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Comment by xg15 | Hacker News Reader

But wasn't there supposed to be a way to change the roles afterwards, according to user input?

It would be super useful at times to charge one laptop (or phone) off the other - provided I have some way to specify which one should be charged.

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> But wasn't there supposed to be a way to change the roles afterwards, according to user input?

At least on Android, there is; it's in the same place where you choose which file sharing protocol should be used (it's in the Android notifications area, it says something like "Charging the device through USB; click here for more options").

In practice this hasn't worked for me. I got a new phone and was trying to charge it on the way home (since it was activated automatically by the store despite me not asking for that). It refused to charge in the direction I wanted. It'd reset this option instantly every time

I have USB c to c cable that will charge in one direction. It’s not labeled, so I put some arrows on it :)

This thread is getting more and more interesting.

The fact that this is such a rare comment is damning.

The most appropriate and most sexual way would be to have a safe word.

At this point, it might make more sense to just put a condom over all male USB connectors.

Still wondering if technically the host would be the dom since it gets all the control or if the device would be the dom since it gets all the power.

I thought whichever one is plugged in second is the one that receives the charge, but it may be vice versa. Either way, it's the order of plugging that matters.

Does a device even know that it's connected to a ded cable? I'd imagine that it's only after you plug in the second device that they both suddenly see they're being connected to something.

I believe that some cables (especially conversion cables) can have some sort of processor. I have no idea if that's the case with USB-C cables, though.

How can devices determine if a cable is plugged in without a device on the other end? Difference in resistance?

I'm not sure how it works in reality but in principle the cable could act like a jumper across two contacts on the computer's USB connector.

The connectors have chips in them which communicate with the device they're plugged in to. E.g.: https://www.cabledo.com/anker-usb-c-to-usb-c-2-0-100w-cable-...

Not all cables have chips in them, only things like high-power (5A) cables need a chip. A basic 3A USB-C cable will not have any chip.

Is there really nothing standard about USB-C?

They’ve done a stellar job of standardising the name. So many different cables & capabilities, one standardised name.

If you wait long enough they'll try to rename WiFi as USB-C somehow

Does USB-C suffer from the problems with interference that USB 3 did?

Perhaps that could be harnessed into something more productive.

If there are two ground pins in the connector and the cable shorts those two ground pins, the connector could use the presence of continuity between those two ground pins to know a cable is plugged in but not connected to another device. Something like that.

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