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Comment by layer8 | Hacker News Reader

They could introduce color coded rings like resistors have.

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.

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/

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