USB-C cable with the bandwidth and USB type imprinted on the connector
theverge.com
theverge.com
I've resorted to physically labeling them with a Brother label printer.
For MacOS, here's a terminal snippet to determine the current charging capacity of a cable.
/usr/sbin/system_profiler SPPowerDataType | grep Wattage
So, you kinda need a charger that meets or exceeds the power delivery of the cable you're testing. And I believe this relies on the cable's self-identified capacity via the e-chip or whatever, so it could be fraudulent if you have some dodgy cable from an unknown manufacturer? But it's better than nothing.
There is a lot of info in `/usr/sbin/system_profile`, not sure if there's other bits related to identifying USB-C cable capacity. I'm sure there has to be something.
It relies /sys/class/typec: https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-c... which does not always exist https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=274618 https://community.frame.work/t/tracking-controlling-power-di... https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/z92jgf/when_d... etc.
Some things never change haha
It should be under Hardware -> Power, in the section titled "AC Charger Information".
You should also be able to see connected USB-C cable capacity under Hardware -> USB. For example, mine says the following:
USB 3.1 Bus:
Host Controller Driver: AppleT8112USBXHCI
USB3.0 Hub:
Product ID: 0x0813
Vendor ID: 0x2109 (VIA Labs, Inc.)
Version: 90.11
Speed: Up to 5 Gb/s
Manufacturer: VIA Labs, Inc.
Location ID: 0x01200000 / 2
Current Available (mA): 900
Current Required (mA): 0
Extra Operating Current (mA): 0
USB2.0 Hub:
Product ID: 0x2813
Vendor ID: 0x2109 (VIA Labs, Inc.)
Version: 90.11
Speed: Up to 480 Mb/s
Manufacturer: VIA Labs, Inc.
Location ID: 0x01100000 / 1
Current Available (mA): 500
Current Required (mA): 0
Extra Operating Current (mA): 0Much like GP I've taken to labeling newly bought cables with a label maker to avoid wasting them in the future due to being unknown.
I mostly care as my current monitor requires HDMI 2.1/Display Port 1.4 and going through my random cables drawer was extremely tedious. As I had way to many cables.
Every cable is a 60 watt cable by default. 20 volts, 3 amps.
Cables designed for 5 amps have a marker chip in them. If they follow the old spec they support 20 volts, and if they follow the new spec they support 48 volts. There's not much incentive to fake these because you still have to put a chip into it and 60 watts is fine most of the time.
Depending on the combination of host and device, that would be 4.5W for standard USB 3, 2.5W for USB 2, up to 7.5W for USB Battery Charging (BC), or possibly more for non-USB-C PD (highly unlikely, since it would require legacy PD signalling on the voltage pins, which almost no USB-C devices support as far as I know).
I strongly suspect it's USB BC, rounded up to 8W by Apple.
As an aside: Apple's USB power controllers used in their laptops are surprisingly flexible based on my observations: In addition to the obvious USB-PD, they support at least USB BC and Apple's proprietary USB-A resistor-based protocol. I was able to successfully charge a MacBook Pro at 12W and even 5W supplied by an old iPad/iPhone charger and the appropriate combination of adapters once.
I’m actually able to run my m2 MBA from a 5w usb a iPhone charger. I thought that was cute.
This is doubly frustrating in that it shows that it’s clearly available to the OS (and not handled by a lower layer controller), but also leaves the faint hope that Apple might implement just such a feature in the future.
Get a cable with a watt meter display included. I use that on my Fold: https://csdvrx.github.io/ section 0.4 : https://csdvrx.github.io/X1_Fold_(20RL_20RK)_Optimization/pa...
Such cables cost about $10 on amazon, or $2 on aliexpress. Amazon link for the reference: https://www.amazon.com/Charging-Display-Braided-Compatible-G...
Using a calculator like at https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/wire-size a 1m cable with a relatively user friendly max wire temp of 40c asks for a diameter of 0.6mm. Looks like there is 4 VBUS pins and even tho it's reversible I imagine for full power it requires all 4 (or all 4 must be connected to "support" the spec).
In theory you could have reduced wire diameter and spread current across the 4 VBUS wires, or have a single wire of the correct diameter and then connect to all 4 VBUS at the connector but everything is stranded wire in those cables anyway and I assume there's some complex maths to do to figure out the best for it.
It is super freaking cool, though. It makes me wonder if many household appliances can't just use usb c. I don't know how much further they can raise the voltage beyond that though seeing as there's all the electrical safety rules on conductor spacing etc to avoid arcing/flash over.
The difference in distance combined with USB having a 5 amp limit gives you at least a 10x difference in necessary conductor cross section.
11 gauge wire is 2.3mm across. Divide the cross section by ten and you have 21 gauge wire, which is .7mm across.
I once mixed up two different netgear router power plugs - a new version and an older version. I had the newer netgear router hooked up to the old plug - which gave slightly less amperage - and everything worked fine until it would randomly die. It took me a long time to figure out that it was dying when it was under load and trying to pull more power than was available.
Also I like to note the cable length on the label, measured by myself since manufacturers always count the connectors on the total cable length and on some of them that can add up to almost 10cm
To you have a matrix - charging speed and capability.
As a techie who understands that there are many different types of USB-C and HDMI cables depending on what you need to use it for, it's an incredible amount of effort to find the right thing to buy.
When you consider that most brick and mortar stores (I'm looking at you, Currys PC World) massively rip you off with £100+ gold plated HDMI cables, and the search results on Amazon are filled with knock-off Nigel rubbish (or worse, listings that out-right lie to you)... it's a total minefield!
Imagine what it's like for the average consumer! A complete disaster!
And who knows how many reviews are from non-techies who are just getting a picture on the screen and leave a five star review without knowing / caring if they actually got HDR or not.
Only HDMI 2.1 introduced link training (before that it was just the source picking a resolution that the sink supports and hoping for the best!), but even that is an end-to-end thing; the cable is not part of the conversation, so you wouldn’t know if the cable is bad or the socket/internal wiring beyond the cable on either side.
Fully agreed – the maximum supported data rate would be even more important to be printed on the cable for HDMI.
One reason I could see why manufacturers would be hesitant to do this is that some future improvements might not have higher requirements for cabling, so the printed data rate might be underselling actual capabilities.
I just had to go through the "do I have any good HDMI cables" dance, and the answer was effectively no.
The closest was one that said "High Speed HDMI cable with ethernet" but I'm not sure what "high speed" is supposed to mean
[0]: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08BS181P2
[1]: https://us.infinitecables.com/products/ultra-high-speed-hdmi...
If consumers would stop buying cables that don't have these logos, that would (mostly) solve the problem.
I can't say I've ever seen one of the package logo's, and yes I've been aware of them for a while now.
This is obviously a case of "mistakes were made" but I think the fact that they haven't mandated the logos as part of the license to use the USB specifications says a lot about the companies that run the organization. (or maybe their products).
Edit: There is this, but no actual type-c -> type-c cables, https://www.usb.org/products. Oh maybe they are under "retail -> cable assembly" but I still can't find one with a logo, which is the same problem. Once I buy it, how do I know what it can do in a year or two when I pull it out of a pile of cables.
We've been through the mutually incompatible plug standards. USB was introduced to solve that. Now we're back to mutually incompatible cable standards.
Not exactly, we have a single standard with different tier cables for power and speed.
If you buy a USB-C cable with high power delivery, it will work for lower powered devices as well (but the inverse will not). If you buy a USB-C with high speed, it will work for devices will very low throughput rates too.
So buy the most expensive highest power+speed USB-C version, and you don't have to worry, it would support all (or close) lower-level uses.
The problem is, if you pull a cable out of your drawer, you don't know if it'll be the correct one.
This is strictly worse than the 'bad' old days.
If I pulled a SCSI cable out, I would know before hand that it wouldn't work on my VGA monitor.
Perhaps change their color every year (red -> green -> blue -> purple) to keep track of which are the latest cables.
I have dozens of almost identical black USB-C cables :|
There's also the Dockcase Smart USB-C Hub 10-in-1 Explorer which exposes what's actually happening across your various connections including USB-C. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to support video passthrough over USB-C, so it isn't perfect.
In the end, the technology just doesn't exist to send 100w and full data speed over the usb-c interface longer than that reliably (and economically enough for the market) so it just isn't an option to go longer. You'll have to find a different solution (optical plus separate power) or do a cross-your-fingers method with a non-certified cable that may or may not work under different circumstances.
Or do you mean Thunderbolt 3 which supports USB 3.2 Gen 2×1 aka USB 3.1 Gen 2 which was called SuperSpeed+ USB but is now SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps?
Or the newest USB4 Gen 4, USB4 Gen 3×2, USB4 Gen 3×1, USB4 Gen 2×2 and USB4 Gen 2×1 which supports Thunderbolt 3?
Maybe they could start with the upcoming Thunderbolt 5 which follows the USB4 2.0 spec, not to be confused with USB4 Gen 2(x1/x2).
I'm not sure we have enough colors to enumerate the different type of USBs. Going by the naming schemes it seems like there's already not enough numbers. /s
Thunderbolt 4 and 5 are external conformance marks, because the USB-IF can't be motivated to stop the abuse their own members are causing.
For USB-C to C cabling, there is only bandwidth and power capacity. The operational modes supported by the devices you are connecting with that cable is out of your control (except purchasing replacement hardware).
No, most of them are from the USB consortium who gave a new name to all the old standards with each new standard.
The only actual name changes I can think of
- SuperSpeed+ became Superspeed 10 Gpbs.
- The branding improved around USB4 to combine power and bandwidth capabilities into a combination of name and graphical mark for cable labelling and the like
https://www.lumafield.com/article/usb-c-cable-charger-head-t...
Data channel: yes / no
PD support: yes / no
USB version: 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2
Amperage: 3 amp, 5 amp, 6+ amp
48+ possible varieties of "standard" USB-C cable and no practical way to determine what you have without plugging it in.
What a great "standard"!
"no" is violating the standard.
> PD support: yes / no
"no" is violating the standard.
> USB version: 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2
Yes, there are a handful of speeds.
But I don't see a good way of avoiding that problem while having backwards compatibility.
> Amperage: 3 amp, 5 amp, 6+ amp
6+ amp does not exist. There are two 5 amp specs, but the new one obsoletes the old one.
Does this happen when you plug them into chargers and when you plug them into hubs?
Can you remind me how 120watts is achieved? is it 24v x 5 amps? I forget.
Most cables that ship with devices are not standard. There's no way to know it -- and that's the USB-IF's job!
USB-C is a terrible consumer experience.
It doesn't matter to the consumer. You either have a 240 watt cable or you don't. But yes that's how it does it.
> Most cables that ship with devices are not standard.
What? That's not true at all.
This is roughly the same solution, but in my opinion more poorly implemented. So please make more USB cables like HDMI or Cat cables, print all the relevant info on the cable.
Even a quick laser etch could be done after the braid. It doesn't need to be super high resolution.
(or any other place that bends frequently, so for cables that get coiled and tossed into a bag and then uncoiled and used a lot, that's basically "the entire cable")
I've written on braided ropes before with markers and they're still very legible despite being used a lot. Make a mark on a shoelace and flex it a bit. Does the line become completely messed up?
- Low-Speed & Full-Speed
- High-Speed
- SuperSpeed USB 5Gbps (renamed), original: SuperSpeed (Gen 1)
- SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps (renamed), original: SuperSpeed+ (Gen 2)
- SuperSpeed USB 20Gbps (USB 3.2 Gen 2×2)
- USB4 40Gbps (USB4 Gen 3×2)
- USB4 80Gbps (USB4 Gen 4)
Not to mention
- USB 1.0
- USB 2.0
- USB 3.0
then it changes:
- USB 3.1 Gen 1
- USB 3.1 Gen 2
Then it changes again:
- USB4
Then it changes again:
- USB4 Gen 2
- USB4 Gen 2×2
- USB4 Gen 3
- USB4 Gen 3×2
And to the USB-IFs credit, they did eventually come around with the much saner bandwidth-focused names. As far as I know, even "SuperSpeed" and "USB 4" are now gone as speed designators; now it's just "USB xGbps", e.g. USB 5GBps for the case of what used to be "USB 3.2 Gen 1x1".
Looking at the Wikipedia page I get the impression that the new naming simply ignores the x1 links.
That's like an invitation for misleading product descriptions. Maybe it would have been helpful to assign slightly off but clearly confusion-resistent numbers to the x1 siblings? Perhaps taking a page from supermarket pricing, "4.99Gbps", "9.99Gbps", "19.99Gbps"?
All USB-C cables have 4 high speed wire pairs (or 0). There's no such thing as a USB-C cable that limits you to x1. x1 or x2 is entirely up to the devices attached.
So if a USB-C cable is advertising "20Gbps", you want them to be talking about x1, because that means it's a better cable.
(And if it's not USB-C on both ends, then it's always x1. It's never ambiguous.)
> So if a USB-C cable is advertising "20Gbps", you want them to be talking about x1, because that means it's a better cable.
is not what the USB-IF recommends – to them, a 20 Gbps cable is one capable of 2x2.
Yes, and that probably makes some sense: All compliant USB-C cables (other than USB 2 only) need to have two high-speed lane pairs, i.e. four high-speed lanes in total. (I'm not sure why that's the case, i.e. whether the aim was to avoid further confusion or if it's required for orientation-reversible operation in some ports).
Whether the host/device actually support lane bonding or not is arguably not really the cable's choice, so it makes some sense to specify whatever the cable would support in an optimal configuration (i.e. maximum number of lanes used at the maximum supported modulation rate).
And with USB 4 and dynamic bandwidth sharing between USB and DisplayPort on the same physical bus this would get even more complicated.
I wouldn't mind a good tester, but the ones that can test for that kind of thing are quite pricey.
To use any of the USB-IF logos (including the official ones that clarify power and signal compatibility) a product has to go through the certification process: https://www.usb.org/logo-license
USB-IF also maintains a list of products that are certified: https://www.usb.org/products The question then is, “Why is this still confusing?”. The answer is probably that the popular retail and e-commerce channels are flooded with products that aren’t certified, and consumers don’t realize that a certification process even exists.
1. A cheap version that didn't bother to get certified (to save cost).
2. A fraudulent version that relies on the existence of a poorly regulated market (like Amazon) that allows "mistakes" in advertising details. That market is already flooded with cheap uncertified cables that do work, making it trivially easy to falsely advertise cables that don't work.
What needs to happen is for USB-IF to minimize #1 by making their standardization process as accessible (and affordable) as possible. Otherwise, the bulk of cables that customers are willing to buy will be uncertified.
Once you've got a good rep, scale up.
The customers we are talking about both care about cost and are willing to put more effort into their search to find an affordable quality product.
From that customer's perspective, the best method is to look through Amazon, Ebay, Alibaba, etc. listings to find every product that claims their desired spec under a reasonable price ceiling. After that, the customer need only filter out sketchy listings. This is most reliably done by checking reviews. It's also done somewhat by checking the coherency of listing details: self-contradicting details are a common method for fraudulent sellers to filter for unscrupulous victims - the same process our scrupulous customer is performing here, played in reverse.
So what can you do as a seller to reach this customer? Make detailed listings, and get reviews. Any more work than that is, unfortunately, a wasted effort.
It’s really up to the distributors and promoters, to vet the products they push, but we all know how well that’s going…
[current variant of "suggest previous status quo as improvement"]
The real issue here is with our marketplaces. Amazon in particular is notorious for allowing counterfeits with very little recourse available to the end customer. This has heavily incentivized uncertified products, because there is not enough value in accurate advertising to pay for certification in the first place. Shoppers who care know to trust reviews instead of listings. Shoppers who do get a fraudulent cable will just get a refund; and the seller will just keep selling bullshit.
The marketplaces that care about accuracy love this situation. They get to take a larger cut from heavily overpriced cables, because they can brag about certification. Why would Best Buy ever try to get more competition? That would only hurt their margins.
I want to be able to grab any USB cable and have it work regardless of my intended use. If that is impossible because the standard is so complex then we really should have different connectors. The entire point of it being universal is that regardless of circumstance it will work. Somehow that has morphed into the connector being universal while the actual utility of each cable is not; the latter of which is the only thing people really care about.
Just like having to pay for a 40GBps USB4 controller in a mouse which needs USB 1 speeds.
Despite all the whining here from "hackers", the current situation is undoubtedly better.
Official new logos below:
Or at least some standalone tester, shouldn't be hard to build , dunno about the bandwidth part.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Treedix-Cable-Checker-Charging-Type-C...
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BS2ZS813?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_...
The UI is a little confusing at first, but it seems to work well.
And I think one important feature is having shorter CC pins in the connector, so that the power source can shut down the high voltage to avoid arcing altogether. That seems to be a feature distinct from insulation.
You can step up the load gradually and keep an eye on it.
I would be more worried about the cheap no-brand test gear catching fire. I wouldn't plug my 100W charger into it.
The tests would only run for a tiny period of time. Most fires come from too much current through too small conductors for too long. It takes time for heat to build up to fire causing levels.
The type of time required to actually try to charge something.
Without the labeling, every discussion about a counterfeit must include redundant clarification. Most fraudsters will take that as an opportunity to talk in circles.
But realistically, I can't remember the last time I cared about the data speed of a USB cable, I use USB cables almost 100% for charging. I have a few memory sticks I plug in from time to time, but those get plugged in direct without a cable.
But yeah, let that happen too. It's also useful.
> assuming the cable manufacturers would comply and put accurate labels in the first place
Putting the wrong label on the cable is plain simple fraud. You can easily get some civil recourse, and if you are feeling revengeful, you can make a criminal complaint against the seller. Compare that with our current situation.
A well known brand? Sure. But those are not generally the source of the problems because of that.
https://www.lumafield.com/article/usb-c-cable-charger-head-t...
The device definitely knows, all the information is accessible in the USB info if you know the special tools to run to dump it.
It would seem that with e-markers in USB-C cable (and assuming that USB 3/4 still expose device information like that to the host), an extended version of this should be possible: "Your computer and this device support x Gbps, but your cable caps out at y Gbps; use a better cable to make this connection faster".
Even without an e-marker, there has to be some way to know that the client device can support a higher speed and warn the user - it seems like USB device capabilities supports that?
[https://developer.apple.com/documentation/iokit/1425036-usb_...]
5A already needs a marker, even at USB 2 speeds!
Just a simple information window that lists the max charging Wattage and data transfer speed of the current cable/charger/device configuration would suffice.
A popup we all have to suffer wether we want to see it or not or if we understand it or not. Oh guess I could disable it right? Yeah another task for me to do on every device I own, no thanks.
This is an excellent design solution, my only comment would be the type layout could be nicer.
So, for instance, a 10gb USB3 with oval plug and power delivery could be called "USB3P", 40gb could be called "USB4P", and so on, regardless of what advertisers or the organization calls it (don't get hung up on my example name, the community could collaborate and vote on the best nomenclature).
Tech reviewers could publish lab results of each cable SKU (and laptop model number) and provide lookup tables. Then sell cheap stickers or bands so you can label your own cables. Just completely bypass the standard and put the power in the hands of the people.
or as the members of the consortium would say: hey, extra revenue!
The "GenX" stuff was only ever intended to be an internal technical designation, but journalists who didn't bother to actually read all documents started using that term with the general public.
What are you talking about? Nobody reviews USB cables, there are thousands of them and too few people care to make it worth the reviewer time.
USB-C really made the problem worse and not better when it comes to incompatible connectors.
Oh I know, because you allowed usb 2.0 normal speed and super speed. Were you bribed at least or did you do it for free?
$100 is firmly in the "premium" cable range; you can find decent active 40 Gbps cables by reputable brands for around $50 these days.
I was thinking it could be as simple as colored bands (with maybe dots/dashes for those color blind folks).
If such a standard could be adopted, it would make all our lives less of a headache….
I used to be able to recommend the avhzy ones but during the chip shortage they started using some clone chips inside which don't appear to be as accurate.
This is one of the two things that makes me dislike USB-C (the other is that I find the physical connectors more fragile than the predecessors).
For me it's always a gamble, with my devices I actually can barely even see how fast they are charging on a specific cable/charger combo. Only by measuring charge time and then trying to calculate how many watts they delivered.
If you buy directly from a reputable brand, you may be able to trust what they've said a given product can do. If you buy from a reseller like Amazon, that all goes out the window and you should assume nothing.
You really shouldn't have to though. At the very least every phone on the market ought to be able to just read the e-marker chip and tell you what each cable supports. Very annoying that they don't because the information is there and they have a way to read it, it's just not exposed to the user.
Personally I prefer my charging cables to be red, really helps people not to trip over them. In other places the color preferably matches the environment.
In my single personal experience I ended up with one that gives reasonable readings and seems to work just fine.
Maybe I should try harder projects.
They'll print the usb logo or whatever they like regardless of licensing restrictions. Did you always check for the official logo on CDs and was it always standard conforming if present?
Gen 1x2 has been deprecated as far as I understand, so there is no more ambiguity when just referring to modes by their maximum data rate.
USB 4 would make this even more complicated, but they fortunately have decided that 3x1 (20 Gbps just like 2x2) also does not get a marketing designation, so there’s also no more ambiguity there.
USB-C cable problem is 10 years old. In 2013 Google introduced Pixel laptop, and some guy from Google bought all USBC cables on Amazon, only to test them and write reviews!
This part of the spec is actually quite well thought out.
It’s a shame that no device I know just displays the marker data (e.g. a message like “this connection might be limited by your cable”, assuming it’s also possible to figure out the other end’s highest theoretical speed, or simply the cable capabilities in some system menu).
What Apple wanted was to leech on every single cable sold for their own profit with their proprietary licensing.
You already have what you wanted - now you're just demanding Apple tax for no reason. Remember, you can always just buy that 120$ Apple cable and be a happy camper. Right now. With no extra DRM.
What do you mean by this? People can't really vote with their dollar when it comes to the USB Implementers Forum and the decisions they make.