USB-C Cable Colour Codes | Hacker News Reader

USB-C Cable Colour Codes

sa.lj.am

49 pointsgkfasdfasdf19 comments

This is sort of like a “for nerds by nerds” solution. Nobody is going to remember this coding system.

I’d rather just see the specs written down on the cable or on the connector in words if it’s going to be marked.

Or, your device could just alert you to a sub-optimal situation in software.

Aside from that, most of the distinctions aren’t actually important to consumers. If you need 3.1 Gen 2 instead of Gen 1 you’re probably the type of person to already know that and plan accordingly.

Your typical consumer knows that the cable that comes with their computer or phone charges the system. They probably never use the cable for anything else. At most they’ll connect an HDMI display with an adapter.

They aren’t generally impacted if they accidentally don’t get the highest possible transfer speed - heck, they probably don’t use non-cloud storage in the first place.

They also don’t really care about getting the fastest charging possible. If you want evidence for that hypothesis, just check out the vast army of 5W iPhone power bricks and 30W MacBook Air chargers that are out in the wild.

I’d say it is very valuable for manufacturers/support people to be able to say to customers, “for our device you need a yellow cable only”. Right now they can’t say anything that a non-nerd would understand.

It would probably work better with a color stripe per feature, as a customer with an orange cable might not know that it includes all the features of a yellow cable and can be used in place of a yellow cable.

You could have a little key printed on peripherals near the female socket that details what kind of cables they recommend and accept.

Colors work well for the 3.5mm audio ports... but those are simpler.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_System_Design_Guide#Color...

I just plug into whatever 3.5mm port on the back of the motherboard and a software popup asks what I've plugged in.

My computer has multiple USB-C ports. It would be nice if I could plug both ends into two of these ports and have an app report back to me all of the capabilities of that cable. That's not as good as being able to know just by looking at the cable but it would at least give me a definitive option instead of playing the Swap-the-Cable game until things work (assuming the cable is the issue, which it might not be). A handheld device would be even better.

>It would be nice if I could plug both ends into two of these ports and have ...

It sounds like you're trying to fry your motherboard

> A handheld device would be even better.

Yeah, I've got a box full of usb cables, and pretty much no clue which ones support what, and not much of an idea how I would quickly find out for any particular cable what it supports.

i mean, the real solution is to only buy good, compliant, backwards compatible cables and largely standardize with the feature set your most demanding high-use device requires, but that could put you at $30+ USD or more per cable.

I tend to buy Anker cables and color code them by capabilities. though to be honest, i didn't even realize USB C 3.2 had two generations-- i was pretty much just breaking it down by: white/silver 100W PD, red for 18W, and black for unknown came-with-a-thing.

btw, its about to get better and worse https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2021/5/25/22453936/u...

I thought some cables support HDMI or DisplayPort alt modes and some don’t.

Indeed if you leave out the 2 SBU wires, you get a cable that works for USB 3.x and TB, but not DP or HDMI.

Such a cable isn't compliant to the Type-C spec, but that won't stop cheap vendors from saving a few grams of copper.

As a colorblind person I just wished we as a society moved past using color for markings on anything.

The article says the pallette was designed with colorblindness in mind.

Perhaps... not color blind, but that choice for blue and blue-greenish (or is it greenish-blue) is not a good one.

I'd also struggle with the yellow/orange. If you absolutely have to pick colors why not: black, white, red, blue or better still just put "3.2g1 3A"

> As a colorblind person I just wished we as a society moved past using color for markings on anything.

This needs a "solely" inserted, as in "using solely color for markings".

Color is a great indicator for a lot of people and much faster to grasp than symbols. It just needs to be complemented by other markers.

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But FWIW I don't agree with the color assignments for 2 reasons:

- it doesn't jive with color associations, blue/green should be "better" but TB is yellow. (TB cables are "best")

- it doesn't have space for future cables which I'm sure will add to this mess, at least 2 spare colors in the "better" direction would be great.

Oh, you mean like resistor codes?

Maybe one stripe on the cable for each connector?

Then you have colored and dashed or dotted lines for each stripe, depending on what that connector can do or be used for?

Are we ready to go plaid yet?

If the bands were much smaller and on the cable instead of the connector, I think it could work without standing out so obnoxiously.

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