.
You can go into tachycardia or bradycardia (fast and slow heartbeats), so feeling sort of okay isn't the end of it.
That was nowhere near the stupidest thing I've done...
That level of power delivery is negotiated after the devices are connected. The cable also has to advertise that it is capable of that power delivery.
Only if the cable or device is defective or damaged. Which is true of every type of charging cable or connector.
Yes, that's my experience with USB-C as well.
(Seriously, my Dell laptop and Dell dock connected by a Dell cable can't keep up a reliable connection. People are saying that the spec is fine, but a spec that's this hard to implement well is maybe not fine.)
Either way, this is an incredibly common device that can be damaged by incompatible hardware where it's difficult to determine compatibility without bricking the device.
This is the problem! This is what everybody talking about the specs doesn't get - it's difficult to (1) tell which spec a device claims to support and (2) verify that it actually supports it (see: a lot of cheap devices on Amazon) and also (3) in real life many devices do not support the specs (i.e. this isn't a theoretical problem).
In practice, people aren't going to stop buying nintendo switches, unfortunately.
Still, its not entirely necessary to support all specs or have that be entirely clear, what does need to be clear is if you can expect safety specs to be followed. If I plug in my nintendo switch to a charger thinking it'll charge at lightspeed but it takes hours, oh well. If I plug it in and it destroys the device then that should be pretty much an unforgivable problem. Personally I'd be happy to abstain from buying such a device due to that, though also personally I did buy one, expecting no issues, and only found out months later when seeing it mentioned somewhere online. Ideally research is done on every product to ensure things like this aren't the case, but again in practice, that doesn't always happen.
I'm not sure what the fix is, other than outright making USB not so universal by requiring a license for any and all vendors using the design, if the license is cheap enough, maybe that could work? I don't know the legalities so much but maybe a free license could be required for any implementation, which would only have the spec of "make sure it doesn't brick charger or device, and make sure it doesn't catch on fire"
I'm beginning to suspect The Great Filter is Jony Ive's minimalist design influence: any sufficiently advanced culture will annihilate itself before it discovers interstellar travel when someone connects two devices together that aren't compatible with the equivalent of a One True Connector™ USB cable.
I just took my Samsung A50 out of the case, no USB logo anywhere on the device. There's the Samsung logo, some recycling logo and a CE logo, and that's it.
This is 100% Nintendo's fault for using the USB-C connector type but not actually bothering to adhere to the USB-C specification.
The issue is that they're both not compliant AND fail in a non-safe bad way.
Nintendo doesn't claim compliance, but if they're using the connector shape, it should comply with the spec for power delivery (which is honestly not even hard to do).
MicroUSB devices can also be bricked by using non-conforming cables and power adapters, but fortunately devices like that are rare because the spec has existed long enough that all the bad devices have been flushed out of the market. manufacturers having made stupid decisions in the past does not mean we shouldn't make USB-C better now.
A) Follow the spec
B) Make your off-spec interconnect physically incompatible with standard devices
Going off-spec with a compatible and physically indistinguishable connector is an "attractive nuisance," to use the tort term.
While it's anecdotal, I've been charging Switches in my household with all sorts of USB-C sources for a couple years now as well (20W Apple chargers, 18W Anker bricks, a MacBook Air, external battery packs, 12v car adapters, etc) and they're all still working.
I need assurance though that my cables were carefully designed.
Some people here talked about the Switch; but it's a general problem. For example: I have an external USB drive that has a Type A USB 3 host socket on the back of it (???). It came with a cable with a Type A USB 3 plug on one end and a USB C plug on the other end.
Now that's a combination of connectors you will definitely see elsewhere. I have such a cable that came with my PS5 for charging its controllers - but I know for a fact that it's not interchangeable with the one for my external drive.
Power negotiation applies to USB-A just as it does with USB-C... (I think)
Nope it doesn't.
Then there's the crap offered for sale on Alibaba which somebody will resell on Amazon and which will show up on a checkout rack at the gas station. USB-C has very tight tolerances and unusual material requirements. Dirt or water can create a conductive path all too easily with USB-C pin spacing.
"Decreasing the risk of fire in USB-C connectors" is worth watching.[1] It's an ad for a plastic material, but covers the problems.
https://wccftech.com/macbook-survives-disables-all-usb-ports...
Researchers even developed an exploit for some USB-C fast chargers that forces it to deliver max power and try to catch the connected device on fire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es2SqubYSfo
Some of them were designed for chargers with attached cable, and not disconnectable one.
Many charger ICs emulate the fast charging signalling to trick phones into charging faster, but they of course have no way to check if wiring is ok on micro-usb.
So you can end up with 5A-10A going over flimsy wires/contact pads. Or if they use type-c, they can end up using fake 5A cables. Or in case of VOOC, they don't check if the cable is an actual VOOC cable, which goes over 5A.
Actually they do. My OnePlus wich uses the same VOOC tech will not charge at full power with its fast charger if I don't use the cable from the box.
VooC A to C has a fifth pin mapped to CC pin on C side.
Rogue VooC C to C chargers just send VooC signalling directly on CC.
Red hot metal and smoking plastic.
Of course I suppose products that actually are UL listed on Amazon will already mention the fact somewhere in their description.
That being said I’ve had more issues with low voltage crap letting the magic smoke out than mains powered devices.
[1] https://www.dsm.com/content/dam/dsm/electrical-electronics/e...
That is a fairly significant list of conditions. As an example, I have encountered significant heating in a damaged power cable on the original power supply of a laptop from a reputable vendor. It's easy to argue the owner should immediately replace the damaged power supply, yet many people will continue to use problematic hardware until it no longer functions. It is also the case that many companies will manufacture components down to a price (or, in the case of this vendor, for aesthetics) rather than make something that is robust.
I find it a bit disconcerting that we're talking about delivering 240 W over a cable that consumers are unlikely to differentiate from a 15 W cable (i.e. USB-C specification) or even from a 2.5 W cable (e.g a USB cable they would have used fifteen years ago).
Yes, exactly! It’s foolhardy.
And maybe unnecessary -- haven’t Apple just shown that you can get amazing performance with very low power requirements? And shouldn’t we all be trying to minimize power usage, to try to reduce CO2 emissions, mining of rare and toxic elements, plastic waste, etc etc etc?
There are many domestic devices on 110 / 220v AC using less than 250W. They are native DC, but source AC because they must.
These devices are not likely to go away soon. In fact they'll proliferate so long as the developing world is still developing.
We can also expect proliferation of domestic battery and solar: both DC sources. A standardised domestic micro-grid of DC sources and consuming devices could be a boon to efficiency and reduction of single-purpose conversion devices such as power bricks and inverters.
As an example, every type of e-bicycle currently has a different proprietary adapter. Just as mobile phones once did. Most e-bikes charge at around 40v.
With 250W USB available we will likely see a switch to USB by e-bile manufacturers, resulting in more common lower cost equipment and better interoperability.
USB-C is presumably not the final word in USB connectors. Let's hope for both vision and better implementation.
What's wrong with having multiple set voltages? If it's the necessity of semiconductors, is that really so terrible in this day and age?
On a separate note, I hope they'd have properly managed EMI in this standard. USB has so many makers of varying quality, I can imagine cheap, badly-shielded cables and connectors playing merry hell with noise.
It is, but it's a list of things that could fail even if there was only one kind of cable. The added risk from having a bunch of different kinds of cable with varying capability is quite small.
> I find it a bit disconcerting that we're talking about delivering 240 W over a cable that consumers are unlikely to differentiate from a 15 W cable (i.e. USB-C specification) or even from a 2.5 W cable (e.g a USB cable they would have used fifteen years ago).
All these voltages are low enough that you can expect any cable to support them. What really matters is the amps, and the difference is much smaller there. Specially marked cables support 5 amps. All other USB C cables support 3 amps. Old USB cables will vary, but it's been standard fare to push 2.4 amps over them for a long time.
Why are comments here always so deliberately vague? I'd like to know which manufacturer. It seems like an important detail.
I = V/R
And just this past weekend, a close friend of mine had their Galaxy S6 drain completely to 0 in a minute or two, and then claim water damage in the boot screen (which tests resistance across the port). The phone wasn't wet.
Both times, the phone wasn't even plugged in. I am beginning to look very askance at USB-C ports.
There is so much variation in the USB spec that a data transfer or a battery charge could take a few minutes or a few hours depending on which cable and which port/adapter you use, with no foolproof way to make sure you're putting together the right equipment, because regardless, it still "works", just not very well.
Don't get me wrong, it's great that it "works". I just wish it was clearer what I need to make it work optimally, aside from just using the one brick and cable that came with my device (assuming I was so lucky).
The fact that power doesn‘t just go through a data cable, but actually in all kinds of voltages, useful power levels and in _both directions_ is nothing short of awesome. Fun fact: Didn‘t really find the charching port on my new USB-C power bank until I realized it‘s the same as the output port...
The fact that even degradation is graceful is great. I don‘t always have the 90W brick with me when I‘m on the road with the MacBook, but more than one time I‘ve not regretted at least having a lightweight USB cable in my backpack in order to use a phone charger over night. Granted, I can‘t play games on it in that configuration, but hey, it‘ll still hold up nicely over many hours and I can still work.
Good times!
Here are 10 different cables, you must accurately describe each of their features in detail (USB speeds, charging speeds/power delivery, video out? What version of Display Port does it support?). Make one mistake and you'll be executed.
Obviously I don't advocate for that but it's damn annoying you can have one cable do so many different things and not know by looking at it. At least USB 3 was often times blue to offer a distinction.
These days I plug in a cable and prey it functions as advertised (sometimes it's 50/50).
Awful mess.
This is more expensive too (eg there are generally chips in the plugs at either end to handle attenuation).
But there's obviously a use case for cables longer than that.
It is true that we have cables that support data but not power and power but not data or data at different bandwidths and so on. It's a mess. But it's not a case of simply choosing not to support optional features.
[1] For the longest time, this was the only cable to do it all. I think more are available now, but they're still very much non-affordable.
There are three alternatives: one cable type that does everything and is easy to use (but gets expensive quickly as it gets longer), multiple cable types that each do somewhat different things but use identical connectors, or multiple cable types that each do somewhat different things and use different connectors. The USB-IF went with the "multiple cable types, identical connectors" option, which is cheap but extremely confusing. The "multiple cable types, multiple connectors" is what USB was created to avoid. So the only remaining option to remove confusion is to have expensive cables.
Are you preying on the folks at USB-IF?
Oh hell no and none of the packaging actually explains what features a cable supports, none of them actually explain what the cable is actually compatible with. The little android logo doesn't mean shit. Sure, you might be able to slowly charge your phone with a particular cable, but it doesn't mean it'll do anything else it's supposed to do.
Though ofc the design challenge is for users to feel comfortable that putting red into blue won't break anything, it just might not give the expected features.
Cable manufacturers are going to do whatever is cheapest.
Resistor style stripes on cables would be fun, a stripe for each feature such as bandwidth, power, etc; perhaps already suggested (and ignored). Though complement for ports would be trickier.
Embossing symbols in the style of thunderbolt might be the way to go, even if the standard is not fully adopted.
My first attempt was different colors for each device, but was too tedious.
Three categories - low power, high power slow USB2, and 100W Thunderbolt.
- Low power: generic cables from wherever
- High power slow: cables that came with reputable charger (the vendor's cable, like Apple or Samsung; my favorite 3rd party charger is https://www.ravpower.com/products/rp-pc112-gan-tech-61w-wall...)
- Thuderbolt: I buy from https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt
Honestly that's about all you need.
Even just a bandwidth indicator would be suitable 90% of the time.
Decades ago, when your TV was behaving badly, you would take the back off (unplug first!), pull the vacuum tubes out, and take them in a bag to the nearest convenience store. They had a "tube tester" the size of a washing machine. You'd plug each tube into a connector, one at a time, press the "test" button, and the needle on the dial would show good/poor/fail. The body of the tester was a cabinet containing replacement tubes you could buy (and which you could even test right there).
We might need to start using USB-C cable testers. Plug in a new cable, get a good/poor/fail analysis of each potential USB-C feature, then you mark your cable yourself with some labeling scheme.
I've been having to implement tons of my own testing because no cable ever works the way you think it will. I've got a giant pile of thick super beefy USB-C cables which only transmit data at USB 2.0 speeds. Which per the USB standards committee is apparently Working As Intended, but that is definitely not ok.
I remember going through the tube testing ritual with my Mom. Good times. It was really interesting to me, how my Mom could take things apart and figure things out.
(She taught me that the inside of a TV was dangerous, and kept the screwdrivers up where I couldn't reach them.)
Maybe non-standard connectors are actually a feature, not a bug, because everything having the same connector but not the same functionality will lead to confusion as described above.
You can find all sorts of different connectors on a cable to connect two devices together, but you still only knew that devices are/are not compatible by trying to plug them in
At least with the current setup, you are unlikely to burn out the devices by trying a cable.
"I thought I needed a USB cable"?
Also it's a huge waste if say an HDMI 2.1 cable cannot be used on an HDMI 2.0/1.4 device. People would complain about that too.
At least the nature of the problem is immediately apparent to such people the moment they attempt to plug the cable in. If the cable won't fit, they know there is nothing wrong with their computer; they didn't misconfigure anything or click the wrong button. The problem is unambiguous.
Some USB-C cables not working with some USB-C sockets leaves users feeling gaslit.
You'll get people complaining about the cable not working with their new device, and then people complaining it didn't work with their old device.
Eventually USB-C will be so capable and ubiquitous, this will be a non-factor. I don't miss the days of trying to track down the right barrel connector, micro-HDMI cable or proprietary and fragile network dongle adapter. Those weren't easier days.
At a certain point on the usability continuum, user error becomes so severe that only dementia can explain it. But USB-C incompatibilities are so far from that point that arguing otherwise seems like bad faith. These USB-C incompatibilities can bite technically inclined people with sound, sober and healthy minds.
How does it help when someone inevitably buys the USB-C cable with shape y when they need USB-C cable with shape x? It physically doesn't fit, great, but they still have the wrong cable and their device still doesn't work, not even in a degraded fashion. They still have to take it back to the store.
Typically these issues bite people who bought cheap junky cables that weren't USB-IF certified off Amazon by sorting for lowest price. If it's not working, check that your cable is certified for what your intended use case is. This applies to everything, not just USB-C.
> How does it help when someone inevitably buys the USB-C cable with shape y when they need USB-C cable with shape x? [...] They still have to take it back to the store.
It helps because they know they have to go back to the store, and aren't left wondering if the problem is actually with themselves somehow using their computer wrong. As I mentioned earlier: "Some USB-C cables not working with some USB-C sockets leaves users feeling gaslit."
People will also ignore the color coding even if it existed. Counterfeiters would add the color to add legitimacy to their incompatible products. Color coding would not physically prevent you from plugging the cable in.
The people who feel gaslit over a USB-C cable not working would probably also feel gaslit over buying the "wrong USB C cable", because they bought a "USB C cable" and "USB C should just work, why do I have to remember which of 12 different connectors my computer uses, I thought the point of USB C was a unified connector".
They might feel deceived or mislead by the packaging, but they won't have to wonder if they are somehow using their computer wrong. Particularly for people who lack confidence with computers, this means a lot.
In particular, if my Thunderbolt ports didn't support bog-standard USB, that would suck. I would need special ports which weren't as powerful, or even more dongles, or both.
As it stands, things are.. fine, actually. I have one TB cable that works on everything, and a small handful of USB-C cables which work on most things. and a USB-C-or-Thunderbolt-and-I-don't-know-or-care to DisplayPort which stays plugged into my monitor. and a USB-C-or-Thunderbolt-etc to microHDMI for my camera.
You'd need a cross product of different cable shapes for all the different available features, since the cable could support any number of them.
On top of that, the connector has mechanical constraints to handle, and some of these connector shapes will be suboptimal and undertested
Power: 18W, 30W, 45W, 60W, 100W, 240W
Data: No Data, 480Mbps, 5Gbps, 10Gbps, 20Gbps, 40Gbps
You also have a potential variety of modes that could influence your ability to achieve those speeds with certain devices.
Also there are no power ratings below 60W, and I don't think "no data" is a valid cable.
There are definitely "charge-only" cables being marketed.
Two markings with each having multiple variations. You will have a dozen plus combinations, that will only get more complex.
Every voltage below 20 maxes out at 3 amps. As far as cables go, 60 is the minimum watts supported.
> There are definitely "charge-only" cables being marketed.
Are they valid though?
> Two markings with each having multiple variations. You will have a dozen plus combinations, that will only get more complex.
I don't really care how many combos there are. I won't need most of them. Most of the time I just want speed or power, sometimes I want both, and it's always a minimum requirement rather than anything specific.
Perhaps for PD 2.0/3.0 but there is also legacy USB PD 1.0 and USB-C BC. During that era I believe 1.5A was minimum.
>Are they valid though?
Probably not, looks like USB 2.0 data is minimum required.
>I don't really care how many combos there are. I won't need most of them.
Just because you don't need specific combinations, doesn't mean you won't have to wade through all possible combinations to find the cable you're looking for.
> All EPR cables shall be Electronically Marked and include EPR-specific information in the eMarker as defined by the USB PD specification. As defined in the USB PD specification, EPR cables are marked as 50 V and 5 A capable. All EPR cables shall be visibly identified with EPR cable identification icons as defined by the USB-IF. This is required so that end users will be able to confirm visually that the cable supports up to as high of PDP = 240W as defined in the USB PD specification."
Both are important. I also wish devices had some UI to easily show the capabilities of a connected cable to the user. I could not find actual visual representations of the the "identification icons".
[1]: (page 143) https://usb.org/document-library/usb-type-cr-cable-and-conne...
I haven’t done the speed test in a while but last I checked I think it was 3Gbps? Not quite the theoretical max for the port/cable but easily enough for the few hundred megabit video feed.
Its been over 5 years already
If your phone is about to die because yiu checked out of a hotel in the morning and your flight is at night and you are just cruising around in a car, you will not be able to stop anywhere and get a USBC car charger.
So anyway LPT: get USBC accessories on Amazon in advance and dont rely on them to have any particular feature of quality control.
Yes, they're more expensive. But they'll essentially handle everything you throw at them, and behave as expected (due to the large protocol support [0,1]).
Of course, this won't always be the case. But it's generally a safe assumption for now.
[0] https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/io/thu...
[1] https://thunderbolttechnology.net/sites/default/files/Thunde...
Is this really true? My Thunderbolt monitor (LG Ultrafine 4K) came with two cables: Thunderbolt 3 (for connecting to Thunderbolt laptops) and USB-C (for connecting to iPads etc which don't support Thunderbolt). Why would two different cables be needed if the Thunderbolt 3 one can do it all?
I'm not enthusiastic about wading into the world of "every port looks identical but isn't" that USB-C has given us. I have to keep my cell phone charger cable with the charger at all times, because it's my only cable compatible with Qualcomm quick charging. Naturally, there's no visible indication of this.
you can get 3-metre thunderbolt cables if you want, you just have to pay a lot for them. all the problems with USB-C can be solved by spending more money. if you want to go the cheap route and buy cables that don't support all the various modes, then you're going to end up with a bunch of cables that don't support some modes and have to keep track of which ones those are.
if you regularly use devices that need higher-spec cables, it's probably worth keeping one good high-spec USB-C cable in your bag, instead of three terrible ones.
I guess it's cheaper now but in what world is a $50 cable to power an accessory reasonable in any way.
Source: https://www.sweetwater.com/c1225--Thunderbolt_Cables
It carries probably 100W+ for power, multiple 4K displays, ethernet, half a dozen USB3 ports... I'd rather it not be the thickness of a 5W charging cable.
I'm fairly content with my current situation. My phone has 'WARP' charge, which fully charges it in less than half an hour, however it can also charge (at a slower rate):
* Earphones
* Shaver
* Handheld Fan
* MacBook
I rarely connect my devices to a display, but that is supported with my cable too. The only device I use semi-regularly that isn't USB C is my Bose QC35s, but they last ~20hrs so usually last a few weeks due to my low usage.
On the other hand, my Mac charger can charge my phone (and obviously Mac) but none of the other devices...
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD862LL/A/apple-thunderbo...
Correct link: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MQ4H2AM/A/thunderbolt-3-u...
What a mess…
I have a 2019 MBP 15". Every 'dock' I've looked at seemed to indicate that "you will see mirrored screens on multiple displays" - which is not what I'd want.
Perhaps all of this is because I'm 'only' using a 2 year old MBP, and this is somehow all Apple's fault?
Would love to know what specific $100 thunderbolt 3 dock you have. It seems to be a confusing mess of half-information whenever I go to shop for stuff.
I use this dock: https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Thinkpad-Thunderbolt-Dock-40AC...
After updating the dock to the latest firmware, I can run two 4k60 displays, although it requires a specific configuration: one display on one of the DisplayPort lanes, and one on an active USB-C to DisplayPort cable hooked up to the dock's unpowered Thunderbolt port.
I've done this setup multiple times with this dock model, and it has worked with every Thunderbolt 3 MBP I've used.
Unfortunately yes. Apple (or MacOS specifically) doesn't support DisplayPort MST, which allows using multiple displays over a single DisplayPort connector. Since non-thunderbolt usb-c video is just DisplayPort, that means many usb-c docks with multiple display outputs don't work. Now why MacOS supports multiple video outputs over Thunderbolt and doesn't support MST is beyond me, but everything else does.
I guess it is not completely trivial though, and would probably end up costing a fair bit due to the max bandwidth etc.
Just measuring resistance accurately enough for short cables for all conductors sounds hard.
Resistance is most important for power connection. To determine if voltage drop is acceptable does not need high accuracy.
In older USB cables you used to have four, five, or nine pins that were directly connected via copper wire to the pins on the other end. With the exception of charging-only cables that didn't connect the data pins.
Is the issue just that the new cables tend to only connect a subset of the 24 USB-C pins?
However, when it comes to power delivery. For both old style USB and newer USB-C, the thickness of the copper matters for how much amps the wire can carry.
IE apple has a 30W charger that comes with a different thickness than their 61W charger. And using the 30W cable with the 61W charger.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201700#usbc
> For the best charging experience, you should use the USB-C charge cable that comes with your Mac notebook. If you use a higher wattage USB-C cable, your Mac will still charge normally. USB-C cables rated for 29W or 30W will work with any USB-C power adapter, but won't provide enough power when connected to a power adapter that is more than 61W, such as the 96W USB-C Power Adapter.
The best part is that the cables look nearly identical with some very small print on the cable that says they are different.
My (by now) ancient laptop simply won't charge (or boot if cold) if the wattage of the psu is insufficient. This will easily solve that problem as you find out when the battery runs out of juice. I noticed this as it originally came with a 45 watt charger but after a processor upgrade the required power would be at least 60 watt.
Note that it will charge the battery when off with any charger, it is just slower.
> The best part is that the cables look nearly identical with some very small print on the cable that says they are different.
One would think that after nearly 2 decades of USB cable confusion the standards bodies and vendors would make an effort to make the cable identification easy, but no.
I suspect it's because they actually want consumers to end up buying lots cables and the churn it causes.
These read out the e-marker and tell you the supported power delivery and USB data speeds.
The irony that their product comparison table has 30+ rows should not be missed!
Also I've destroyed probably half a dozen of them by accidentally stepping on or rolling my chair over the connector and smushing it flat.
Not the best source - https://old.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/87vmud/the_...
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/08/heres-why-nintendo-sw...
If the port fails open—meaning pins just don't make electrical contact—there's usually no real harm done. But if they fail short—meaning pins are bridged electrically to pins they have no business connecting to—you may easily overvolt a pin. Remember that 6V absolute maximum rating on the Configuration Channel of the Switch's USB-C PD chip? Well, it's only 0.5mm away from the VBus (main power line), which carries 15V.
I have USB micro cables that “work” to charge phones or for data but will give voltage throttling errors if used to power an RPi3 or later. This is presumably from using wires internally of too small gauge. I can’t see things like that stopping.
Was comparing TB2.995 vs TB3, not TB vs USB.
And that's after you solve the problem of people trying to cut out a couple pennies of copper. And the people that want thinner cables just for charging.
Physics is a problem here.
Please bring the barrel jacks back. They were virtually unbreakable. I break about a USB-C cable a week because the connectors are super weak and supported only by 2 dots of solder on a PCB instead of a solid cutout on the housing.
USB-C should have at least standardized the shape of the rubberized housing around the connector, made a matching inset shape on the equipment, and have that take the brunt of all mechanical stress, just like an IEC power cable, which you can drop bricks on and they won't break.
If it started making physically different cables or sockets to add new features, people whine how nothing is compatible anymore and if it stopped adding new features to stay compatible, you call the standard dead and not forward thought.
Instead it's gradually upgrading the standard with the same physical socket, so that at least some compatibilities are kept and it's still moving forward.
Can it be better than that?
A bit of confusion on which version you need is better than not being able to plug it in at all.