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Comment by cududa | Hacker News Reader

This is still ridiculous. The USB certified logo should be one image, then a similar sized wattage and Gbps number displayed next to it. The pertinent information is still too tiny. The cables themselves are still way too easy to mix up. Connector's inner plastic should have different colors

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They could introduce color coded rings like resistors have.

USB-rainbow? It's literally not USB. I am USB-#ff33ff. How is it Universal?

More like:

First ring:

  Red:    Hi-Speed
  Yellow:  5 Gbps
  Green:  20 Gbps
  Blue:   40 Gbps
  Black:  charging only

Second ring:

  Orange:  60 W
  Cyan:   240 W
  Black:  data only

Plus print the values on the rings in black font, for the colorblind.

Yep. Just do it on the cable, heat shrink some wrapper around it and make it extremely obvious on the box. Try walking Grandma through what cable and charging brick to use over the phone when she calls you while she's at walmart

It’s not any worse than the current situation of “will it work?” “Uh, how much does it cost?”

You are moving the format from words to colour as a solution? I need a USB cable Bellend... "Oh, what color?".

Yes. I can explain to my grandma that she needs a cable with green and orange rings. Much easier than “look for 20 Gbps with 60 watts”.

Grandma still doesn’t know that it’s ok to get the one with blue and orange rings though.

Right, but it’s still easier to explain “either green or blue”, and the colors are in rainbow order for a reason.

It’s not just for grandma, most everyone would have an easier time remembering the “working” or “fast” colors than having to think about Gbps or watts, myself included.

Assuming you know she needs green and orange rings from the device she bought on amazon last week?

Once the color system is established, I would expect device packaging and/or manuals to indicate the compatible colors.

But why are you defending it with novel solutions and colour grading schemes for something which could simply not be named the same thing because it isn't the same thing?

You can interpret the colors as naming. I mean, it’s similar with HDMI, DisplayPort, Bluetooth, Wifi, etc., they all regularly get new variants with new capabilities and compatibility restrictions. Naming each version something entirely different doesn’t solve the compatibility problem. It’s like saying HTTP/3 shouldn’t be called HTTP.

I have a bunch of USB-C cables. Some will fry things some won't. How will a naming convention help me keep track of them once they get chucked into in the basket under my coffee table

I recall coming across the color guide for the various features, like blue for USB3, and red for… power delivery, maybe?

But then one day I was on AliExpress or Alibaba or something and seeing that you could just buy cables from some manufacturer with whatever color you wanted. And I lost faith in the reliability of color id for cables.

> red for… power delivery, maybe?

I'd go with yellow, like how we draw lightning.

Yellow/orange/red are commonly used for USB charging ports: https://www.etechnophiles.com/types-of-usb-cables-ports-spee...

Or UV-Lights!

https://xkcd.com/2507/

The color coded rings on resistors is a mightily bad idea, at least as implemented on resistors.

I'm not that colorblind, I see traffic lights, fruits between leaves and other things others have problems with, basically everything except resistor rings and distant lighthouse colors (yes, the colors on a map make sense, but trying to decode them IRL is as hard as resistor codes.)

The worst thing is resistors with weird background colors for the color bands. I can usually figure out beige resistors, but the blue ones? no chance of getting those right.

No in my view. USB should be USB. That rectangle thing you poke into a port somewhere. Not just on chargers, motherboards or literally aircraft and cars.

If it's not that. Call it something else. LEET, PHAT, BIGPORT.

I really don't understand. Universal Serial Bus... in 10 different formats make's it no longer universal.

USB should be retronymed to Unpredictable Serial Bus.

This made me laugh and brought me to "Unknown Serial Bus"

This is unfair.

USB mostly has predictably "just worked" as in "there is a port for it and it works when I plug it in".

If you had the right cable.

Honestly I'd prefer that! Have fried two devices using the wrong damn cable/ charger. Sure the device should have had better power IC's etc to prevent anything from happening when I plugged in the wrong one, but still, they all look the damn same!

USB does mean that already! If you have two spec-compliant devices, connecting them with a USB cable should never cause one to get fried.

But that's not how it actually goes. Many devices aren't actually spec compliant

that's pretty much not true anymore. the wild west after USB-C first came out is over, testers are available enough and sketchy vendors get shamed loudly enough that unless you're buying cables at unreasonably dodgy stores, you're going to get something spec-compliant.

Snap-On still sells (along with many others) flashlights that charge via USB-C... only when using an A-C cable. Just as long as we're shaming non-compliant vendors.

This isn't an example of someone still selling a device that either fries others or gets fried, though, right?

> fried two devices using the wrong damn cable/ charger

Doubt the USB-IF can do anything about that. Those chargers either don't use the USB logo or use it illegally without passing compliance testing. Don't buy from those sellers.

Well one of them is from a company called Nintendo

Nintendo didn't follow USB Spec on their charger and the Switch. But what they didn't do correctly shouldn't fry anything.

no there should be only one cable that does work for all use cases. do you really think most consumers now what the 40gbps/20gbps or 5w/240w or whatever even means for them?

No, consumers mostly don’t know this, but the market also needs lower tier cables. USB-C high throughput, high voltage cables with thunderbolt and display port (I think that is the max of what a cable can carry) are quite expensive.

Lots of people need reasonable cables to charge their phones.

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