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Comment by oarsinsync | Hacker News Reader

> Every conforming cable

The problem is all the non-conforming cables that people have, that look exactly the same as conforming cables.

In this particular context, a "non-conforming" cable would cause troubles by starting fire or dropping voltage below usable range, not by limiting charging current. The only sane thing to do with such cables is to throw them away.

Really, we're talking about physically broken cables here. As long as there's electrical connection, there's no other way for a cable to not work at 3A/60W with USB PD. Its cable requirements only start when you want to go higher than that - and 60W is plenty of power already.

Except they were responding to a comment criticizing USB-C PD as a standard. Non-standard cables are irrelevant to that discussion.

> We can't expect normal people to understand why there are a dozen different cable types that all have the same tip but charge at vastly different rates

Is the part of the GP comment I was responding to. The connectors form part of the standard. There’s no way to identify a standards-conforming cable from a non-standards-conforming cable by looking at it. They all look the same.

This applies to any kind of cable. How can you tell that a HDMI cable isn't empty inside, missing all its wires? It looks the same!

You plug in an HDMI cable, it either works, or it doesn’t. It might only work at specific resolutions, but you get immediate feedback when it’s working or when it’s not, at whatever resolution you try.

You plug in a USB-C cable, you might get a quick charge. You might not. Unless you have a USB-C power meter, you have no way to tell unless you know how quickly your device should charge in 5, 10 or 15 minutes, and hang around to wait and see if it does or not.

I think there’s a meaningful difference there!

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