And you’re still stuck with USB C on Kinect, so it’s not like it lets you escape the consumer-grade reliability.
If there are other devices with the same performance as the realsense lidar at a lower price, we’d all love to hear about them!
The people who designed USB-C were probably lazy people sitting in office chairs all day and never got out enough to see what real consumers do.
I break about a USB-C cable a week. Never happened with headphone jacks, barrel connectors, IEC power connectors, and the like -- those are real consumer grade stuff, especially IEC.
The connector design itself is shit, and the rubberized housing of the connector isn't mechanically supported as any self-respecting consumer-grade cable should be, all torque transfers to the PCB and that's horrible design.
There's no reason the torque has to transfer to the PCB. That's just poor design. My phone's USB-C port is sleeved by the chassis for example, and so is the one in my GaN charger. There is zero torque transfer to the PCB, the chassis or frame takes all of the load.
You can't rely on the cable to cancel the torque anyways, rubber yields and the normal force at the housing will pull the connector out slightly allowing for torque to still be applied to the connector, you have no choice than to brave either the female, male, or both ports to the chassis in some way.
Then there’s stuff built for public spaces. ATMs, books in the public library, turnstyles at the metro, etc. All designed to be in close contact with people who either just don’t care or are actively trying to damage it.
TBH I don’t know what the grade below consumer-grade would be.
There’s a type of consumer electronics available on Wish/AliExpress/etc., which is designed for people who want to appear at a glance to be using a certain expensive device, for status-signalling reasons. The devices only have to be real enough to allow you to pretend to be using them without drawing suspicion, and only have to be rugged enough to last until the device being mimicked isn’t fashionable to have any more (at which point you get a new knock-off aping the new cool thing.)
Surprisingly, these devices do work! They wouldn't be convincing otherwise. (How can you seem to be using the best new phone if you have to pull out a different phone to check your text messages? How can you seem to be playing a Switch or a PS4 if it doesn't turn on and show pictures and sound on the screen/a TV?) It's just that they work as terribly as you can imagine, given that costs are optimized to meet the minimum needs of someone playing pretend and no more.
Consumers are the ones that will actually have cables bitten, chewed, stomped, sat on by unfit, heavy civilian asses, jammed into wheels of office chairs, rammed into by strangers' hips in coffee shops when your connector hangs off the edge, dunked in cereal, splattered by kitchen grease, smashed into rocks at Yosemite, and shoved into bags while plugged in after a slow TSA checkpoint and needing to sprint as fast as possible to a departure gate.
Very different set of ruggedness requirements. Most cables of the 80s and 90s were completely fine in these civilian environments.
If the pro device breaks, the pro typically consumes a competitor's product. If the mil device breaks, the mil typically won't order 85,000 of them.
It is in the company's interest to ensure that the consumer device breaks.
The designers should take responsibility for it, and I pay them for that.
Headphone jacks worked great until they made goddamn headphones plug into USB-C as well and then they started breaking. Technology to withstand consumer lifestyles did exist until USB showed up.
Anyway, I’m not trying to get down on you - I was just pointing out that nothing is intended to last forever. I once considered buying a military grade reinforced laptop that was way under specced just because I wanted to take it wherever I wanted and be able to bang it around.
The truth is that electronics are easily damaged. Take fiber optic cables for instance. If you bend them ever so slightly too far they will stop working, because the throughput medium is glass. It’s just the nature of the medium.
Arguably, we are the most advanced machines on this planet, and yet if we slip and hit our our head, our machinery could easily be put out of commission. I think it’s fair to expect machinery to fail outside of its intended use case. Have you ever bent a piece of copper wire back and forth and feel it get warm before it breaks? That’s just the nature of the material. It is what it is, you know?
I’m not saying that you’re wrong to want or expect sturdier constructs - because they are often available for a price (using less abundant materials). I’m just saying that if you want that it’s probably not going to be consumer grade, and it’s not going to be cheap.
The majority of the world gets out and does things. Physically.
Also, as an active person myself I’ve never had a problem with USB-C; I don’t use my laptop out hiking and fishing, and I’m kind of confused who in the world is riding horses or bicycles and also fiddling with their consumer electronics at the same time.
And while maybe USB-C is less durable than headphone jacks, I can also say that wired headphones suck when you’re being active. I can’t even count how many times a door knob ripped out my earbuds and sent me into a fit of rage. I switched to Bluetooth and never looked back.
0 - Of course the world’s poor are active, but they’re also not the target consumers for USB-C devices.
Please don't dismiss things just because you don't do them.
I go on long bike rides with navigation on and that drains the battery quickly, so the needs to be constantly plugged into a portable battery pack, while in my pocket. This extremely common.
Consumer-grade has hints in the name that it is intended to be consumed and purchased again.
Business doesnt like making products that last for long life ad it means there is little chance of them buying another.